Not sure of the original artist, but I do like the shading on this. I've got a bit of a softspot for grayscale.

Me too ^_^ before I started doing original art, I actually had abput three or four years of doing nothing but ref. at fisrt I thought it was so hard, but at the end of last year, I had been doing this long enough and improved enough that it was atually getting hard to find pictures that appealed to me and would pose enough of a shading challenge that I kinda burnt out...=b thats the reason why I had decided to start doing originals in the first place ^_^...Its kinda like starting over,having to relearn new techniques and whatnot,learning to deal with the fact that when I ref stuff, I can be amazing, but original stuff is nowhere near hat level... but at least now I can proudly call my newer stuff 100% my own =3 its a good feeling ^_^

hehe, I put relearn new techniques...I love oxymorons