For Cuteness’ Sake

Nearly a year ago, one of my sisters paid me to make some drawings for her kids’ to-do lists. I didn’t finish a whole set, but I did do some that I liked:

A Unicorn praying, which unexpectedly came out awesome on the first try.

A groundhog, which was originally supposed to be a hedgehog, but it looked too weird as a hedgehog, so I decided to let it be and live on as a groundhog or possibly a weasel.

I also drew a couple of things that I didn’t like as much. These included this Panda, which I promised has improved from the first draft but still looks a little too grown-up in this picture:

As I’ve been on vacation and catching up with people I haven’t seen in a while, I ended up explaining my job to a number of people who hadn’t heard what I’ve been up to lately. And in the process of explaining, I found renewed determination to finish more projects and try to sell my work. Just to see. My time isn’t up yet— I’m getting close, but I’m not there yet. I might as well put in my best effort.

Anyway, all that led to my pulling up the panda to try to fix him. Luckily I had a niece nearby with a good eye for this kind of thing, and she told me things like “make the head bigger” and “the paws look funny; the foot pads need to not align so neatly” until I came up with this:

The revised version is undeniably cuter, and probably salable at this point, but… but… but… I feel like it could be better. I dunno. I don’t have to sell it today. But if anyone has suggestions, I’m open!