Barn Owl WIP Screenshot

This is the piece I'm currently working on. It's based on this brilliant stock photo [link] by `KevLewis (as can be seen to the right of the screen).

Although it's barely half way done, I've already spent at least 15 hours working on it (in fact I've actually lost count of how long I've spent on it, it might be more like 20). I've only just (2 hours back) zoomed in to start working on detail and only added the first of many layers of detail to the face.

I'd be surprised if I'm even half way towards completing this yet...

I must admit that at this point I have serious artist's block. Today I did 2 hours work on the face and that was actually the first time I'd touched this or done any art in more than a month.

I've wanted to draw this owl for ages but it has so many fiddly details, so many black and white dots on the feathers, that having got so many hours into the piece it overwhelms me...

So I've posted this here in order to perhaps get some encouragement to keep going, or to perhaps give myself an excuse to stop and do something quicker and more fun for a while.

I was looking at my NaArMaMo Doctor Who Alphabet earlier - I'm extremely happy with many of the pieces I drew then - and I realised that most of them only took me 4 or 5 hours to complete! The Adipose Baby only took 2.5 hours! Even my red squirrel only took 7 hours!

I don't know when it got to the point that every wildlife digital painting I do takes twice as long as the previous one!

Maybe I should go back to drawing things I can complete in one sitting...