Noodling Around

I was mostly just screwing around, and trying to see if I could draw Nina from memory properly, and these are some of the results.  The two middle ones are what Nina might ask for as a puppet.  It's very much like what her character design was going to be before I started the comic properly.  One of those "never opens their eyes" characters.  I ended up not doing that because it was beginning to be overused even in American art by the time I started and decided just having regular eyes would be fine.  Or at least what passed for normal in the early days of my art style.  

A lot of that early art style came from being hampered by the tools I had at the time and trying to make the best of a bad situation.  My first tablet was the smallest one Wacom made at the time.  It was more like a mousepad with a stylus, but I could at least sort of draw with it.  The drawing area was a little bigger than a post card and obviously very restrictive.  When you learn drawing in the context of fine art you're taught to use big flowing gestures rather than tiny strokes.  At least that was my experience.  What it's like now I can't say.  In any case it was basically the exact opposite of what I knew even taking into account doodling on notebook paper.  

Also screen resolution was smaller, file sizes were a problem, it was a whole storm of things that people don't have to deal with nearly as much.  On top of that I am essentially self taught as far as digital art goes and without qualifications I wasn't a very good teacher.  Basically I did what I've done my entire life and muddled through, in spite of all the obstacles, as best I could.  Even now I never feel like I have time to try and learn new things.  

Ironically art is one of the only areas where learning isn't easy for me.  I can't just hear it and remember it like I could with almost anything else.  I have to do it over and over.  It requires a degree of attention I can rarely spare if I hope to keep this circus going.  Plus I'm getting old and my brain isn't as plastic as it was in my youth.  Things don't stick as well as they used to.  I don't remember as well as when I was young.  On top of the damage continually inflicted by endless stress.  

I just keep doing the best I can and trying to improve when I can sneak it past life.