(Due to previous server issues, this post from February was lost. Here it is in all its glory. In fact, I even wrote a letter to ArtOrder about this quandary, and it was answered here.)

Thinking about self-promotion and such from yesterday’s post led my Train of Thought to a junction that I’d been visiting since last August. Since it’s late and I’m still not entirely sure how to present my thoughts on the matter, here is the short version:

I’d like to do pin-up or even just plain sexy art, and do so openly, but at the same time, I worry about the effect that doing it would have on my Internet Footprint. While other artists who I admire (and have in some cases even had the pleasure of talking to) have been able to get away with it, I wonder about the impact that it might have on my efforts towards “getting established.”

Anyhoo, like I said, it’s late and this is something that I still need to roll over in my brain to discuss as intelligently as I would really like, so here’s a dragon to tide you over:

Dragon-A-Day didn’t die. My blog did, then my Internet connection. Or perhaps it was the other way around, or even sort of both at the same time. The flow of artwork continued largely uninterrupted, except for one day where I completely forgot to draw anything, for no apparent reason.

In any case, without the constant stream of feedback, Dragon-A-Day slowly evolved into something of a journaling exercise, instead of the creature design project it was originally intended to be.

So, yeah. I’m not sure if I will keep, er, resume posting Dragon-A-Day; there’s still a considerable amount of artwork that’s not too tied up in personal matters that I can post, but I know that’ll run out, and then I’ll be busy editing myself, which makes the whole thing considerably less fun.

I was reading an article about guerrilla self-promotion on ArtOrder this afternoon, and I got to thinking about my own self-promotional efforts.

Every year, I make a new business card, partially because I make short runs and because I feel the need to “rebrand” myself. That, and seeing as I always feature a piece of artwork on my cards, the artwork is (comparatively speaking) hopelessly dated by the time the new cards are rolled out.

So I was mulling over the idea of “doing something that stood out,” based on some guidance that I’d gotten at an SVA Alumni Salon and the first vestiges of A Cunning Plan.

More on this as it unfolds; hopefully not too slowly.

Got ambushed by a birthday, so I did this sketch, since I didn’t have time to do a proper card.

So I finally got around to seeing That Movie With the Blue Cat People. I enjoyed it, though it really didn’t need to be in 3D, in my opinion.

Also, I was a little surprised about the overthinking that seemed to go into the incongruous biology of Pandora. The morphology didn’t make enough sense to me, though it was rather pretty, just like the Blue Cat People, although considering the general shape of things in the world, they really shouldn’t have been.

Anyhow, without launching into an extended diatribe about body shapes (with emphasis on limb counts) and the strangely popular threat displays involving brightly-colored crests, here are some of my dragons as they might have turned out if they were native to Pandora:

You can’t see the respiratory vents, but they’re there. Not like on the Na’vi, though… and that really annoyed me when I started to think about it.

Sometimes I have to hurry to fit in my daily sketch, because I know that I’ll be out late and won’t be in the mood or have the time to draw when I’m done with what I have to do.

Day 138 was one of those days, and to make matters worse, I didn’t even know what to draw in the tiny window that I had to draw in.

So, I had a bit of conversation with myself; I basically asked Myself what I should draw, and Myself replied, “a dragon eating a sandwich.”

So I did:

“The seas are vast, yet with hardly enough space for all dragonkind [that dwell within it]. I cannot imagine how the land-dwellers must fare.”

Keeping track of days like this is a handy barometer for how often things go wrong around here… Sigh.

In other words, my internet is back on, so I can resume my usual late-night posting schedule.

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, in good ways and bad lately. More good than bad, but still:

So after some ado (more in my head than anywhere else), I did a new, fiercer Xenorosth.

It was harder than I expected; the horns (something else that I’ve been musing about, but need to research more) were more based on the Rule of Cool than anything else and made the head hard to turn. I’m also not sure about the limbs, and I kind of wish that the teddy read better, but I didn’t want it to dangle; the dragon would clutch it close. In hindsight, I should have put it in his left hand and let him use the right to stand on. Ah well.

In other news, here is Forfaox. While not a dragon (obviously), he asked politely about getting into the queue and was rather patient about the whole “non-dragons to the back of the bus” thing. (Yes, I’m apparently speciesist.)

He writes:

I’m not quite sure what to describe – foxes are more ’standardized’ so to say
What I can say:
It’s an anthropomorphic red fox. Lithe build, five fingers for each hand. I still haven’t decided on plantigrade or digitigrade feet, so either one will be fine. The fur pattern doesn’t really deviate from a regular fox – the only things I point out is the lack of the black mark near the tip of the muzzle, and an absence of any black fur in the tail.
As for the character – just think mad scientist and roll with it. I’m sure you can think of something interesting.

So I did this:

I rolled with it all over a sheet of letter-sized paper, as opposed to the 4×6 sketchbook pages I’ve been working on, though I’m not sure why. I also didn’t use any references, even the written description, after reading it the first time, which was bad. I drew on what I remembered of other anthro foxes (mostly Starfox’s Fox McCloud, note the white tip at the tail) and threw something together. I do like the pants, though; they make a lot of sense to me, considering the leg shape.

And that’s all I got. Have to do a bunch of other things, so I’ll see you tomorrow.