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There we go. Now the background has a little something going on, and it sets the figure off properly. That's it. This time I'm really done.

I swear.

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Okay, I lied. I needed to fiddle with it some more -- the background was simultaneously oversaturated and boring. It failed to support the figure. But now I'm done. Really. I swear.

Now I'll go take a shower, and wait to play bass.

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Now that's more like it! I'm calling her done. Now I won't have to suffer paleo-guilt the way I did when I blew my Anomalocaris!

And I've got to say. How on earth do people who work in traditional media cope with the issues involving these kinds of fine-tuning? It would drive me mad.

Now I need to work on the Pretensionist manifesto. You heard me; I've finally decided to start my own fucking movement.

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I finally got a few minutes (well, a couple of hours) to finish this off. I did a modified photographic background; it sucked, so I stuck with the simple gradient.

It's entirely possible that I'll wind up feeling unsatisfied with this, but for now? It'll do.

Newsflash -- I'm not satisfied with the color. It looks washed-out to me. I'll spend some time on adjustments soon. Maybe.

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The initial stages of color...

Finally!

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Here's the digitally inked version. Now for some color.

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Zach Miller pointed out that the bare teeth in the last version were currently regarded as improbable, so I gave Louise here some lips. The tracing vellum I'd been working on proved resistant to erasing, so the original now looks awful. I redrew the mouth on a separate piece of paper and PhotoShopped it in.

Now the question of the day -- will I be able to make Illustrator do what I want, or will I be rescanning and rePhotoShopping at a higher resolution?

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Tomorrow I'll 'ink' this in Illustrator, then take it over to Photoshop for coloring. It came out better than I expected; the color's gonna help a lot.

That's it for today; now I'm off to go up to Telegraph and hang with my buddy Aubrey for a while.

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Next up: the finished pencil drawing.

Setting up this stereo was a good idea; Zappa, Louis Jordan, Brian Eno, Roger Miller, and Jimmy Cliff have helped keep me on track.

But.

The CD player is definitely screwed up. But I think there's another unit in the shed I could use instead. I'll check it out tomorrow.

Wish I knew where my tapes were. Remember tapes?

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Time to liveblog another piece of art. Stay tuned for periodic updates over the afternoon. Of course I haven't put the drool in yet. You think I'm kidding? There will be drool.

So I got a late start today. It's a Sunday, and I played music until late last night. I also spent some time this morning setting up my (seemingly defective) yard sale stereo. The CD player makes these little hiccupy pauses from time to time; maybe if I level it things will improve.

But I knew I had to at least get started on this. I may or may not finish it today; I've got to call it quits by four-thirty. But I've at least got a start.

So I figured I'd do something nice and simple to compensate for my atrophied draftsmanship. Here's the head of an Apatosaurus louisae, drawn from a photograph of CM 11162 that I found in Glut's Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia. I know we don't get to call it Brontosaurus anymore, but this is still my first sauropod.

Now to firm up the details.