Update and Stuff

Figured it was about time for an update.  Not a lot has changed since my last update, BUT I'm anticipating a number of changes soon, so it would be a good idea to keep y'all in the loop.  I'll try to be as impersonal as I can (since I don't like to clog your inboxes with personal information unless it affects my art and my output of it) and keep to the most important bits.

Okay.  First of all, Raffle Commissions are (finally) coming to an end. It's been a long and quite arduous time since those desperate months in 2011, but I'm down to the last six on the list (from the original 230+) and if this week turns out too busy to get them all done, then they'll definitely get done next week.  It has been a long road to completion on this project, and even if I can't say it individually to each person, I'd like to say "THANK YOU!!!" here to everyone who bought a commission, for their business and especially their patience.  To recap- in 2011 I temporarily lost my job as a comic artist for Legends of Wind while in college, which meant if I couldn't pay rent in installments, I had to pay it all upfront or move out.  $800 is no small sum for a young illustrator still in classes.  Desperate, I sold $3 sketch commissions ($3/character) and met the $800 goal in a month due to commissioners and some very generous people who gave donations without asking for anything in return.  I did later have to leave school due to health reasons of the mental and emotional kind.  I would very much like to go back to school, but I need to be in a more financially secure position and decide exactly what I want to get my degree in.  I absolutely love BYUI and would love to go back there, but what I'm most interested in learning isn't exactly offered on campus.  Anyway, that was slightly off topic, but all in all, almost three years later it's been a long journey and while it was very hard, I'm glad I was able to walk it and learn as much as I did about myself and my art.  It was a very unique experience and while I probably won't ever repeat it ever again, I'm a better person for having gone through it.

Speaking of Commissions, I'm still debating opening them.  I think I will, but I will need much more control and... selectiveness? about who and what and how many.  You'd think that would be more obvious, but I really had no clue at all when I first opened commissions back in... whenever I started commissions, and it's all been trial and error until now.  They probably won't open up again for about a month, I wanna say.  So if you want to buy a commission from me, save your pennies and wait for the announcement.  I have to make a lot of decisions about breath and depth of the type of work I'm going to offer and all that.  I mean...  I can do a lot, but can and should are two very different beasts.  Anyway, I'll make a small announcement or update when it starts getting close to the official announcement.

I know a few people are excited for the Monster Adopt project I've been tossing around and talking about embarking on with Icymasamune .  Yes, it will happen for certain.  My only hesitation is that I don't know if anyone will actually want to buy my stuff.  But that's a self-confidence thing.  Anywho.  It will definitely happen.  What I'd REALLY like to do is plan to have everything compiled for a monster anthology book, and when most of the content is created, start a kickstarter or something to have it printed and include different tidbits of information about the monsters the adopts are based on and all that cool stuff.  Definitely an entire section dedicated to narseataurs/maids/things(?).  So I want to create a layout for the book, and start on types.  Start selling.  And even if I don't sell any of the designs, they won't be just floating around in space, they'll be for a project I can work on and complete now.  It'll be fun.  At least I hope so.

On the subject of projects, I'm also going to be long-term involved in a family genealogy project.  It's going to be so freakin' sweet, you don't even know.

Let's see... what else?  I've been work with MegSyv on refining a brand for my work, so hopefully that'll be preeeeetty much finished soonish.  I've been putting off putting up any "finished" work or personal artwork until this is done, partly because I just really feel like this is something I should be doing now, and the other part is that with the influx of social media (and really everywhere on the internet) the ability to repost images without sources or credit, it was apparent to me that I needed to be more vigilant about putting my information on my work without detracting from the artwork.  I always knew I'd have to do this eventually, but figured it wouldn't happen to me because I don't really do fanart and people in general don't really care about my work (lolz).  It wasn't until someone told me that they saw my work posted on a 4chan forum without credit and was told one of my pieces was featured on some tumblr blog (which is how a new watcher found me) that I realized that more likely than not if people were passing my artwork around, I'd probably be the last to hear about it just because that's the kind of person I am.  So it's more important and pertinent to me that I get on that sooner rather than later.

Speaking of Meg, if you're not reading Daughter of the Lilies: dotl.smackjeeves.com/ you should!  We just finished up Chapter 2, and even if we're waiting till Chapter 3 is finished before it gets posted online in order to build a buffer, there will still be content posted for your viewing pleasure.  And I'm not just saying this because I color the comic.  The characters are fun and expressive, the panels are nicely laid out and dialogue is easy to follow, Meg is a very nice person, and DotL is as far as I've seen among quite a few webcomics, one of the few that takes a hiatus to create pages and still uploads content for the readership.  And I made the personal goal to do a character illustration for each chapter we finish for as long as I'm on the project (the one for Ch 2 will go up in a bit, actually).  So even if you decide not to read the webcomic, you'll be seeing occasional fanart from me.  And lots of shameless plugs and encouragement to go read the comic.

And since we're talking about webcomics, I had the idea to do a short project of webcomic tributes to some of the webcomics I read in the form of character illustrations/vignettes, and I'm thinking maybe one a week/one every two weeks, so we'll see.

Still working on the painting tutorial videos.  I'm still fairly miffed that my video editing software completely killed the quality of the video.  Again, if anyone knows a good converter for FLV to... really anything else, that would be awesome.  I really hate having to filter it through Youtube.

I'm also aiming to update/refine my portfolio.  It's sorely lacking in some aspects, so I'll need to work on the weak areas.  To start I'm actually going to need to clean up my work area.  I'd like to do more traditional work and transfer it to digital.  It's almost comical the way working with a pen/pencil/charcoal and paper is a luxury for me and digital is the default right now, because I don't have the space for it.  In any case, I want to fill out my portfolio with the pieces I'm lacking by tackling one of my personal projects.  I'm not sure which I'm going to eventually go with, probably Hawthorne's List just because the setting itself is more appealing to me.  Plus monsters and gunslingers and smokin' hot bounty hunters and adorable girls that turn into giant wolves (okay, just ONE adorable girl that turns into a giant wolf.  Thus far) what more could a girl want!?

Anyway... I THINK that's everything?  At least everything that's pertinent.  If anything changes, I'll let you know.

That is all.
~Yoko