Commission WIP: M&C Vs Spy Vs Spy (Patreon)

I'm down to the last six or so commissions, one of which is allllmost done (I screwed something up on it and have to fix it, among other slow progress). 

These are the "difficult ones", for me at least. And I guess, for the customers, because they've been waiting so long. And the later they get, the more I put into them and ache them, so, cycles and all that. Maybe I shouldn't have discontinued my Fluvoxamine prescription. Still trying to figure that out. Anyway.

They all have one something in common, which is I've either fucked up the rough layout more than once already, or they contain elements I find difficult to draw. Or in the case of the allllmost piece, they're black and white and I have to fix stuff. If I screw up a color piece in the inks I can only do so much to fix it , at a certain point the AD markers won't do shit over correction ink and razor blade removals. I've tossed more than one nearly-inked commission and a lot of roughs working on this list. I usually will limit the things I'll draw, but I was so in need of money for the car emergency and other things that I took on almost anything and everything offered. Which included things that are, for me, difficult to draw. But they're finally getting there.

This one just stunk the house out every time I tried to do it as a scene. As a poster image I did a series of drawings that finally got me to this round robin where I started having fun with it and everything is moving and everyone is doing something. The Grey Spy will probably not make it into the final piece but we'll see what the customer decides on that after the pencils settle in. The background explosion effect with speed lines and objects (Prohias weaponry/M&C weaponry) will need to be cleaned up and drawn first and then I can pencil the figures to the board with the lite pad. I will also tweak the Spy figures and do a cleaner drawing of each of them on a separate sheet of paper, basically, pencil them separately so I can be rough on the paper and not worry about the finished piece. Then I'll transfer those figures to the actual commission. 

I'm not a facile enough artist to just draw most things directly to the board, which is one reason I'm really slow these days. I used to just barrel in, but I'm simply not a solid enough artist to barrel on in, unless I'm drawing fairly simple things. If I don't work with layouts and do things in steps, it ends up getting torn up half the time. I wish I was able to just "do it" like a lot of cartoonists can, but I've never been able to really overcome my lack of fundamental training. It's another reason I grew to not like sketching at conventions. I can draw some things decently, but I usually ended up taking sketches home to do "properly". 

Anyway, I'm irritated at my drawing tonight after throwing out some layouts for another commission, so don't mind my grumbling. Drawing has never come naturally to me and I'm very critical of my work. And I'm going through a weird phase about my art. I want to do the best I can and I work hard to draw the things that are outside my comfort zone. I don't want to hand over something I'm not happy with. One better way to look at it, though, is that the drawings I post here are things I am happy with. Otherwise they'd be torn up. 

I should try to be more positive. But misgivings and doubt are a big part of my process, so I tend to talk about that stuff. I just try not to drag myself or put myself down like I used to, if you know what I mean. I'm not very knowledgeable or particularly eloquent about "art", but I'm a Charlie Brown-level expert on anxiety. And they say write what you know.  

Anyway, this is going to be a really fun commission. I'll have some more WIP stuff soon. Pardon my rambling, long day, weird mood, aching hand. 

Above: Gray tone scan with the contrast pushed up, this is what I'll be printing out to put on the lite pad for penciling. The Spies will be penciled on separate paper and then traced to the board. The talking food, I can draw them without too much trouble. Usually. The actual color layout was roughed out very loosely with a Prismacolor Col-Erase erasable Carmine red pencil, revised/augmented with a Col-Erase light blue , and then scribbled over with a Tombow 2B pencil to nail down stuff and satisfy my OCD. I did not reference the guns and a few items are not sketched in yet. because I forgot Milk was throwing something at the Black Spy. Duh. And I don't know what the White Spy's other weapon is yet. If the Grey Spy is removed, it can be most anything. Otherwise, I'll have to move his arm and figure something out. Maybe he can be holding a machine gun with both arms. Process, process, process...