As part of any art trade I do, I start with a test pic to nail down my interpretation of the other artist's character. Well, outside of a con setting I do anyway--at cons, time constraints require me to just plow ahead as best I can. I then work from that pic , as well as using reference from the original and other artists, if they exist. The pencils for this test were posted in my Scraps folder, and actually attracted commentary and faves. So, in appreciation, I inked and colored the testshot and present it here in my main gallery. If you liked the previous one, y'all gonna love this version :D

In contrast with the main trade pic, I kept the post-processing of this one to a minimum, only smoothing out rough lines that were the result of the brush running out of ink (yes, another brush-ink job), and spots where the flood fills left white spots.

Leaving the outlines on the hair highlights produced a sort-of comic-book look initially, then as the colors came together, the image took on an animated look, which I then took further by resurrecting an effect I last used in the early '90s on model-sheet pics of my own characters, that being a subtle shading around the character's outline that makes it look like an animation cel. Can you see it?