So these are the designs.
(Yes, they're shaded, no they are not official, just fancy mock ups.)
They are supposed to be based on two manga characters. More examples right here.
Other examples can be found from looking up "Cain and Setsu Heel."
(Also note that, while I was not responsible for scanning any of the images, I do own a set of the mangas from which the images were scanned, and all art belongs to Yoshiki Nakamura.)
The male's colors are pretty obviously taken from the fact that he pretty much only wears black and even has black hair. The red eyes come from parts of the manga, where he's actually wearing red contacts. The red on the body is kind of there for a splash of color, as well as the fact that he kind of wears a scarf sometimes and, based on his style preferences, I figured it would be red. The grays, well, he's portrayed with some grays, namely on the buckles of a pair of his shoes, which the Banded marking accounts for. The main markings are Hooded, which I think my reason for choosing that was pretty obvious, and the other being Reaper. He's an actor that plays a villain, a murderer, to be exact, and Reaper just fits with that as well as his general vibe, so I feel.
The girl, her colors mostly manifest from her hair, although I've made them a little richer. The addition of black is for the fact that she also wears lots of black, to be a matched set with the guy. Her marking selection of Leopard and Arach actually comes from me wanting to make her look cute (because the male just thinks she's adorable no matter what) AND fierce, and no other marking combo gave me that exact feeling. Her eye color comes directly from the manga cover image.
Over all, I also wanted their markings to be different.
Soooo... My primary questions are these. Do you feel like the designs portray the characters that they are based off of well? Do you like the designs, in general?