July Report (Patreon)

Hello friends and Happy August to you all! 

I'm always a little conflicted when it comes to reports, either I feel really good about them or really bad about them. 😅 This one is no exception, over the past month I got away from my desk for a very brief vacation trip, got sucked back into some freelance and recovered enough to make progress on the cover art only to get sucked back in again.

I'm really displeased by what I accomplished this month but at the same time I feel way more recharged and relaxed than I have in forever and it's shocking. I try to spare you the nitty gritty of my personal life because it's only slightly relevant to what's happening here but I just want to very clearly say thank you for your incredible patience! ♥ 

I feel like it's the sort of thing that I've said countless times but this month is a little unique in that I just flat out told a lot of my clients no in an effort to make more time for this work that I enjoy way more. I have really high and I think also reasonable hopes for making fun new things this month.

Let's get on with this report though:

We started this month off with a bunch of sketches for cover art for Fitting for a Lady:

We kinda settled on this Coles Phillips homage using some floral patterns and flat white spaces.

Couldn't help getting absorbed in this idea of drawing character sheets for a little bit. I went to a rodeo this past month and was thinking of cowgirls and witches and this was a bi-product.

While traveling and getting sidetracked with other work stuff I managed a little hot weather pinup.

I think the heat just led to a lot of daydreaming and soul searching in general, I kinda got swept up in sketches of Libby and Holly for a while when I was feeling stuck on the cover art.

I feel like I'm still trying to really nail down the quality I want in these characters, usually I'm averse to playing with concept art so much because I get stuck there but I'm not quite satisfied with who Holly is just yet in my mind.

I had a brief moment where I thought I had made good progress on the cover art and then it just frustrated and eluded me and I left it alone for a while.

I'm about to post a bunch more sketches that have been unsyncronized on my ipad when I'm done with writing all this so if some of this is unfamiliar, you'll see them soon enough ;)

Maybe drawing Holly and Libby is good therapy or something because eventually things got sorted out, I repainted Prudence in a way I'm a little bit more pleased with and made some other little changes.

In conclusion, this month was a little chaotic but good I think. Necessary at least. I hope you've been having a less tumultuous summer than I have 😅 but also I appreciate the changes.

August for me is going to be a month of working with my good creative habits, cutting down on my tedious work and spending more of my time enjoying drawing for all of you ♥ I think you'll enjoy the result and I KNOW I will. 

♥ Winton