Works in Progress No. 2, Vol. 7

There's a lot to post here this week. First up, I've finished 4 of the new Zodiacs, which is really just the second half of the original set. You can see both versions here of Aquarius, Gemini, Capricorn, and Leo. After that, I have updates to 5 more Zodiacs. Libra has been inked. Pisces is nearly finished; he just needs a background. Sagittarius has been drawn, inked and flat colored. Scorpio has been drawn and inked. Taurus has been drawn, inked, and flat colored. It's been a busy week. I'm hoping that the rest of the print zodiacs here will be finished by my WIP for next week. Finally, I finished the purple kitty mini-plushie. Pikachu is almost finished; I just need to make his red cheeks and sew on his mouth. Lastly, I've started a black kitty mini-plushie. I'm going to give it orange eyes for a Halloween theme. I'm considering making an orange kitty mini-plushie with black ears, tail, and eyes to go with the one I'm working on right now.

 

Fall Projects

Back at the end of June, I posted a Summer Projects post highlighting what I planned on working on over the summer. I thought, since we're moving into Fall now, it would be a good idea to revisit that post. Today, I'm going to look over what I'd planned to get done, what I actually got done, and discuss a little of my plans for the Fall.

First, let's look at what I'd planned. I wanted to have the new Zodiac set finished for art. This Zodiac set was going to be the compliment to the one I finished for Anime Weekend Atlanta last year. The first set featured six guys and six girls, and the second set was going to do girl versions for the six guys and guy versions for the six girls. My goal was to have the new Zodiac prints and their chibi badge counterparts finished by Otakon. I also wanted to stock up on my inventory of fanart plushie designs for Otakon: Pikachu, Umbreon, Kirby, Black Mokona, White Mokona, and Moogle. Along with those I wanted to make some bunny and kitty mini-plushies.

Now, let's see how things actually went. Getting the Zodiacs finished by Otakon did not happen. In fact, the only progress made before Otakon was taking the Aries sketch featured on the Summer Projects post and inking it. In my defense, we lost most of July to moving. Most of August was taken up with commission projects and family events, and it's only been in the last week or so that I've really been able to get back on track with things. So, Zodiacs... fell far short of my goal. I did manage to get a decent number of plushies made before Otakon. I boosted my fanart inventory and had three each of the bunny and kitty mini-plushies. So, plushies... goal achieved!

So, what's on for the Fall? The short answer: lots of cool stuff! For art, I will finally have Anime Tarot card decks (these are now available for preorder from my Etsy shop) for Anime Weekend Atlanta and Anime USA. I am going to keep working on the Zodiacs. My new goal is to get them finished by AWA; it'll be tough, but I think it's doable. Last year, I made my set of Sailor Moon Harem bookmarks because they were asking artists to put together something to match the convention theme: Arabian Nights. This year's theme is military, so I'm going to be doing a new set of Sailor Moon bookmarks, this time with a mecha pilot design. I'm thinking about making it a yearly thing to design a new set of Sailor Moon bookmarks for AUSA to go with their theme. Sailor Moon is just so much fun to play with; the characters really lend themselves to this kind of re-designing. That's my minimum goal. I'd also like to see some of my other in-progress bookmark sets (World of Warcraft, The Guild, and Dragonlance) get finished by AUSA--AWA is later this month, so I think I'll be doing well to get the Zodiacs done for that. Outside of that, Soul Eater and Full Metal Alchemist are high on my list of series I want to do massive bookmark sets for, but those might have to be a project for next season.

That covers art. For plushies, I'd had it in my head that I might be able to do some more new plushie designs, but I think I'll be doing good to just restock my inventory again since I sold out of pretty much everything at Otakon--not that I'm complaining. ;-) I think I'll play this one by ear. I'd like to work on some new designs, but I'm not going to get too excited about that idea. For other crafts, we're still hoping to debut the decorative props for AWA and I'm going to finish up the last of the charm designs plus replace those that sold at Otakon. Maybe by AWA I'll have a good way of displaying my charms. Finally, I'm still trying to get Suzaku and Euphemia cosplays finished for AWA for my husband and I. It's a low priority item, but I'm still holding out some hope that I can get those finished.

That about sums up my plans for the Fall. Chances are, it's entirely unreasonable, but it'll be interesting to see how things go. Look for a Winter follow-up to this post in early December.

First WIP Post for August

I've only been home from Otakon for a couple of days now, and a lot of that time has been spent unpacking and trying to organize things in the Garner house--remember how I posted a couple weeks ago that we have to keep this house so clean that it looks like no one actually lives here. @_@ That said, I still managed to find some time to get some work done on projects for AWA--we had to make an unplanned trip to Misenheimer yesterday to tie up some loose ends, and my husband offered to drive for the whole trip so I could work on some stuff. I took a ball of yarn and a sketch pad, and I got started on a new mini-plushie and some of the new Zodiacs. I also finished a few plushies at Otakon, so there has been progress. =D It feels nice to be able to say that after several weeks of doing nothing but packing and cleaning.

First up, at Otakon, I finished 2 Kitty and 1 Bunny mini-plushies. The gray kitty with the dark brown ears and tail sold almost as soon as I put it on the table--I almost didn't put it out; I designed it to look like our new kitten Kisa, and I didn't really want to let go of that one. I'll have to make another one for myself. The in-progress one I started during the car ride yesterday reminds me of zucchini and squash.

Here are 2 sketches for commissions from Otakon. I got the sketches finished at the con; I'll be inking them starting this afternoon--spending most of the last 2 days in the car has made it hard to do any work requiring a computer. =P The first one is for a custom "What Would ___ Do?" character--this one is going to be What Would Squall Do? from Final Fantasy VIII. The other is a commission for She-Ra; that one made me exceptionally happy. I loved that show when I was younger, and I have many fond memories of it.

Lastly, I finished 2 new sketches for the next Zodiac set--actually I have 3 but I'm scrapping the 3rd one. =P It was an attempt at drawing a male version of Libra... let's just say it was horrific and leave it at that. I'm currently trying to burn the memory of it out of my head. So, the 2 I'm showing here are girl versions for Aquarius and Capricorn. The coloring will match the guy versions. Generally I'm pretty pleased with how they're coming out so far--I still need to clean up the sketches a bit and make some adjustments to proportion and such, but design-wise, I'm happy.