I didn't upload a WIP of this because it was a surprise gift for Starling. I think it turned out pretty well. He seemed to think so too. =D Less obvious shading here because he's outdoors. In fact they probably should have been a lot harder shadows in hindsight.
For that reason I included the flats as well. I may add some cell shading to the flats after I rest or something. I think it would fit the theme a bit better, perhaps. But all in all I'm happy! ^_^ Made someone happy and got some valuable practice out of it too. =3
Oh, and I'm not going to do anymore custom thumbnails after realizing how annoying they are (and for the fact that users can just turn them off at will) so why waste the effort. Besides I wasn't using them for anything special except a stylized preview or whatever. I'm sure everyone could live w/o that. =p
& @starling for permission to post this! Enjoy! =D
EDIT:It was only tonight I realized that I was doing my shading very wrong! That's why the final version I originally posted had so much white stuff on him. So now that I got that corrected Starling is his correct colors and the shading is much more subtle (as it should be).
In fact I completely re-did the lighting effects so they're not so flashy and 'stealing the show'. I'm much happier with this new version but I left the old version up for people to compare it to. Also I shrunk my brand, realized it looked a little dicky posting my name that large and I custom made a brand for Akiweirdo too so she's much more noticeable. =3