Patreon Art Summary - Jan 2023 to Dec 2023

Good day to all and this was a REALLY delayed post lol. But now, 8 months later, I finally made an Art Summary of my Patreon themes for 2023 because its always fun to talk about it in retrospective.

2023 is my 3rd full year of doing Patreon and the themes, as usual, included a bit of my original characters made before Patreon started and some new characters too. Sometimes I wonder when I will run out of ideas but I think I will run out of hairstyles at this point LOL

Some fun things I noticed in 2023

• 3 older characters, 8 newer characters, 1 continuation character (Sunday Helper, Alice and Apothecary are all characters I created before Patreon started) Spring fox is a continuation of Arctic Fox. She is the same person but in spring her hair turns black.
• 3 Brown hair characters, 2 white hair characters, 4 black or almost black hair characters. When drawing a lot of my characters, my comfort zone tends to gravitate towards more neutral and less saturated colors. It's not that I don't do it but it's just preference. When I do saturated hair colors, I tend to struggle a bit haha.
• Very little pink! I was pretty cautious in avoiding my favorite color schemes of pinks and blues, but I didn't even realized I only drew it once this year for Sunday helper!

Melan Patreon Award Ceremony! (this is just for fun, I love them all)

1. Most unique concept I attempted

• Winner - Alice & the White Rabbit: It was a bit ambitious for me to attempt two characters on a pin for the first time. When I drew them for the month, I truly didn't know how well it will be received. I know the the Alice in Wonderland theme is generally well liked but not sure if people will like my versions of them. I also haven't drew these two characters in like 5 years so I didn't remember how they look like anymore and it felt like drawing fanart of my own characters.

2. Funnest Patreon theme to work on: 

• Winner - Camera: This was a hard category to pick. I have a lot of really fun themes this year where the process of designing and finishing was incredibly satisfying. I ended up choosing Camera because I wanted to do a Camera theme for so long. There is actually a sketch of a camera/photography/knolling idea in my folder since 2021. The sticker sheet with the holographic film looking finish was EXACTLY what I was looking for and the feeling when you done something right is so satisfying. Also, because the sticker sheet only featured one character, it is very easy to draw lol!! The texture of the postcard also turned out perfect and I keep asking my manufacture to make similar style postcards but they never got it just right since then for some weird reason. Runner up: Snail Mail (it was a really close contest)

3. Most frustrating Patreon theme to work on:

• Winner - Will-o-Wisp, Autumn, Ornament: This might be a copout in a sense but all three of these are winners (or losers LOL) because I was working on all three at once to finish before my Japan trip in November. I wasn't sure how much energy I will have when I get back and work at my day job was ramping up for the holiday so my thought process was "I have to finish three Patreon designs in a month but still make sure the quality of the designs is still good." (Maybe that is why all three of them have straight bangs haha). It felt amazing when it's all done though!

4. Most surprisingly popular theme: 

• Winner - Will-o-Wisp: When I draw Patreon themes, I sorta know if a theme will be more popular than others. For example I like Catsitting will be a popular theme because its bright, cheerful and cats. I always draw spookier themes with the thought that it will not be popular but I am willing to take risks for ideas I love. It was surprisingly popular when I post it and you love the story of this lil lost spirit. I was also worried that the foil effect of the postcard is too strong hence I made a back nonfoil version because I didn't have time to experiment due the crazy crunch time this design was drawn during. The pin does really well at cons and so does the postcard. @_@

Well, congrats to the winners and Will-o-Wisp for winning two awards LOL! And thank you so much for reading today on my lil ramble. Let's look forward to the remaining 2024! :')