Ariel, I just wanted you to know, you bloody bothersome thing, your critique made me stare at my manip --and stare and stare and stare. Finally I threw up my hands and opened it back up to work on.

I followed your advice to start: I cut off the head again, extended the neck and added more shadow. But the main thing I did was notice that I had inadvertently slightly widened Frodo's cut-out face image when I was colour-correcting it the first time, which made his face ever so slightly distorted - flattened from top to bottom.

I am wondering if that isn't what you saw, in actuality, because I think it made a subtle but strong difference, once I replaced it with a cut-out that was correct -- even without any neck adjustments. I had been thinking the screencap slightly "froggy-looking," though I couldn't think why, looking from a window with the cap open to the finished manip.

See what you think. (The "new" model is in place above.)