"Forget technique, tricks, cheating, faking, and concentrate on how to tell a story as it should be told!
Clarify! Reveal! Don't conceal! Don't confuse! Show! Explain!
Simplify! Economize! Open up areas! Don't clutter! For God's sake, if you don't know about a subject you must draw, then find out! You'll learn! So will your readers! Once drawn, you'll keep memory of it - So years later, you'll recall it, if need be - Photos help document/authenticate subjects, people, places, things, and we're swarming with sources for such info - There's no excuse for not using it - Camels and palmtrees and copters and deserts and costumes are infinitely varied - There are differing types providing you with pictorial fun and interest - Ditto your readers! Use it! Learn!
Think! Think! Think!
- Before you draw - While you draw - And after
- And redraw, if it doesn't work - Be honest with yourself! And your readers! Stop faking! You don't know enough to do it well, so don't! Learn! See! Observe!"

Taken from Alex's Toth's correspondences with Steve Rude, while he latter was working on Johnny Quest (noted initially via Paul Pope's PulpHope blog) Toth was ruthless in his critiques fo other artists and although his words are not directed at me, they certain would be. If anything, I would get far worse. I've not always approached criticism with the hopes of bettering myself, but certainly never shun away from a professor or colleague telling me where I have strayed off and lost my footing in what I so quaintly call my art. I have tried hard to cauterize the laziness that for so long coursed through my veins in an attempt to save the rest of the limb for going completely dead. Returning to school this last year has helped immensely and I look forward to pacing along the road ahead; paved, gravel, or jagged.