🌱 May report

A bit of a messy month for me to be quite honest, but still working steadily. And to start, I said this last goal was more for June, so I’ll be ignoring it here.

✔︎ Commission progress
✲ Cluaran dev
◻︎ Website updates

✔︎ Commission progress (1/5)

The focus last month ended up being an attempt to bring each outstanding commission to their respective preliminary sketch stage. I can safely say I did manage to do that.

Since sketching is the part that does take me the longest to deal with, that means I’m in a fairly decent position to start knocking these out. I won’t promise I can finish all of them this month, but I will continue to try my best.

However, one of these commissions was a sketch page, so that means I am able to count one finished! I do really enjoy doing these sort of monochrome doodles, so they may be the only style I have open for a while outside of any YCH offers.

I also really ought to focus my personal art to this level of finish for the time being… I hope folks can forgive my general lack of colour while I rekindle my love for drawing.

Lack of colour certainly won’t be the case for these remaining commissions though!
I did open for a single pride bust at the end of May and will be aiming to finish that one with priority this month. Hoping to have fun with the colouring there. 🌈

✲ Cluaran dev

I did cheat a little with this goal, as I’d already gotten some ideas down before I managed to write last month’s report, but I’d wanted to work at it more throughout the month and never did, so I count it a partial success.
After some waffling about, I can at least say Cluaran has settled into being a bat!

His overall silhouette, shapes, physique, et cetera are still things I want to play with, but I’m fairly intent on his tripoint nose, thick eyebrows, and pierced ears haha. As for his palette, I may try to use purple somehow, but otherwise it’s up in the air.

But again, really terribly excited to be making progress with him!

Goals for June:

◻︎ Commission progress (0/4)
◻︎ Website updates
◻︎ Dante+Thalia latex bench

There’s honestly more art on my plate this month than I’m confident I can finish, but I do seem to be feeling a little better, so who knows.

If I don’t manage to finish Dante and Thalia’s piece by the deadline I set for it (June 15th), I’ll go ahead and post the sketch at the $10 tier.

Regardless, hey, thanks for reading.

🌧️ April report

The past month was a necessary break, as I put it. I cut down on expectations and am feeling a bit calmer. Finances continue to be a source of anxiety.

✔︎ Commission progress
✲ Continued project development

I recently grabbed Procreate to sketch on the iPad, as the app I’d been using, MediBang Paint, finally upped its ad frequency to a point I find too irritable to deal with. What particularly frustrates me is I still vastly prefer MediBang’s interface, functionally unlimited layers, and even certain tools to Procreate’s, and I’d happily pay if it weren’t a subscription.

However, they do have an alternate Pro app that does bridge a lot of my concerns, so I may yet have a solution for my iPad sketching. Truthfully, all I want is a decent pen brush, easily manageable layers, responsive transform tools, and a quick flip preview – all things MediBang has over Procreate. The ability to completely customize my canvas UI is a surprising bonus.

If I do use find a use for Procreate, I imagine it’ll be for a different part of my workflow.

✲ Continued project development

Aside from general mental health setbacks, I honestly didn’t do much wrt personal projects because I got swept up in hockey playoff season. Folks on Bluesky may have seen me occasionally yelling about it (en français). The PWHL Walter Cup and NHL Stanley Cup will continue into June, and to be quite honest they have been a Fantastic means to enforce taking a break from art.

I also find watching sports an excellent motivator for keeping up with some very basic workout exercises. If only I could figure out a way to get myself out of bed for regular early morning walks…

Anyway, I did manage to tidy up some project notes in the first half of the month, plus a tiny bit of worldbuilding. Nothing I’d consider particularly noteworthy. I’m trying to organize themes and figure out basic outlines, but the creative well is quite dry. I find this harder to replenish when I’m worrying over finances.

✔︎ Commission progress

While I continue to work at a snail’s pace, I am still working. Many thanks to my commissioners for their patience. 🙇

For April comms, I ended up focusing on dragons, which has been a shit ton of fun. It’s also been quite a challenge! I keep wondering if I should add a surcharge for characters with wings, because they do often up the complexity of a piece, but I always forget to.

In any case, I do think I’ll adjust commissions so that I send the invoice only after approved thumbs rather than completely upfront. I’ll also try to set up YCH comms with the sketches that go unused here, because I rather like them!

I’m thinking you’ll be able to fill both slots with characters of your choice, or you can keep my boy Aodhán for the usual 10% discount. 🙂 Intended for dragons, gryphons, or characters with a similar quad build. I’ll figure out the details and aim to get them up over the summer.

🌼 Goals for May:

◻︎ Commission progress
◻︎ Cluaran dev
◻︎ Website updates

Truthfully, that last point is a goal for June, but it would be nice to get done early if I want something else to do. Otherwise, I’m still trying to keep my foot off the gas to try and mitigate burnout.

Cluaran though? What’s that? He’s a bard from the early beginnings of Aster’s canon who’s gone through a number of changes. He also has close ties with Coinneach! I’m excited to finally be settling in with his design, because he’s a delight and a half to write.

Thank you for reading!