~Budouka

So, I'm a little bit jealous of photographers. I have some limited skill (more like bare-bones proficiency) with a camera; it's just not my chosen medium, for various reasons. The thing that I feel photographers have over those who draw, paint, or use other media that involve direct creation rather than capture, is the capacity for massive proliferation. A couple of the photograohers I'm watching, who do awesome work, btw, are absolutely DOMINATING my deviation list, in terms of how many posts they make. The two of them are about 90% what comes up on my deviantWATCH. It's almost enough to make me stop watching them, because I don't like sorting through all that to get to the people who draw, etc., but their photography is just so GOOD! Anyway, I just wish I could draw as many awesome images as these two guys cap. Here are their pages:
and

GGGGGYYYYYYAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!!! I have some line art that I am pretty happy with, and I want to upload it and color it and upload it again, but my scanner is being temperamental. I almost hulked out and threw it across the room today.

Just thought I'd share.

So I created this account, and still haven't posted any artwork. YEE-HAW! I have plenty, but not much recent stuff. I just haven't been able to find time lately to complete a work to my satisfaction. I suppose that's the Artist's Dilemma: a work is never to one's own satisfaction. Digressions aside, I've been looking around at other people's Inspiring Works of Greatness, and the work times that people give for pieces that I would consider better (at least more refined) than my own work are about half to a quarter of what I spend on my pieces. So, I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to speed up the process. Obviously practice helps, but practice without direction or purpose is very inefficient, if not a complete waste (in terms of improvement; the external product of the practice, e.g., the ARTWORK, can be nice).

Just so you have an idea of my process, here is how I generally work:

Traditional Media Stage:
-initial, messy sketch in pencil
-2nd draft pencil sketch
-ink pencil (with brush or pen)
-scan ink

Digital Stage:
-Edit Levels of line art in Photoshop CS3
-put on neutral tone background that defines the ambient color of the final image
-block out highlights and shadows in their own layer
-get down the hues in one layer: solid blocks of color
-add effects, if appropriate, revisit and refine previous steps until my eyes melt out of their sockets and my forearm implodes

I use a cheap tablet--the reason I ALWAYS do my line art on paper--so I suppose the easy thing would be to drop a couple Benjamins on a WACOM, but I'd like to be speedy regardless of my medium. Your tips would be greatly appreciated. Seriously. If you have ANY good tips to help my speed practice be more productive, I want them.