Hello January!
SHOP
A new illustration is now available at INPRNT! The Sci-Fi Gardener! Check it out HERE.
COMICS
Here are the latest comic strips from December!
ART
With it being the new year, I’m focusing on my new goals for 2023!
Mostly, this year is actually about…well, FOCUS.
I realized going into the holiday that all the art I was “newly” focusing on and enjoying felt awfully familiar…
I kept saying things like “I’m going to work on anime-style characters and illustrations, and cartoons, and my comic strip! It’s gonna be awesome!”
It felt so specific and exciting, THIS was going to be where I put my attention and energy for 2023!
But man, it sure sounded familiar…
Maybe because in April of 2022 I wrote in the Newsletter that I wanted my work to be: “Largely inspired by cartoons, comics and manga, but basically simplified and stylized characters…”
But I hadn’t really done much of that… at least not until Peachtober when I really really started to work on cartooning.
I had over the course of the year gotten distracted by: mixed media, gouache, kawaii-style art, urban sketching, and I don’t even know what else. I explored a whole bunch of different styles of cartooning too. I guess it wasn’t time wasted, and I think the theme of last year was learning what kind of art I don’t want to make. But I guess ultimately it also reaffirmed the kind of work I want to do too!
So now it’s just a matter of focusing, and avoiding distraction, so that this time next year I will have actually spent a year working on: my comic strip and anime-style and cartoon illustrations!
Now that I know where I want to focus on my art, I’m mostly left trying to figure out what a reasonable goal is for my productivity. I have a fairly strict schedule for my comics, which is helpful. But I know last year I struggled with creating illustrations on any kind of schedule. One a month seems doable? Should I aim for two? It’ll largely depend on how well I can think of new ideas. But I don’t have any new strategies for that… So we’ll see, I guess!?
BOOKS
I picked up the hardcover Catwoman: Lonely City by Cliff Chiang in mid-December. He did Paper Girls, which I LOVE, so I thought I’d try it. It’s so good! I admit I know very very little about DC, but it didn’t matter since it was a self-contained story and I think there was only one character that showed up and was clearly like a reference that I didn’t get. Regardless, it’s gorgeous art and colors, and a great story and I highly recommend it!
Since I don’t really know anything about Batman besides some of the movies, I thought I’d try a few volumes. So far I’ve read the New 52 Batman Volume 1: The Court of Owls. It was okay. For being a supposed reboot of the franchise, I understood way less than I did with Catwoman. I’ve started Knightfall next, with the classic Bane cover… it’s fun… wild and kinda silly, but fun! Next up I plan on reading Batman Year One and a few others I’ve seen recommended online. Should be interesting!
MISC.
Part of why I wanted to try more Batman comics, besides reading Catwoman, is that I’ve been binge watching Teen Titans Go for weeks now. Like nearly non-stop. And so I wanted to learn more about the DC universe, since I admittedly know way more about Marvel (but also not a lot…).
It first started as a silly excuse to work from the couch. “If I want to draw cartoons, I should watch more cartoons…you know, as research!” It was in jest!
But now it really has become a deep dive study into cartooning, character design, and the work of Dan Hipp (the art director of the show, but separately an artist I admire a ton!). It’s ridiculous, but a blast! The show is also the ridiculous, and I just absolutely love it. I mean, I’ve been watching it for years anyway, but to marathon it has been a treat! A zany, silly, treat! And I’m weirdly also learning a ton for my own cartooning, which is frankly just a bonus!
Thanks for reading! Happy New Year!
Summer Child Designs 