Been a long time. I'm a bit rusty and there's a few things I didn't figure out until it was too late to correct (all part of the learning process)

Turns out, in my reference, the bushes on the midground hill are supposed to be darker than the grass on the mountain, which should be the same darkness as the grass on the midground hill, but trying to level correct it only ended up washing out the shading. Oh well, this is a study, not meant to be perfect

So, enjoy the addition of the mountain in the background. I still have to add a bit more background landscape, the sky and some clouds. I'm working hard to learn the appropriate level of "detail" I should be adding for the background, since things in the back are meant to be less detailed (something I struggled with in the past). I am going to try and get this study done in the next few days.

Tried a few new brushes & techniques and learned a few new bits I like in rendering that sort of grassy low-to-mid detail texture. And though they're hard to see, I do actually kinda like the technique I used on the low-detail distance bushes.

I think it's time to accept that the weekly structure for "half hour weekdays, hour saturday, skip sunday" with a "weekly showcase" is dead now for my art schedule. Coming into 2025, I'm going to probably have to re-structure the way my page is organized to be more "if I drew today, post it, if not, don't"

Again, this is a study, I'm basically copying other artwork to see if I can learn the techniques used by recreating it myself. I will link the original upon being asked, as well as on the final render

I'll be honest, it's been a long time since my last art. If I'm being completely honest, it's a compounding list of factors
1. I broke the habit during Thanksgiving and started getting lazy
2. My todo list has gotten so long that it's starting to get more intimidating than exciting. I think I'm going to have to drop some projects soon in order to re-motivate myself
3. I'm getting set up for a promotion at work (basically already doing the job but the title doesn't start for a few more weeks). When the workday ends, I'm completely mentally drained and lacking motivation
4. I've been DEEPLY inspired ever since I started character-designing Vivi's story. I have quite literally spent all my free time for at least the past month brainstorming Vivi and this world she lives in (and other characters within). I'm talking roughly 200,000 words of brainstorming typed up in google docs. (maybe half of that is actual storyboarding). We're talking 200-400 pages of single space arial on normal printer paper. Literally a novel's worth of text about this worldbuilding brainstorming. And every time I have some spare time, I've been more willing to write more than doodle.