Secret Sketches and Updates 👼🍂🌠

What I promised this week was a video-format podcast answering questions and talking all about Twelfth Grade Night/graphic novels...and let me tell you, I really did sit down in front of the camera and record 10 minutes worth of content, but was it any good? No. ❤️ I wasn't prepared, and I want to make this video really good and information-packed. I needed to prepare some content for the video before jumping right in. Thanks to everyone who commented such great questions--I can't wait to actually film this and make it a (hopefully) good experience to watch, too.

So hi, I know it's been a little bit. In a week I've got my (self-imposed) deadline for sketching all of book 2 of the Arden High series: King Cheer. I've been working away at a good tick while still trying to enjoy life, but I will say it's been a bit of a crunch time the last few weeks with this deadline in mind. 

This month has been filled with a lot of big moments, from the release of two of the books I illustrated last year, to dealing with emotions of moving on (and struggling a lot at times), to meeting new friends and making some new memories in a new place. Here's what I've been up to lately:

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Image 2: stills of the little characters from this video post. Every day I take a walk in the afternoon, and falltime is showing its full beauty in the midwest so it's hard not to get a little dreamy and emotional every time I see new red leaves. I took my camera out to my favorite park and filmed short clips of various environments, with the idea in mind that I'd take the videos home and draw characters on top and set it to some nice music--because that's how the autumn here makes me feel. Nice.

Images 3-5: Some King Cheer stuff! Rae (the Jessie team rocket-looking ass) is an evil terrible character but she slays and I can't help but have so much fun designing her outfits. Plus a couple of sketched pages that I had fun with.

Image 6: I've made a couple friends at my new gym and I made something for one of their birthdays coming up :-) 

Images 7-9: I'm going to try not to get too emotional but something about keeping a sketchbook again, for the first time in a long long time, makes me beyond happy. I have tried over the past couple of years to stay consistent with a sketchbook and just haven't been able to--not since college in 2019, really. I don't know why, I just really struggled (due to workload? exhaustion? putting pressure on myself?). But I have that feeling again, of feeling like my sketchbook is my little escape. I owe this to my mom, who sent me a sketchbook made by a local maker which lays flat due to the binding method. Having a new, nice sketchbook (and it's small so it's easy to hold and fill the page) might have been what I needed to get back into it. My favorite thing lately has been going to the library, and just looking at the art history and biology books and drawing from those. On these pages I used micron 01 and 05 as well as a black muji pen, and the occasional water brush with sumi ink mixed in. 

Images 10-11: Just some silly little bonus pictures from this photoshoot I did to promote the release of Twelfth Grade Night. I really went and bought a suit and balloons for this. There's far more pictures, maybe I'll release them upon the world eventually. 😳

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Some things I really have been appreciating lately:

Mob Psycho on Wednesdays, Great British Bake Off on Fridays (and previously Rings of Power on Fridays as well), the kindness of the people I've met here in Illinois thus far, Peter Paul Rubens (I greatly miss studying art history in school), foam rolling on my freaking back, pumpkin loaf, asian pears, fun snacks from Trader Joe's, moments laughing with my roommates, Madi Sipes and the Painted Blue, Hozier (tis the fucking season), classical and ambient music when I need to focus, the movie Do Revenge, facetime calls with my family and with my friends in other states, getting a voice message from someone whose voice you've never heard before, the public library, wearing new gym attire, air frying anything just to see what will happen, and burning my autumnal scented candles

That's all for now, but I'll talk to you very soon in the upcoming video podcast!

-JG