I know it was just 365 days, but it sure felt like there were a few years that were snuck in somehow. I have a tradition of spending my New Year’s Eve by myself writing out goals for the business, doing art and playing my current favorite music. NYE 2019 was no different. I had my tea freshly brewed and my new 2020 planner out. I wrote down a full page of goals related to where I wanted my art to go in the upcoming year.

Goals were everything from posting regularly to this blog, getting more consistent at social media, and actually taking some time off. There were also a bunch of art goals in there as well. One of the things I wanted to do was increase my traditional media work.

Goals written out for 2020 in my planner.

I started out as a traditional media artist, mostly with colored pencil work, but with the start of the business 12 years ago, that had fallen by the wayside. Even though I enjoyed doing the business, it bothered me that my other art skills were pushed to the side and I worried that I would lose them from disuse. So I wanted to make an effort in the new year. The two goals that related to this were the following:

Finish one illustration per quarter (digital or traditional)
At least two Dandyland characters done

Time is tight for me as I still work a full time job, so I knew both of these goals were going to be tough to complete. But I was going to give it a shot.

And then COVID hit.

This year has been beyond stressful for everyone. 2020 is definitely a year where we all get free pass on not fulfilling any of those resolutions. I know I had periods riddled with anxiety, anger and tears. I (semi) joked that the 2020 planner was just a big waste of $30. Seriously, everything is crossed out and cancelled. It’s kind of depressing! However, since art is my stress relief, the traditional art related goals - the ones I thought I had the least chance of completing - were the only ones that I met and actually exceeded.

When I got overwhelmed with the news or fears of getting COVID myself (I have asthma so it could be very bad for me), I found myself turning to art as escape. Focusing my attention on drawing pretty boys themed around candy and working out what colors to use was much more fun for me than playing the worst game of 2020 I called ‘Is it [X] or is it COVID?’

Dandyland was a series I came up with about two years ago. I finally decided to give it a go and also get back into my work with Copic markers. I found myself looking forward to when I could close the work laptop and get back to work on the latest character. I ended up sketching and or completing 23 of them this year. This is by far, the most traditional art I’ve done in years!

I also started doing more fantasy and non-kawaii style things on the iPad with Procreate. An artist I follow on Twitter was doing art challenges for a while which helped get me inspired on the days when that blank screen was scaring me into inertia. Plague doctors which had been trending for a while prior to all this also become a hot subject this year. So I did one in the ‘bishounen’ style (basically, just another excuse for me to draw another pretty guy, lol).

Galaxysona from a Twitter art challenge.

So what am I going to do with this art? Well, I started Haetae Illustration to post this style under to keep the main account solely dedicated to Kimchi. I’ve started to turn the Dandys into merch, the first set of 4 is off getting turned into a small run of standees. I’m also aiming to turn the art in Haetae into prints to sell whenever cons come back when I have the space to show my sub brand.

I definitely want to keep up with it this next year, even as I hope life returns to whatever is normal now after all this. I’ve missed working with traditional media so much, the scrape of the pen on paper, seeing the colors blend when I color. I want to keep going with it and growing this side of my art skillset.