It’s a bit late for salutations but Happy New Year, nonetheless! Even if the year didn’t start the year off with a grand feast attended by scores of cute animals and cooking dragons, perhaps
Some resolutions for Rodrigweez in 2026:
1. More world-building and prop development. I took Environment Sketching with Michelle Fang through Warrior Art Camp last year and realized how much I love world-building and designing props. Especially if those props are food-related! I also realized thinking about small details of the world helped me think more deeply about the characters that inhabit it.
2. I wanna start some kind of postcard club, where I send out a monthly postcard to participants with news and fun art. Not sure whether this is something I can run with a custom plugin or maybe through Patreon or Ko-fi yet.
3. Churros. I tried to make them on New Year’s Eve and failed miserably. Expect some dragon churros in the future. And more baking recipes – inspired by the great British Bake-Off, the kids and I churned out some really fantastic meringues and macarons in December and plan to figure out some original versions for ourselves this year.
4. How to work slowly on something steadily without a thought to its end. Most of my projects have tight deadlines and I’m always thinking about what I can get done in a particular timeframe or what I HAVE TO get done in a particular timeframe. The result is that the work takes over my life and then I am exhausted at the end. I want to practice setting aside an hour a day to work on something with no deadline, just a small creative thing that I enjoy for me. I’m curious to see if that can help me develop a new sense of perspective and distance from the larger projects that I am working on.
5. Some kind of consistent online presence system that is sustainable, fun, and doesn’t continue to feed our techno-oligarchy overlords. I miss the “old” internet before it was overrun with social media walled gardens and online shops that all look the same. Will my little site give you a cozy, dragon-filled creative oasis amongst the blinding sands of boring design, vertical videos, marketplace dreck, and opinions no one asked for? I sure hope so!