Good Afternoon, Gents!

Whew, I'm beat! Too bad there's no live stream or game stream or something scheduled for tonight. I could use it.

We had nothing to do at work today, so I was let go early. And I must say it was such a great day........................not being at work, lol. The Screech Owl is done! Took me just over 24 hours to do. Probably about 4 or so hours today (so WAY more productive here than at work, lol). At the moment, I'm not sure if I'll work on the background tomorrow or not. I've been working a lot lately at my day job, my business, & this piece. I don't think taking a break tomorrow would kill me.

Each feather on our friend here on his wing & tail was individually drawn. That takes forever. No doubt. My back & hands & eyes definitely testify to that. But the results can't be denied. Everything looks layered & realistic. Hell on some of them, it looks like I actually put some feathers under other feathers, which I did. I drew down, so any feather that looks like it's under another, I made it that way.

The feathers were hatched, because I absolutely LOVE hatching. Why? Just look at it! Other than that though, I can't really explain why, but I love it. Each feather was blended together with 9 colors hatched at slightly different angles (remember going down, so each layer going down) to provide texture & variety so as to avoid a flat appearance.

Their chests have gorgeous patterns too, which is why I rotated this guy 15 degrees, so you could see just the edge of his chest. If his wings & tail weren't so gorgeous, I could've drawn him facing us, but dang.

In other news, fall sales are looking pretty good. In one location, sales were up 300% from last October. Fall/Winter designs seem to be selling just as well as the spring/summer designs, which is surprsing, but good. In one location, people wiped out my entire winter line, which presents a problem. (There's always a problem. In this case, it's a good problem to have, & I've been unbelievably blessed with good problems in this adventure so far. But there's always a problem. Something you have to get used to.) I have next to no stock for fall/winter designs, because I wasn't sure if they would sell or not. But the 3 locations they're in are selling & I don't have enough to keep them all stocked, so it's time to order some more or downsize the locations they're in. (Any guess as to what I'll do, ha ha?)

You know what's funny? I bought my first colored pencil set for like $100-150 like 3 years ago. I was very hesitant to buy them, because they were so expensive. They sat on my desk for 3 months, before I had the courage to open them up & start using them. Now, I spend at least $100 every time I visit my supplier & I don't think twice about it. Do I need it? Yes. Will they sell? My guess is yes, because they're selling right now. Do I have the money? Yes. I don't think twice about it now, which is something else you learn to do.

Until the next one!