Admin Post: Community Check-In for January 2019

[goss]

Today's the last day of the month, and we'd love to have you check in and chat with us. How have things been with you?

Did you get a chance to take part in any fandom activities in January, or have you been working on any personal art projects? Are you currently trying to meet a deadline? Feel free to share upcoming challenges that have got you excited, any frustrations you've been experiencing, possible goals for the next month, etc.

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Holiday Card Exchange: Reflections

Also, for those of you who participated, how did the Holiday Card Exchange go? We'd like to hear your thoughts, comments, suggestions, etc. :)

Comments

[goss]

Huh. I feel like I say this at the end of every month, but *man* I can't believe we're a whole month into the new year already!

New Art

I managed to do one art piece in January, just in the nick of time for the artyuletide exchange: New Beginning (The Legend of Korra, G)

I also bought some nifty new watercolours and inks in pan form, in the hopes of taking them with me and painting on site more often this year. :)


New Fandom

And thanks to mekare's enabling, I have fallen into a new fandom (Guardian) and have a feeling that art will soon follow. ^___^

Card Exchange

I really enjoyed the card exchange, especially since it was my first time sending out to other fan-artists. At first I was a little nervous about the quality of my artwork, and had to remind myself that I should focus on just sending my good wishes to people rather than producing masterpieces.

I was absolutely delighted to receive artworks from around the world, and in such a variety of styles and themes. You guys did wonderful work, thank you to everyone who sent me a card!

One thing I would suggest we do next time is start the exchange in early November, so as to give 4-6 weeks for delivery of mail in far corners of the globe.

[minoanmiss]

I totally agree bout the card exchange -- earlier would be better. And it was such fun!

[mekare]

I FEEL SO VINDICATED. This fandom is my happy place right now.

Re card exchange, yes I aboslutely second doing it earlier!

[mific]

I agree it was a lot of fun, and even better to start the challenge earlier. :)

[seleneheart]

You're a terrible enabler. I keep seeing your posts and being tempted. *resists*

[mekare]

Glad to be of service!

[mekare]

haha what is my life? It's a Guardian-shaped hellhole.

On the one hand, I've gotten very little sleep this month on the other hand I've been very productive.

• I did almost all days in snowflake_challenge


• posted my Art review meme for 2018


and did art:


• Star Trek Discovery


• SGA sketches


• Ronon illustrations


• Even more Ronon sketches


• Still more Ronon ideas


• Revealed my fandom_stocking contributions
• 
  
  proceeded to fall into a new fandom (Guardian) by accident and did more art: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
  
  To be fair, I did have some time off in the first week. But I'm still wondering how I did all this?
  
  Re crad exchange: Thank you all you lovely drawesomers for your wonderful cards!!!

[lizbee]

I'm making an effort to take drawing more seriously, so I've started going to weekly life drawing classes.

I've been to two so far, and my main thoughts are "okay, so I can do a body OR a face, but I can't do both at once", and, "it's so amazing to be able to just stare at a person's hands and draw them for a really long time without being creepy", and "why does this model have such smooth knees? Does everyone have knees like that? Do I have abnormally bumpy knees?"

[mekare]

Oooh I am so jealous! I’ve never done a life drawing class but I would really love to!

it's so amazing to be able to just stare at a person's hands and draw them for a really long time without being creepy",

Haha I feel you. I gets funny looks when I draw people in airports and on trains.

[syntheid]

I went to pull a WIP, which I made some progress on that was heartening, and then I got stuck again which was a bit disheartening. I sorta just stuck it in WIP form as an icon anyway, even though it's not really what I intended and I might try to come back to it again later.

Other art-wise, I sketched my D&D group's characters to do headshots for them, but I haven't made much progress with them.

On the holiday card, I thought it was fun, but might be nice to have some sort of process to acknowledge sending/receipt? I'm not sure if anyone even got mine, though I sort of assume so, since a few friends I also sent cards to on the other end of the world got theirs. I also wanted to take a picture of all of them together as a round-up post, but I'd been waiting since I wasn't sure if there were more coming. Not a huge deal, but would also help to know for next year if anyone had particular problems receiving cards I sent that maybe I could avoid. Starting earlier would also be a good idea.

But anyway, thank you to those who sent cards! They were all lovely and I still have them up on my mantle.

[mific]

Yeah that's a good idea, and a good point. I tried to individually PM the people who sent me a card. But if a card didn't get through in the mail that'd leave the artist hanging, not knowing what had happened. Also I am distractible amd may not have remembered to thank everyone by DM - I kind of lost track a bit. I think some sort of wrap up post or comment acknowledging receipt of the cards would be great, from the participants. I'll do one to demo how it could be done without too much difficulty. e.g. I think one pic of the cards rather than posting all the individual scanned cards is totally fine - only took me 5 minutes to do it.

[seleneheart]

I managed to finished the WIP challenge!

In other news, I evidently lost my mind and signed up for the caprbb, without a single idea what to do, and without a single molecule of graphite on paper anywhere. It's due by Feb. 26. Now I have an idea of what I want to do, but any progress on putting something together is slow as I keep getting interrupted by other parts of my life.

If I can ever get the composition together I know exactly how I want to color it (Hint: the retro coloring that we all know I love).

At least I have an idea? That's the first step right?

[mekare]

Hey that’s great, an idea is the first step! *cheers you on*