October in Ragonia (2022) (Patreon)

Helloooo Art Town Residents!

I hope you've enjoyed a lovely Autumn, and are doing well! 

After an unusually hot, smoky, and dry September, the soaking Seattle rainy season finally arrived mid-October. I've been really savoring my favorite season, and the clouds and rain feel especially lovely after a truly horrible smoky end of summer.

I know we're halfway through November, but I wanted to share a quick recap of what I did and drew in October for y'all! So let's get into it!

1. INKTOBER 2022

Thanks to the request of Art Town Townie Tay, I made a full Drawtober prompt list of monsters this month called Ragonia's Ghoulish Gallery, and had such a fun time making a couple new Halloweenie pieces from the prompts!

I entered the month full of an unusual amount of energy, foolishly thinking I was going to make art for all the prompts AND livestream every day while doing it? I didn't meet that goal at all, but I did make more pieces than I had the last two Octobers, and had a good time doing it.

1: Banjo Witch - 8x10", POSCA paint marker on Bristol.

2: Blood Sucker - 11x14", POSCA paint marker on Bristol.

4: Mothman - 5x7", POSCA paint marker on Bristol.

3: Puddle Monster - 8x10", POSCA on Bristol.

This and the following two pieces will be made into glittery stickers!

5: Werebeast - 8x10", POSCA on Bristol.

6: Crafted Creature - 8x10", POSCA on Bristol.

This is one of my favorite things I've ever drawn this year!

8: The Undead - 11x14", POSCA on Bristol.

Another of my favorite things I've drawn all year!! Will definitely make this into a print soon.

15: Fancy Ghost - 5x7", POSCA on watercolor paper.

19: Hidden Figure - 5x7", POSCA and colored pencil on watercolor paper.

25: Grim Reaper - Digital.

Also plan to turn this into merch, definitely a sticker!

So that was Drawtober this year! I have been feeling so much better about making art this year than I have in a long time, and I'm really proud of what I made this month. 

My engagement on social media is dramatically lower than it has been at any point in the past though, which is definitely discouraging. Instagram and Inktober seems to have changed a lot from when I first started my business in 2018, and I am angry for the awesome artists who are having a hard time have their existing audience even see their art on their timelines, let alone gain more followers. I'm also mad at the annoying amount of bots that appear in people's comments, leaving spam in every Inktober post! Ugh!

On a more positive note, I wanted to shout out two Residents who turned ALL (or many!) of my prompts this year into their own awesome illustrated characters: Townie Victoria and Townie Tay! 

Please check out their Instas and give them a cheer in the comments!

Did you do Drawtober this year? How was it for you? What did you think?

2. HORROR GAMES + MOVIES

It would be an incomplete review of October if I didn't share the thing I was absolutely obsessed with: playing new-to-me horror games and watching new-to-me horror movies.

I've always liked Halloween, and in my adulthood I've always been into generally spooky things. I've seen some horror movies but I've generally been too scared to try too many.

But for the past few years, I've found myself yearning for the thrill of some genuinely scary media. I've also been longing to go to a good scary haunted experience, like the theme park haunts I used to go to in High School. I want to go to Universal Horror Nights at Universal in California SO BAD, but I haven't been able to justify going. So this year I jumped completely into the waters of horror, and I had the best time.

I watched, for the first time:

• The Omen (1976)
• Black Sunday
• Let the Right One In
• Nosferatu
• Crimson Peak
• Scream
• I Know What You Did Last Summer
• A Quiet Place II
• The Exorcist
• And my new favorite, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1972)!

I rewatched:

• Night of the Living Dead
• A Nightmare on Elm Street
• The Shining
• Halloween
• The Descent
• Aaaand Poltergeist!

And I played on my PC:

• Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
• Resident Evil 8: Village
• 2/3 of Alien: Isolation
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• and 1/2 of Amnesia: The Dark Descent

By far my favorite media I've discovered this year has been the Resident Evil games. I loved the variety of spooky characters and locations, the variety of boss battles, the spooky situations you play through, and the crazy overarching story line. 

If anyone's a RE fan... I slightly liked RE 7 more than 8 for it's super spooky atmosphere. The Marguerite battle, where she turned into a weird spider creature and crawled all over the abandoned house, was my favorite part of 7. I loved the characters in RE8, and how different all the locations were. The Doll House and the scary baby in the basement was the scariest game experience I've had yet. If anyone wants to talk RE or horror games more, please come chat with me on the livestreams!!

And drop any of your horror recommendations in the comments!

3. HALLOWEEN ACTIVITIES

I have to share a little bit about what we did on my favorite holiday! I had a bigger party last year, but this year I just wanted to have a couple friends over for a chill time. Kaila, Ian, Justin, and Francesca joined us to paint/carve some pumpkins, eat some curry, and watch a spooky movie.

Kaila came dressed up as my cat, Pumpkin!!! She handmade a little tail and pair of ears, wore a lil' bandana like Pumpkin does, and painted her face to match Pkin's markings. So so so cute!!

Ian came dressed as a fisherman, with fake tattoos drawn on his arms, face, and hands. Zach and I dressed up as werewolves, one of my latest favorite monsters. Justin and Francesca joined dressed as our comfy friends. :)

Residents who come to my livestreams know we tease Kaila for being particularly prone to being scared, so I want everyone to know she was brave and watched a scary movie with us! We watched The Shining, for Ian and Kaila's first time and me and Zach's fourth or fifth time. She wasn't toooo scared, guys, she handled it real well!

That's all for this newsletter, Residents!

How was your October? Did you do anything that you're really proud of? Do you have anything planned coming up in November? Let us know in the comments!

Until next time, y'all!