Techniques, confidence, and baby steps.

Yesterday I started 3 illustrations and took them to about 60 percent completion. This act came after a specific incident that left me feeling very un-confident about my abilities as an artist and my abilities to obtain work as such. In true 'me' fashion I decided that the perfect cure of feeling insecure about my abilities was to take some time to sharpen my skills. Well by the time midnight came around I was feeling very frustrated at my inability to take any one illustration to completion, with the mish mash of various techniques I was attempting to toy around with and just over all in what I had been doing.
A good night's sleep later and I had the determination to bring one of them to completion. This one a little more of a character sketch than an illustration (as there is no environment and the picture isn't really telling a story) but I am happy I, at least, completed it.

In this technique I played around with the idea of blending with a soft brush and instead of working with sharp jagged edges. I created an overpainting to build upon a line drawing. I've tried variations on this technique in the past but I think this one is closer to the direction I will continue to go.

In any event, i would love any comments about improving upon this technique or how to apply it to environments on a grand scale.

As always, thanks for looking!