July in Ragonia 2021 (Patreon)

Hellooooo Patrons and friends, and another very happy Friday to you! I hope this email finds you well and warm and safe and anxiety-free. Help yourself to a listen of my Good Mood Food playlist if you're feeling down, and let's catch up about July!

First of all I'm so happy to welcome two new Patrons to our Community for the month of July, big hellos to Naomi and Amanda! You're invited to introduce yourself and say hi to the other Patrons in the Community tab, join our Discord server for events, message me to be added to the Close Friends stories on Instagram, and comment on any posts! I hope you love it here as much as I love sharing with you all!

Yeehaw, let's go July!

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Rough draft > > > > Final art

BOOK FINALS (The Adventure Continues...)

My dudes I am still wading through the process of the final art for the client project I'm working on! One more month to go and these finals will be DONE (but then I still have hand lettering to do and the cover but we don't speak of that.) I'm on a schedule of two pages a day every week day and it's pretty intense, it leaves very little room for any other drawing or work. Especially because I'm so scared of hurting my wrist/arm/shoulder and having to extend my deadline, I'm basically drawing the book and nothing else.

Whew, what to say except drawing a book takes a hell of a lot of work and time. It's like one huuuuuge long art project. Since I'm about 3/4 done I'm getting the same anxieties I get making a single piece: You know, where it feels like it's never going to come together and it could either end up looking great or awful and you just have to push through and FINISH instead of scrapping it all. And maybe I'll get to the end and discover I did the wrong whatever with the file and have to redraw it all over again??? Or that I'm tightening things up way too much and my editors are going to be like what's this we wanted it like how it was before????

Nah dude just keep going, just finish it.

Since all I'm working on is the book my photos are 95% book reference images, including this selection of self-reference photos/ Ragonia reaction memes haha. 

My pro-est pro tip: I've said it once I'll say it again, save yourself time scrolling on Google Images and take your own reference images when you can.

NOISSUE PACKAGING

Aaaaaay my new gifted Noissue packaging arrived and it is extremely good. 

I almost turned down this opportunity because I told myself I "didn't know what I want my new branding to be yet." Pssssssh Ragon how do you know what your new branding will be unless you design it. 

Anyway I'm glad I did, I feel like it's a great update from my old branding that will hopefully be more flexible as my art possibly changes styles/theme/content.

For reference here's my first Noissue tissue paper design from spring 2019. Cute, but a little... too cute. Also I way incorrectly scaled the pattern so it came out huge! Whoops!

BALCONY FARM UPDATE!

The Farm is flourishing! I've harvested zucchini, snap peas, tons of herbs, lots of cucumbers, and a few blackberries that the birds didn't eat. My pride and joy, the two cherry tomatoes that I grew from seed and thought I killed by putting out to early, are about five feet tall and the harvest has begun! My from-seed nasturtiums are finally blooming gorgeously and we get so many honey bees and bumblebees buzzing around them.

Unfortunately we have a wily squirrel who climbs up our apartment walls like Spiderman and DIGS in any spare stretch of soil, kicking soil everywhere, pulling up seedlings and eating baby zucchini and strawberries. Cayenne powder didn't bother it at all. Putting some aluminum foil over the soil and covering the fruit with stockings seems to slow it down, but I'm open to other squirrel-deterrent strategies. Our kale was also decimated by cabbage worms and birds, but I think the kale is out of season now anyway.

Even still, I am so hooked on apartment farming, and am already planning my fall and winter Farm. It also feels really lovely because two of my apartment neighbors have also taken up apartment farming this year, and it's been so fun to look over and see how their crops are growing too. Apartment farmers unite!!

CHICORY: A Colorful Tale

FRIENDS do I have a video game recommendation for you. I am a couple of chapters into Chicory and I absolutely recommend it to every artist.

It's a top-down adventure game about making art and being an artist. The world is a big coloring book that you can color in as much or as little as you like, with the cutest art style. You use the paint from your paint brush to move through the world, solve puzzles, and just be creative.

The story is also speaking so directly to my heart that I've, no exaggeration, sobbed after every boss fight. This game is taking my art-block and gently untying the knots. This game is making me want to make art again.

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That's all for this month! Really just making content for the Patreon and working on the book. I know things will be much busier starting next month so I'm savoring the quiet for now. Ahhh.

How was your month, pal? What do you like to do in the summer? Are you working on anything exciting? Got any tips for keeping this squirrel from digging up my Farm? Or do you have any recommendations for media about art and being an artist? Looking forward to hearing from you!

I'll see you all again in August with a post on either my art from High School OR a Making It post with my top 10 procreate tools/techniques. Which would you rather see next month? Let me know in the comments please!

Thanks for being here and being you. Have a great week!