Summertime!
Okay! Now that I'm done with class, I can dig into these projects I have in the works, so here's my summertime plans:
May: THE GOLDEN APPLE, dammit! I'm actually in the middle of the inks process and should be done this weekend (you'll see me live on the 22nd and 23rd!) and moving into colors. This book is hella late and will be available in the shop in July. 100%. That's a promise. Anyway, diving into completion this weekend, which is where I'll also spend some time finishing the cover art for this AND the follow-up book...
June: The Black Opera. I have a sketch of the cover right now. When I go live again this weekend, I'll do some pencils, inks, and a basic color wash over it so it's ready for copy the following week. This is also my birth month and I'll be taking a week off from work to do anything else. I may or may not be around during that week, despite wanting to do a birthday stream. I'm giving myself some time to think about it, up to and including that week.
July: The Heirloom. If The Golden Apple is for summer, and The Black Opera is for fall, then The Heirloom is for winter and I want it done before that actually happens, to keep me on schedule, and my workload as piled on as I can be.
August: Final summer month, probably the last of my free-time I want dedicated to two projects. The first is cleaning up a book I put off from last year, the giant thing that never went anywhere that still doesn't have a real title but I've been calling The Children of the Moon. The other project is Night's Name, which is still in a conceptual state. Night's Name may not even actually happen, especially if I can't think of a real direction for it to go in.
I realized tonight that when I'm streaming I can actually get through quite a lot of work because I'm giving myself that time to sit down and work, while spending it with you! Trying to do that without people to share that with has not worked, despite my best efforts. I'll be real: I don't really care for streaming anymore and I'm thankful I'm not reliant on it for income. It's work by itself that leaves me feeling completely drained by the end and thinking, I never want to do this again. I come up with a LOT of reasons to not, my energy levels being a compelling player in that argument to, "Just turn the camera off and go take a nap." I don't like how I look on camera, I'd rather show off what I'm doing on social media, and at least when I'm talking to myself no one else is (usually) around to hear it. However, I LOVE sharing the work experience with you, so I'm trying to stream in a way that keeps me centered, even if I'm not going to be energized. So you know, expect a channel revamp at some point.
When school starts in the fall, I'm definitely not going to be around as much, as per usual. Reducing down to one stream a week is a guaranteed thing and I'm not going to fight it anymore! Also, it's my last semester, and I've got a capstone course to complete. Further reason why I'm spending the summer doing all the books to come out this year so that in 2022, before grad school, I can go on some monthly projects again as a head-start beforehand. See? Planning!
I threw some ideas of community building and management into the wind and I don't know if I have it in me to keep them going the way I want them to, so for now they'll be on hold until I can plan that, too. I hate it when I go all-in on something and then lose it after investing nothing but that high-energy initial thrust so it just deflates. The White Room forum is what I'm talking about and until I can figure out what that will look like, I'll just take the page down until further notice. I can barely even keep it together to do proper advertising for the site, my books, or my stream with everything else going on, so I just need to think more on how a community space is going to function and live without my constant input.
Okay, so that's this week's news and announcements. Thank you so much for stopping in and reading up and I hope to see you this weekend for some kind of art adventure :D