Art & Other Project Updates: January 2023

Welcome to 2023!

It's been a busy start to the year. Way more social events than normal and too much biking to the movies (though I DO love biking to the movies). I'm not out to jinx anything, but I've managed to do some consistent plunking at the keyboard this week. I'm also still doing a volunteer gig two days a week that I started in November, so I would say things are looking pretty good for the ol' Keel.

This month I have been continuing my efforts to try new techniques with my digital work. I think when I started using Procreate a few years ago I just settled on the first coloring style I liked and never really branched out, so I've been playing with other brushes.

I wouldn't necessarily consider any of these Finished Works, but I do like the movement in them.

Up next I finished one of the most annoying things I ever decided to draw: full cast illustrations for my novels. Happy to report I have another three of these in various states of completion (sobbing).

These are the primary important kiddos in the story I refer to as Ana Baba (or "witch school" if you're my mom). If you've been following me for long enough you might recognize half of these drawings from previous iterations of attempting to figure out what everyone looks like (but now polished!).

Salma and Melly have actually been around since 2013, when I wanted to write a short story about witches with crushes. They're still witches with crushes, but I'm not sure the story is so short anymore.

(Nobody asked, but I do have plans to draw the important adults in the novel too. We'll see when that happens.)

And finally I thought I'd share one of my rough illustration thumbnails from this month. You could roughly interpret this as a very long-term spoiler for someone, but I'm not sure anything is canon until it's written down. :)

Next update you can look forward to some sloppy comics from hourly comics day (it's February 2nd). Happy January!