I really can't come up with the words to describe how much this drawing means to me, or a list of what all changed with my attack plan after I made this one, but this piece was a landmark in my career where things moved away from what I call the "anime era" into the "realism" era of drawing. I was taking art classes in college and my eyes started opening as I saw how generic and childish my works were. The anatomy was simple and archaic, the dialogue and scenarios look like they were pulled out of a cartoon, and it looked like beginner's stuff when I put it up against my peers and other artists I followed.

Something had to change, so I referenced other works and grabbed bits from different artists that I like to try and mash them up and make my own style. Tirrel is most notably the one guy I get most my inspiration from. I don't go on about him enough. I wanted to focus on the details and try to make things realistic-cartoony, sortof like the way he does it. Looking at this now I'm seeing a lot of positional and structural errors, but that's a part of learning. Even now as I look at this I think "wow, I have some elements form this I could have carried on with."

Done with pencil, pen, paper, and eraser.
December 2018