On the Back Foot (Hi Res + Extra Thoughts)

This is the hi res version (~3600 px wide)! Thank you so much for your support. <3

A painting for CrucibleArt and Taldret of Twitter. Crucible might be on the back foot in this moment, but a desperate lunge for Taldren's neck might turn the fight around.

Weeee, dragons! Trying to be more active and dynamic with them, rather than the normal resting or regal looking ones I end up doing a lot. This one kicked my butt in a lot of ways, and took me a lot longer than I expected. I mean, I was already going to go overboard to begin with because these two are good friends, but whoops. It definitely got away from me for a bit there. Regardless, still a good time, and always happy to paint for friends. c:

Thanks for trusting me with your dragons, you two!! <3

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WHOOF. It's been a bit! Hi!

My goal with this queue has definitely been to take on a lot of friends and people I've gotten to know over the year, follow their budget, and then go overboard to try to make the nicest thing imaginable that I can. I definitely may have bitten off more than I can chew here, and proved that even with a success, the idea can backfire a bit. Not only in just the sheer amount of time this took, but also how it hit me mentally.

A lot of that comes down to perfectionism. Part of why I do hourly commissions is to make sure I am making smart, quick decisions in order to complete projects routinely, to the best of my skill set. When there's no deadline, this is the result -- it might be a kickass picture, if I'm allowed to say so myself, but it took me almost the entire month, with little to show elsewhere. I'm not sure that's an equal trade-off, at least not when I'm not making money on the side or from other pieces. At the same time, I know I'm somewhat lucky to be in the scenario I'm in in that my monthly expenses (except for student loans and some food) is rather low to non-existent, so sometimes I have windows where I can afford to do this. Luckily this is one of those times. It's probably the only silver lining to this pandemic, and when I say that, I mean it in the slimmest, tiniest, FRACTION of a silver lining, because... well, it's a gosh darned pandemic, you know? It's like saying there's something good found buried in a pile of manure -- the manure's still there and you can't really avoid it, eh. And the stink is effecting everyone.

Anyways, bad analogy aside, DRAGONS. Trying to be more dynamic and exciting with them. I have a habit of making them resting or regal, and instead putting all my effort into making them look fancy and scaled. This was my best attempt at giving them some life, to try to tell a story more around them, to push my feral anatomy understanding further, and to, well, make a dang dragon you might see in D&D or something. Lots of people have said I do good dragons, but I've never really truly believed it, because of my stiff poses, so I think that ties back into why this took so long, as I was trying to challenge myself.

I'm doing much better now. For a bit there, I was in a really bad spot, and work (or anything, really!) wasn't happening. This being the holidays in a pandemic doesn't help either, and hearing some of my friends have been starting to catch it has me on edge. Think that was the tipping point in some ways and it broke me down. There was definitely a mood of "why paint dragons, there are people dying and friends are hurting, this helps no one" in my head for a solid week there.

But I hope this was worth the wait. I know I feel better about it now that I can call it done. And Crucible and Taldren both seem to love it, so I think it was worth it. Enjoy, guys, and thank you so much. Please, -please- stay safe out there, especially if you're in the US. I want to be able to see you all in person again, either at a convention or elsewhere. That's an order!

Peace out, for now~ <3