Looking ahead: Road map for Doodle for Food in 2018

 Welcome back, everyone! In today’s update I want to talk more about my focus and general goals for 2018 and more specifically about what will be happening in the first part of the year.

Goals

After spending a lot of time reflecting on the past year, I’ve determined that the three main goals I have for 2018 can be summarized by the following three concepts: being proactive, being mindful, and being efficient. These three items will act as the compass I use to navigate work and life this year.

However, we all know vague goals are pretty much impossible to achieve, so to help me get to where I want to be by the end of this year, I’ve set a few smaller more actionable to-do’s: 

1. Maintain a buffer for ongoing projects 

DONE! Sort of! For the last three weeks I’ve been cranking out a bunch of comics in the hopes of saving myself time and stress down the road. I now have three weeks worth of backup Webtoon comics for times when I’m traveling or sick or when life throws me a curve ball. For the rest of January I’ll be working on building buffers for my regular Doodle for Food site as well as Unipegasaurus.

2. Have a consistent posting schedule

This has always been a goal of mine, and it’s one I’ve struggled with since beginning comics. My Webtoon series updates every Thursday and Friday like clockwork, but my other projects and series have always had sporadic updates. I believe the key to finally nailing down a schedule will be a mix of planning ahead and maintaining the previously mentioned buffer. So for now, things may be really slow on the site while I build a buffer, but it’ll lead to more regular updates in the next few weeks. Silver and up patrons will get to see these comics as I finish them without waiting.

3. Release merch more consistently

Last year, my online shop kind of fell to the wayside. I created a bunch of designs for convention season and didn’t do much else. This year I’d like to put more time into planning and designing for various seasons and holidays so that I can release new merch throughout the year. I’ve adopted and slightly modified a buying/selling calendar that retail planners and product managers use to make sure items are “on the shelves” when they need to be. I’ll be using this guideline in 2018 to further test, learn, and grow the Doodle for Food shop!

Upcoming events

2018 is going to be a big year for travel (yet another reason why planning is important). Here are all of the conventions and other big events I’m tentatively scheduled for so far: 

• March 1 - 4: Emerald City Comic Con (Seattle, WA)
• March 30 - April 1: Awesome Con (Washington D.C.)
• May 25 - 27: Comicpalooza (Houston, TX)
• June 15 - 17: Denver Comic Con (Denver, CO)
• August: Finnish Art Fellowship

Everything except ECCC and Awesome Con are still up in the air. I'll confirming sometime within the next month whether or not I can swing it. I’ll keep you updated when I get new information or if there are any changes!

Miscellaneous Things

• Comic prints will be hitting the Doodle for Food shop this month! So far I've selected five of my most popular prints. If you guys have requests for others, let me know!

• This month's Patron Livedraw will be held on Thursday, January 18 from 7pm-9pm cst! We hang out, I draw doodle requests, answer questions, and go more in depth about things going on at Doodle HQ 

• I’m ramping up livestreams on Twitch. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t want to have an official schedule. Partly because I don’t want streaming to become another project I have to keep up with and partly because my day-to-day schedule fluctuates a lot, so it’s hard to stick to a set time. THAT BEING SAID: You can reasonably expect a 3-4 livestreams from me a week from Monday-Thursday. I tend to start around 2 or 3pm. That just seems to be the natural schedule that’s working out so far.

• Year of the Doggo: 2018 is the year of the dog, according to the Chinese calendar. It couldn’t be a better time, as I have a lot of projects I’ll be announcing that are dog-related. For now the most I can say is: prepare for puppers very soon.

In Conclusion

I’m not going to lie to you. 2018 is going to be an intense year. In a lot of ways I want to make up for my inconsistency over the past two years, and prove to myself that I have what it takes to take my art skills and my business to the next level. 

I want to thank you all again for being so supportive through everything. Because of you guys I’m able to keep the lights on when life gets crazy. I’m able to attend more conventions, buy art supplies, feed my dogs, and more. 

Here’s to another year!