Mighty Morphin Power... squirrel?

So I wanted to draw the Green Power Ranger this morning, throwback to my child hood.  But realized I wouldn't have enough time before my "day job" to get it to the level of awesome I'd like it.  Maybe Thursday or Friday...  we'll see.  But I still had to get the "martial artist" out of me.  So while Googl'ing martial artist poses for reference, there was a random image of a squirrel in the mix.  My brain put them together... and whala... a squirrel wanting to kick ass and take names.

When coloring it digitally, I really wanted to recreate a watercolor feel to it... I think it came out well, and I didn't use the Burn/Dodge tools of Photoshop, just layering of color for the watercolor feel.  Think it came out well.

The Dayjob Doodling Debacle

I apologize upfront for the poor image quality, it was taken with my cell phone under less than ideal conditions.

On to the story!  I work in the Photo Lab for a major retail chain.  To motivate the work force to do tasks that the work force is otherwise apathetic towards, they create cheesy little games to aid in carrying out these tasks, and rewards the grunts with cheap prizes.  As I'm a creative fellow I get hauled into draw things on poster boards to liven up these cheezy games.  So the above drawing is for the upcoming game, which apparently will have a St. Paddy's theme.  NOTE: This is not my Drawsiness for St. Pat's.  That will be up on March 17th!

So I was coloring this the other day in the Photo Lab, when a rather snooty mother and her rag-tag brats came into get some photos done.  One of the children apparently had a "family tree" project for homework, and that's why they needed the photos.  They wander off to do some shopping while their photos are getting done.  They come back and the mother asks "Who drew that?"  I rather humbly say it was me, and she asked if I traced or used a stencil.  I said no, straight from my head to the poster board.  I do inform her I used a lamp shade to get the circle of the pot just right (cuz drawing a perfect circle is hard!).  She plops another poster board on the counter and some markers, and asks if I could draw her a tree on the poster board.  (Note: This is before I find out it's for one of her brat's school projects).  I hesitate at first cuz I'm working... and it's an odd request.  But she talks up my ego enough, and I knew I could scribble out a tree in about 5 minutes or less.  It takes closer to 10 minutes in between helping other people with their photos.  She says "That's great!" pays for her photos, poster board, et. al and leaves the store with her brats.

I'm forbidden to accept tips at my day job.  I can actually be fired for it.  So I wasn't expecting to get any sort of monetary compensation out of the tree scribble.  But it would have been nice if she at least made the motion to tip.  Or even acted like she would and begin digging through her purse.  But no.  Didn't even appear to be a thought on her mind.  Had she, I would of declined.  Maybe slide her my "artist" business card and maybe have her offer me a better art project in the future, to which I could get paid for?  But nope.  Didn't happen.  But the thing that really irked me was she didn't even say "Thank You!"   That would have been enough, a simple "Thank you!"  Especially since I just did a HUGE junk of her brat's homework for them/her. Nope.  Just took the tree, and photos and left.  Felt so used.