Week 15 and an asterisk

Commission for Mike Wieclawek and Rhia Charko celebrating their second year together

Taking a break to doodle something mindless

WIP. Still hammering away at it

I don't think this is technically NSFW

I’m going to forego my usual update format this week. I’ll be resuming normal transmission next week. (Incoming chunk of text. If you aren’t super into the blog you can safely skip it.)

This is probably something that will happen every so often, especially when my art workload ramps up like it typically does around the holidays. The goal of this blog at the outset was to get me drawing every day, and bring my artistic skills up to something resembling a professional standard. I’ve set up a weekly quota of bulletpoints to help me improve in certain areas, but I’m starting to realize that some weeks there will be pieces that simply command too much of my attention for me to be able to focus on these studies to the extent I need to. This has been the case the past two weeks.

            Now, my options in these cases are to either shelve my larger projects in order to try and finish these studies in an evening, or focus my creative energies on finishing the pieces that have deadlines and clients. If the goal of this blog was to get me to hone my skills by pouring several hours a night into drawing and building up my portfolio, I think the sacrifices of the latter are completely acceptable. Now, ideally I will be able to strike a balance between my studies, my art workload, and my school workload, and be able to reach the finish line every week, and I’m still going to strive for that. But if devoting 15 minutes to a token environment study in order to meet a quota means I’ll lose time I could be spending on a commission, I will choose the commission.

            That was a lot of words. Sorry for venting on this blog that I own. I’ve been kind of torn up these past two weeks over why I’ve been pouring so much into my work and yet it feels like this ship is starting to sink after just 3 months. I just needed to step back and evaluate what it is that I’m doing here again.

~Eric

Brush pen woes and a W.I.P. (Wolf In Progress)

Welp, another week of working on a handful of drawings, another Sunday spent frantically trying to catch up on literally all of my studies. And the blog marches on.

I was all set to bring a comic to the table, but then my brush pen decided it was going to try to be two much shittier brush pens at once, so no brush inking for a little bit until I can get a new one. In the mean time, I have brought you a horrible worm's-eye wolf shot with some pretty colors.

And a little something for the ladies.

Another week. After a snafu last week, I was finally able to attend a figure modeling session, and it was a ton of fun!

Yes, planes are not animals. I'm hitting a wall with my animal studies, and also beginning to realize that my visual vocabulary when it comes to machines is extremely limited. So I'm going to make it interchangeable.

Under The Red Riding Hood

Had these done last night, but needed sleep. Got slammed pretty hard this past week, and I spent so much time on the Riding Hood piece that I had to play catch up on the rest of my studies. So if they seem rushed, that's why.

ALSO, SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: If you guys enjoy the Red Riding Hood piece, keep in mind I'm still doing commissions. So drop me a line if you're interested (just remember the pricing only entails basic backgrounds, not the kind of foliage I put into the Riding Hood piece. More complex backgrounds will cost extra.)

Now I'm gonna go... lie down for awhile...

Adventures in Road Drawing

Went to DC this weekend, 12 hour drive, so I had no choice but to draw in the car. It started out pretty terrible (melting dog), but kind of got better as I got used to it (anatomy practice). I really wanted to spend some time in downtown DC to draw some of the architecture, but our group couldn't finagle the extra day, so inside of the car it is.

The update's late. I was completely dead on my feet by the time I got home and passed out the moment a horizontal space was available.

Also, many thanks to Michael Więcławek for providing me with a new and extremely spacious web host. There is no way to thank you enough.