The Spooky Advice No One Will Give You

OOO, WEE this year of 2022 is on its way out therefore it is time to pack up the successes of the year, rollover the unfinished tasks, and plan new goals for 2023! This year we have experienced a lot of changes. I have officially lived in my neighborhood for a year, we had multiple home infrastructure failures to attend to, and my partner has been in their role for a full year. We also planted the garden, painted the house interior including the basement, built the bed den, mounted our first TV, began SLA 3D printing, AND we started a business. Last year at this time, our goals were: Play on a game board we made, sell Lea’s art, arm muscle workouts, cook 92 meals & diet journal, learn to skate together. We completed 1 of 6; began 6 of 6, which all turned out more difficult; forced to quit 2 of 6 due to a set of injuries; 4 of 4 remaining were begun and WIP. I’m so proud of us! Okay writing this all out I see now how and why we failed. How: by not celebrating and reviewing our past successes, and not considering all facets of our life with our goal plans. Why: we overestimated how difficult each task (on the list or not) would be.

My business goals were similarly overestimated. I began my journey in such uncertainty but the further along I get I see now that there simply is no other way forward. I don’t want to take my career into my own hands and fail in a public setting. Of course, if I go to an interview I have to deal with the exact same thing. I pick myself up and try again. Again and again!

I have gained so much this year, and I now see all the work that is ahead of me. I took time to document all of my process work for my projects. I will be editing footage and sharing the process narrative. The amount of work that was required and not estimated for was TREMENDOUS. BUT look at all that I have created over this year!

My business is so intertwined with my artwork that I decided to throw away all of my work-related preconceived notions of what “work” is to me. I think some people call this a “mental breakdown''.” Anyway I spent the past year working on my physical self on my muscles, diet, and my home. I worked on my mental self, my anxiety triggers, stress management, and procrastination. I worked on my emotional self by owning my behavior, learning, and journaling. I worked on my spiritual self by learning how Alan Watts, stoicism, Taoism, and pagan holidays all help me understand my place in the universe so I know what I am meant to do next.As for our traditional work, I did keep a paper tally of how much “work” we did in hours. I will include it in my process videos. I am finalizing my business plan and will buy my LLC next year!

As you can imagine, due to the unraveling of my mind I needed an advanced way to explain my madness to the world. I decided that I could not do what I wanted to do with a singular brand identity. I am an Aries so I had to create three. So I present you with my three (and most likely will end in with four).

1. Let Lea Illustrate: Illustration/Design for hire; Fine art commissions, creative coaching

2. Mike Kris Art: NSFW figure art, commissions (18+ and DND)

3. WartDog Studios: 4K 3D printing, sculpting, finishing

Book Online for all identities

1. Let Lea Illustrate is working on "Pagan Cards"

   1. I love the warm fuzzy feeling that the holidays bring, I also get that warm feeling when I have an organized schedule for the week. Every morning I check tarot, and every month I track my cycles. The Jewish paper calendars I have used were laid out to sync the Hebrew calendar with the…bat-shit nonsense that is the Julian calendar, the two calendars, in print form. Sometimes I underestimate the power of analog when scheduling. I unfortunately need a paper reference when translating my ancient, natural cycles, which line up with the lunar calendar and Wheel of the Year, into the 9-5 modern-era Western-English scheduling systems.

   2. Every calendar needs some pretty pictures! I have created a series of 8 illustrations that I will highlight in a calendar that is layout to highlight the 8 pagan holidays, thus telling the story of the Wheel of the Year.

      1. Each of the illustrations is a testament of love to a person I know. Throughout this project I will be printing and sending large prints to the person who inspired the piece.

   3. Overall this project allows me to flex my muscles, spread my wings, and end at a strong beginning to selling and publishing my artwork. I can exhibit project planning, practice print layout, experiment in my art, and gestate a product to sell towards more art! To see the first drafts of all the artwork please visit the front page/portfolio of my website, here.

   4. Each of the 8 illustrations will also be a tarot-themed greeting card for the associated season. (I will be adding 4 more pagan holidays to make the

   5. Those pieces will expand to become an oracle deck, then eventually a full tarot deck!

2. Mike Kris Art is working on finishing for "Witchy Tits" aka "31 Babes of Halloween"

1. I love boobies, I love beauty, I love nakedness, I also might be a 13-year-old edge lord at heart? I challenged myself to an illustration a day in a 31 day build up to Halloween. I spent 4-12 hours on each illustration and drew every day, though that is only equalling 29 illustrations total due to previous done work, compositing, prompt mashing, and whatever other crazy nonsense I needed to do to post/draw every day of October.

2. Boobies are nice and all, but you might be asking, what’s the point? Well let me tell you, there is no point. Ha, just kidding, the idea here is that I have a clearly distinct set of goals and I want a way to study myself as a working artist. To bring it back to the here and now, this year, 2022, has been about giving myself an artist residency I could never have (due to any number of reasons). So I made my own residency, I buckled down, I made a plan, I began and ended in my own intentions, for that I am overjoyed. I learned so much and I grew as an artist. I built an identity to exhibit my works, and I expanded into a new community. I am still exploring and expanding.

3. The final product of this experiment is a print package product set.

3. WarDog Studios is working on "3D Printing-Palooza!"

1. Holy Moly! The 3D printing situation in our home is an unexpected and unbelievable surprise to our life and business endeavors! We bought an Elegoo Saturn Resin 3D Printer–in July? In August? (Whenever I dropped off the face of the Earth.) We already had a Creality Ender FDM 3D Printer (see image below), but it wasn't working as smoothly as we wanted. Now both machines are fully functioning and we are ready to take orders! Since I have already lost you, hopefully the following graphics will help explain the series of letters I spilled out before you:

1. Long story short, we can make our own toys now

2. Originally our hobby consisted of

   1. Buying plastic models

   2. Assembling/modifying these models

   3. Painting, decorating, and finishing them into their final “pretty” form.

   4. Sell/collect them

NOW we can...

1. Print any shape model we want, some files do need to be purchased, but others are FREE!

2. Sometimes assembly is required for pieces on large scale models.

3. No getting around the artistry of the hobby, we still have to paint.

4. WartDog Studios now has an Instagram too! Follow us for updates!