ghelmer, First of all, thank you for pursuing the Max/Final Toon solution, that must have taken some "getting into" time. This shows promise. You can obviously get strong lines with graduated cell shading, like on the hair in both 15 and 16 above, although purist toon artists will still say "not as good as hand-drawn" and I'd agree. And between the two images, you can see a range between flat shading and graduated shading within cels. Image 16, I would say however, does not demonstrate strong toon lines. But I would imagine, with time, you could work into a good solution. Thanks again. I am putting this solution firmly in my back pocket (where it is scaring the hell out of my wallet!) In Appleseed, a few of the human characters had traditional two-toned flat cel shade, but in many places the blend zone was nicely blurred. That represents the meeting of two worlds, and yields a positive result. You know it is toon, but the shading imputes a 3D presence. I wonder what their tools were? Maybe Max/FinalToon! [Note: their site and trailer have totally locked down controls for sound. No-No-No!] Thanks for the link! The z-flattened AikoRealism images...now that's yet another direction! This paradigm is basically taking straight realism and backing in a visual cue that it is toon. More on that in my next post. ::::: Opera :::::