December Updates
Quarterly Q&A, New Affinity Class, Last Podcast Episodes of the Year
Hello dear readers!
I have a 3 quick updates for you, one a bit last-minute, but all hopefully useful to you!
01 Patrons-only Quarterly Q&A | December 15, 9am PST
First, I will be holding my second Quarterly Q&A meeting on Patreon on Monday, December 15, at 9:00am PST. This is an opportunity for supporters at all levels to join in on a video call, ask questions live, or simply sit in and listen as others do. Of course, if you’re a supporter already you know about this, but I wanted to extend the invitation to anyone here who might be interested. You may join for as low as $3/month. This gets you access to my exclusive Monologue episodes of Thoughts on Illustration as well. Joining at $8/month will give you access to my monthly DWM meetups, usually held in the last few days of each month.
02 New Skillshare Class | Inky.af — Create Stunning Spot Illustrations with Analogue Media and Affinity
Second, I’m excited to announce my new Skillshare class, Inky.af — Create Stunning Spot Illustrations with Analogue Media and Affinity. I became interested in learning this powerful and free digital creativity suite after my household Adobe subscription doubled to $2400 a few weeks ago. Like many of you, I’m a longtime Adobe user but feeling squeezed out in so many ways. Anyway, in this class, I teach some new tricks I’ve figured out, particularly in how I’ve managed to port my popular Inky Illustrations techniques from Photoshop over to Affinity.
This is a great class for anyone who already uses Affinity and wants to learn some of my classic techniques in their preferred app (rather than my usual Photoshop). It’s also a perfect way to start learning the app from scratch. I give a quick intro to the overall app for those coming into it fresh, which is especially helpful for those hoping to one day free themselves from Adobe’s pricy subscription.
03 Two More Episodes of the Thoughts on Illustration podcast in 2025!
Lastly, this is just a heads-up, that there are just two more episodes to go of the podcast this year! On the 16th I’ll share a conversation I had with Darren Di Lieto (of hireill.com) about his latest State of Illustration report, which is a fascinating and highly insightful look into, well, the state of the illustration industry.
On the 30th, I’ll release my final Monologue of the year, available as always to paid supporters on Patreon, with free previews on the usual podcast platforms.
Oh, and in case it’s not clear—I’ll be carrying on with the podcast in the new year through June as usual.
Annual Year-in-Review Coming Soon!
(This doesn’t count as a full update) — Finally, stay tuned for my annual year-in-review episode and post here on Substack, which I will post early in the new year. It’s always a reader and listener favourite, and one of the most important disciplines I’ve maintained in my practice since the beginning.
That’s it for the updates for now. You’ll hear more from me before Christmas, but I just wanted to keep you posted!
Hope you’re well,
Tom