#ffxv fanart

Drawing inspired by @alchemic_rose on Instagram who does amazing cosplays and an amazing queen lunafreya. If you don’t know her stuff go check her out ❤

After a couple of weeks of fielding some outstanding prompt suggestions, the 2020 Igtober Prompt List is here for everyone to read and share! Believe me when I say it was extremely difficult to whittle down 100+ words to just 31, but hopefully everyone will be content with the prompts that made the final cut. (Shout-out to the person who suggested “Meteor Shower”—while I didn’t include it in this list, I wholly appreciated the Episode Duscae reference!)

Igtober 2020 Rules:

1. Must have Ignis
2. Tag it with #igtober
   

That’s it! Traditional drawings, digital art, Ansel photography, cosplay, you name it—if it’s got Ignis, it’s welcome to be a part of Igtober. You don’t even have to follow the prompts if you don’t want to, especially if you’re following another prompt list. In fact, I would highly recommend checking out @he6o​’sawesome FFXVtober list for more ideas! We have a few identical prompts and although they don’t overlap on the same days, feel free to recycle anything you did for @he6o’s prompt list and tag it with #igtober if it applies!

I am super excited to participate in my 4th (!!!) October drawfest focusing on everyone’s favorite strategist, and I’m even more excited to see what everyone else comes up with. My thanks again to everyone who supports my decision to nix the free sketch giveaways this year in favor of making them available as donation incentives; I’ll be posting about Extra Life Game Day later this week, so stay tuned for more information about that. Otherwise, I’ll see you all in October! ٩( ᐛ )و

[Side note: I’m going to do my best to reblog as much of the #igtober tag as I can, but I keep this blog fairly SFW so I won’t be reblogging anything ~too~ spicy. Also, I’m not a shipper so I won’t be reblogging shipping-related pieces here on this blog, although I highly encourage anyone who does ship to feel comfortable using the #igtober tag. Even if I personally don’t ship, there will still be plenty of people who’ll appreciate your efforts!!]

Apologies for the long delay on this one, I spent the first two weeks of August recuperating from minor surgery and I had a sizable backlog of work I had to get through before I could sit down and work on this. _(-ω-`_)

When I was a kid school always started in September, which is why this month’s design depicts Brotherhood-era Ignis catching up on his Cosmogony studies. As of this writing, I haven’t ordered any of the merch for this design yet, so the date of release is subject to change, but I’m going to go ahead and list September 19th @ 1:00pm PST as a tentative release date/time (so set those alerts on your calendar!).

Despite being rather quiet here and on Twitter, I’ve actually got a lot to talk about in the upcoming days and weeks. For one, Inktober is just a month away, and I’d like to discuss my thoughts on the controversy currently surrounding it and how this blog plans on handling it. It also tangentially ties into November’s Extra Life Game Day, which I’ll mention in a later post whenever I get the ball rolling on that. Until then, stay tuned for future updates either here or on Twitter!

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Who better to embody the heat of August than the Infernian himself? Good thing thermal suits exist in the FFXV universe, otherwise Ignis would’ve cooked right alongside his marshmallow lol.  Technically this iteration of Ifrit is no longer the version of him that you see in the main game, but I felt the OG Pyreburner’s color scheme fit better with this design than the scourge-infected version, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For me, 2020 has felt like a losing game of Tetris—for every one row of tasks I complete, two more rows pop up and threaten to overwhelm me. If you’ve ordered merch from me the last few months, you probably noticed longer and longer wait times between release date and product shipment, and for that I apologize. Some of it is out of my control, like delays with my manufacturer (as of this writing, July’s merch still hasn’t arrived at my house yet (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻), while some of it is simply a product of burnout. I work a full time day job as an illustrator, so motivating myself to work on merch club or zine art during nights and weekends can be challenging at times.

