The main thing that bothers me about this pic is that there's probably a bit too much space between her pectoral fins and her dorsal fin. Also, I originally had a color scheme or-whatever-it's-called in the middle of the pic, and I still have a version of this with that included, but I chose to submit this version without it instead, 'cause the color scheme thing looked ugly and distracting to me. Though now I'm wondering if I should have included it anyway. There are also a few other things that bother me which I'm too lazy to go into details about, but I still think I improved at least somewhat since the last time I made a ref for Nikko: http://dark-little-darkling.deviantart.com/art/Nikko-with-some-new-edits-491501147

I've decided to change Nikko from male to female. I've changed Nikko's gender at least a few times before, and I might change it again if I think it would be best for the plot, but I've also thought of several new plot changes and additions and so on, and I currently think it would be better if Nikko's female for these. I suppose Nikko is more of a male name, but I like the name and I'm thinking I'll make Nikko kind of a tomboy anyway. Nikko is a human name though, what human characters in the story name here, and I have yet to think of an identity that would be more like what she and other dolphins would have originally thought of her as. Nikko also used to be the sole protagonist of this overly ambitious novel-idea of mine, but now there is a second protagonist: a striped dolphin I am so far calling Sky-Sliver. Although it's not uncommon in the wild for many dolphin species to associate with many other dolphin species, I don't think it's normal for striped dolphins and bottlenose dolphins to associate. That's partly why I chose to these two individuals of these species close friends for this novel. I came up with a complicated plot line, I'm too lazy to describe it now, and I might never describe it all on DA anyway, 'cause I get kind of worried that people might steal my ideas, and I'm very serious about this novel... but anyway... sometime in the near future I'll make a ref for Sky-Sliver too, but first I got to draw the common dolphin I recently adopted from Teedi of DA.