Ringing in the New Year!
2018 has gone, and 2019 has arrived. time waits for no one, and if you dawdle, you'd get left behind!
So what happened this year? I've had burnouts and lazy moments along with explosive creative energy and a passion that's kept me up some nights. I suppose the easiest place to assess my progress is through social media~!
I had mixed feelings about my Instagram top 2018. Two (well two and a half) of my images were not even drawn this year. They were throwback images, so part of me thinks studying my past sketchbooks would be best. I've gone through them like an old photobook, but I guess I should consider referencing them. ^^;
Although, I still do the abstract technique seen in the top left. I just don't make many creatures from them. The creatures I do make are from less random lines and shapes. That technique in the top left is me with my eyes closed scribbling random lines and highlighting ones to create abstract figures.
My second qualm is that two of the seven aren't my own characters. They were from art trades. So I'm not sure if it was the content or the fact that they were art trades which made them so popular. On the flip side, that gives me confidence about commissioned pieces. The mermaid was really fun to do ahaha.
Going forward, I don't think I'll be doing art trades so openly unless I'm friends with people. The same goes with art requests. I was so happy to have people requesting me to draw them art, and I love their reactions when they receive it. It's a warm feeling. Some individuals managed to taint the experience for me by either getting greedy or ordering me around. The art's free, but you can't expect me to paint the Mona Lisa for you. I've had an equal amount of bad experiences with art trades as I had good experiences. I treasure the good experiences and adore my art I received in an art trade. It stings when my art trade partner doesn't do their share.
I'm not completely opposed to art trades or art requests this year. If I do art requests, I'm going to do them like other streamers and do a 5 minute sketch as a warm-up or cool down or as I try to figure what else to draw. I'd like to build an audience with my OCs and comic characters that they could be requested. Maybe I'd put that as a goal for this year. x]
As for art trades, if I do them, I'm giving strangers a watermarked copy on the lowest resolution until they finish mine. I doubt I'll do art trades any time soon since I don't have good character sheets for any of my characters. Any fan art I'd want, I could do it myself...We'll see. It's only January after all ahaha.
Back to my top 9! A few positives is that I have a mixed media presence. There's 3D modeling, animation, digital in the real world, digital art, and traditional art! That's good since I'm not going to stick to one medium anytime soon either. I want to do more digital art in the real world pictures, and I'd love to do more 3D modeling. I just need things to model. xD; Also, I finished a couple paintings yesterday!
I still aim to create images that tell a story. It's easy to explain the images on every social media site but Twitter since I'm limited to character space. However, I have plenty of image space! Well only four. Usually I post only one image, so I can use the second image to describe my pieces.
I was pretty good at keeping up with my social media in the middle of the year. That's when I saw the most growth and traffic to my art. I was really engaging with others. As soon as I stopped using my planner, things fell apart a bit. My goal is to continue using my planner and bring some order to my life! I keep procrastinating that since I'm waiting for job hours to dictate my availability. I'm going to get on finding a part-time job too. xD;
I've been focused on my art business which took time. Read about my first event here! I spent hours practicing set ups, looking for opportunities, and of course creating artwork! It's crazy to think I went from one table to three in a span of three months!
With all my product, I need to figure out how to consolidate it for cons and an upcoming event where I only have 6 - 8 feet of table space.The good news is that I don't have to worry about bringing everything. At my main event I attend, I have to understand that my general audience tends to be older and more conservative. Religion, landscapes, and realistic animals are what people at that event likes. I don't do religious or realistic animal artwork, so I bank on my landscapes to attract people's attention.
At this upcoming fantasy and comic con, hopefully my character and fantasy art will attract people's attention since the audience is different. I don't have to worry about where I'm going to place all my paintings and cards because I won't bring them!I really do hope the events go well though. At the fantasy event, I'm going to be there for a total of at least 21 hours which is insane!!! At my usual event, set up is 2 - 3 hours and the event is 6 hours. Pray for me guys. ahahaha
Once the weather becomes warmer, I'll be hitting downtown and setting up my booth there. Spring and summer markets will open up too and give me more opportunities. Of course I'll be attempting to enter as many arts and craft festivals too!
