April 2022 Newsletter

SHOP UPDATE

I’ve added two new illustrations to INPRNT!

I’ve also created a sticker in Society6 of my green monkey drawing. And you’re welcome that I didn’t turn it into a wallpaper pattern… (although I kinda love it! 🤣)

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ART

A lot of this last month was spent trying to figure out my goals for my art moving forward. I tend to check in every few months and make sure my work reflects my goals, and that my goals reflect my interests right… Because there are a lot of different ways to be creative and they can be very shiny and new and well, distracting!

But I’m still focusing a lot on comics, and cartoons, and concept art. Which for the most part is what I keep coming back to again and again, more or less… So that’s good!

I know last month I had talked about worldbuilding and storytelling with my latest original character. But I’m beginning to realize that I don’t really love storytelling? At least not entirely. I really like narrative artwork, where it is telling a story moment. And character-driven illustration. But I’m just not too worried about the details of a full story. Maybe short stories would be an option down the road, but for now I’m okay with shelving the idea of a larger project and focusing on including more narrative and story beats within standalone illustrations, and improving my work in character design. Largely inspired by cartoons, comics, and manga, but basically simplified and stylized characters, right? (I think I talk about that A LOT!)

I’m also learning a bit about concept art, which has been fascinating as well. From what I can tell, concept art kind of plays with storytelling, being the visual foundation for worldbuilding in animation, movies, and video games. (“The Art of” books for movies usually include a lot of the concept art that would eventually become backgrounds, or set designs, or whatever…). So for illustration, I’m thinking it is going to be a great learning resource for pushing the worldbuilding in my art without getting overwhelmed with formal worldbuilding and backstory that seems to be a bit of a creative roadblock for me lately.

And I guess this kind of focus and learning shows in my newest work, right? I’ve got one illustration with a fun, cartoony character in a vague library setting. And then I’ve got a comic-inspired illustration with a landscape and a little bit of scifi elements. I’m very proud of my helmet design, by the way. I probably spent too much time on it to just cover it all with moss, but it was important!

So yeah, not really a surprise — working on cartoony and stylized character design, and taking inspiration from the field of concept art to add some narrative and worldbuilding to my illustration compositions. Exciting stuff!

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BOOKS

I’ve been reading from the Sketching from the Imagination series, by 3dtotal Publishing. First I finished (AND LOVED) the Anime and Manga book, and am now working my way through their Storytelling book. It’s been so inspiring to see into the process and sketches of so many different, incredible artists. Highly recommend if you are into art books!

I’ve also been reading, for fun, Hal Higdon’s Run Fast, if you wanted to know. Because I’m a fitness nerd. And a very very slow runner… But I’m working on it!

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THE REST

What else? I don’t know… I’m back to playing The Division II again. Again. It’s easily got to be one of my favorite games ever. I just don’t get bored with it. And they just announced new updates, so yay!

Also, baseball season might be starting up soon? I don’t follow it too closely at all, but it’s just sounded fun lately so I’ve had a few preseason games on. So that might be fun to watch more of this year. It’s not quite time to watch The Field of Dreams (which I decided last year is my official kick off for summer)…but soooon…I’m ready!!

Just have to get through POLLEN SEASON first. What the heck?! That was so not a thing in the midwest! EEK!

(Also, should I be making sports-themed art?? I feel like maybe…?)

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Thanks for reading!