Helllooo~~

This is my first newsletter after quitting the market scene, which feels somehow even more surreal to write than the one where I quit. Or the ones where I was struggling to admit I was allowed to quit. These things get more and more personal the more divorced they are from the business hustle, and that will never not feel surreal to me.

What have I been up to? Lots of reading, mostly, but some creative work.

I got a big set of Copic markers, something I've been wanting for over a decade and could never quite justify. I figured I'd earned them after all this. And, oh my, they are such a joy to work with. I've only made a couple real pieces with them so far but I'm absolutely in love.

This is an old beloved OC of mine, Amber, a multiverse cartographer and explorer. I'm... mostly happy with how the anatomy and perspective came out here. and I'm extremely happy with how the colors came out. I think the marker works really well with the colored pencil I've been using for sketches- it gives everything a soft dreamy quality. In this piece I was laying down lots of overlapping layers of color, building up shadows the way I do with digital art.

And in this one I tried to lay down colors in fewer layers, tried to get the color I actually wanted for each chunk straight out of the marker. I think it gave things a crisper look, a bit less dreamy. The face came out fantastic in my own humble opinion and the gradients were soft and sweet and a dream to lay down.

This is Moss, another old character of mine. I've been enjoying playing with old designs a bit more. She's usually a lot more naturalistic, mute and distant and hidden, and I think that giving her this more modern looking outfit made her feel surprisingly much like a DC character. Which, I suppose they tend towards a brooding quality that fits with this character, but the superhero vibes were surprising. Not that I'm complaining, but I'd rather give them to different characters.

I've also started a new digital piece, a portrait of a dear dear friend.

They'll be my Ace of Pentacles when I finish the painting. A very grounded person, very level headed, very focused on the material world. Makes great soup. All very pentacle qualities, in my opinion.

I'm not exactly sure what comes next on this painting and I'm trying not to rush it. I got them looking pretty accurate, now I need to get them looking like my painting style. And then there's borders and background details and that fun stuff. Honestly I've never have a portrait look accurate so easily and it's throwing me a little. I was expecting a lot more struggle to get to this point. It feels almost cheap to wrap it up after so little effort-- but then, I guess that's the goal, isn't it? To be able to make things easily, to make work I'm proud of without agonizing over it, to let it flow out of me and be right on the first try. That's the dream.

And it's not like every project is resolving so easily. This month I picked back up my old doll project, and while that's moving along it's still a project that's years in the making.

Pardon the mess. I can't be bothered to take fresh photos right now.

This month I added a bunch of gold beading to the yellow underskirt, and I decided to scrap the sleeves entirely. I'd been going back and forth on them for ages because I thought the doll looked better without them, but the original sketch had very distinctive sleeves. But if I've learned anything this year it's that my current perspectives and ambitions need to matter more than what my past self envisioned. That's been a bitter pill for me to swallow, but I do appreciate being able to scrap the sleeves. They made the doll feel way too top heavy and the style was clashing badly even when I made them from the same fabric.

The gold beading made my hands ache to do but was pretty straight forward to execute once I got the energy for it. I might add some more individual beads, extend under the over-skirts a bit further.

and just like that, the outfit is done! Or at least mostly done. I'm always liable to go back and add some last minute additions later. But it's finished enough for me to go on to hair and makeup! The hair will be a big fancy rococo-style up-do, probably in blue. I'm considering making it a sort of removable wig so I can try out a few different yarns, because no matter how many rounds of mockups and polls I do I can't really decide what color I want to go with. The last poll I did, blue won out, so I'm planning to do that first but make it removable enough that I can take another stab at it easily if I don't like it. The face should come last. I'm hoping to have a better sense of the character by that point.

This is the part where I'd usually put what markets are coming up, but there's none of those now. Honestly I've been really enjoying the peace. Staying inside when the weather is bad. Having more time to myself. It's nice to be more able to support my fiance and my close friends, to have the time to spare for them and the time to recover afterwards. Being able to spend a whole day sewing tiny gold beads, or deep cleaning the kitchen, or reading on the couch-- that feels good.

At the same time, I crave structure. I'm working 3 days per week, and the changes happening at my day job have me determined to be out of retail before next summer. Probably right after new years, if I can hold off on job hunting that long. My days off are restful, but also aimless. Not putting expectations on myself means there's nothing to stop me from laying on the couch all day, and there's only so much of that a person can do before it starts to be a problem.

I don't think I'm quite at that problem point, but I can see it on the horizon, easily. I always did best with clear external structures. Enforcing my own structure is hard, exhausting. Not having any structure is depressing. Having too much structure makes it impossible to truly rest or follow my creative whims. Do you see the catch 22 here? I'm hoping some loose goals will be useful.

so. Some loose goals for next month. I'd like to do more marker illustrations. I'd like to finish my Ace of Pentacles. I'd like to finish my doll hair. I suppose that's just the same 3 projects from this month, but more? That seems like a decent enough place to start.

If you have any drawing requests, please please send them my way. I'm not making any promises but I would love some prompts to work with.

Ok. I'm starting to ramble. I hope you had a fun Halloween! I hope you have a nice Thanksgiving! 2024 is racing by and we're in the final stretch! I'll talk to you next month!