I recently found the blog of Chris Elywn. The laments this guy was having about drawing, and the whole 10,000 drawing dealio statement...This is a guy I want to be in contact with I think.
Also, he has a link to a really cool site called Ctrl+Paint that is chock full of free tutorials for digital painting. Part of the reason I'm posting here is just so that I'll recall it!
In other news I am now living in Thailand, and I have actually been doing some animation! It's been extremely small, and corners have been cut due to such incredibly short deadlines, but animation is animation!