Which brings me to August’s release. On July 30th, I’m having a minor medical procedure (again) that will involve a few weeks of recuperation time. I’ve been trying so hard to get the Ignis Monthly Merch Club back on a first-of-the-month release schedule, but unfortunately with my upcoming surgery I can’t make that happen for August. Therefore, August’s release date will be scheduled for Saturday, August 15th at 1:00pm PST. The good news is that I will actually have all of the merchandise in hand and ready to ship by that date, so the wait time between ordering and receiving items will be quite a bit shorter than previous months.

Other than August’s Merch Club, I have a few other bits of ISEB-related news to share; I finally finished my @lostinwars-zine​ piece and am able to post a preview of it:

The mods have also kindly granted me permission to write an accompanying story to go with my piece, which will be available in the PDF version of the zine (that is, if my writing muscles haven’t withered too greatly in the last few years >.>). Preorders for the zine are available here: https://lostinwarszine.bigcartel.com

The other bit of news is that I signed up for Extra Life Game Day, a 24-hour gaming event on November 7th to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Since I haven’t played FFXV for more than a few hours this year, I will make up for lost time and attempt to beat the entire game in one sitting over the aforementioned 24-hour period. You can bet I’ll have some donation incentives similar to those that were available during the #AdamvsISEB stream; I’ve also been kicking around the idea of including my 2020 Inktober sketches as rewards. Whatever the case, I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated here as well as on Twitter! ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶

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 GOOOOOOONDOLAAAAAAA 

It feels like June’s merchandise just went up and it’s already time to start advertising for July. ಠ_ಠ (Side note: June’s charms and standees are being packaged and mailed out as we speak, so those who ordered either of those items will have hot wet Ignis in your hands soon enough!)

I associate fireworks with the month of July (Independence Day in America is celebrated on July 4th), so “fireworks” was the theme for this month’s design. As I learned after discussing my concept with a friend, there are actually quite a few FFXV fans who never got the chance to play the Moogle Chocobo Carnival (BRING IT BACK SQUARE YOU COWARDS (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻), and therefore may not understand the context of this design. The culmination of the carnival shows Noct chilling in a gondola with Carbuncle and watching a fireworks show, so I appropriated that scene for my own Ignis-centric purposes and turned it into the image you see above. (I admittedly had to take some artistic liberty with the gondola’s design, as some of the ornamental elements didn’t translate well onto the small scale of physical merchandise.) It took me ages to decide whether I wanted to include the baseball cap or not; on the one hand, it looked cute and tied the whole outfit together, but on the other hand, it disguised one of Ignis’ most defining features (his cockatiel hair). In the end I compromised and went with a visor, which is suitably appropriate for Ignis as I imagine he’d loathe letting a good bottle of hair gel go to waste.

As of this writing, July’s merch is set to be released on Saturday, July 4th at 1:00pm PST. Like June, there will likely be a short wait between the time merch is released and the time it actually ships, but I’ve already initiated the order for everything so in theory the wait shouldn’t be nearly as long as the last couple of months were. I’ve also upped the quantities of everything a tad, so hopefully everyone will get something they want without having to beat the initial rush. If anything changes I’ll let everyone know, but for now feel free to mark your calendar for July 4th!

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Like last month, I’ve been experiencing some delays with April’s merch. The stickers arrived and I’m really pleased with how they came out, which makes me excited to see how the charms and standees turn out. Those, unfortunately, have not yet arrived at my house in time for an April 1st release. For that reason, and also because the previous months’ releases have all happened on a Saturday, I’ll be releasing April’s merch on Saturday, April 4th and 1:00pm PDT. Here’s a handy-dandy timezone chart for customers around the world:

I have ordered plenty of everything so if you don’t feel like staying up late or waking up early (depending on where you live), you can buy merch at your leisure. I have lowered the quantities of everything just a tad so I’m not left with a bunch of extra merch, but I’m confident nothing will sell out within the first 24 hours. I hope you enjoy April’s merch as much as I enjoyed drawing it! ٩( ᐛ )و

My 2019 trip to Japan was a life changing experience for me, so I created April’s merch design as an ode to that trip. Not only did I travel there during the peak of cherry blossom season, I also got to enjoy the experience of hanami while dressed in kimono, so this charm is very much in honor of that. 

