This week’s Illustration Friday topic was particularly inspiring. I want to grow my illustration business this year, and really give myself an opportunity to soar.

I have lots of plans but as far as New Year’s Resolutions go I have this one: to post every single week to Illustration Friday. This year I petered out a bit in November, as my usual perfectionist streak took over — I have at least three images which made it as far as a “tight pencil sketch” but my usual working style requires at least 2 weeks for a truly final image. Most of the pictures in my portfolio took 4-8 weeks to finish (some even longer) and I’m trying to streamline my process but it’s hard to let go. So from this point on, I’m taking the title of my blog more seriously and if all I have time for that week is a quick scribble, then THAT is what I’m posting. This is something I want to do, but it has to fit around my day job, my more directly business-related efforts, remodeling, and family time.

This week’s image is a bit of an experiment in drawing the entire thing directly on the computer using Photoshop and my tablet. The tablet surface is a bit slippery, and gave me some trouble with my usual foliage scumbling, so it may have to evolve a bit. Fortunately, I have tons of photo reference on eagles from a previous project! I’m not entirely happy with the level of detail, but it’s not too bad for an image that took about 2 hours, start to finish. Click to enlarge.