Chasing the Art Bucket List

Greetings friends and enemies!

I’m back on the job hunt. I still have my full-time job, but not only did they remove some of the flexibility I really enjoyed, it’s also starting to bore me to tears. The nature of this job is that it’s very cyclical so every year it’s the same projects at the same time, plus there’s lot of brand-guidelines that restrict my ability to stretch myself creatively.

All this to say: I want something new. And in that spirit, I thought I’d list some dream projects to get a handle on the kind of work I really want to be doing!

My bucket list in no particular order:

• Poster designs for:

  • A Shakespeare production

  • A new play

  • A gig poster for a local venue or indie band

• Book cover for

  • An indie author

  • A queer historical fiction or romantasy

• Merch for a local cafe

• Spot illustrations for a TTRPG book

• Sprites for a visual novel

• Script for a dating sim

• Stationery design

  • Like little notepads and sticky notes

  • washi tape

• Stream assets

  • like a PNGtuber

  • chat emotes

II have plans to do some of these things on my own time, but it would be nice to get to work with others on these officially!

One way I’ve been trying to reframe my day job is as a way to generate funds I can spend on personal creative projects. The thing is that personal creative work and the promotional work that tags a long with it, is still work! Getting home at 6 to then sketch out VN sprites is fun, but it’s still tiring.

As we enter the new year, I’m hoping to take more steps to make my creative work more of my actual income so I don’t have to lean as much on a day job!

Update on the @ Change

I’ve changed my social media handles everywhere except etsy to haleandwellmet or haleandwellmet(dot)art! I still need to do some extra work on my banner and branding for my etsy to complete that transition.

Also in the eternal hunt for the perfect social media (impossible, can never exist) I’ve joined bluesky. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t really know how to use it yet—I’m currently posting my backlog of art and writing—but it seems fine?

Shop Closing

I’ll be out of town for the end of December so my shop is closed, and will reopen mid-January :^)

Upcoming Zine Fests

Reza and I applied to Detroit Zine Fest again for 2025, but we don’t know if we got in yet so keep an ear out! It’s going to be held on April 5.

Also a new zine/comic fest is coming to the area. LICZ (Lansing Independent Comics and Zine Fest) is going to be held in Reo Town on April 12. It’s being organized by Soup, of Ultramega fame. I don’t know if we will be attending that one either, but I am very excited to see another zine fest come to Michigan.

Behind the Scenes

I made this series of Looking for Work graphics to post to all my socials as part of my job hunt. Here’s the initial ideas I had in my sketchbook and some of the progress shots from working on it in procreate.

The wildest part of this is that the font I used for everything was Arial… it looks half-decent? If you’re interested in my design inspirations, I have a pinterest board for that.

Latest Art

You can get a print of this fishercat on inprnt if you’re interested!

Recent Faves

Some media recs from the last couple of months:

• Arcane S2: This show is so gorgeous, and the writing is phenomenal. S2 felt like it struggled to squeeze the plot into 8 episodes, and yet I can’t be mad at it because it still did it so well. Great for lovers of steam-fantasy, tragedy, beautiful animation, problematic yuri, doomed yaoi etc.

• Honor Bound: This is a entirely text interactive fiction game, where you play as a military officer (in a fictional world that’s 1930s-esque in its tech) reassigned to bodyguard duty at a fancy boarding school where you have to try and save your reputation while also keeping secrets and maybe befriending and/or romancing folks from the school and local town. This game is so fun and it really blew me away as someone who has written branching narrative interactive fiction. If you play this game you are legally obligated to talk to me about it!!!

• The Affair of the Mysterious Letter: This book is not necessarily the best writing in the world, but it did surprise me with an unexpected trans man protag which made me smile. It’s a campy, eldritch horror, Sherlock Holmes pastiche in which Sherlock is powerful sorceress who uses her magic to solve crimes. Fans of Fallen London will enjoy!

• Friends at the Table, Winter in Hieron: The fourth season in this very good TTRPG actual play podcast. Austin Walker is such a good GM and the players make really great character driven choices. Plus the world building in Hieron is awesome. It’s a fantasy post-post apocalypse setting where a lot of classic fantasy tropes are turned on their heads. You do have to listen to Autumn in Hieron first to get what’s going on.

Fare well until March :^)