April recap – Fanarts, Utown chapter 2, Animal Crossing is now my life

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all in good physical and mental health. Me, I’m this close to expecting Sonny and Cher’s “I got you babe” to come on every morning. In terms of weather (my second favorite topic in these recaps), April was just the March sequel nobody asked for. My big “getting back into running!” plan pretty much went down the drain, alongside the 56 000 metric tons of trash that the city hasn’t cleaned from the streets yet.

Speaking of neglected inner-city neighborhoods, the second chapter of Utown has started! There was such a big break between the production of each chapter that I feel like it’s a different project! I really like chapter 2, I like the pacing, the characters get their best moments and best of all, it involves breakfast. I’m starting to think food is a theme for me…

Bandwagon time! The 6 fanarts challenge was just the excuse I needed to draw a bunch of characters I liked, doing nothing but posing. Not gonna lie, Tails is my favorite of the bunch! And whaddya know, Cybersix is still fucking fantastic.

Another thing I worked on is a blend of digital drawing and photography. I have hundreds of reference pictures with no one in it, so I tried merging illustrations into them. It was HARD but a real fun technical challenge. I want to do more but finding interesting photos with a good enough resolution isn’t as simple as I thought. If this works well, I’ll try to make a “Polaroid Pack” or something for sale. We’ll see!

Oh! I was invited not once, but twice, as a guest on Les Mystérieux Étonnants, a long-time running podcast about culture. It was a lot of fun and it’s the longest I got to see my friends (in a video call) in… a real long time.

That’s it for the fun stuff! I spent the rest of the month doing the usual, prepping my class, working on the second volume of the children’s book I’m illustrating, taking walks whenever I can, avoiding going to the groceries, etc. AND PLAYING ANIMAL CROSSING.

So April has been the same week over and over, between repaying debts to my one and only overlord Tom Nook, eating sandwiches and missing my friends and family. Still! Here’s what got me through this endless loop!

Listening: Hot Chip’ 2019 “A bath full of ecstasy” because if I can’t get out of my house, might as well dance in the living room. Hot Chip is a band I keep coming back to when I feel down!
Watching: Community, which I absolutely loved for two seasons. And immediately started hating once the characters become aggressively aware of how tropey they are. It was fun while it lasted. Midnight Gospel also landed on 4/20 and trust me, it’s better enjoyed sober.
Reading: The rants of half a dozen very cute, but very needy villagers.