Rejuvenated
Spring is here, and summer is closing in fast! I hope I'm not swept too far in the wave of excitement! While I dream about the future, I try to focus on the present and create to improve on my skills from yesterday and make progress toward larger goals.
So what have I been doing until this moment?
Before Spring FanX, I haven't been creating much. You can see a little bit of evidence of that on my Instagram page. Yes, I tend to post more works in progress on Twitter, but it's easier to see how much work I submitted to the net. ( A little secret: I often complete art pieces in batches and release them daily or near daily. ) Even a lot of my pictures created after my button fever were colorings of old sketches, so I wasn't actually creating much new material. I don't really know what kept me from creating. I just didn't create anything or the creations I did were only doodles or sketches I didn't wish to take further.
Come Spring FanX, and a switch seemed to hit. In-between sales and speaking to fellow convention attendees, I doodled a bit more and created pieces I liked!
I also grabbed inspiration from the attendees. I noted the common cosplay outfits and artwork they were creating and used that as a "things to draw" list. Next thing I knew, I was filling pages with chibis! The following are colored versions of my sketches:
The chibis were easy to draw and easy to resume when I paused to interact with customers! I have a list of over 100 characters I tracked during the convention. I don't know if I'll be able to get through them all, nor do I believe they will all be chibis. If I do make chibis, they'd be added to my ever growing list! As mentioned before, they are relatively easy to do and color. I at least have something to create if I ever need that extra push!
I do have non-chibi fanarts planned. They are more mixed results, and I'm unsure if all of them will be digitized and colored.
Portraits are simpler than full bodies since my full bodies seem stiff lately, but I'd like to challenge myself. If I really dislike it, I may just do a portrait series.
You can look forward to seeing more fan art! However, I don't want to be known as a fan artist. I'd like to be recognized for my own work, so I sketched out portraits of my own characters!
I realized some of them could be used to promote my comic Princess Paeosfu: Journeys of the Abstract Princess. I was pretty excited about that since I could complete my goal of creating 3 to 4 promotional art pieces for this year! When I wrote in that goal, I was thinking movie poster with all the details, all the colors, all the pazazz *jazz hands* that comes with promotional material. What I have so far, I don't think is too bad. I have a couple buttons of Yiskaña and Paeosfu. I also have bookmark versions of these posters:
Dr. Timoti (on the left) would wear that outfit, but Yiskaña is placed in an alternate universe garb. He's not that steampunk-y in the comic. I'd like to do more prints where they are wearing outfits you'd find in Tayavon.
I did have someone ask where Zoost was from when I had his image displayed at FanX:
That was probably one of my top highlights of the convention. I could proudly say that he's an original character from my comic! Again, he's not really wearing an outfit you'd find in Tayavon.
With a few more portraits on the docket, I'd have even more artwork to show off of the characters, and I'm excited for that.
People have been purchasing Abstract Princess artwork. Unfortunately, I forget to include my little slip of paper saying where one could read the comic. When people walk away with a sticker or bookmark, it's a little awkward handing that out along with it. I just need to figure out a cute display advertising my comic and the associated products and include a nice sticker or something with the link or comic title. The comic title is a bit long though....
Anyway, I'm so happy people are hyped about the idea of me having the comic! I need to make more comic previews to hand out!!
In addition to creating more art, I have been doing more streams. Are they daily again? No, but at least I'm trying! I just have to be more motivated to setup everything. That is all. I now have material I can work on, and the time to do it. All I have to do now is do it!! I'm also thinking about having a separate late night stream for games instead of going to sleep to anime, but that is also still in the air. I'm leaning toward yes, but I'm still close to "maybe" as an answer.
What else do I hope to bring back? Biweekly animations! I had it as a goal for this year to produce more animations. That dropped off, but I'd like to shake off the dust from my animation program. My recent project was to animate this picture:
like I did with another doodle earlier this year. The result:
You can also view it on: https://youtu.be/RbTRf5WRAhI
That was me messing around the bone tool in Moho Studio. It took longer than I expected, but it was fun! Whether I animate more drawings, or play around with frame by frame animation is up in the air. I'd like to animate more and populate my channel. If I do end up animating more drawings, it'd be great if I could make sure I draw in a wide screen format. Although, most of the time I'm other doodling on a square canvas or creating vertically inclined characters. :)
Speaking of dust, I'm attempting to bring more life to my other social media platforms. I've begun posting to my Amino accounts albeit pictures from the beginning of the year. Soon I'll catch up to what I'm posting nowadays since I did take a couple breaks in creating. I have recently begun posting to my Patreon and Ko-Fi pages again. I attempt to post to them and my Facebook page on the same schedule that I post to Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr. It's a lot on top of me attempting to engage with others, bumping posts, and creating exclusive content to Patreon, and I don't like linking accounts despite it making my life ten times easier. There's a reason the job of social media manager exists. Managing social media AND creating content can be tough sometimes. I try to make it work. :')
Speaking of exclusive content, so far I have gifs of my work flow, HD versions of prints, and downloadable content. More to come when I get more ideas!
Finally, I have been street vending! Back in January I was worried about how I would condense a 10' x 10' space for cons, and I believe I figured it out through my practice with street vending. Street vending, by the way, has been quite successful for me, and I enjoy all the stories I here from passerbys! As far as setup, I have been using a 6' x 6' orientation, but I can condense everything on one table without it being too bothersome. One day I'll remember to take pics to show ya'll! My FanX table was a hot mess of being overcrowded, but I believe I nailed things down to a science for conventions AND outside events. I have yet to deal with rainy situations. May I not have to deal with rain.
For anybody in the Utah area, I'll be attending:
Pop Culture Convention - June 1
Ogden UnCon - June 7 to 9th
I have applied to other festivals and conventions. They are either still pending my application or applications haven't closed yet for the selection process. I'd be sure to keep my home page updated, and make announcements on my twitter!
This post is running a bit long, so I'll make a monthly goals post for the rest of this month (hopefully) and June!
It's great to be back! ^-^
Ja Ne~!
