What I’ve Been Doing

So I’ve been drawing:

Platinum, AKA "Tina," of the Metal Men

Phoenix (Rachel Summers)

Killer Frost

The Spectre

Talia al Ghul

Dr. Fate

Darkseid

Somewhat more to the point, I’ve been drawing in Illustrator, which, longtime readers may recall, is a program that seems to exist primarily for the purpose of making me swear and emit bear-like roars.  A lot.
I’m trying to find a way to adjust the fidelity settings of the brush so that the program will compensate for my unsteady hand, but won’t overcompensate to such an extent that the curves of the lines in no way resemble my intentions for them.  I haven’t had much luck.
It would be useful to be able to find that sweet spot, as it would conceivably speed up my workflow considerably, allowing for more completely freehand drawing, even for the big, sweeping curves, as opposed to the more labor-intensive process of precisely laying out points on a path in Photoshop.
I’ve mostly been trying to draw directly from my imagination, without using any sort of reference image*, which is why I’ve been focusing on comic book characters, as they’re what springs to mind.  In many cases, the point is just to try to get a better handle on drawing in Illustrator, so whether or not the final product is actually any good is kind of beside the point (which is an especially good thing in the case of Killer Frost and Talia, frankly).
I’ve gone with slightly more obscure characters – even some men, which is definitely a change of pace – because…well, just because.  Mostly I wanted to draw characters I’ve never drawn before, though I have drawn Darkseid and Dr. Fate before.
Ultimately what I’ve gained from the experience is a reinforcement of things that I already knew:

1.  Illustrator is a pain in the ass
2.  I get much better results when I’m drawing something I see rather than something from my imagination

So there you go.

*I did use a reference image for Tina.