An entry with some pictures...

Okay, here are some pictures that I've been working on. I had some trouble working out how to post pictures which is why nothing appeared with my first post and after two friends told me pretty much the same thing, I am confident I now know how to do this. Here's hoping.
The first picture is really how all of this started. It's a picture of my D&D character, Polly Goodbarrel. Y'see, there's this little square on the character sheet where you get to do your character's portrait or whatever, which, usually, remains blank. Me, forever filling blank spaces with doodles, did a little scribble. The other people playing commented and said it was decent. This encouraged me to go a little further and on to a number of follow-up pictures in my gaming notebook, of which only one will be posted today.
Picture number two is of one of the other players' characters embracing my character after a long, in-game dispute was resolved. I was hoping to practice my cross-hatching and used our roughly weekly adventures as inspiration. Again, the group made encouraging comments.
Something I noticed was that it didn't really matter what I had decided to draw, the other players were very interested in seeing what was being put on paper.
Flash to three weeks ago: The decision to attempt at making some pictures that would be acceptable in terms of submitting them to a gaming company in hopes of picking up some work on the side was made. I started with an idea for a shot that took much longer than I had initially hoped. I thought doing one picture a week would be not too steep a schedule to keep and the first one took me two weeks.
The third picture is a scan of the first drawing and an important lesson had not been learned yet. That would come last night as I finished the last drawing.
What I learned from the first pencil rendering was that I really must think out my time alotted first and fit what could possibly fit in there.
The last two pictures are the rough of one of the characters at a forge, all dressed up in protective gear, one piece of which is inappropriate and another of which is unnecessary in a fantasy setting.
In the final Saetar (the super-macho, tough-skinned barbarian) is scartastic and riddled with tattoos.
I was bursting with pride when the player saw the final product and said various things having to do with being very pleased. I could not be more encouraged.
What I learned from this last drawing is that I must absolutely start doing these drawings on good illustration paper, though I will likely make the jump to illustration board at a later time.
I know there are more lessons out there waiting for me and I hope to see some visitors comments as well on the dharma of my portfolio creation.