The various design elements I'd been toying with over the years are starting to come together in this pic; she's starting to show the heavier-than-heavyweight muscularity and the bigger-than-you'd expect breasts.

Contrasted with the mouth in the previous drawing, the mouth here represents an attempt at a "middle ground" between the "lipless" style of most manga females and my own preference for fully-drawn lips; the compromise mainly consists of not drawing lines for the lips, but allowing the color to render them. I still use this technique sometimes in my current comics work.

I impressed myself with the subtlety with which I rendered the serratus muscles beside her abs; now I wish I could remember how I did it!

© 2006 David C. Matthews