A Greeting - Speedpaint

Yeah, I'm not particularly happy with this.

So, yesterday, as part of an awesome Christmas present, =Khezix streamed a tutorial of her doing a speedpaint of Zephyr [link] which taught me a ton about speedpainting and drawing technique, and I was excited to try and put her suggestions to use. The result is kinda scary. But! On the positive side of things, I managed to draw this (rather ugly) bust in 4-5 hours. Anyone who knows my art at all knows I can't do anything in 4-5 hours. So, while I'm not particularly proud of the outcome, I'm glad that I was able to do what constitutes a speedpaint for myself, at least. I want to be able to produce better art in less time, and being able to finish a picture in one day is definitely going to make a difference there.

This is supposed to be a picture of Zephyr (with some new colors I was trying out on his horns and chest scales... I'm not sure I like him this way) introducing himself to someone. I'm trying the 100-theme challenge again, and this time I figured I might as well go in order rather than randomly go through the set.

So, a lot of things didn't go according to plan in this drawing. The colors turned out terrible. I was very inspired by Khezix's use of color and how natural her art looked, but obviously I haven't mastered the subtleties of color yet. Also, I laid down the colors way too heavily, and lost a lot of my shading due to that. The forepaw is disproportionate with the rest of the body (and just looks weird in any case). He looks more like he's grinning mischievously rather than smiling or something. I dunno, lots of things are wrong with this picture. XD But like I said, I'm mostly just happy I was able to do it so fast. I will (hopefully!) continue getting better with more practice.

So, in summary: =Khezix is a much better artist than I am. As always, comments and suggestions are always greatly appreciated! Comments are just as valuable as favorites.

Medium: Wacom Bamboo tablet in GIMP
Time: 4-5 hours
Completed: 20 December 2012
100 Theme Challenge #1 - Introduction