Good morning Reader 🌸

I hope your week is going amazing so far! Here in Poland the weather is beautiful, and I have a ton to show you today :)

Not only did I film an entire sketchbook tour for you, but I also finished a new illustration and prototyped packaging for my next convention! It's a lot to cover, but I hope you'll enjoy the ride as much as I do 💛

A new illustration is already done :) 🍃

I was so satisfied this weekend when I was able to put the last finishing touches on the illustration I started last week!

I only showed you a sketch last time, but here is the final thing 😊

The hardest part for me was clearly inking and adding the details for this grassy hill; it took me almost two hours to get it right! Before even adding any colors!

You see, the “rhythm” of the shapes and lines has to both describe the texture well, but also feel natural and organic; and without stealing the focus from the main subject. This is way trickier than it looks!

Not sure yet what will be my next illustration, but stay tuned for it! :)

Transforming how I present my art 📦

Here is another thing I’m super excited to show you!

​Last week I talked about how my biggest convention went; and while we had a great time, I sadly didn’t make enough sales to pay my part of the table!

But instead of being demoralized by it, I used it as extra motivation to do better next time!

And this week I focused on completely rethinking how I show my products at conventions.

Last Tuesday, right after sending out my newsletter, I actually received 20 acrylic keychains; so this was the perfect opportunity to design packaging! :)

After a few iterations, here is the packaging I designed and printed at home:

It looks fancy, but it’s actually just a piece of paper folded and stapled together. I’m super proud of it, and I’ll be able to reuse the template in the future!

Plus, I was able to use some plastic bags to complete the package! It really looks like something “real” now!

I also do something similar to my gigantic sticker sheet that premiered recently!

But why put so much emphasis on the packaging?

You see, during the Ryucon convention last week, I noticed a lot of tables where resellers, or people mass producing items like keychains with popular characters (and absolutely copyrighted haha). Some tables were absolutely full of them!

I can’t control if these vendors are tabling at the same event as me, but what I can do is present myself better to stand out; and highlight that all my art is done by a real human :)

The messiest Sketchbook Tour you’ve ever seen

After dragging it around for more than 3 years, I finally decided to retire my favorite sketchbook and buy a new one!

But for the first time, I decided to mark the occasion and film myself flipping through it; and here is the full video for you to see!! :)

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By doing this, my goal wasn’t really to show off pretty artworks; but rather how messy my sketchbook really is!

You see, there has been that trend for years to do very aesthetic sketchbook tours on social media; with pages and pages of finished pieces carefully put together. To be honest, I’m very disgruntled by this.

This puts an artificial pressure on something that has no reason to be well polished and presentable. Instead, it can be raw ideas, expression, lots of mistakes… nothing aimed to impress anyone.

All of the art in this sketchbook was done using criteriums, Bic blue pen, free Ikea pencil and stolen kid crayons; you don’t need any fancy equipment to make art or throw some ideas on the page 🌸

​The video is 30 minutes long, so I recommend watching it at x2 the speed if you are busy and just want a quick overview! But if you like anecdotes and unfiltered art, I’m sure you’re gonna enjoy it :)

Do you have any questions or comments about today’s topic? Don’t hesitate to hit reply to this email or send something on my strawpage! 🍓 I would love to hear what you have to say 😊

In the meantime, I wish you a fantastic rest of your day and week! I’ll see you soon :)

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Take care!
- Nighten

This email is part of my art Newsletter. Invite a friend to join the club: https://club.nighten.fr​

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