Roadmap 2025

As dangerous as it is to make New Year’s resolutions, or big plans for a year in general, I still like to set some basic goals and expectations. Having a target helps me stay motivated, and always results in greater productivity and accomplishment for me. So without further ado, here are the projects I plan to be working on this next year, and the format I'll be sharing them in!:

PROJECTS: 

#1 The Dungeon Master Series, Volume Two CALENDAR

The Kingdom has fallen and our heroes are in the shadows, living as strangers in a strange land. The series will have the usual scenes of adventures-gone-suddenly-wrong, but this time around will also offer a lot more quiet moments. Last year's calendar was my favorite project from 2024 and I look forward to trying it again in 2025. The GOAL is 12 finished drawings and paintings by the end of the year.

#2 The Spacefarer's Guide to Intergalactic Pests BOOK 

My goal is to keep this series fairly chill, with 2 new character design pages each month, (hopefully with their stats and descriptions written,) and a book off to the printer by the end of the year. I also have several pencil-drawn mini-landscape scenes planned as chapter openers, (like the Plague of Dragons mini-landscapes) and I will be diving into those a few months from now.

#3 Mystery Project & GUIDE BOOK with ANNIE... 

Annie and I hope to announce a book project we've been collaborating on soon (hopefully in the Spring), and will start sharing character designs and illustrations from it each month after that. This project would focus more on cozy images and an exploration of small wonders in the natural world.

Lastly, the following two projects are ones that I'm not locking myself into, but that you may see from time to time as I have a moment to tinker on them:

#4 The Dark Wizards Market GAME 

This project is designed as an eventual game pitch for tabletop, (it's almost prototype ready) and also just a fun little series of dark wizards, their apprentices, and the trouble they get themselves into. I plan to share drawings and hopefully some oil paintings from this as the year goes on.

#5 The Monster of the Month Denizens CALENDAR 

This series has not been forgotten, but I really need to do some writing to finish it. In the meantime I plan to convert this into a 12 month calendar by the end of the year with all the battle scenes and the characters.

2025: A RETURN to the CLASSIC MONTHLY FORMAT!:

Last year I feel like we lost focus and strayed away from the classic format shown above. For 2025 I want to get back to a focus on image creation from start to finish. Start with a poll and some concept art, follow it up with character designs and illustration drawings, and then finished paintings. Finally, process guides and tutorials on the work created.

In general, you can expect a lot more traditional pencil work and the tutorials and guides will focus a bit more on that subject. I plan on sharing my practice routines, methods, and tricks used for developing better drawing skills as well. To start, I will be sharing my updated MATERIALS LIST for Pencil Art in the next few days, with a focus on the travel-ready clipboard setup I have been using for all of 2024. I've got a lot of other materials-related posts in the works as well for anyone wanting to try out some new tools.

Twitch is still happening, but is going to continue to be infrequent for a while due to NDA work, but I hope to be able to still jump on once a month. With that we are pausing #LESTRAWMONSTERS for a bit until we have a bit more time to set these events up and do them right. Mentorships remain the same and if you'd like to sign up but there are no spots, please message me here or on Discord and we will make sure to get you in.

Okay, let's see how this goes! Thank you all for enabling me, errrr... I mean, supporting me here! None of this would be possible without you.

-jg