“Productively” procrastinating

I’ve made a decent start on the final instalment in the Entram trilogy, following The Altimer and New Gaia, and I’m sorry to say that I’m struggling to make progress as quickly as I’d like.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been forcing myself to write at least one section a day, but it doesn’t feel like I’m producing the quality I want, so this week I gave myself permission to think a little bit about what I might do after it’s published. I’ve not quite landed on anything specific yet, but I am thinking that I’d like to experiment with a different style of illustration.

For Entram, I wanted something with blocks of shadow to give a sense of mystery. I like it, and will certainly keep the same style for the third, but have tried out a more detailed, scribbly approach for the (very draft, first attempt) illustration below.

What are your thoughts?