What a summer I had this year ๐คฏ I'm still playing catchup after a string of medical emergencies and illnesses that struck our household from the end of July through to mid-August. So let's cut to the chase! Here's what I got up to over the past three months, written with all brevity!
Patreon Rewards
In July I sent Baba Yaga rewards ๐ง♀️๐งน You can read more about them here.
And in August I sent Cabyll-Usige rewards ๐๐ด Find out more here.
September's rewards featured the Summer Gryphon illustration that took me several months to complete! Read about them here.
Patreon is the best way to support my storytelling efforts, and you can get sweet rewards like these postcards in the bargain! Please click here to join us today ๐ฅฐ
deviantART
The image I submitted in July was a chibi caricature of Creamy Kitty, who had recently crossed the Rainbow Bridge.
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View, fave, and comment on dA! |
I submitted the Cabyll-Usige illustration in August, the third entry in my Maginaturalist's Sketchbook series.
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View, fave, and comment on dA! |
In September, I submitted my Summer Gryphon, the final entry in my Seasonal Gryphon series!
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View, fave, and comment on dA! |
You can support my work on deviantART, similar to Patreon, except instead of postcard or print rewards, you can get chibi caricatures! Please click here to join ๐
Livestreaming
The final Twitch stream in July was only one hour long. By this time, the medical emergencies had started and impacted the amount of time I had to share with everyone. It was still a good time, focused on my chibi baby bok choy subscriber badge!
I was finally able to resume my normal streaming schedule in the third full week of August, and in the following week, I started using my completely revamped visual and technological setup, including my new Logitech Reach camera! Here's the first stream featuring all that hard work ๐
It was so exciting to finish my Summer Gryphon piece in September! This livestream covered the last round of work on it.
Please consider subscribing to my channel on Twitch. It's another way you can help Studio Mikarts!
Charity Fundraising
July's charity of the month was The Rat Retreat, which I feature in July because that was the month in which I adopted my three sister rats, Minerva, Nymphadora, and Bathilda ๐๐๐ Before I get to my donation, I want to thank our wonderful Wolfaxe2 for once again donating the entire amount to our Twitch fundraiser!!!
As for my own donation, it's based on my unique viewers count for the month: $0.10 USD per viewer, min $10 and max $100. We had 21 in July!
So that meant a $10 donation from me, and a total of $20 to The Rat Retreat~!!
August is the birthmonth of one of my heroes, Fiona Oakes, so I chose her organization, Tower Hill Stables Animal Sanctuary, as our charity that month ๐ฅณ✨ Once again, Wolfaxe2 showed up big time and donated the full £10 to our Twitch fundraiser!!!
Our unique viewers count for August came to 21 AGAIN, which was awesome considering all the time I had to take off due to the aforementioned medical emergencies ๐ค
This led to a £10 donation from me, which combined with Wolf's contribution came to £20 total!
And in September, our charity was Best Friends Animal Society, chosen because September 22 is the adoption day of Kumo, Chappie, and Aoife, whom all came to us from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah ๐ป (September 22 is what I call Everything Day, because it's also the northern autumn equinox, Hobbit Day, Sora's rescue day, and my wedding anniversary!) Super exciting for our fundraiser this time was having two donations that, on their own at least DOUBLED the goal, which means we more than QUADRUPLED the Twitch fundraiser goal ๐ฅณ๐๐✨ Thank you very much to bickman2k and Wolfaxe2 for helping the animals so much!!!
I was also pleasantly surprised by our unique viewers count in September, since I took two weeks off from streaming (one for my anniversary and another to prepare to sell my art at Boise's very first popup Vegan Market in October!). It was the highest of these three months, at 24!
This meant another $10 donation from me, for a grand total of $55 raised for Best Friends Animal Society!
Our charity of the month for October is Palomacy, chosen because October was the first full month I spent as a pigeon's guardian ๐️๐ Join me on Twitch, and bring your friends to get the viewer count up! Consider donating to the fundraiser while you're there, or making a donation directly ๐ฅฐ
Gryphia Progress
To hasten this blog post's completion, I will just share three photos--one each from July, August, and September--showcasing my slow-but-steady progress editing my first draft of my illustrated novel!
I am now into chapter five of twelve, so things are moving along nicely! Once the markup process is done, I'll start my first rewrite ๐️
Other News
As I've mentioned above, I had a whirlwind summer. At the end of July, my husband was hospitalized for an emergency appendectomy. About a week later, my big dog, Aoife, was attacked by the neighbors' off-leash dog, requiring over $1,500 in medical care, plus intense at-home care while she recovered. In the next week after that, our cat, Kiki, came down with a UTI and needed multiple emergency vet visits. With all these hospital visits and the extra stress of caring for everyone, my husband and I both ended up contracting COVID-19 ๐ฑ I was extremely sick and utterly miserable. But I didn't need to go to the doctor, for which I was grateful! It can always be worse! By September, I was feeling better, so I get to end this blurb with happy news! September 22 was Everything Day, and it went splendidly! Here are some highlights from the day:
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Everything Day is September 22! It includes my wedding anniversary ๐ |
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It's also Hobbit Day! This is my Tolkien collection. |
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It's the adoption day of Chappie and Aoife! |
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And it's the rescue/adoption day of Sora and Kumo, respectively! |
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Kiki wasn't forgotten; she enjoyed patio time in her new playhouse! |
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And that's it for this roundup post, three months in one! I'll try not to get so behind again, but, as this post illustrates, sometimes things happen ๐ Thank you for reading all the way until the end and please stay happy, healthy, and safe ๐
