October in Ragonia (2019)

Hello patrons and friends! Can you believe it’s been a month since I’ve shared an update? It feels so strange and foreign to be going that long, but it does mean that I have lots to share with you!

First of all I’d like to welcome a crazy town 26 new patrons that joined us in October!

A huge welcome to Lara, Cris, Naiara, Mariana, Juliane, Emily, Hannah, Alphonso, Carolina, Nicole, Avi, Vick, Jess, Codi, Zsóphia, Molly, Lirio, Myleen, Megan, Mitty, Natalie, Iris, Victoria, Sarah, Anna, and Julie! 

Wow wow wow, thank you all so much for your support! I am absolutely honored that so many of you are finding value in what I share (in the Arty Business series, especially?) I really hope that this platform will continue to improve and become a place of inspiration for those hoping to make a living as an illustrator. New $5+ patrons for October, I’ll be mailing you a little gift in the first week of November, so keep an eye out! ALL PATRONS: you’re invited to be added to my Close Friends stories on Instagram, where I share more honest looks behind the scenes, and special updates. Send me a DM on Insta and I’ll add you!

Now! October!

Nine of my favorite new pieces from this month!

Inktober!

Both the joy of my year and the bane of my month, painful and wonderful, productive and exhausting, all of that and more is Inktober! If you aren’t involved with the online art community then you may not have heard of Inktober, a yearly event that challenges artists to create a piece of month every day in the month of October and to share it to social media! 

This year I created my own list of prompts for people to follow, called Spooky n’ Cozy, and so many amazing followers participated. Including some who are now my patrons (Hi Codi!) 

The pressure to create a new piece every day put a lot of strain on this already busy month. But despite the stress I am very happy with the pieces that I created, and so inspired by the simple process of making personal art again. I got to try a lot of new techniques and themes, and saw a real improvement in my technique compared to last year. I’m happy I participated, so happy I made my own prompt list, and overjoyed about the friendships and connections I made as a result.

My new holiday tissue paper design... I’ll share physical photos next month!

Holiday Prep!

This was largely a month of preparation for... the Holiday Shopping season! Last year the Black Friday shopping weekend was my biggest burst of Etsy sales of 2018, and back then I had far fewer products and a much smaller audience. This year my audience has more than doubled, my products have multiplied, and on top of that I have two conventions right around Thanksgiving. So I need and want to be ready!

Starting at the beginning of the month I focused on ordering the major things that needed to be ordered far ahead of time. The first big deadline was for another generous gift from Noissue, the custom tissue paper company. They offered me another batch of custom tissue paper as well as custom tape, with the hope of creating a holiday look for my customers. It was surreal to be listening to Christmas music and drawing presents at the beginning of October, but that’s the life of a product developer I suppose!

I also went through the tedious and expensive but necessary process of ordering packaging (envelopes of all different shapes and sizes,) 1000 business cards, a custom stamp with my business address to speed up sticker orders, and backing cards for my new enamel pins!

My 6 new stickers, look at that holo! (Sorry for the bad convention lighting!)

New stuff!

The fun part of preparing for the holidays: I ordered so many new products this month!

To start, a company called StickerApp kindly offered to print 300 custom stickers in exchange for a social media post, and I was thrilled to accept! I ordered 6 different designs that I had kickin’ around, and designed two of them to include RAINBOW HOLO, that shiny beautiful material I’d been dying to try. I absolutely love the sticker quality, and I’m so excited to upload them to my Etsy in November!

The products I’m most excited about are with out a doubt THREE NEW ENAMEL PINS! Since my Crow enamel pin was one of my most popular products and has almost sold out, I decided to invest some of my September profits in three new enamel pin designs: a cat, a pig, and a smiling face plant head. This manufacturer looks like much higher quality than my first one, and as such was slightly more expensive, but I’m really hoping it’ll be worth it.

