I've experienced a little bit of a breakthrough lately. Have a look:

Yes, I've finally started putting real, proper eyes on my characters! I've known I really need to do that for, like, the entire time I've been drawing, but it's been hard finding a way to consistently do them that I like. I basically tossed out that Maldwyn ref from a few months ago because I thought his eyes were still too tiny and freaky looking.

Well, finally it clicked. I was toying around drawing Rocco some more, and I thought that if I had enough space in the eye region for two long lines (as I've been used to drawing eyes), I had enough space to turn them into proper eye shapes. Turns out I was right! You take the dot/line eye, draw the cheek dividers extending outwards, and you curve them over. Then just draw a big circle in the shape you made. The only thing that can get iffy is the far eye, but that's where giving lads a proper snoot as opposed to just implying it in the head shape comes in handy.

I've already used this to a pretty crazy reaction on the Kapy I drew for Caby a couple days ago--most of my deviations stall out around 6-8 favorites, and this girl got 22. No doubt that's also because tigers are just adorable and highly recognizable, but my God. Two big things that evaded me for so long with art, snoots and eyes, have both clicked. I'm unstoppable now.

So yeah, expect me on Art Fight in a couple days! I want to redo Setter's ref, as you see up there, and then I'll rejoin and add new characters one by one. It wasn't just the eyes that made me want to redo his ref--back then, my linework was still a lot shakier (I think I was still using a light stabilizer, which I turned off a while ago to great effect) and I just think he's a little rough looking and stiff. This? Oh my God, so lively! So cute!

Super super excited where I can go with my newfound art skills now. Perhaps drawing you gift art soon???