I’m back to working on my routines today! I got straight to the cabin this morning and decided to clean it up a bit. I’m a bit obsessive about keeping a clean work area at Affinity, but I let things slip at the cabin, which is very out of character for me.

So I spent about 10 minutes cleaning this morning before I sat down to draw.

I’m pretty happy with my warmup page, though I see a section of it that I didn’t finish up.

And I struggled through my first set of gestures for the day. I’m picking up different little shorthands that I really like, but I’m still struggling to simplify as much as I want to and still maintain good proportion.

Oddly, doing this digitally seems to be MUCH more difficult for me, but I’m trying to train myself to use the most efficient tools possible so I can transfer the muscle memory to tattoo preparation.

Which is what I moved on to next. I’ll be tattooing this design tomorrow, and I’m incredibly excited about it!

After I finished prepping for tomorrow’s appointment, I gave some gestures another shot. These were slightly better, but still not up to the standard I’d like to hold myself to.

I tattooed for about 3 hours at Affinity, going back into an old tattoo to get it polished up a bit and adding small pieces here and there to complete a sleeve. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos before I wrapped the tattoo up with Saniderm. I’ll have to get healed shots of it eventually.

What went well?

• I finished up a very large tattoo.
• I had plenty of time to draw this morning!
• I had an excellent meeting with Chris Beaven. I got some feedback on a big project that I’m working on, and may be able to talk him into being a contributor! ?

What needs work?

• I need a Standard Procedure at Affinity to remember to do EVERYTHING that needs to be done with a client.
• I struggled with gestures a little bit today.

What did I learn?

My scheduled times are going incredibly well. That’s a habit I’m glad I picked back up.