So what comes next ♪♫♪ ?
Top five projects this year are:
Princess Flux: Journeys of the Abstract Princess
The Dark Rose
"Chicks and Ann"
Supoya Starrain (working title)
YouTube Channel Revival
The past year I believe I did a great job outlining a list of three to five goals I wanted to accomplish per month and giving weekly updates on where I am at. I'd like to continue that, but focus on two to three goals per month to keep it a reasonable scope. I am starting at biweekly updates and hope to work up to weekly updates again. Each month I want to make headway on each of these five projects the feat is not impossible.
Already I am doing world building for the Abstract Princess. I've been drawing out characters, and the other day I've created plants that may be found in Tayavon. Headway has been done on the story.
My 2019 goals for Princess Flux: Journeys of the Abstract Princess are:
Weekly progression in the world of Tayavon.
Each week I want to create something related to Tayavon whether that is concept art, progress on the script, progress on the story, or drawing the characters in or out of their world. I want to keep the story on the forefront of my mind.
Comic is back in April 2019.
- I will finish writing chapter 2 this month darnit.
- I'd loosely follow the schedule I concocted back in August, but that was me in a high energy mode where I was young and innocent and didn't need to return to University. The idea is that I have February and March to work on the backlog of my comic, so that it may return in time for my first comic con appearance in April. Will it be ready for print? Absolutely not. I have preview pages which are free, but my older pages need some refinement before I print any copies for sale.
Honestly, that may be a 2020 goal. After doing the math, it would take me approximately 39 weeks (~3 pages per plot point) at most to reach chapter 4 which is about 2/3 through the first journal.Once I get to creating pages for chapter 4, I will embark on my journey to redraw pages from chapter 1. In 2020 I'd start selling chapters!
I don't know if the pages will be in color or not. I had initially thought about posting pages once or twice a month and having them in color. If I post them weekly, they'd be limited grey scale like in manga. I haven't quite decided. I might finish up chapter 1 in grey scale and experiment with colors in chapter 2.
3 or 4 promotional art pieces~!
- I'm heading toward my second year of the comic, and I still don't have a cover page or promotional art to show off my characters. I'd like to make something quarterly (March, June,September, December), but I would most likely choose two or three months at random and do something fun for the second year anniversary of the comic. I'm actually going to plan the second year anniversary and hype it up because it was so sad last year ahaha.
- I'd like to make a bookmark, sticker, and print/poster and have a little Abstract Princess corner at my booth and website ahaha.
Collect all the artwork for my characters.
This would require me to have character sheets for them. I have my own references, but I wouldn't give them to anyone.
A while back, totalweebcall drew my girl Roskavna, and that was based on Ro from Kyrie's Art challenge.
My poor friend Absolute Weapon had to forge something from a hodgepodge of references I hastily placed together. Look how magnificent he drew Yiskaña:
Once I get those references, I'd probably open art trades again.
Phew. 1500+ words deep, and I only finished talking about Princess Flux: Journeys of the Abstract Princess goals... The Dark Rose is really my other 2nd biggest project. The other three are minor.
I want to finish the "Chicks and Ann" children's book this year. Specifically I aim to be finished by May, so that it can have its debut in summer art festivals.
I already have a character design for one of the three characters:
I aim to add a nice ending to the story by the end of the month along with sketching out those final scenes. Backgrounds would be finished mid-March. Character designs for her brother and mother would be finished by the end of March.
I would then use the remaining time to put the characters in, polish the story, send it by my dad, make the edits, and hopefully get it out to print with copyright and everything~! This project has been in progress for far too long haha *sighs*.
