As you should be! You did a great job.

I love this. Getting a glimpse of other artists' processes is so interesting and helpful tbh. The other options you had would have been cool too. A Golden Pheasant certainly looks the part of a Phoenix, but I think the weirdness of a secretary bird making a Phoenix is more interesting.

I love that I clocked it as a secretary bird before I read the description. Awesome final product as well. I love the idea of choosing an actual species of bird for a phoenix. Very cool!

I draw like 15 minutes practicing a tutorial/drawing lesson.
Know your limits and don’t push yourself to go hours a day. That’s just going to get you to burn out and have increasing length between drawing.