Another little product that I ordered was recommended to me by another patron, Jennifer. She let me know that Sticker Mule was having a big discount on buttons, so I ordered some with my Plant Eater design! Buttons are something I don’t wear very often, so I’m excited to see how they sell!

My new Portrait Listing covers! Designed in Procreate using past commissions.

Holiday Commissions!

My last big project to prepare for the holidays this month was to open my Custom Portrait listings for the holidays. I like to give myself around a month at least to work on portraits, so I needed to open them by the end of October. In the past the holidays were a very popular time to sell portraits, so I wanted to update the branding with some nice images and listing descriptions.

P.s. They’re now up! Click here if you’d like to see them!

I’m so proud of myself for the improvements I’ve made in pricing and technique since my portrait sale last year. I’m charging roughly $100-$200 per portrait this year, which is still far too low for the amount of time I spend on them. But it’s a huge improvement from the $50-$70 I charged last year. Hopefully this raised price combined with my simplified technique will make this a worthwhile venture, because I would love to continue to offer these in the future.

A last minute commission for a stamp design!

Freelance Projects!

This month I also found the time to take on two larger corporate freelance projects, fairly last minute. Muji, a Japanese minimalist retail company known for their stationary, asked me to design a custom stamp for their customers to use in their Portland location. I decided to cut two carrots with one knife, and combine the project with an Inktober concept I was already thinking about. I love this cute stamp design, and I hope the Portlanders do as well!

I mentioned on my social media that I recently received an offer for my highest paid project yet. An event company working for Verizon and iHeart Radio recently commissioned me to design a small mural for a concert they’re putting on at the Showbox theater, one of Seattle’s best known music venues. They asked me to design a Seattle themed mural, that they then plan to print half of, and will have me finish the mural by hand, live at the event. The logistics are weird, the turnaround is super quick, and they accepted the very high quote that I gave them as a result. I’m so glad I quoted them what they did, because at first I was planning to ask for a fourth of my final number. Lesson?  Don’t underestimate yourself, and don’t underestimate the amount of money big companies are willing to pay. And charge more if the client wants the project really quickly or at a busy time of year!

I’ll tell you guys all about this event, whether it goes well or not, (but I’m really hoping it goes well!)

My table at JCCS. Yes I AM wearing a witch hat.

Jet City Comic Show!

And finally, my last big event for the month, that I mentioned in my quick update a couple of days ago. Tacoma’s Comic Show has been absolutely the slowest convention I’ve ever been to. So slow that I wrote this whole update sitting at my booth, signed all of my new prints, cut a whole batch of new stickers, and prepped all of my Etsy listings for the holidays.

It was slow but I did get to get out of Seattle and drive through the autumn foliage, make friends with some new artists, and have a little breather in such a busy month.

Proof that I go outside! I’m on the far left and my partner Zach is on the far right!

Non-Art Life!

October is one of my and my partner’s favorite months, and we’ve been enjoying all of our favorite October traditions in our spare time. Watching spooky TV shows (Over the Garden Wall, Gravity Falls, American Horror Story) and movies (new ones to me this year are the original Fright Night, and the Fly with Jeff Goldblum.) 

I also FINALLY convinced my partner and two friends to go with me to a local haunted house, something I’ve been wanting to do since we moved here! Turns out I’m the bravest of the bunch, because they all made me walk in the front, with the rest of them clinging in a line behind me.

So that was October 2019 in Ragonia! What do you all think of the new post schedule, does reading an update about the whole month make it more interesting than every week? It worked really well for me, especially in this busy time of year. I’m sure I’ll be able to share more fun extras during the slower months (Winter and Spring!)

Let me know what happened with you all this month in the comments, I’d love to hear about your artistic achievements and fun October festivities! Do you have any Arty or personal plans for the holidays? Are you stressing already, like me, or are you cool as can be? 

I’ll see you all again in November for my next Arty Business article, which will be on BRANDING! Expect the article by 11/8 at the latest! 

Xoxo,

Ragon