Summer is nearly here! Birds are chirping outside the workshop, I'm not having to use my heater so much, and it’s not dark outside when I emerge in the evening! and so I thought I'd do a quick update on my now quarterly newsletter, to give a peak into what’s been happening in the workshop so far this year, and what I've got planned next.
The year so far
In February, I loaded up my plucky, 15 year old van and hit the road, destination Glasgow, for the first convention of the year, Scotiacon.
From first stepping through the doors of the Crowne plaza, to Sunday tear down, I was surrounded by the welcoming, small con atmosphere, making the 14 hour round trip so, so worth it. This was my first time attending SC, and I felt as though I had been going for years.
I had lots of chats with lovely people from behind my well condensed stall, and gained some valuable feedback, which has been considered in my confuzzled line-up.
Pretty much within the first week of getting home, I was buzzing with motivation for more cons, more products and, most significantly, to freshen up my branding, which you may have noticed change over February.
My old branding has served me well for the past 10 and a bit years, but a freshen up is just what it needed, starting with the logo. The new logo is designed to still have the flavour of the old one, but with a cleaner shape to fit on more conventional sized planes.
I did condsider redesigning the whole thing rather than revamping, but it was too far removed from the original branding. The AW signature swish was my logo when I was a freelance illustrator, as Runaway workshop was my spinoff buisness, I worked it into that logo.
In March and April, I've had my head down, working on some completed masks for my confuzzled stall as well as some on commission. I'm excited about how popular my masks have been even outside of the anthro community, fulfilling orders to production companies, wildlife parks and schools around the world.
I am still working on fursuit head-bases, and after many many 3D printer issues, I have finally started printing the new large feline base. As one of my more popular designs, this will be moulded for foam casting. I'll also be working on a few of the other models that have waiting patiently for their redesign.
I will eventually model a few more unique bases that will be print only.
What's next?
Confuzzled is just around the corner, so over May, all of my focus will be going into that. I'll post a preview of all my dealers den table info soon.
Adding more potential conventions to the list for next year, a little closer to home, I discovered that there is an annual LARP convention just a 5min drive from my house, not only did I find that I can run a stall there, but also got a list of other conventions to apply for. 2024 is going to be rammed!
In June, I'll be starting some new mask sculpts (Deer, Raven and ... yet to be decided) I'm hoping to open up for more commissions on LARP masks as well, but the redesigning of old fursuit bases will take priority because they've been sitting in my mind for far too long.
More tutorials will be coming, I have already done some of the more practical ones to help me answer commonly asked questions about measuring and sizes, but if you have any requests of what tutorials I should cover next, then please drop me a DM. I know I previously mentioned making one about making plastic eyes, which I'm remembering literally just now as I type this... sometimes I get a little distracted... so that will probably be the next one.
To keep up to date with the goings on in the workshop, don’t forget to follow me on socials, I haven’t been updating them as frequently due to the very one track nature of the way I work when I really get stuck in, but I do update it more frequently than the blog.
