That is the question. Yesterday I felt like doing yet another color job, and I came across this sketch by Kazerad as a commission for Rick2Tails. I didn’t ask Rick if I could color it, but I feel like I know him well enough to know he’d be fine with it – and Kaz is certainly fine with it.

Now first, let me go off on a rant about coloring scanned sketches. Don’t. That’s my rant. I’m not ragging on Kaz here at all, but dammit it’s hard to get rid of all those extra lines! On the good side, you get so MANY lines to choose from – it’s kinda of a Roll-Your-Own sketch. Don’t like the curve of her thigh? Choose a different line! I mean, look at those intertwined tails! Quill magically has two different end-tails! 🙂  But that’s my problem. If I really wanna color a pencil sketch, there’s an hours worth of cleanup work to even get started!

But I really like this one because I honestly think it’s the only Kazerad drawing of a HAPPY Quill-Weave in existence. And, let’s face it, there’s some pretty seriously implied shipping going on here between Quill and Katia. Granted they’re about to go down on the Titanic but still…

Okay, but here’s the real question. A while back I did that sunbathing Quill and put lots of shiny highlighting on her. I liked it. A lot. So then even when I did the Pilgrim one I kept the shiny highlilghts.

Now, I’m afraid I’ve probably taken it too far. And that’s the Q. I know from past experience that my Tumblr readers don’t talk back much. That’s okay. I’ll post this elsewhere too. But I’m honestly wondering if I’m taking the shiny too far. (And breast emphasis – I already know that. But that’s something I’ll just have to live with.)

So, here it is – without the shiny. This is not finished – I made sure to keep all clothing colors change-able as I’m not convinced I like those either. And the water is horrible. But BESIDES that, is this better without shiny highlights:

Or with the shiny bits:

Of course, I’m leaning towards ‘with’ but that may well be just me. If I’m overdoing it, I would actually like to know!