Okay. So here's my thing.

I've been working towards being an illustrator for a while. And I have two years left in art school. Ideally, this would be the final 24 months of pure, unfiltered learning which I would come away from filled to my fingernails with awesome technical skills, and apply confidently to companies, and then hopefully profit. Unfortunately... I'm getting kind of disillusioned about my art school as time goes on. It's very... very contemporary high-art-scene, which is neat, but really not my bent. And while it's fun, the professors are 98% about concept, and have no criticism or.... anything, really, to say about the technical aspects of a work, except to say "The technical work looks good," before talking more about the concept.

That... isn't really helpful to me, and I'm starting to think I won't even friggin' finish this program.

More-over... I really suck. That's not under-confident Ember talkin'- that's someone who looks at what real, professional illustrators, highly-skilled artists working in my target field, can do, and then looks at her own shit and feels a sudden sinking feeling. I'm not fishing for compliments, there, I'm stating a fact.

So, starting tomorrow (which is Sunday in Australand), I want to start to pump out art. I'm keeping myself to 3 pieces of digital work a week, at least one of which HAS to be a large-scale illustration of some sort, including a background, and one or more characters, and interaction between the characters and the background, and something to do with allegory. If I can't do a large piece for whatever reason, I'll need to do 5 lesser-effort pieces. Plus however many traditional works I can manage. And when I fail to produce my minimum number of pieces, I will allow myself no sugar the next week. No candy or ice cream or sweet tea. None. D<
Because it's time to get serious, Em.

What I want from you guys is a description or reference of your characters, and permission to use 'em in art. History tidbits or scenes you'd like to see them in would be cool, too. And not just furries- I need TONS of practice with human characters, and feral creatures, and contorted monsters, and machines. Everything ever. I might do a sketch, or a sheet of 12 sketches, or something that gets half-colored, or nothing at all with what you give me- I'm not making any promises at all because then I'll just get super-stressed about the individuals and stop thinking about what I need to think about- which is the massive, massive amount of practice I need to squeeze in before it's time to think about applying for jobs. By all means, if you know someone who wants art, tell them to come and throw their description at me. No promises, but I need the practice.

I won't do adult art unless someone specifically tells me it's what they want their character depicted doing, and even then, only if it's what I'm in the mood to produce. Adult art is silly fun for me; we'll see if I can even make it into serious business art. xD

I will be posting what I do here in hopes that people who do the art thing- or even those who know enough about the art thing to pick out flaws- will see them and tell me all the things that're wrong with them. I need harsh, technical criticism, and such criticism will win you my feathery love.

Anyway, let's see if this works~