February in Ragonia (2021) (Patreon)

Hello Patrons and friends and happy MARCH! I'm writing to you from my new studio in my new two bedroom apartment in Seattle, Washington, feeling cozy and excited to chat about  the Ragonia February goings-ons. Grab a cup of something tasty, pop on my Video Game Workin' playlist for some chill background tunes, and let's take a look!

First of all, as is tradition, I'd like to give a big warm welcome to our new patrons that have joined us in the last two months! Helloooo and welcome to Cassie, Albert, Victoria, Sherry, Mikey, Ash, Raylynn, Rhodora, Lizzie, Kelsey, Julia, Jemima, Joana, and Ilse! To our new friends and all my patrons, thank you so so so much for your support and interest. I really hope to continue to provide you with awesome and special content that inspires and entertains you, as you all do for me. Please feel welcome to comment on any post, share your own thoughts and introduce yourself on the Community page, send me a message, or comment back to any of the other patrons. I can attest that all of my patrons are friendly, helpful, and awesome!

BOOK ROUGH REVISIONS

(Above: First round of roughs on the top, freshly revised round on the bottom.)

Round two of the book roughs for the children's book I've been working on for the last year! The editing team had a number of revisions to the roughs that I submitted in August, mainly for the quotes that I chose to incorporate from the author's manuscript into the illustrations, and for adjusting the illustrations to work better with the text layout. I had to wait a few months for the quotes to be checked and approved, and there were a lot that needed to be changed.

To speed up my lettering process and protect my wrist (hand lettering seems to be particularly hard on it) I made a font of my illustrated handwriting using a free program called Calligraphr. uploaded it to Procreate, typed out the quotes and then adjusted and warped the text until it fit the curvy, flowy lettering style I want. Once the quotes are proofread and approved I'll use that text as a guide for the final hand-lettering. I think making your own font on Calligraphr super straight forward to use but if any of you are interested I might write a Making It article on the process!

I also had some revisions and additions to the illustrations so of course I have a few more self-reference pictures to share with you! Use yourself and take your own reference photos, thank me later. ;)

So it took about three weeks of almost full-time work to finish the revisions, but they're now sent in for feedback! I'm really excited to see the book start to come together and tighten up, the feedback from the editor and art director was hugely helpful in that.

 Next step is finals and the cover, due on (checks planner) June 1st!

HP PRINTABLES PROJECT  (the Sequel!)

(Above: Carrot Toss Game! Rough sketch on the right, final design on the left.)

Hello repeat client, you love to see it! A marketing company working for HP contacted me at the end of the month to make another set of activities for their HP Printables series, this time for Easter. (Check out the holiday activities I made for them last November.) This time I was commissioned to illustrate a Easter Bingo game, a Easter Bunny Carrot Toss game, and a Paper Caterpillar craft, with about a two week turnaround.

(Above: Paper Caterpillar craft! Rough sketch on the right, final design on the left.)

It was another straightforward and fun project, and I'm really happy with how the final pieces came out. I'll share on my Instagram when they're available for downloading. I highly recommend checking out the HP Printables page, a lot excellent illustrators have been tapped to do some super cute and free-to-print art!

(Above: Easter Bingo! Rough sketch on the right, final design on the left. I love the bugs!)

So while it was a very productive month on the client project end, I had a few other things I wanted to do with my business fall to the side for a bit. On the to-do list for the next few months are:

• Update my portfolio! Yikes it's been more than a year!
• Update the Patreon! We need an appearance and offerings update.
• Invest some real time in creating passive income streams! (PDFs of the Arty Business and Making It articles that people can buy individually, downloadable products, experiment with some Print On Demand and licensing...
• Make some new products! Preferably some to sell for a higher price than things like stickers and cards. I'm thinking possibly blankets, apparel, large art prints, art books...
• Improve my art! I've been at a place of feeling fairly stagnant with my art skills for about a year, and I want to put some real effort into pushing that further. I want to push the style and content of my art more towards what I'm envisioning. I'll share more on this in the future, if I end up actually doing anything haha.
• 2020 Year-in-Review! Moving, client work, and a general ugh-2020-feeling got in the way of my annual Year-in-Review, but I still feel like it's worth writing and posting. That will be my big post for March, so let me know if you have any specifics you're curious about from my 2020.

LIFE OUTSIDE ART

(Above: Our living room! Getting cute!)

I've been trying so hard to make our new apartment cute and comfy! In our last apartment I never really committed much work or money to decorating - not this time. We bought a couch we actually liked this time, bought our first rug that wasn't $25 at Marshall's, framed our art instead of tacking it up, really deep cleaned the nooks and crannies of this old apartment, and are just generally actually trying now.

(Above: A favorite corner in the kitchen.)

Other faves from this month:

• Paper Mario: The Origami King - Such a cute, funny game, with excellent music.
• Hades - Just as fantastic, addicting, and thirsty as everyone is saying. Also excellent music, environments, character designs.
• The Take - A Youtube channel that does great, easy to digest (binge) analysis of tropes in Film and TV.
• This Yoga with Adriene Video - 10 minute yoga for shoulders and neck. I do it every other day or so and it helps so much. Especially good for artists.
• Fleet Foxes 2020 Album, Shore - I don't normally listen to whole albums on repeat, but this one I do. Optimistic, a little jazzy folksy 2000s-style indie.

February was a thankfully lovely and productive month, with routines getting set and fulfilling work getting done. It feels very important to take time to tend to my personal work and needs after a full near full-year of feeling overwhelmed with the problems of the world. I have to remind myself of the importance of maintaining a balance between the two.

Tell me, how was your month? What's something that made you feel fulfilled and productive, no matter how big or small? Let us know in the comments. :)

Thanks for joining me in looking back on February! Keep an eye out for my next post on my 2020 Year-in-Review, and let me know if there's nay specifics you'd like to hear about. 'Til then, have a wonderful week!