Fantasy artist and writer. Creator of The Elements of Luna and Origins comic books. Join my newsletter to get new updates!
Gazette #02: New Beginnings, a New Adventure Awaits
Published 7 months ago • 7 min read
Gazette #02 | January 16, 2025
New Beginnings
A new adventure awaits
Father Time by Kayla Negrón (LunaLunestia), 2019
Hello Reader, and Happy New Year! 🎇🥂💜
I hope you all had a wonderful and safe holiday as 2025 came to a close and welcomed the baby New Year. I find that taking the time to settle down and rest with the newborn year helps with healing from the previous year. And once everything settles, it’s a good time to plan out the year to focus on self-improvement.
You might be wondering, what are my plans for 2026? Well, after taking time to soak in the new year, I began to journal to redefine who I am. I am a fantasy author-artist, creating whimsical illustrations and epic stories about reconnecting with nature, faith, and joy as the core themes, along with promoting works that have positive energy for good feng shui to help with spiritual growth in creating a peaceful environment for the home.
The World Turtle by Kayla Negrón (LunaLunestia), May 2025
Speaking of which, if you are interested in art with good feng shui, you can buy art prints of my illustrations in my InPrnt store. This month, I uploaded “The World Turtle” as an art print!
This year, I will be looking for job oppor-tunities! It’s the safest option while I run my small indie author-artist business as LunaLunes-tia. One of my goals is to work with authors who are looking for an artist to help bring their books to life through illustrations. After taking Topics of Illustration classes at UCONN, I fell in love with designing book covers and the children’s book illustration assignments. With my unique art style being anime-inspired, there’s a popular demand for that style to bring in more readers who love anime and manga. As well as switching my style from that anime style to chibi for a cuter, softer, and friendlier look.
Next, I plan to revamp my website! I made my portfolio site back in autumn 2024 for Going Pro at UCONN. Now that I graduated and got new ideas after being inspired, I’m motivated to make some major changes to my website. Such as updating the galleries with new works from the fall semester, and any finished contract work. The website colors will be even more pastel with almost white colors, that will help the artwork stand out more while still having the celestial aesthetic and luna moths sprinkled around. The galleries will also be smaller, so they don’t take up so much space with titles underneath each illustration and a body of text that talks about each gallery. With the galleries, you’ll be able to see all my works and find where to buy art prints or comics of them! There will be a Store section with dropdown links to all my online stores: Patreon, Ko-Fi, Gumroad, and InPrnt for easy access.
In the meantime, I’ll look into tabling at more small art fairs to sell my comic books, art prints, and other merchandise. However, I will not be tabling at large anime conventions or comic cons due to the table price, the number of days to table, and the cost of ordering more merchandise. I am staying within a low budget until further notice. For now, I will continue researching websites where I can sell my works as merchandise online, research opening a mail club for Patreon, and one day open my own online store directly on my website.
Furthermore, I will continue to share my works on social media and YouTube. I plan to utilize my YouTube channel more often to share reels by creating short time lapses and animatics about my comics and art, along with planning to create longer videos where I talk more in depth about the world and characters of The Elements of Luna and Origins. Also, planning to move away from Twitch to only live stream on YouTube for easy discovery to watch me draw, and once in a while, play video games on my rest days during the weekend. My streams are spontaneous and do not have a set schedule since I am not a steamer, but if you want to watch a live stream sometime in the future, I recommend subscribing to my YouTube channel.
And finally, I aim to finish Volume 01 of The Elements of Luna this year. To all my supporters and readers, thank you so much for sticking around in this journey! I am excited to continue this legacy of The Elements of Luna to share with you. For more information about The Elements of Luna, please scroll down to the "A Snippet of The Elements of Luna & Origins" section.
Beyond my author-artist life, I also aim to read more books! I’m on a reading phase and have been reading many YA fantasy books, graphic novels, and manga that I enjoy, along with finishing a bunch of video games that I never finished playing (I can’t be the only person who never finishes video games to the end, am I?), and start scrapbooking for fun in my spare time. As well as learning to cook more recipes, and helping my mother in the garden to grow food this coming spring. I aim to have a healthy work-life balance to have a more fulfilling 2026 of being here and now, after spending three years studying at university.
I look forward to what this year will bring. How about you? What are your plans for 2026? The best thing to always keep in mind for New Year's resolutions is not be disappointed when it doesn’t go as planned. It’s okay to let it out and then move forward. What’s most important is to be kind to yourself. 💜
What I learned from Going Pro!
As promised, here is what I learn from the Going Pro class! When I took that class, I learned to break down who I am as an artist and some beneficial business practices in a professional setting. Below is a list of everything I learned and some personal examples by yours truly:
Example: I was inspired by the mythology of Father Time to create the character, Kairos, from The Elements of Luna series.
Favorite Aspects of Making Art
Example: I love to brainstorm by creating thumbnails and sketching out the scenes to tell a story.
Five Sentences that Tell the Truth about Your Connection to Your Work
Example: My love for fantasy came from my childhood watching movies like “The Chronicles of Narnia” and playing video games like “Spyro the Dragon” series.
How to Survive & Prosper as an Artist by Caroll Michels
The Business of Being an Artist by Danel Grant
And there’s plenty more! While I shared as much as I can offer, it’s not the same as putting it into practice and doing extra research to learn and grow. Also watching YouTube artists and reading blogs online to read into their experiences and advice about working as an artist for both online and in-person events. What I did learn while watching and reading from the pros is that the business practices can apply to everything, so even if your field is something else, it can still work for it! Hope this helps you in your journey, too. 💜
A Snippet of The Elements of Luna & Origins
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the bottom! Like always, I share a snippet of what’s happening with my personal projects, and if you would like to see more, you can support me on Patreon for full works-in-progress and more.
The 1st draft of Origins: Azaes script is finished!
During days off from work, I would start writing the script for Origins: Azaes. Looking back at my notes and where Origins last left off, to create a seamless transition between the chapters. I’m happy to say that the 1st draft of Origins: Azaes is done and ready for proofreading and editing into the 2nd draft! As a reward for you, here’s a little peek into the script. 🌊💜🌙
(Yes, I like to write my script with Comic Sans.)
Romance blooms in this chapter. Without spoiling any thing else, I will say that this next installment will have more pages than the previous chapter. I’m happy to say that Origins will be reaching my general page count without the page count limitations for more story time.
The Elements of Luna returns in 2026.
As a reminder, I am focused on my contract job, and illustrating my comics is on pause until my job is completed.
The Elements of Luna, Chapter 04: Lost, will start production in the late-winter to early spring! 🌷
Chapter 04: Lost is the shortest chapter of the entirety of Volume 01. The last time I worked on it, I had finished working on the backgrounds before I had to go on hiatus due to university and work. Now that I'm back, it will finally be done and published on Patreon for patrons to read and available to purchase as an e-book in my online stores once the last page is posted on Patron.
Where to read Origins and The Elements of Luna?
You can buy my e-books on my Gumroad, Ko-Fi, and Patreon stores for $10.00 each.
I also run a monthly Patreon membership! Join the membership for early access to new works (illustrations and comics), works in progress, digital downloads, and more.
Art prints are available on my InPrnt store! If you’re looking into adding whimsy to your home, please take a look at my gallery for the artwork that calls out to you.
Word of mouth helps me so much. If you know anyone who loves whimsical fantasy art and stories. Please share with them my illustrations and comics.
Let’s welcome the new year with an open heart. A new adventure awaits! ✨