I was a little late on delivering this design due to a couple of factors; the above photos actually depict the second iteration of this design, the first having been reworked to depict seasonal kimono more accurately after conferring with a Japanese friend of mine. The coronavirus has also had an impact on my productivity, which is why I haven’t pinned down a concrete release date for April yet (although I’ll be sure to post here when I do). I hope everyone looks forward to April’s merch regardless of when it becomes available!

In semi-related news, KupoCon Montréal was postponed the day after I made my announcement that I would be in attendance. It has since been rescheduled for July 18th; whether I make it to the new event remains to be seen, since I’m not 100% confident the coronavirus situation will be resolved by then, but I sincerely hope to make it if it is. I have so much merch I’m sitting on for it ;_;

And while I have your attention, I have two more bits of ISEB-related news to share:

1. I was tapped to create some merch for the Promnis zine, Found Beneath The Stars.FBTS is welcoming to all facets of Prompto and Ignis’ relationship, both romantic and platonic, so please look forward to a piece of merch from me depicting their unique (and sometimes hilarious) friendship!
   
2. Contributors for the Lost In War Zine have been announced, which includes yours truly! It’ll be my first big FFXV piece since last year, and I’m hoping to make it something truly special for everyone. And if everything goes to plan, it’ll also mark my return to the realm of fanfiction! More details will be forthcoming in the next few weeks and months, but rest assured you can count on me to feature everyone’s favorite strategist in everything I do.
   

That’s all for now! I’ll be sure to update everyone with a release date for April’s merch as soon as I know more. ٩( ᐛ )و

Now that the Adam vs. ISEB charity stream is in the books, I’m slowly getting back into my old routine and picking up things that I had left on the back burner the entire month of February. The big news that I erroneously failed to mention here on Tumblr is that the March design for my Ignis Monthly Merch Club was released on March 7th (postponed a week on account of the stream), and is available on my Etsy store along with February’s charm restock. The good news is that I ordered plenty of inventory this time around, so if you didn’t grab anything last week there’s still lots of everything to be had. ଘ(੭ ᐛ )━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

The other bit of new that I addressed in a recent Ask is that, as of right now, I am scheduled to attend KupoCon Le Pom in Montréal on April 4th. Obviously the situation with the coronavirus is constantly changing so there’s a chance that it will get cancelled altogether, but in the event that it is not cancelled, I will be there in attendance at a table in Artist Alley. I’ll have my complete catalogue of merchandise with me, including just about every acrylic charm I’ve ever had made, plus the usual prints, buttons, stickers, etc. Right now, it’s looking more and more like I’ll only be able to accept cashandPayPal (since my Square reader apparently doesn’t work internationally ;_;), but I’ve been doing some research and hopefully I’ll be able to find a solution to the problem of taking credit cards across the border.

That’s about all for now! This weekend I hope to finish April’s merch design to share with you all, and there just might be a zine announcement in the near future… Stay tuned! :3

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Igtober Day 7 → Fire

To absolutely no one’s surprise, I am already behind on my #igtober prompts ಥ益ಥ I had slightly higher expectations for this piece, but my cheap watercolors caused my cheap colored pencils to smudge and bleed, so I was afraid of pushing the values further than I did. I’m also not sure if the metallic pigment I dropped in at the last minute really added anything to it, but who doesn’t like a little shiny with their Ignis? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Igtober Day 6 → Pun

Raise your hand if you wish Square Enix would bring back the Assassin’s Festival one more time ಥ╭╮ಥ

Igtober Day 5 → Glasses

I probably could have worked the “Glasses” angle a bit more but I got lost drawing his beautiful face (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄

Igtober Day 4 → Duty

When duty called, what choice did he have? ಥ﹏ಥ

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