May Recap & Behind-the-scenes

 Howdy, patrons! I seriously can’t believe how quickly this year is flying by. What the heck? I’m back with another monthly recap and update, and I’m excited to share with you all what I’ve been up to.

But first, I’d like to welcome and thank the newest members of our bunch:

• Jeremy Johnson 
• Kyle LeFevre

I’d also love to give a shout out to these fine folks who have been patrons for a year as of this month:

• Kenny Richardson
• Elizashizzle
• Jane Z.
• Ryan Klassen
• Darin

I am always so touched and honored to have such amazing patrons as you guys. Thank you for believing in and supporting me. 

May Recap:

So what happened this month? It doesn’t feel like much, but looking back, I realized it was another busy month.

I finally finished Astro pup’s origin story comic, which received incredible feedback. As some people were kind enough to point out, I accidentally misspelled Laika’s name in Russian. It’ll be fixed before printing the Astro pup zine. 

The monthly livedraw was a ton of fun! Here are a few of the prompts that were drawn:

DJ Cardinal

John Wick as a dog

I think the request was my superhero alter ego, but it turned more into a Druid Dnd character/goddess

I couldn't NOT draw the dark side of this character

I honestly can't even remember what prompted this, but it was hilarious

Two weekends ago I attended Comicpalooza with my pal, Jane of The Pigeon Gazette. We had a great spot in the artist alley near the entrance, and overall it was a great show. I drew so many pet portraits that my hands cramped up! 

First time seeing a "Heck!" shirt in the wild!

These ladies had hilarious pet portrait requests and also, just look at that Zoidberg cosplay. LOOK AT IT.

Finally, I’ve been finishing up some new designs for summer, including some shirt and sticker designs. The shirts are posted in the shop as of this morning, while the stickers and buttons will be added after Denver Comic Con.

Astro Pup Sticker

Hiss Cream Cone sticker

Seductive Siren sticker (redesign)

Crab Gladiator shirt

Field Guide for Dogs shirt

Axolotl aka "Squishy boye" button

On a personal note, I focused a lot more on mental and physical health last month. I scaled back the number of work projects I took on, and decided to prioritize sleep over work output. I was beginning to feel exhausted constantly, so I think slowing down a bit helped. If you’ve been a patron for awhile, you know this is a pretty normal thing for me (and creative types in general). There are months where I can crank out tons of comics and drawings with no problem, and then there are months where things go a bit slower. It’s all part of the ebb and flow of creativity!

Coming Up:

• As mentioned above, a couple of new shirts are now available in the online shop.

• I’m currently rushing to put together the Astro Pup zine before Denver Comic Con. The zine will have a few pages of extra content, which I’ll be working on in the next few days. Most of the planning is complete. The biggest item on my to-do list is to complete the front and back covers and finishing touches on the interior pages.

• June is my birthday month! I’m not really expecting to do anything fancy, but I may use my birthday as an excuse to take a week off from both comics and my part-time job for proper vacation. It’s a tempting idea, but I’m a bit of a workaholic, so we’ll see if that actually happens.

• This month’s gold tier livedraw will be Thursday, June 21 from 7pm-9pm cst. Can’t wait to goof off and draw silly things for you guys!

• Part of the World Walkers crew is meeting up again! This time Jane, Enzo and I will be tabling at Denver Comic Con. (Olivia will be there too, but won’t have a table so she may be harder to pin down) This is my second to last convention of the year, so if any of you are going, be sure to say hi!

And that’s pretty much it for me! I plan on getting back to four comic updates a week soon, but for now there are shop and convention things that make regular updates difficult. I’ll try to fill in the time with more doodle posts.

Until I see you next: stay awesome!