The equinox has passed, and Fall is officially in the air, even though in Texas you can’t really tell just by looking out the window. It’s mostly just shorter days, and am I getting blasted by furnace-air as I open my car door? Y/N, and if No you know the season has changed at long last. It was strange for the summer to sort of just disappear with everything going on, but to be quite honest, I’m not always the type to get all that much done outside during the scorching months anyway. Bring on the autumn leaves and cooler weather.
This is sort of a round-up post, like a newsletter but in blog post form. It’s nice to have a space to talk about plans, projects, updates, all the little things that don’t make for a full post by themselves. One of the plans in the works is actually a proper newsletter for round-ups like this, perhaps even a version that could be printed and mailed out. I’ve started plotting layouts, brainstorming ideas for what else could be put in the envelope each month… maybe a postcard and a simple paper sticker. Honestly the more I think about it, the more fun it sounds! A lot of artists offer this sort of thing via Patreon, but I’d like to offer up-front subscriptions or one-off purchases of ‘back-issues’ though the storefront on my own site. Here’s hoping it can be up and running by the end of the year.
As for The Siannadh, I’ve stalled a bit on writing it; I managed to go through and transcribe all the dialogue from the comic scripts, but I’m banging my head against a wall with the very first chapter. I’m glad that the years of work mean I have a solid plot and character arcs already worked out, but changing from art and speech balloons (and being able to do montages) over to full-blown prose when I’ve never actually written all that much in the first place is… a learning process to put it mildly. So I’ve let more mundane tasks take over for a month or two. But I’d love to make a ‘re-introduction’ post to the whole project soon, because a ton of the info I shared previously has disappeared into the mists of time on Instagram! That story definitely needs to be my major priority and at the forefront of everything again, so it’d be nice to dig up some of that old content and lore (because I’m needing it to write anyway) and share it on here as well.
It’s also driving me batty that I still haven’t quite finished the Siannadh art compendium that I was working on, to print as a reference for myself. I burned out big-time on all the sorting and checking, but it’d be so nice to finally have it done and in my hands.
Let’s see what else… I’ve been sketching a little again, mostly just little doodles for my own sake because it’s been a while and I didn’t want to lose the knack completely, but one of my friends requested some corgi stickers to go along with one made out of a commission I painted last year, and they’ve been a total blast to sketch. When I get them colored and printable I may put a few of the nicest ones up for ordering.
My fave sketch out of the bunch though, has been this Wizard Corgi! A Wizorgi. He’s gonna be so dang cute when he’s finished that I may have to make one for myself and stick it on my car. Or my husband’s truck. See how long it takes for him to notice ?
He was taking on a bit of a Norman Rockwell vibe (I’ve started reading his autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator, and I love it so far!) so I put the circle in the background as a test, similar to what Rockwell would put behind a lot of his Saturday Evening Post illustrations. It may get taken out again for stickers though. We shall see.
There really is a ton I could say is in the works or on the to-do pile, but it’s better to just keep my head down and do it. I’m constantly biting off way more than I can chew when it comes to projects and how many of them can be kept running at once. But this year has handed out the lion’s share of downtime, and if nothing else it’s at least given my priorities and perspectives on life a chance to do a hard reset. And the cooler, friskier weather is definitely bringing an urge to be more creative with it ??
Oh! and at the request of a friend, I have just set up a way for people to sign up to receive email notifications if I make a new post here. If you want to get those, head over to the “News” page and subscribe!
Anyway, cheers and happy creating! – R