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Isa here! Turns out I may have been wrong about being ready to draw pages again, lol. The page featuring the preview panel above became a mess because ink was not cooperating at all! I redrew half of it digitally to erase ugly ink blobs. Sometimes, it do be that way. Unfortunately I need a bit more time to finish this bad boy, as I essentially had to ink it twice.
Our flatter / colorist Mycorrhiza drew this really gorgeous art of the Hungry Tiger of Oz, which I wanted to share in lieu of the blobbed page. Folks that mostly know of the world of Oz thanks to The Wizard of Oz (the first book written by Frank Baum + the inspiration of the 1939 MGM movie) may not be familiar with the Hungry Tiger. He is essentially the Cowardly Lion's bestie. He also helps to pull Ozma's chariot. I've always loved him, as he's very stylish with his velour ribbon, and funny. I wonder if him and Ozma (as Tip) may make a appearance in the second Wicked movie. After all, they did name-drop the witch Mombi in part one, and she's pretty responsible for a lot of their problems. One of the deadly deserts also made a cameo in Wicked Part 1 during The Wizard and I, which made me happy! The deadly deserts have appeared a few times in Namesake. I think the one in Wicked was a nod to the 80's Return to Oz movie as well, where they are part of the landscape, and kinda spooky. Love it. It really shows Oz fans are working on the project.
More news on our end! Firstly, i'd like to go back to use the blogging function on Namesake more. I have a lot of sketches I never end up posting, and social media is a bit wild at the moment. It was something we did a lot in the early days of Namesake, and I miss it. Plus, you can RSS feed the blog. The Namesake / Crow Time discord also continues to exist, if you need to step away from socials but still want someplace to hang out.
Secondly - we are doing our first merch preorder, an enamel pin pre-order. My friend Winter encouraged us to join an annual Backerkit event called Pintopia with them, here is the project preview page! There's a lot of artists working in Pintopia, definitely explore it! Usually, we order merch using our own funds prior to Spring cons, but as a few readers (and my friends) pointed out, preorders make it easier to order larger quantities. I tend to low ball what we need.
All the designs are ready to go, so this will not affect page creation or the other projects I am currently tasked with completing, such as Valor, and profits will be going to merch production. I'm a bit nervous because we haven't done it before, so thank you to everyone who encouraged me to try!
Here are my friend's projects as well :
MYTHOS - a Greek mythology pin set.
Sky Thieves - a celestial tiger pin set
Shiny - Trinkets!
If I'm planning more merch for this year, I'd really love to revisit a past idea of drawing a big map of Oz as a poster, as well as Neverland and Wonderland maps.
-Isa
Hey everyone! Last year, we polled folks online and on Patreon on what our next plush Kickstarter will be, and y'all picked cute plush wolves! While we are not ready to do that Kickstarter yet, we decided to do a limited run of the wolves! If this initial sale does well, we hope to produce more. Please check these cute wolves out. They are square and soft and love long walks in the woods, cozy bedrooms, and cuddling with Mothmen and Cheshire Cats.
