Update

(TL;DR at the bottom)

So this month took a dip in posting but that's honestly because I got a little carried away with something.. I bought a sketchbook and thought it would be fun to get some doodles down, and then the next thing I know I was drawing in it every damn second I had free. On top of that, I got three commissions, two of which will be shared with the public.

It was supposed to be a thing I could use to get the stranger ideas out of my head but then it became really fun to just draw and draw and come back and fix something in a previous sketch. It made me realize something.I didn't realize how much I missed having real freedom to draw what I want and still have to be somewhat careful about how I approach it. 

I know it's a mental thing but when I switched to digital drawing as my primary, well I got lazy and started sticking to what I knew and when I did try something new (ie. angles, poses, pairings, line weight, and the such). I never advanced far because I could just delete it if it wasn't working as fast as I wanted it to. I wound up getting frustrated with my work because I was worrying about a little bit of everything. Line weight, color, subject matter, canvas size, all of it shouldn't be an issue but it became one big one for me. 

I got stuck in my own head and went to go check out what other artists were up to because it's always awesome and inspiring to see what other people can come up with. It was great but I kept comparing small things of theirs that they are awesome at and I would compare it with the things I want to improve on my own work and I just wound up frustrating myself into doing nothing instead of drawing more and more to get to that point.

SPP suggested I try a sketchbook since she could tell I was burning out. I'm not sure if it was luck or not, but we went to the bookstore we frequent and wound up finding this strange sketchbook tucked BEHIND a bunch of other books. It looked like someone had hid it and I'd never heard of the brand before, Watson-Guptill. It was a deep purple and the cover felt smooth. The pages were perfect except for one thing, it was not perforated. So that meant I couldn't just tear out my sketches when I was done like I used to do.  

With the sketchbook, it was strange, it felt like I was starting over back at square one. Like everything I had done up to this point was pointless, I was stuck in this weird headset that I wasn't going anywhere. My art was stagnant. 

It started off as just a few poses, no details, faces. I don't know, it just sort of blossomed from there, I wound up filling the book in under a week. I just finished it today however. Since I couldn't take out the pages, it gave it more permanence. I went back and started adding onto blank poses and fleshing out ideas. In the meantime, I filled an order for two more sketchbooks so we'll see how that goes.

Now the hard part is going to be bringing them onto the computer so I can work on them in Sai. SPP was kind enough to trust me with her treasure, her Nikon camera. I'm not great at using it yet though, so she'll be helping me photograph the sketchbook so I can get cracking. That'll mean there will be an actual lineup of sketches for every day in April, May, and the majority of June.  Thanks for your patience. See you all next time!

TL;DR: Got caught up drawing in a sketchbook and working on 3 commissions, only two of which will be posted. Expect consistent drawings for April.