Printer's remorse, or, on the horns of a dilemma

So. 

I got a printer this weekend. 

It is a good printer. 

It prints up to 13x19 borderless and prints wirelessly and has an 11x17 flatbed scanner. It is a sweet printer. 

While printer shopping, I began feeling a little trepidation, though, and asked my well-informed friend whether actually owning a printer would be any benefit to me over getting prints made at a print shop. 

Because I am a control freak so it is in my nature to want to do it all myself so that I am in charge of the quality. But printers go through a lot of expensive ink and paper. 

What it came down to was that, as I want to print stickers and temporary tattoos, having own printer is a good move because a print shop won't do those. So I got the printer. 

But here's the thing. 

In the whirlwind of nervousness and excitement and stress that surrounds a big purchase, it is sometimes difficult to think things through as fully as you might like. And the next day I realized that actually, seeing as what I really need a printer for is specialized stuff that will be on standard-sized paper, I could have gone with a good quality NON-oversize printer, and then gotten any oversize prints I want done at a print shop. 

So now I'm torn. 

I have all the packing materials and so forth, and my receipts. So I could return it and get something less ridiculous. 

On the other hand, it's a great printer, and the option to experiment with oversize stuff myself might be cool, as well as the option to print when I want to without having to drive across town. (I don't even KNOW where my closest printer is.)

But will I find those advantages useful? I'm not a professional printer and as far as getting stuff done for conventions, it may actually BE more sensible to get prints made at Kinkos, outside of any specialized stuff I want to do. 

Still Here

No updates in a bit, huh? 

Sorry, been working on a few things, but they have been in bits and pieces. 

I have made a couple Doctor Who doodles. 

Ten: 

Eleven:

And...I don't think I'd mentioned this yet, but I am going to be, in a couple months, attending my first convention as an ARTIST rather than a customer, sharing a table with friends and selling my art and I'm VERY excited but also nervous. 

but excited. 

So this weekend I'm employing the help of a friend to go and try to find a good printer so I can start making my own prints, hopefully including stickers and also *excited bounce* temporary tattoos. Because I learned that you can buy temporary tattoo paper and print your own and I am SO EXCITED. 

Other art, I am working on the second challenge for the 'Let's Draw Sherlock' tumbler: this time the goal is to recreate a famous piece of art using characters from the show. Originally, I was going to do a repaint of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks", but someone beat me to it. And, though there is no rule against multiple people doing the same piece...I wanted to do something my own. So I decided to paint the famous photo of John and Yoko, where he's naked and wrapped around her. 

I'm a little nervous because I rarely do nudity or...I guess, non figure-study nudity. This is cuddly and couple-y. I rarely do shippy stuff, even if I am shippy by nature. But soon there will be naked cuddly Sherlock + fond and cuddly John Watson on my dash. *hides* 

My hand...continues to improve and worsen. I drew a fair amount yesterday, today i'm fine. No rhyme or reason, as usual. June is soon. 

quick and dirty pose studies w/o lines.

tiny thing

some doodles of superladies. 

my hand is bothering the heck out of me today. annoyingly, considering relatively minimal drawing. I am so darn sick of this. 

Violent Melted Cheese

Apparently, there is a grilled cheese restaurant (yes) at which, if you are willing to tattoo your body with some version of one of their emblems, you get 20% off for life. Now I'm not sure how that overall savings works out balanced against the cost of a tattoo, but plenty of people do it, if their online gallery is any indication. 

My coworker is going there at the end of the month, so he commissioned me to design a Melt tattoo for him.

Oh hey the final tattoo! (little less detailed but still cool)