My sincerest thanks to everyone for all the nice comments and well-wishes. I'm really feeling a whole lot better since I was released from the hospital, and getting back to my old self. I didn't eat or do much except sleep and writhe in pain for the 3 weeks or so I was sick, so I'm a bit weak and trying to ease into my daily routine, but one of the things I wanted to do right away was try and get back to drawing.
After such a long layoff, I was quite rusty when I got back to the studio, so I spent some time over the last few days doodling and getting my chops back. I always find that I lose the finer control I need for inking clean lines or drawing things like curves after a few days away from the board. And after such an extended layoff like this one, it took a few hours of doodling and doing some practice inking to get the kinks out. As an excerise, I drew the doodle above, which pretty much sums up my feelings about my hospital stay. Hope you like it -- and I sincerely hope you never go through such an illness!
BTW, for an example of the kind of 'practice inking' I do to get the barnacles off my drawing hand, you can check out the sheet below. Its kind of like doing drills or noodling with the guitar. I usually do something like it, with the initial lines looking sloppy and rough. But by the time I fill up the page, I usually have all my fine control back. I did this one while watching a basketball game this afternoon and believe me, when I started I was cursing myself for how shaky my hand was. Luckily it all worked out by the end, and my team even won the game. Hurrays!
