And here in the critique I began to see the through-line in artists that had that Thing I was chasing. Naturally there's Matsumoto (from Takemitsu Zamurai and No. 5 respectively):
I guess I'm still going! He talked me through some artists that follow a similar lineage to my work, and how I can look at them to see masterful use of variety in line, shape and value.
The first was Alan Cober:
Because it's SO EASY to sit back and let the Illustration By Numbers approach take hold and stagnate your work. It's like going on autopilot. It'll give you predictable results, but predictable results aren't what you always want as an artist.