Supoya Starrain, which is a tentative title, would be my newest project. I'd probably start it after I finish "Chicks and Ann." Well I say start, but I'd really concentrate efforts at that time while messing with ideas in the meantime.
I've been drawing characters who'd be in this story for a bit now.
I just need to decide when to start the story. A lot of my ideas star Supoya banished in the human realm, but I'm not sure if there is a lot of material to allow me to start the story before then. The magical trouble maker and his possibly undead pursuer have been itching for a story since March 2017. I'd at least give them an outline of a story by the end of this year. I do intend to include pictures. Not sure what I plan to do when it goes to print. We'll see. xD;
The final minor goal is my YouTube channel revival. So gradually I've been streaming again. I even made new panel art. (I changed the words for the new year, but you can see the actual ones over on my twitch channel).
I also made a new experimental offline screen:
I've been streaming without music playing and rambling to lurkers or the void depending on the platform. That means I've also been streaming to my YouTube channel since I'm not blasting copyrighted material. Problem is that I don't have a lot of interesting stuff on the channel. I'd like to change that! With the help of my other goals, I may do sketchbook tours or gush about the characters like the behind-the -scenes reels of movies. Too cheesy? I was thinking about biweekly animations, so making a mini compilation would be good? I'm not sure yet, but I am striving to post one Youtube video a month. If luck rain down on me, a majority would involve The Dark Rose.
My goals for The Dark Rose would be a challenging feat requiring patience, love, and support, and possibly Toon Boom Harmony, but I could make do with my current software. bwahaha
There will be a trailer completed by the end of this year.
No doubt about it. It'll be beautifully colored and hopefully animated. There will be progress shots along the way. I'll become a master sound mixer to avoid audio issues plaguing my other videos. So how am I going to make sure this happens?
- First off, Ninsen's character profile will be finished by February along with the simultaneous completion of my storyboard being placed in a rough animatic. Voices will not be finalized at this time, but I can hopefully have Eli's part nailed down.
- An unnamed character's character profile will be completed by March and the final animatic will be completed.
- Tentatively character lineart would be completed by June and backgrounds by August. That would leave cleanup in August and September. Coloring and lighting should take another two months and final sound mixing completed in December. Boom done. Animation is on YouTube and I'll gain 30 views. Let's do this.
But after that, it's not over!
Season One outline completed in March.
Who knows when I'll gain a team to help out on this pet project? I certainly don't, but I plan on making this an animated series with 3 - 5 minute episodes. I'm thinking about each episode basically being a scene or two that contributes to a larger storyline but doesn't seem unfinished in its own right. We'll see how the timing goes because in
April, the first third of the scenes would be scripted.
I don't know if that would be 10 scenes or 3, but a third of the total amount of scenes will be completely scripted. The roughs will be reviewed and polished, so that I can start to
Storyboard the first scene and finish in July.
The hope would be I would also have it colored so that I have color references for the trailer. The two main characters would be present, and I'd have a better sense of the color palette of the world. I might even acquire a new style.
Promotional art for September.
By then I should have a deep love (or hate) for the characters and want to spread news of my upcoming animation. I should have several stages of the animation available on YouTube and my currently defunct Patreon account. I'd be able to show off a snippet of Elliot's world or even Elliot himself! At this time the world should be rather light , and I'd like to include more color for the series!
Complete the storyboards for the remaining scenes.
As I polish up the series trailer, I'd spend the remaining months creating storyboards for the rest of the scenes. With any remaining time, I'd write the script for the next third of the scenes and start production of The Dark Rose animated series.
Wowzers. 2600 words and I still have more to say. I was going to include my monthly goals for January, but I think I've rambled long enough. If you've made it this far, hit me up on my social media and let me draw you a character icon or something.
All in all 2018 was a good year for me. I gained followers, fostered a nice support network, and saw my dreams come into fruition. This year I will cultivate what I have started and create more. I can't wait to enjoy this journey with the new and old.
Peace , love and happiness. To a new year!
Ja ne~!
