Improvement and progress of art and skill is long and painful.

Here was I again, with gazing with longing eyes, armed only with hope and determination, hoping, envisioning, and plowing towards a seemingly far and distant goal.

Dissecting works of old, watching and studying works of today, all resulting in a slow, frustrating, yet hopeful, rewarding inch of progress.

The only way to build was to push. Years of experience seems to be strained, and my knowledge feels like it is put to shame as I learn and relearn new form, technique and concept. Consistently, persistantly, pushing forward hoping that I might gain that hopeful inch.

Have I felt this before? I know I did. I know I've been there. But I don't remember when I succeeded, if I ever did. Perhaps it will be an endeavor that will never end. Will the fate of Sisyphus be my destiny? Only forward can answer it.

...

That inch has been gained today.
How sweet it is. It was worth all of it.

********

I have been doodling sergals for months, consistently frustrated that the half-wolf, half-dragon rejects don't resemble a sergal in any way. However, with time and effort, these doodles began to resemble the creatures I endear. Then, resemblance turned to familiarity, and from familiarity to similarity, then from similarity... it became.

Considering that sergals are almost always portrayed as yiff-yaff machines, I took a different direction with this image. I wanted to portray a sergal, at least once, as being like a warm teddy bear. It is as if it is comforting a traveller who has journeyed through an abyss of unfamiliar terrain and despair. This traveller finally reached his destination and found what he was looking for.

He will use that extra inch for the other inches of artful progress that are to come.

Sergals -  mick39