No work to post really (okay I do have one sketch), just some general observations about my own work, the work of others, and the difficulties of entering the biz.
I spent most of my undergraduate years struggling to figure out where my skills were and developing a process. Lately, though I have worked out a good system for producing my work, it is VERY time consuming. I find the results to be quite beautiful (and honestly, not to toot my own horn, photos do not do my pieces justice), but it takes such a long time to complete a piece. It goes something like this:
1.) Get an idea (usually in the middle of the night).
2.) Do a few thumbnails, write a few things down.
3.) Look at photos ands other artists work for reference, ideas and anything I think might help to round out the concept.
4.) Blow up the thumb to a reasonable working size, then spend WEEKS agonizing over the drawing.
5.) Get bored and/or frustrated with the whole thing, and instead of working go play video games or spend hours on facebook, reading or any number of other distractions.
6.) Spend my entire day at work wanting to kill every customer (and several of my co-workers), and in general hating my life. Make a spontaneous decision to start working on the piece I gave up on weeks before. (In case you haven't figured it out by now, I have literally DOZENS of half finished concepts laying around my work area.)
7.) Finish the drawing in record time, all the while wondering why I didn't just finish it when I started it!
8.) Transfer it to the paper, complete the finish in a week or 2, and add it to my enormous collection of finished work that I don't know what to do with.
I realize that this process will in no way help me get any sort of art work, but it is the truth of my artistic life at this time. I have no idea why this is occurring, or what to do about it. I have quite a few professional art "friends" on facebook, and I see them churning out a new piece every couple of days, and I wonder how they do it, and how I can become as prolific as they are.Many of them seem loathe to give advice, though there have been a few notable exceptions (Noah Bradley, Steven Belledin and Tyler Jacobson), and I greatly appreciate them taking the time to help a budding artist.

On another note, Illuxcon recently wrapped up as did the Illustration Master Class. Massive Black will also be holding a workshop in San Francisco in the very near future. I would love to attend all of these events, but they are quite cost prohibitive, not to mention that the idea of being in the same room as artists that I worship is terrifying in a way that I can't explain.All of these events would be very helpful to me as an artist, and I'm sure would go a long way towards helping me understand the problems that I mentioned earlier in the post. Unfortunately, my current financial constraints make going to even one of these events (let alone all 3) completely impossible. So instead, I continue to admire the work of these amazing artists, and attempt to solve my problems on my own. For now, I am making a vow to work when I feel like playing games, to work when I think I may browse facebook for an hour, to work when I think I would rather be doing ANYTHING else. We'll see how it goes.