M'Lady & the Manticore, "Fleshed-Out" (Patreon)

     We saw her a few weeks back in sketch form, and here she is, fully rendered. I'll be painting this piece, so this is the next step in that process. I need to do a color sketch that I like, because I absolutely hated the one I did back when I first sketched this.

     Drawing this reminded me that years ago I made a conscious decision to radically change the way I work. I don't just mean technique, though that has changed drastically over the years as well. I'm talking about the level of finish I go for. There was a time when I would have gone over and over a piece, fixing every tiny, almost unnoticeable imperfection, even those countless, minute blemishes caused by the paper accepting the graphite unevenly. This would result in a final product as perfect as a human hand (at least mine) could create, but it  would take weeks and weeks to complete. I struggled with this for years, finally deciding that A) the vast majority of people never notice those tiny flaws, and 2) I would rather put out more, albeit imperfect pieces in my lifetime than fewer, "perfect" pieces (especially since perfection is unachievable any way). So yes, if you zoom in on the above image, you'll see plenty of imperfections...but I doubt you'd want to wait a month or more between posts.