Dude. If you're going to compliment an artists' work, don't put a jab in at one of their customers as you're doing it. It really makes you look worse than the person you're trying to insult. Not to mention on the chance the artist particularly liked the customer, it is going to turn them off to you and lower your chances of getting them to do work, paid or not. Besides, it shows some degree of disrespect to the artist to use a comment complimenting their work as a method of attack on someone else. Seriously. Have some class.

Mind if I ask the technique you used in Artrage?

Sure. So far as the shading is involved, I used the marker tool with 100% pressure, 100% softness, and 40% wetness. I filled in the colors, then selected slightly darker shades of that color and filled in the shadows on the same layer as the base colors. I blended the dark with the base color by selecting the base color and kinda scribbling at the border of the two colors.

Does that make sense? Is that even what you were asking about? XD

That's exactly what I was asking about, thanks!

I mainly use Painter, I'm not very familiar with Artrage yet.

Aww, this 'un is cute.

The expression is just great x3 and so are the whiskers!

Wow, that is sweet. I'll bet Dosner is thrilled. This has got to be one of the best badges I've seen - the expression and the way the paws are positioned in particular are incredibly cute!

Very cute!