August Roadmap and LETSDRAWMONSTERS Returns!

#LETSDRAWMONSTERS SEASON 2.  

We are BACK! New schedule, more streams, more traditional art, and more monsters. COME JOIN US! 

Here's the details:

WHAT:

LETSDRAWMONSTERS is a community event where I provide a prompt for a newly discovered imaginary creature and then we as a community try to design and illustrate them live in a timed challenge. At the end of the event we share all of work live on stream. The event is open to all ages and all skill levels, (so kids can join in too!).

WHERE:

twitch.tv/justingerardillustration

SCHEDULE: The event takes place on the first week of each month. Just like last year, we will be sharing the creature prompt here on Patreon before the stream.

*Note: September is going to be the second week as we have Dragoncon during the first week. 

DOUBLE FEATURE FORMAT: This year we will break each monster into 2 separate streams during the same week:

#1. The Wednesday stream is dedicated to character exploration and design and will focus on ink and pencil techniques.

#2. The Friday stream is dedicated to painting it. I will be mostly using watercolors, but I will also occasionally be delving into many other mediums (inks, acrylics, oils) as well.

Both streams will be 2 hours long.

CREATURE PROMPTS will be a little different this time around. Instead of a written story, this time the creatures will be chosen and assembled by the fishbowl fates, and the stories will be developed as we draw and develop our creatures together. The chaos of this will definitely make for some very interesting challenges this season!

TRADITIONAL FOCUS: This season, we are leaning into improving our traditional art skills. We encourage everyone to join us and try to go ANALOG for this one, even if it isn't your preferred medium!. As before, the event is a fun, low-stakes and positive environment where it is okay to try new materials, new techniques, and experiment as we make these strange and wonderful creatures.

HOW TO SHARE: After you are finished share your results wherever you like on social media. (We recommend Cara!) And hashtag it #letsdrawmonsters. However, due to the time constraints of the show, I am only going to be checking entries on our Discord. So if you want to share it with the rest of the livestream, just log in and share it on the Discord channel here:

https://discord.gg/rJsqMwmK

We encourage everyone to share their results, regardless of skill level and even if you still plan to take it further. Don't worry if you don't have a scanner or a fancy way of getting your work in. Even if you are a cave man, if you can get a phone signal, snap a pic of your monster on the cave wall and upload it!

What about Digital Work?: While we strongly encourage everyone to try working traditionally on paper, we won't disqualify or give you a hard time for using a tablet. But we are intentionally keeping the event fun and low-stakes so that everyone can feel less pressure working in a medium they are unfamiliar with. As someone who works both traditionally and digitally, I can assure you that improving your traditional work does amazing things for improving your digital work as well. So we hope you will consider trying out traditional media for this! (And we will have a lot of recommendations for cheap but solid materials you can use to get started in traditional media.)

NO AI POLICY: This event is strictly hand-made only. So NO AI. Our position on AI remains the same: Generative AI art is theft. It harvests the work of artists without their consent in an effort to replace them in their own industry, all while lowering society's visual literacy and trust. Don't play their game.  

THE MONSTER AWARDS: In keeping with our policy of keeping it low-stakes, we are only giving out fun and silly awards at the end of each stream when we share all of our work. However, we will be having an end of season award show at the very end, where we will go over all the creatures and entries again and during that show we will give some physical prizes for community favorites and legendary entries from the season.

We hope you'll join us!

What to expect here on Patreon this August?: 

For anyone who missed it, last month we released a step-by-step on a Magic card we finished earlier in the year, a watercolor warrior painting, and a page of monsters.

This month here on Patreon will be largely the same as we keep pushing forward with Watercolor Warriors and continue to share Magic cards as they are revealed. With any luck, I will finish the new Dungeon Master Painting and share it with you this month (hopefully in time for Dragoncon!)

Due to the overall insanity of what we've got planned above, there will likely be fewer livestreams during the month.

Mentorships will be held August 6th and 8th at 8:30AM, 10:30AM and 8PM EST. If you've signed up let me know what time/date works for you! Or if none of those do, message me and we will find a time that does!

I hope to see you on the 7th and 9th for LETSDRAWMONSTERS SEASON TWO!

-jg