Well your forward facing busts aren't half bad. I rather like the style you've got going for all 4 or so of the pictures you've got up.

Thanks. I'm trying to teach myself to draw yet sometimes it doesn't turn out the way I wish. My 'work' (if you can call it that) is based more on emotion and impulse rather than skill. I never really know what I'm going to get.

Well, while practice is of course paramount, I'd also say that there's actually a lack of passion and emotion in a lot of art, or at least it lacks the intensity I wish was more common, so if you honed your skills but harnessed that, I think you'd be well on your way.

I share your pessimism. You have to take into account driving forces such as hope for financial gain, personal aggrandizement and the poisonous cynicism I imagine one would develop over time as one's talent is guided in rogue directions by the will of a waiting audience.

I've always appreciated a smaller but more intimate audience. Then I'm also not someone who has any intention of living off artwork or making a name for myself on any large scale.
That being said, I don't necessarily think a lot of artists are exceptionally cynical in creating their art, I just know quite a few that aren't nearly as interested in depicting emotional intensity as just 'interesting' subjects.
Though the will of a waiting audience does have a tendency to drive artists to simply create mountains of pornography in this fandom and little else unfortunately.