My friend Malachyte has been exploring her little side a bit more actively as of late, and it's been a genuinely wonderful time helping and (somewhat zealously) encouraging her with that.

When she shared a sketch she'd made of herself in an adorable little's outfit and playing in a space to match, I jumped at the chance to contribute, and asked if she'd be okay with collaborating on the piece. Needless to say, she said yes. 💝

Working with someone else's sketches is always such an interesting and exciting experience, cause there's a sort of conversation taking place at every step of the process. The linework is largely instructed by the sketches that are already in place, but there's a certain level of improvisation and decision-making that varies throughout; where the lines being worked on go anywhere from between being directly lifted up to the next layer, to just taken as vague suggestion.

I've always really admired Mal's artstyle and the expressiveness of her work, but also felt that our styles are almost adjacent to one another's. The entire process felt very natural to me as a result, thanks to several commonalities that they share.

As for how I feel about it? I fuckin' loved drawing her this way; it was just so much fun. Her sketches were a joy to work with, and even the parts I ended up improvising on or tweaking along the way felt trivial to do given her lovely anatomical work. Treating a friend to something like this is always special, and I'm really glad I got to do it, both with and for her.

You can see more of Malachyte's work over on FurAffinity.