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This is a composition I've wanted to pull off since I first designed this character a year and a half ago. What are my abundance of mad scientists good for, if not ominously hunching over a smoking and wicked creation? Drawing smoke is so much fun. Highly recommend it. Figuring out where the plumes should rise is almost meditative.

There were a lot of competing values in this one. It was a bit of a struggle to make sure everything stood out against each other, but the eyes were still drawn where I wanted them. I kept recoloring and recoloring until a friend suggested simply giving the background a dark gradient, and it worked wonders. This piece shot up from "too busy and too simple at the same time, all wrong" to "oooh this one's a winner" in a matter of seconds. It's crazy how something can really come together at the last moment.

Hands aren't as hard for me anymore. They still look about the same, but a bit ago I could spend a half hour on sketching them alone and still be unhappy with my work. I don't think my skill with them has improved much, but rather it's just much more painless.