Last Month of Summer~!
August is here, and what's a better way to celebrate than to reflect on July and bring in some new goals to the table!? July was a good month! No, I didn’t complete everything, but it was a productive month!
So what happened? Where am I with everything?
“The Dark Rose” which was previously dubbed the Magic Teaser Trailer is most likely the finalized name of the series! It might end up as a book most likely, but there is a chance it may be a comic or even transformed into an animation series! I’d like to maybe find a team to work on it or else it’ll be a few 30 seconds to one-minute clips. That’s a distant future project. Right now I am focusing on the trailer which needs 10 more frames storyboarded. With about less than 3 hours needed to complete, I’m excited to put it all together in an animatic!
Next is reviewing how well I did in maintaining a month’s buffer in Princess Flux: Journeys of the Abstract Princess. I was close to losing it due to me spending WAY too much time on one page, but I’ve quickly finished a couple pages, so the buffer is still there! I bought a new sketchbook (it was buy one get one free at Michaels) which has become my dedicated sketchbook for drafting and sketching out comic pages. I’m still going to use my generic sketchbook to draw characters. Although after thinking about it, I may keep everything in one sketchbook. At least the new character designs will be placed in there, so I can easily reference it and not have to sort through my entire notebook.
I did recently come across a toyhouse code (thank you for kindness on the Internet!), so I can store my character information there. We’ll see!
I was also hit with a wave of inspiration regarding the story! The main plot of each book in the trilogy has been established, and I’m excited! Last night I finished marking out the plot points from chapter two to chapter six or seven. New characters will be introduced; a couple characters will die; character growth is imminent; more of Tayavon will be revealed; and I’m excited to share the story with you!! Now I have to outline the scenes, write the scenes, edit, and eventually covert them into comic form! I’m hyped guys! I really am!
Once I get those chapters out, Patreon subscribers will have early access to them~! So far tourist tier Patreons are able to see new pages 3 days earlier than the public, a behind-the-scenes look of my comics, and full-sized images that I post to the public! Check out my Patreon for other tiers and rewards!
Finally, I have not planned out the first half of the Lil Chicks and Ann children’s book. I mocked up two (2) out of the eleven (11) backgrounds. Since mocking up the backgrounds wasn’t difficult, I may do them casually throughout the month—perhaps two (2) per week. I don’t get much practice with backgrounds anyway, so it’ll be a fun exercise!
Phew. That was a lot. This month I am going to have a completely different set of goals! Well almost.
There will be continued progress on “The Dark Rose.”
In addition to me finishing up the last several storyboard panels, I’m going to record some rudimentary - audio and slap together an animatic. Hopefully that would be done within the next couple weeks!
Concurrently or afterwards, I’ll be making character sheets for the characters. That means digital turn arounds, poses, outfits, facial expressions, etc. I’ve started on Elliot to become accustomed to drawing him, but now I have to make something official to get ready for the actual animation~!
Reboot my stream!
I currently have a very sad and incomplete end card that I want to update as I gain momentum as a streamer! I decided that I would revisit all three of my title cards (starting, break / brb, and ending). Now that I have so many original characters, I want to include more of them!
If I can’t squeeze them into the title cards, I’d like to make the rest into character emotes! Emotes are a hot item on Twitch, so if I can tap into the market, that would be fantastic! Plus I can use some emotes for my discord chat.
I’d like to make at least 12 emotes! (wave, cry, surprise, sick, money, glasses, clap, cheer, boo, snicker, laugh, dead)
And if they don’t fit in the emotes or title cards—I don’t believe I have that many characters—they’d be placed in banners to replace the pirate boats I’ve littered all over the place. There will be so much OC love this month.
The next goal I named “Making Bank” because that’s what I aim to do!! I’d love to acquire more funds to do things. I have goals on my Patreon and my ko-fi, but there are other things I want to invest in as well! I would love to support my other fellow artists, acquire membership on Picarto and maybe deviantart, and perhaps pay artists to help me on my comic or even “The Dark Prince!” I’d also like to permanently link my domain name, so people don’t have to type https://www.opugawts.wixsite.com/opugawts and they can just type https://www.operationugawts.com and boom they’re here!
So this month I’m going to:
Create a commission sheet that is easy to read
Create at least four (4) adoptables
Tap into the gaming market by drawing:
my brother’s and my Grand Theft Auto characters
my Elder Scrolls characters (2)
a dungeons and dragons character
my Mabinogi character
my brother’s Destiny character – maybe?
I have joined so many discord channels in hopes to spread my name LOL!
The last goal is to grow my base. Hopefully by doing drawings inspired by games I would already do that, but just in case, I want to do more community engagement! I would start by participating in at least:
(2) art collabs
(3) art trades
(4) art challenges.
There are already two challenges I am planning on doing. Both are related to Osomatsu-san. Sorry to those who are tired of seeing the fan art. xD; I’m sure there is an August drawing challenge that’ll I’ll eventually stumble over. Then I need one more. Ta-da 3/9ths the way to completing that goal already. I have also talked to someone in possibly doing an animation collab, so I can check that off too.
And you were possibly worried I may be tackling too much…Or not. xD; I will still be working on Princess Flux: Journeys of the Abstract Princess. Doing the pages is now habit, and I don’t have to strive to make it a targeted goal to complete them anymore. ^-^
I’m going to submit an art highlight post on my patreon for everybody to view this weekend, so keep a look out for that! Entries to that post will be added to the website along with other pictures I’d like to add! Check out my Instagram for my latest works in progress! I hope to see you all next week~!
Ja ne!
