Because I've noticed lately that several people are unclear on a few things about my art, I wanted to clarify them here, so hopefully they won't come up again. Please let me know if you have any additional questions and I'll add them here.

1) I am not only open to critique, I welcome it.
It's understandable why many people lately would be reluctant to offer constructive criticism, given how often it is met with reactions like "OMG WTF HOW DARE YOU BASH MY ART!!!!!" Please note, however, that I am not like that. Perhaps I may have been touchy many years ago when I was younger and considerably less experienced with how to maturely handle criticism, but I believe I have grown past that by quite a bit. So please, if you see something that's off in my art, even if it's a finished piece, TELL ME. I'd certainly prefer that you be polite about it and elaborate if you can (comments like "Wow, that leg is fucked up" don't really tell or help me much), but aside from that, I'm open for it. While I love all comments, I would much rather get concrit on some of my pieces than just "Kawaii!" or "Cool!" all the time.

2) I do not use dodge/burn. Ever.
Several people mentioned this lately and it really puzzled me. I will freely admit that in my earlier years I took the shortcut of using the lighten/darken tool (dodge/burn's younger brother) in Paint Shop Pro, but pretty much one of the last times I used it was on this picture, back in 2003: [link] Since then, I've been using varying shades of my base colors to shade and highlight my pictures.

3) I know I need to draw more from life.
I have been struggling for several years to get out of the TLK style. It's a lot harder to do than I ever realized it would be. A word from experience to all beginning artists: Never ever ever learn by copying a style from somewhere. Ever. Because when you do, it will be nigh impossible to later teach yourself to stop using someone else's shortcuts instead of developing your own. As I've heard many times before in the art world and feel should be repeated, "You have to learn the rules before you can break them." In other words, learn how to draw things as they actually are before you start going off in your own direction with them. I just wish I'd learned that seven years ago.

So again, let me know if there's anything else unclear that I can clarify. Thanks.

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Art trade status: Closed for now
Request status: Closed forever
Commission status: VERY open, see here: [link]