Patron Vlog - September! (Patreon)

*about productivity and art*

Hey everyone, time for another little vlog update! This month I feel like I’ve turned some kind of corner. I finally seem to have enough energy left over after a working day to get into a drawing groove. Not sure, but it’s a nice feeling seeing things actually turn from the long grind of ‘in progress’ to ‘finished’ and ready to show the world!

First big thing: the food zine! I finally got all the pieces together to assemble the first few copies that got sent out to $10 patrons. I’m not really sure how these comics are going to be received -- I mean, if you can even call them comics. I really like them, I think they came together really well and the complete package is really beautiful! I but I still struggle to explain what they even are. Maybe it doesn’t matter, and it’s up to the people experiencing them to decide what they are. 

I kind of went overboard with the production of them, which was sort of the point I guess. I have to fold and trim four different zines per set, and my corner trimmer kind of sucks so I ended up trimming all the corners by hand with scissors! Then I packed it all in a paper bag, wrapped it up with ribbon and sealed with a custom sticker. The introduction zine is printed on kraft paper which turned out REALLY cool, and the covers are custom foil that I made with my Silhouette and Foil Quill. I’m kind of obsessed with the Foil Quill and I wanted an excuse to use it… but it’s a time consuming and expensive process! All told, I calculated that these zines COST $10 each to make without any of the painstaking labour taken into consideration haha… So I’m definitely not going be able to make many of them when I open this up to normal sales anyway. 

I kind of like that, though. I’m still living with boxes and boxes of books (which I hate) so I like being able to make things that can exist for a short period of time and be gone. Limited and special. 

Shenzhen Fast on the other hand will probably be more broadly available. At least, I hope it can be! The colouring team is down to the last set of pages, so I’m really excited to start getting finished pages ready for the $1 level of Patreon!! In the video you can see the cover that took me quite awhile to ink…!

I’ve been thinking a lot about that trip lately, between the Hong Kong democracy protests and the virus making travel super difficult, it’s amazing that I was able to make the trip happen when I did. I’m really nostalgic for travel right now, I’m realizing how much I relied on it as a thing to look forward to getting me through tough moments. It also makes me remember the first time I almost went to China… right before I started University I got the opportunity to go with a group of aspiring engineers to visit the Three Gorges Dam site before it was flooded. I was all signed up, paid and ready to go… and at the last minute it was cancelled due to SARS. Of course the valley was inevitably flooded and the opportunity to see that site is gone forever. For years and years I was salty about my hopes of visiting China getting dashed that way. And now reflecting back on how my second chance at China was only narrowly foiled by another pandemic… I guess I’m feeling so endlessly grateful that I got to go. As I reflect on my life, maybe it was a bit too hectic at times, but I’m really glad when opportunities to travel came and I just went for it. 

I’ve been having a lot of dreams lately where I’ve “missed my chance” in some way or another. I don’t want life to pass me by. I want to take chances and make cool things happen, however I can. And I know I’ll be able to make that kind of thing happen again in the future. For now, like all of us, I just have to focus on getting through. 

Stay safe everyone!

[Some extra photos of the foiling process for the Food Zine intro :) ]

I didn't get a photo of the foil quill itself (it's just a heated tip that you stick into the blade attachment) but to calibrate the thing I just crammed a normal pen in there lol. At first I tried to use a metallic marker to get the effect, but I just couldn't get a consistent result. 

Some tests to make sure it's going down in the right place! As you can see I have to use a LOT of foil paper just to get a few lines. Spendy! But that's what makes it fancy :)

The intro zine interiors on kraft paper, with the finished covers ready for assembly

All done!