Trying to be conventional

I always wanted a chance to try illustration. I'm so envious of people who get jobs doing those spot illustrations in girls' magazines, or for fancy make-up companies. I sometimes think about pursuing it seriously, but I wonder if my stuff would fit in. I used to do more graphic-type illustrations, but stopped when I realized I was just ripping off other, more talented and established artists. My "illustrator" drawings were just more boring versions of other people's pretty pictures.

Anyhow, I was thinking about it today, and tried to cheat by cleaning up one of my normal weird drawings with what I thought might be a gimmicky inking and coloring style. Here's the original doodle:
...and here's the cleanup:
Of course I like the original better...it always happens that way! I might add a simple background to it later anyway.

I am going to try and experiment more with clean up- maybe even bring out my dried up water colors and crap. It'll be fun!

Here's another doodle from the day. I was trying to draw a more normal-type cutesy bad-ass girl, but it kind of just turned out the way I usually draw girls. Sometimes I wonder in the middle of drawing something if I should try and make the girl prettier, or weirder. I couldn't really decide with this one.