Is this a recolor?

[ApothiX]

Me and a staff member of mine just had a confrontation because I wouldn't use one of the bodies that he made for me, because I thought it was a recolor of a Graal Kingdoms body. He argued against me for some time stating that it is not a recolor, and that 'the pixels are completely different.'

I was under the impression that adding a few lines and changing the shading style of a graphic does not make the graphic 'completely different'

So I just wanted to ask you, the graphics community, what you think of this matter. Is this graphic a recolor? (I have attached both the GK version, and the version that he made.)