Close to Normal

I’ve almost got it back again! I actually finished the initial ten-weeks’ worth of buffer a couple of weeks ago. The trouble with building a ten-week buffer is that it always takes more than one week to finish, so I wind up having to patch the gap of the weeks I use up in order to bring the total to ten again… if that makes sense. So now I’m nearing the end of batch number two, and then I should be ready to get back into a comfortable routine. I just put down the yellow ochre layer tonight.  

I’ll layer more colours on as the week progresses until these are done. I’ve also got a batch of Jamet pages I need to put shading down on, but the goal is to have it all completed by next Sunday.

I’m also still diligently working on the commission for one of my patrons, Rubje (and, as usual, underestimating how much time it actually takes me to paint something). It’s coming along nicely, if slowly. Here’s a peek at the progress as it stands currently  – the only peek that’s going public until this beastie is done. For those not currently pledging through Patreon, I’m posting time lapse videos of the creative process on this piece as I go and they’re in the $3 tier. 

The next watch-me-make-this video for this commission is going to be the longest one yet and while it’s going to be some time until it’s finished, it’ll also be really cool to see. I’m painting in 30 minute sessions and recording each one to be spliced together at the end. You’ll get to see the whole piece come alive.

I might even put the whole process, from pencils to inks to finished, together into one video if we can. I know some of it was initially rendered in 4K and some is in 1080p (my old desktop couldn’t handle 4K software without chugging horribly and my laptop doesn’t have Adobe Premiere on it because my CS5.5 copy doesn’t like to run on OS X Mojave and I can’t afford Creative Cloud). I’ll let the video editing wizard that I live with sort out those details.

Writing is also still happening, but I haven’t been comfortable posting what I have yet. I’ve gone back to working on Alpha Base again and there’s a lot of the story that just needs a lot more depth. I mostly switched pronouns around a lot and then absolutely covered my original draft with notes and mark-up and talking-to-myself “Meghan, what the hell were you thinking” for later re-writing. I suppose that’s the nature of a rough draft, and if you guys at the $10 tier want to see my scratchy garbage covered in notes, I’d be willing to toss the whole thing up there. Just know that it’s a real mess. 😛

At any rate – lots happening in the background! Many things to come.