April Report

Happy May everyone! 🌼Thank you for your patience in waiting for this bewitching report ✨

And thank you AGAIN for making all of this possible, I'm so grateful to have your support and I’m always proud of the work we do together! 💖

Now, if I may direct your gaze to the prospectus before you, we can begin. 📊

Out of my April Goals I managed 2 out of 3:

✅ Libby & Holly Ch3:15-19
✅CYOA Pt 12
⏹️ itch.io art archives update

(I chose to delay making this report just so I could finish the CYOA update within “April.” It’s not cheating, it’s creative “time management.”😉)

⏹️ Starting with this month’s miss: itchio Art Archives.  My priority is always creative projects first. My plans to update the itchio store with my past years of artwork and sketches will have to wait.

✅ Libby & Holly Ch3:15-19 Starting the month off by completing all the thumbnails I need for the rest of the month has been a game changer. I feel like it’s made me a lot more consistent because the hard work is out of the way from the start.

Holly showed up in my sketchbook so I could practice drawing muscled legs, but it paid off in general too because these are some of my favorite drawings of her so far in the book 💛

I’ve been reading more manga lately too and I’m trying to let that influence show through some more in these pages, stylistically, though I’m not sure if it does outside of the use of halftone :)

When I’m struggling with my projects like Libby and Holly I find it helpful to jump over to doing purely self-indulgent art this month.

Jumping around between themes, like this desktop screencap thing that happened later on in the month!

Seeing things blooming in my garden had me thinking about last year’s garden witches, so I indulged. I was really interested in giving this little sprite some glassy black eyes, just to give her a bit more mystery or monster-y edge while still being cute.

In my sketchbook work I was playing with animations and cute, cartoony drawings like usual. I even drew a little goat fursona, a Winton Kid(d) if you will. 

The longer I spend drawing cute things I start to crave something that will give it a bit of an edge. This pursuit gave me problems when it came to The Orc and the Tower. 

✅CYOA Pt 12: I knew I had to do something a little simpler and shorter for the CYOA this month since I was aiming for 5 pages of Libby & Holly.

I made the mistake of deciding to introduce a new character for this update, the result of which I really like, but it took longer than expected to arrive at something good. It was a lot like what I was seeking with the drawing of the garden sprite.

That blend of cute and slightly creepy monster-y qualities was hard to find at first. Ultimately I settled on a blend of furry cat features with the pretty standard demon look but spicing it up with something vaguely clownish about her face…

Now, for what's next:

🌼May Goals:

⏹️ Libby & Holly Ch3:20-23 I know I’m going to have a busy month so I’m going to aim for 4 pages this time, I want to stay consistent, not necessarily ambitious. Which is hard because I’m excited about what I’ve got planned for the rest of the book, so if I have time I'll be doing more than this.

⏹️CYOA Pt 13 Another CYOA update would be great too. I think we’re getting closer to a sort of climactic scenario with the introduction of Paier, and I’m curious to see where it goes next!

⏹️ itch.io Art Archives -  I am temporarily freezing this goal because while i know it’s what I want to do next, I don’t think I’ll be able to move on it this month because may is always a busy time in my personal life.

I’m doing my best to keep things consistent and manageable. June is the light at the end of my tunnel for a lot of different work and I’m so looking forward to adding more things to this list again, like a fanart poll. ❤️

Thank you for making this work possible, you’re all just spectacular✨ I hope you’re having a great start to your May!

💖Winton