State of Saunter: June 2nd-June 8th (Patreon)

Hey all!
It's time for the first weekly "State of Saunter!" (the first one was the first "monthly one")

Boy, looking back on this week, its actually kind of hard to do a wrap-up by trying to remember and recount everything I did in a few hours. I have a bad enough memory during the day, trying to remember what needs doing, or posting where, so while a weekly wrap-up is a good idea, I'm gonna need to start itemizing and journaling my days so I can just go back to those notes when making these recaps. For now, lemme just post the public art and see if any thoughts come to mind.

AbbyMondays (BoobyTrapped):

This was an idea I'd discussed with Furrybound on Discord and streams: a fantasy version of his Furrybound gals palling around with Abby. What's interesting is creating a fantasy version of ChinchAbby to elope with Scarlett; FB suggested using the regular version, but I want to keep things consistent between when and why I use the different versions of Abby, hence fantasy ChinchAbby. Its also why AbbyDragon wears ChinchAbby's sleeveless sweater/skirt combo, rather than normal Abby's clothwrap; it doesn't make sense in that particular setting.

TuesdayCubes (Mayoral Bust)

This was actually an update of a drawing I'd done previously, but hadn't posted publicly. I had scrambled to create another drawing for Tuesday, only discover this file sitting in my Deviantart Sta.sh folder.  I figured it was better to prime the new sketch by posting the old one, and create a buffer in the process! In redoing it, I found myself correcting a bunch of flaws with the original drawing, which is interesting because, I'm not much more skilled than I was then.  In correcting it, I also found it simple to create a nude alternate, because cel-shading is a lot easier to edit than painter-shading. Work Smart, not (just) hard!

WiP Wednesday (Bountiful Bounty!)

Another "from the archives" redo, back from the initial run of Abbycapers before I started posting publicly. This was more finished than my other ideas, I haven't drawn a lot of Gale recently, and I'd always meant to finish it, so here we are. The thing with the comics, is that, due to the monochrome and pencil illustration feel, they don't take as long as my other works, which allows me to create buffers of them faster. I might switch to inking later, if I get fast enough at that that becomes viable. For now, the plan is to build a buffer that I'm not worrying about a few days before posting. Not just AbbyMondays, but the rest of the week as well.

Also, no animation WiPs because I have a backlog of those that also need finishing before I start anything new.

Thursday Sequences (need a better name)- Khloe's Bondage Poker Problem:

This was another "from the archives" post, though, more like the Pauline doodle, I'd finished it, but hadn't posted it, due to MerMay, and forgot I'd done it when scrambling to make another cube sequence. This one was easier than my normal cubes, partially because Khloe dictated a story template to follow, and the poses are relative static, which makes them easy to edit.  The hard part was Khloe's maid uniform, because I kept forgetting to open the reference in Photoshop. I like how this turned out, and I need to figure out the formula, because I need a story/thematic template for cubes so they don't expand in scope beyond what I can reasonably do for them in a week. I also need to start buffering them as well.

Friday Flippers (Mario Tennis Aces Game Over)!

Kept you waiting, huh?

If you've been following me on DA, this one was a long time coming. I'd finished the roughs a while ago back in either March or April but put off finishing it for... reasons I can't remember. I knew when MerMay was over, though, this was the thing I had to finish first. Surprisingly, the hard part (once the puppet rig was optimized) wasn't Pauline, but the crowd, since you don't want them to feel robotic, but also don't want to spend too much time individualizing them.

The thing I really want to talk about is the reception. Since yesterday, this is on track to be the most popular thing I've ever done as SaunterWing. I think this is due to two major factors I tend to shy away from:

• It's fanart of a mainstream character
• It's in Full color

Fan Art (Mainstream)

I tend to shy away from the former because  I don't like the artistic restrictions of such (especially when, with Mario Characters ESPECIALLY, the uniqueness comes explicitly from the style, and thus the style must be emulated). Also, when doing fanart, I like to create works that could work as a narrative offshoots of the "canon." If its a brunette working as a hooker in Miami, Florida, its not really "Mayor Pauline of New Donk City" is it? (note: this isn't to disparage sex work) This makes coming up with newer means of distressing damsels harder, even for something like Mario Bros (there's only so many times you can draw Peach/Daisy/Rosalina looking worried in their underwear with an OTN/OTM cloth gag in a castle dungeon before it starts to feel same-y). Its worse for Pauline and Rosalina, who don't have many appearances to their name, and worse for Pauline since her characterization is limited to New Donk City.

That said, it's do-able. The peril Odyssey and this gif exist for a reason, and I'll just have to keep working on it until I get it.

Full Color: 

I tend to shy away from fully coloring my work (even vector) because coloring is very hard and very intensive, even when using cel-shades. This gets even more complicated when backgrounds are involved, and worse when you consider actual color theory. At this point in my life, I'm mostly about optimizing my workflow so I can get a larger output of work published, mostly as a response to most of the posts I see from other artists who are paralyzed about how intensive their workflow is, that they can barely get any work finished.

The flipside to this is ...well, what you see in the gif, and the response. 

But its not something I can apply to everything. I wouldn't be able to get as much work done as you're seeing, and that's not worth it to me right now. On the other hand, quantity over quality is going to eventually hit a wall, but let's punt that down for later, huh?

Wrap-up:

Well, that was this week in SaunterWing! I'm going to try and keep better notes across the week so this isn't just a recap of the week. There was too much to talk about (seriously, every one of these could have their own blog post/article) and not enough not enough space. Plus I didn't really talk about intended goals for the upcoming week as well.

Speaking of, Things I want to do:

• I want to buffer my work more (i.e. create an archive of work that is ready to publish, rather than working to publish immediately). The capacity is there, but I'm only human, and my output is crazy for normal people. I need to create a production schedule that's consistent, manageable, and balances with my SFW content, where "production" outpaces "publication" to create the buffer. Not sure how to start/work on this, but we'll see as time goes on.
• Create a publication schedule for Patreon. Right now, I'm publishing early access as I'm making them, but there needs to be an order for these things, so I can keep track of what I'm making and publishing where. This is to avoid the problem this week of accidentally buffering work because I forgot I had finished work I simply hadn't scheduled for publication. I think the public buffer takes priority, though. Once that's properly established, we can create a Patreon buffer.
• Figure out incentives for patronage. Something I've started doing with my animation rigs is create "nude" alternates, but I feel like that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of using alternates for Patreon incentives. Not only that, but while the Pauline doodles did well, the posts promoting the nude alternatives did not. While some of that can be chalked up the "algorithm," part of that is my misreading the audience. I need to get better at that.
• Better record/analyse/archive the week for these "state of" posts.  Its better for my mental health to keep an archive of what gets done, and my feelings on the matter when they happen, rather than trying to remember a few days after the fact
• Better advertise my patreon. While I hadn't planned to start it as early as I have, its here and I need to get eyes on it and signing up, which means I need to do a better job of advertising it. Its not enough for a thing to exist. People need to know it exists and want whatever value it provides (offering Flash files is useless to anyone who doesn't own Flash/Animate), and I need to get better at that.
• Be more patient. Sometimes, even I have down days where I get jealous of other people's success. I have to remember that I'm relatively new (Saunterwing isn't even a year old yet), and doing things differently, and that's going to have different results. It sucks, and it might not pay off, but I need to be patient for my own sanity, or risk burning out entirely and loudly.

I think that's at least half of everything for now. What do you guys think of how things are going? Is there anything you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments, and I'll seeya in a week!