OOh, Shiny (1)

This pic originally started out as an exercise in drawing patent-leather surfaces. I have a few pairs of sneakers made of this material, so I had plenty of references for how the reflections and such should be rendered.

Tina here is sitting on her boyfriend Todd's lap when she spots his shiny (very shiny) new Sperry Topsiders* and suddenly leans waaay over to get a closer look (hence the title "Ooh, Shiny"). Todd had to grab on to prevent her from toppling off the chair (she's got a bit of weight up there :D ).

When I set out to color this pic, I discovered that I had never scanned the inks, and couldn't locate the original artwork to scan it. After days of searching, I gave up and went to re-draw the pic since I liked the subject matter (and I still wanted to see if I could draw patent leather convincingly). As soon as I got it inked, I went looking in one of my binders for the last installment of my comic so I could start doing layouts for it's next installment. And that's where I found the original inks. :P

So now I have two versions of the same pic. Same concept, but enough differences exist between the two that we can play a game of "What's Different?" with them. So, have fun with it folks.

Oh, and does it look like I got the shine right?


(*the patent-leather boat moccasins are real--I have a pair. You might see me wearing them at conventions, as they're pretty much the only place I use them nowadays, since Sperry hasn't seen fit to reissue this style).