Every step in the process is nerve-wracking

I suppose that's one thing i love about working in layers, and why I usually end up with a zillion layers...Every time I open up the project I'm working on to start another segment of the process, I'm sure I'm going to ruin everything and take what was a decent concept sketch and just...mess it all up. 

Tonight I got in some background lines and a nice layer of clean lines in my foreground image.

And after using actual references...

I got something a little closer to what the characters should look like... 

...although there are a couple of places where the poses have changed a bit in ways I don't like and i really think I need to go back and modify. 

Just a progress post

Chose a thumbnail and started solidifying my sketch tonight: 

This is a place where I often end up doing something that causes me no end of anguish later. I like the way this feels and generally feel like the spirit of the characters are captured in this. But if I just work off of this sketch as it is, as is often my impulse, I know I'm going to run into some serious problems with some incorrect facial features. Because when I really look at it, I can tell that there are places where stuff's not right and once I get to the final linework and coloring stages, that will all show up. So tomorrow's task: revise and rework! 

This must be so fascinating to read. 

Oh behold the glamorous life of an artist.

stubborn and single-minded, though.

So there's this weird story about me that I won't tell in detail but, basically, it goes like this. For a really really long time I thought of myself as this easy-going free spirit. And it wasn't until I was about 27 that I realized that I'm actually kind of a super routine-oriented control freak and always had been but had been harboring this kind of...impression of myself that was almost entirely untrue. 

Anyway, I'm also pretty goal-oriented. Which means I sometimes have to remind myself to enjoy the journey, but it makes me pretty determined not to give up, even when the path is rocky. I consider that a positive trait. 

So my point is that, despite the difficulties I'm having, both personally and medically, I'm stubborn and so I'm continuing to try to get things on track to do the things I need to. And I've been drawing every night, even if my hands hurt the next day. 

Tonight I didn't push it too hard though. Tonight I worked on thumbnail composition layouts for the next Let's Draw Sherlock challenge (the left side of the page is blank because that's where I had a large pile of reference images.)

I both love and hate doing thumbnails. It is something I'm very glad my teachers beat into my brain because it lets you examine different angles and layouts and maybe even try something you hadn't thought of at first. It's SUCH a good way to start any piece of art, and I think if you are doing art as a career or planning to, it is a good and important habit to be in. I am not saying that everyone doesn't have the occasional doodle that ends up getting developed, but if you start with an idea in mind, figuring out how you are going to execute it before starting serious drawing is a really good idea. 

On the other hand, it's really frustrating when you have a rough mental image of how you want the final product to look...but it's not quite solid enough to translate to a sketch. This happens to me all the time. It will be like those games where you are shown a picture for a second and then have to try to remember as many parts of it as possible. My brain will say 'OOH! This!' and give me a quick glimpse, but I won't be able to hang onto it long enough to really grasp all the facets. So, I try some different approaches and some things that aren't even close to my original idea and end up with a number of sketches and, often, I'll find that I like about half of them well enough to develop them, but each of them will be pretty different from the others and I find myself dithering over which direction to go. 

But...the composition and concept stage is really one of my favorite things. I enjoy the entire process, of course, but the part where I am roughing stuff in, sketching simple gesture-based figures recognizable often just to me and only by a couple distinguishing features, all loose and translucent...I love it. 

And that's my official ramble of the evening. 

Time may change me

I haven't posted anything new in a couple weeks. 

It has been a weird and hectic couple weeks. 

The day of my last post, a couple hours after I made it, I was laid off from my job of two years. So, since then, I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to do, both in the immediate and near future. 

On the weekend of the 26 of July I worked my first convention and actually sold some art, which was pretty cool, though I did not even recoup the cost of my prints. 

Unfortunately, I'm still having problems with my hands. I managed to squeeze in one more doctor appointment and a few tests before my insurance was cancelled, and we found a couple more things I am negative for and my doctor prescribed me some mild muscle relaxers in case a slight narrowing in some disks in my neck is causing the problems in my hands and just like for everything I've done so far, sometimes my hands are better and I start feeling really optimist and like we've finally found the thing that works. And then, they get bad again. Sometimes as a seeming result of inactivity and sometimes after overexertion. I pushed a little hard last night finishing coloring a sketch I did at the convention (here look some doodles!):

...and today my hand...actually, to some extent, BOTH my hands...are achy and pretty unhappy. I even supplemented my current treatment with four ibuprofen, just in hopes that the inflammation might chill out.

I'm just...I'm so frustrated by this and right now I really really want to draw and my hands hurt. 

And I want to do sketches and try new things and not have everything I make have to be a completed thing or be a waste of very very limited resources...I need to be able to draw more than a couple hours a day without ending up out of commission for the next few days. I mean, for CRYING OUT LOUD.

And yeah, I pushed too hard last night, but based on past precedent, I sometimes what seems like 'too hard' causes me no problems and the sometimes it does and I'm kind of on the verge of tears today and now that I have no insurance I can't even go back to the doctor for more tests and more trying to figure out what's wrong. 

And I have like, 100 projects lined up in my brain and every time this happens it really...stifles me as an artist. Because I can't relax and just draw. With every practice sketch I make, with every mistake I have to delete and with every detailed area I need to fill, I feel like I have Damacles' sword hanging over me. And I never know which bit will be too much. If I don't push, might I have been fine for another hour of drawing and that's something I don't want to miss out on. But if I do, maybe I'm going to end up with aching hands and distended veins and lose the ability to draw more than a couple minutes at a time for days. If not longer.

I'm just so tired of this and want to be better. 

And I don't know how I'm going to work like this. 

Everything is awful.

Edit: i colored another doodle --