Dirty Dirty

So lately I've had this thing about my work being too clean. I look at my older work and it just seems boring when it's clean. Maybe it's because it makes me think the piece is too reliant on Photoshop to work well. I also think it's because of my obsession with dirty, rough hip-hop production, old record covers and dusty record stores. I find something nostalgic in it. I'm not entirely sure what it is. Either way, I want my work to reflect that. The world isn't a clean, perfect place. And if I'm going to be honost in my work, I'm going to comment on the dirty realness of life. Also, being dirty is more fun.
So this is a revisitation of a piece I did in my Digital Drawing class last semester. I pulled the drawing off my wall, re-inked it with my dip pens and recolored it in Photoshop.. The difference is wild. Here's the original. I can barely stand to look it. I originally meant for this City of God poster to look dirty and dingy, like Brazillian favelas. But after looking at it for a few months, it just wasn't as dirty as I think I wanted it to be. And oddly enough, the file for the original had maybe 30 layers to it. The new version only has 3. I think it's a huge improvement over the original and I hope I can use similar methods in my later work.