And here's that half of a trade that I owe to  arctickiba of his Absol, Melavia.

Oh wow, this took me forever to do. Then again, I did try a shading technique that's completely alien to me. I reshaded some of the parts several times due to rapid improvement during the whole process. After getting a good look at this new shading I figured that the old single stroke lineart wasn't enough so I redid those aswell.
The pose is meh. I'm not used to working with that style of legs so I guess I did ok for a first try on 'em.

Did I say by Christmas? Well, I meant before Christmas.