Long Ago in Gatorville (Part 10)

New strip! More perspectives! More objects! 🧰 More PLANTS! 🌿

The Skillshare class I took in perspective is paying off and I love it! And uuuuuuugh that lattice is just sooooo good with all the plants and the leaves and the detail. I am so proud of it. 💕

Let's see how long it'll take me before the next strip drops, though I'll try to post the next one within a fortnight. 😅

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🐊 Gator Buddies 🐊

Long Ago in Gatorville
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Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Galantines

Lately I've been in a really culinary mood. The kind where I feel an itch to make something that I made (or probably botched up) in culinary school. Or something that at least tastes like I learned making it from culinary school. I'm not that motivated enough to make something overly fancy, but I am motivated enough to make something that tastes fancy enough:

Ahh, chicken galantines: one of the first recipes I learned from my basics of culinary arts class. I remember this distinctly being the day one of my chefs taught us how to butcher a chicken. It was the same day we made chicken mousseline farce using filleted chicken breasts, which looked more not worth the effort than it sounded when he started passing the processed meat through a tamis.

What stuck to me most that day though was how the galantine meat tasted with the chicken jus. The soft succulence of the chicken thigh, the aromatic, refined taste of the chicken jus... I hadn't known until then that this was what I wanted my chicken to ideally taste like. Looking back, it blew my mind to realize that the secret was just reduced chicken stock with... Thyme. There was no other special spice or herb involved with the dish.

I can't recreate the feeling of epiphany I had that day, but I can recreate the recipe... But with bacon to wrap the galantines instead of a cooking thread or foil. It tastes great, trust me. 10/10 would bacon again. 🥓

This recipe has 6 servings, but can be adjusted as needed.

Crossover's Gumroad Shop

...Is now OPEN! 🎉✨

That's right, folks. I'm proud to announce that I now have an official online merch store featuring official Crossover content! My store doesn't have much right now, but you can expect more products lined up in the future!

I got some samples for some of my products, because quality control. I'm pleased with what I have:

From left to right: Official Crossover Sticker (5.5"x5.5"), Official Crossover Mug (11 oz.), and Official Crossover Hoodie (Dark Heather - L).

If you're interested in buying some of my stuff, you visit my Gumroad store here. 🧣 I will be announcing releases via Ko-Fi and Instagram, so be sure to check those when you can! 📡

Thank you to everyone who has supported my ventures thus far. Here's to accomplishing more art career goals! 🍻

-Zip

Digitober 2021: In Closing

Like last year, I wanted to give a proper closing to this year's challenge too.

Digitober Thoughts

I inevitably ended up missing four days this year, sadly. 😅 But like last year, I've decided to draw the line at 27 and not bother catching up to the missed days of Digitober. I'm satisfied ending the art challenge with a very fall-themed piece. Now I can breathe out a sigh of relief at not needing to post something every single day again, or just making something past the due date just to say oh I did the entire challenge ayyyyy 🙄

On the bright side, I managed to post over 25 entries this year, so that's still a huge plus compared to some art challenges I used to do. But looking at all these entries... I feel like this year just turned into another excuse for me to make all these assets for Gator Buddies. 😆 I'm not complaining, though.

I also noticed that a lot of this year's entries were anatomy-centric (though when is it ever not, amirite 😉). After doing Indulgence, I now feel more willing to draw full-body poses, legs, and feet.

I think what definitely got me out of my comfort zone this year was all the .gif sprites I made. I had snippets of various animated sprite tutorials in my head, most I had either gleaned over but constantly put off. When I finally started with 8 Flavors of Slime, I was mostly testing the waters, but I quickly got the hang of it (I have Aseprite's easy-to-understand interface to thank for that).

Improvements

Last year I said I would focus more on perspective drawing and landscapes. That really didn't pan out as well as it should have. 😅 On a related note, I just discovered and bought EasyPose on Steam, and holy crapcakes this app is mind-blowingly insane. So many models, preset poses, and props. 🤯 I'm super excited to play around with this to make all sorts of perspective drawings with it.

If there is anything I really want to improve on the most in my entries, it would be Carpet Sea. The result of this one was really just bad in my opinion. I have an idea of how to make it better, but I'd like to make other perspective drawings first.

All in All...

This year was great. I needed this art challenge, really. A month ago I was going through a rough patch, and doing art has helped me cope with it. Art, and many many hours of sleeping and napping. I'm being an obvious hypocrite saying this, but I wholeheartedly agree when anyone tells me to not take sleep for granted.

I'm not sure right now if I should do a challenge again next October. I think future me might actually take a crack at it again... (No pressure, future me. 😉) For now, I'd like to relax, and take my time making some art and watching videos on Skillshare for the next couple of weeks. 😎