What is the up

Spring is here, conditionally at least.  I mean, we practically had no winter.  So I've made many many arts full of winter and, though blossoms are bursting everywhere, I continue to stick snow in all my pictures.  

A group on DeviantArt, of which I am a member, has started doing monthly themes (theme posted at beginning of month, draw something for theme by end of month) and for March, it was 'A Dream of Spring' -- stolen from the name of one of the upcoming Song of Ice and Fire books, because we are, largely, a bunch of geeks.  I actually had a couple of ideas, both of which include an amount of snow.  Hey, I'm just trying to pretend it's a normal March.  That's all.  Last year it was snowing until the end of April.  

This is the first of the two -- the second is still in progress, but I'll probably post some WIP pictures tonight.  

In this, I am clearly still trying -- and failing -- to do interesting and accurate things with perspective.  I swear, I'll see other artists' work in which the angle is like, some crazy 'above to the left and upside down' thing with multiple characters, and it will be perfect and like...a sketch.  Just some doodle.  'oh, I just thought I'd spend five minutes making some crazy perspective drawing of these characters for no specific reason and it was totally effortless'.  HATE them.  Whatever, plugging away here, forcing myself outside of my comfort zone.  

Well, except for my second 'ADOS' painting...it is really pretty un-daring...which is probably why I chose to develop this one first.  I'll be playing with color and value and lighting a little, but it's going to be pretty fast and dirty.  Well, hopefully not too dirty.  We shall see.  I need to finish it before...what...midnight Saturday.  And on Saturday night I'll be drinkin'...so really like, noon Saturday. Or something.  Busy weekend ahead.  

Busy everything lately.  I've discovered that I can get by on 5 or less hours of sleep a night, so I've had a little more time to work on stuff at night...but that results in me pushing it a little further each night.  When I go insane from sleep deprivation, it will not be a surprise.  I actually got 8 hours of sleep one night this past weekend and being so rested felt...very strange.  

So, I've been using my extra evening time to work on personal art and some writing (along with the requisite goofing off on the internet, obviously), and am still working on the freelance project with my friend from California, though things are going slowly, since there has been a lot of back and forth regarding the base for the packaging design, and it is really hard for me to commit to a design direction without knowing what it is going on...and yesterday I got contacted for a potential very exciting opportunity that I won't say anything about until I know more, but could be a VERY cool something and would probably result in me just writing sleep and social engagements off entirely, but I'm pretty much okay with that.  

I have now arrived at the point at which I have no more to tell, but no elegant way to wrap up this particular entry, as I suck at planning ahead in my journals.  So instead, I'm going to cop out by posting some BBC-inspired warm-up sketches from this week.  

Oh, and also a few quick studies of girls doing archery because, yeah, watched The Hunger Games and now want to draw girls doing archery: