A Heaping Helping of April Updates

Hey guys and welcome to April! If it's getting warm in your neighborhood, I hope you're enjoying it! Some medical happenings set me back a bit, but I'm finally back at my workstation and I'm hyped up to start - and share - my old and new projects with you!

:. PROJECT LINEUP .:

• Animatics & Animations

- Guardian Blue *NEW* (see below)

-Eternal Flame (ha-HA you thought I forgot, didn't you?)

• Christmas Comic
• 2022 Calendar Illustrations
• Doodles...because when am I not?

The Guardian Blue Mini Project with the "Guardian Blue" series by Alps Sarsis

While I was on bedrest, I wound up reading the series "Guardian Blue" by Alps Sarsis. Please take a gander if you've never read it. I've always heard that this was a fan-favorite for years and was pleasantly surprised to enjoy the stories! I quickly realized though that there is very minimal art made for this story. And while still images are nice, I REALLY want to see this as an animation / animatic.

So with the author's permission I decided that's exactly what I'm gonna do.

I'm starting with storyboards of select scenes from the first story Thanks for the Fox with the goal being to carry one or more of the scenes to the animatic stage (or the entirety of TFTF). And it wouldn't just be my pictures, I plan to enlist the help of my dear friends Cas who'd be VAing for Judy and Mickel for Nick (plus others if needed) along with any other characters I need down the line. If I could manage to animate and colour it as well I definitely would, but let's not get ahead of ourselves! I already started the animatic process on my iPad last week and now that I'm finally feeling better I'm super excited to open Storyboard Pro and really start fleshing out Alps' vision. Checkout their story if you ever get a chance!

Eternal Flame

Yep, I've still got plans for this though I want to release it around Christmas time.

This year was supposed to be the year for animation, but because I ran out of health insurance last year I had to reprioritize fulfilling commissions over my own projects. But now that I'm SUPER close to getting above water, I feel more comfortable investing a little in learning these things. But since I wanna get there faster...

The Commission Café is accepting orders! (Patrons Only)

If you're interested in getting a commission, feel free to fill out my new form so that I can contact you when I'm available! Cody, Kino, DocFox, Kirby, DancingLunar Wolves - I will contact you within the next 48 hours. Will start probably around next week since I have one commission I'm working on left (I'll be done this weekend, Kirby!). I'm accepting:

• Sketch Sheets
• Character Sheets
• Shaded Portraits
• Guardian Blue Scene *NEW* - I know some (including myself) are interested in seeing scenes from Guardian Blue, but I don't have a ton of time to do EVRYTHING. So I'd like to offer full scenes as an option so we can all enjoy it! I only finished up to Season 2 Ch.4 so I won't go past that. $200+ includes lighting and background for any particular scene. Please select "Other" under Commission Type on the form and enter "GB". If you'd like to split the cost with someone I'm completely fine with that.

ENTER THE COMMISSION CAFE HERE 

If I find more time to fulfill more orders, I will accept a few non-Patron requests.

Please Note: I currently cannot recreate the "VQ Nick" style from commissions. Once I know how to do that consistently I may offer very select slots for this style.

Streaming This Week

Feel free to visit my Cove on Picarto this Friday at 9PM EST. What I'll be working, even I don't know! Link on Friday. Might stream over the weekend as well, who knows!

"New" Channel

Not a big deal, but I had to make a new Gmail account after last summer since my original got hacked. Since the issues been resolved I was able to make a new YT account with my old address (qalcove@gmail.com). I'm most likely going to start saving tests, streams, animations, etc there as Unlisted for Patreon and then slowly make them public as time passes.

New Tier for the Animaniacs (no, not the show!)

Since I'm finally starting to jump into animations, I think I'll create a new one for anyone interested in further supporting the more difficult process of animation while getting access to my progress shots, audio, etc. I won't do that until I reach my own financial goal, but once that's done that tier is going up!

That's all for today!

That was a lot of info all at once, but I wanted to share what I could before I start throwing art your way. I really REALLY appreciate all the support you guys send love and support my way, I really do; it only makes me want to give more (and I have a lot more to give). I'm not a super popular artist with like 10k+ followers nor do I ever plan to draw NSFW, so I know I'm kind of the oddball in the group of artists out there, but I'm really glad to know there's folks who are still interested in this vanilla squirrel despite that! 

I really don't anticipate stopping what I do - I'm even more focused on paying off my debts so I can seriously take classes and actually improve so that I can CONTINUE doing it. So I guess your stuck with me for a little while longer.

Sorry-not-sorry <3

- Qalcove