Happy summer, everyone! 🎐🌞⛱️ I'm technically supposed to be enjoying my week of summer vacation at this very moment, but I really wanted to get caught up on my blog, so here I am, typing away in my cool, garden floor studio, while the sun bakes everything outside. I had a busy June and couldn't get around to writing my May roundup post, so I'm doing double duty with this entry 😎 Here's what I got up to over the past couple months.
Patreon Rewards
At the end of May, I finished my 2024 Birthday Gryphon illustration and was very pleased to send it to patrons who are signed up for physical rewards. This was the third iteration of the piece that they received, the previous two being WIPs, so I hope they enjoyed watching it reach completion over the course of three months!
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Click here to read more about this piece on Patreon. |
In June, I started a new black & white illustration series: The Maginaturalist's Sketchbook. The story is that of a maginaturalist wandering the world, capturing all the magical beings she encounters in her sketchbook. I'm using my encyclopedia of magical creatures, drawing the first entry for each letter A-Z, with the intent of cycling back around to A and repeating the process until I've drawn the entire encyclopedia! The first entry in this series was June's reward, the Á Bao A Qu.
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Click here to read more about this piece on Patreon. |
If you're not already a member of the Studio Mikarts Patreon, please consider joining! It's the best way you can support my work; the funds help pay for things like my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription (industry standard for illustration), my cloud backup service (keeping my art files safe in case of disaster), and my Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators membership (my main connection to the storytelling industry). You can support for as little as $5 a month, and can choose to receive only digital rewards, or get both digital rewards AND postcards, prints, or both! Thank you for helping make my dream career possible 🥰
deviantART
I've uploaded several pieces to dA in the past couple months but the two I'm featuring here are extra special. First, a chibi caricature I finished in May, featuring me with Sean Astin! You may remember the story from April's roundup (^^)
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Click here to fave and comment on deviantART! |
Next, for June's piece, another chibi caricature! This time it's the dog of the daughter of the winner of the Palomacy auction item for one of my caricatures (I hope that makes sense) 😆 Her name is Moo Latte~ This piece is extra special since it helped Palomacy help more pigeons!
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| Click here to fave and comment on deviantART! |
deviantART is another place you can support my creative career. You can commission me for one of these chibi caricatures or you can sign up for a subscription, which is somewhat like Patreon, but instead of postcards or prints, you can get chibi caricatures! And the tiers also start at just $5 a month ❤️ I don't have any members there yet, so this is your chance to be number one!
Livestreaming
I have so much news to share here! First off, at the beginning of May I received the wireless keyboard and mouse that I purchased with my birthday money. These peripherals have been gamechangers! Worth every penny 💖 Now, for example, I can type in the chat with ease, look up reference images on my secondary monitor instead of my phone, and raid another channel smoothly at the end of each stream.
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They fit perfectly on my Sympathy Kiss mat 😍 |
At the end of May, I decided to increase the length of my streams to three hours. There were many reasons for this, two major ones being my desire to get more illustration work done in a month and feeling good about streaming three hours a day, three days a week, three weeks a month 😁 Here's the recording of that first three-hour stream:
As June progressed, I got two more Twitch subscriber rewards finished. A chibi broccoli subscriber badge and a "cute" Ranger emote. The emote is also available on the Studio Mikarts Discord, which is exclusive to Twitch, dA, and Patreon members. Twitch is another place you can financially support my work and get cool rewards like these, so please consider joining us there!
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A WIP image showing the finished icon and started emote. |
The last stream I did in June was actually my 100th Chibi Friday!!! ✨🎊🥳🎉✨ Not only that, it was extra super duper special because it was the Palomacy Moo Latte piece!! Best of all, the auction winner was able to join the stream live and made it fantastic by chatting with me almost the entire time 🥰 Here's the recording:
Charity Fundraising
May's charity of the month was The Vegan Society. Once again, my awesome supporter, Wolfaxe2, donated the entire amount of £10 to our Twitch fundraiser! 🥰
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💖 Thank you, Wolf~!!! You're the best!!! 💜 |
On top of that, perhaps due to streaming for an extra hour each day, we beat our unique viewers record for the third time this year!!!
Of course, 34 is still well away from the minimum of 101 that we need to make my donation greater than $10, so I hope more and more folks will watch my channel and bring their friends! My donation formula is $0.10 USD per viewer, min $10, max $100. To make it simple, I let that translate directly into a £10 donation to The Vegan Society.
And June's charity was Animal Alliance Asia. We didn't break the viewers record this time, but it wasn't far off!
That meant a $10 donation to them, as well!
If you'd like to make your own donation to either of these organizations, please use the links above! I, the animals, and everyone working to change the world for the better will thank you 💖✨
Gryphia Progress
In the past two months, I purposefully abstained from working on my Gryphia novel. I finished the first draft in April and have been letting the project cool so I can come back to it with more objectivity and freshened creativity. This is that time! I'm super stoked; I've had so many ideas for my fantasy world over the past eight weeks and I'm raring to put them into action! 🤓📑🖋️✨
Other News: SCBWI Summer Conference
My longtime readers will know I've attended the SCBWI Virtual Summer Conference since 2022. I've signed up again this year, which will be my third time. I've entered the illustrators portfolio showcase again, hoping that the third time is the charm 🤞 Here are the pieces I entered into the showcase!
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"Autumn Gryphon" mixed media, 2024 |
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"2024 Birthday Gryphon" mixed media, 2024 |
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"モー Moo" mixed media, 2023 |
I haven't garnered any interest in previous years, but if the same people are looking, perhaps they will notice that I am continually producing new work of high caliber, year after year. I hope the editors, agents, and art directors will find my work compelling and reach out to me this time!
Wish me luck! 🙏🙏🙏
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That's it for my roundup of May and June! Thank you for reading until the end 🥰 I'll be back again soon, perhaps with the next entry in my Japan Adventure series? Until then, may you stay happy, healthy, and safe~!
