You and I are a lot alike. What you just said has been my story, to a greater or lesser degree, on two separate occasions in my life.

It's easy to believe when the talent is already there. I'll be watching...

BTW: You should seriously try the gesture drawing technique.

I remember when my friend and I (now a professional comics inker)Dexter Vines first started going to comics conventions. The first industry professional that we met was Brian Stelfreeze. He looked at our drawings and was kind enough to bless us with what we now lovingly and nostalgically refer to as "The GREAT READING", meaning that he looked at our work, said "You guys are pretty good but, let me show you what you're doing wrong" and literally proceeded to read us like a diary.

After that, Brian was kind enough (and insightful enough) to not only tell us what we were doing wrong but to explain and illustrate how to do things correctly and, to this day, the one thing that he offered us that has made all the difference where doing any kind of illustration (including realistic portraiture, caricature, cartooning or comic book super heroes ) of a human or humanoid subject is concerned, is the GESTURE DRAWING. The gesture drawing provides a simple framework that you can build your finished illustration/figure on.

I have to admit that when you're learning how to do gesture drawing, it's a real pain in the butt, however, after you've gotten even a BASIC mastery of it, you'll truly wonder how you ever got along without it!

Anyway, I apologize for going on so about it. I really didn't mean to ramble.

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