I just got the calendar and I love it! 💕 It's really cool seeing how you filled in the months the game skips over, makes the world feel full and lived in, and even gives the characters a bit of a resolution after the last case. It's storytelling in an unconventional format, I really dig it.
YAAYAYYYYY im really happy it reads and thank you so so much for buying it!!! I got the calendar idea from a conversation with a friend but I also wanted to put a lot of thought into the process of ideating and creating it. I was bouncing around the idea of making it like it was Apollo or Phoenix's calendar they were using and writing little notes or scribbles of theirs but I lowkey did not have the time for that LOL ...not sure if you've seen that other apollo walking into Kristoph office artwork I did but that was originally going to be the january illustration but I felt the clean rendered look wasn't really the vibe I was going for and opted for a more graphic kinda look (and it was more fun and quick that way LOL).
Planning the months obviously started with plotting the game events and looking up the AA timeline for other related dates (considered putting in the other game events but decided to keep it to AA4). Playing off the idea of it being a calendar belonging to a character, I decided to make the calendar a sort of narrative from Apollo's POV but also sprinkled in some perspectives from the others. It was kinda hard allocating the months to the characters in a consistent way, but ultimately my objective was capturing their world in that kinda "fated" way that ties them together as they lead their own lives. I try to tell a little story in each illustration and include hints of other characters where I could. Though I would like to explain my thoughts on each page, I also want to leave room for people to interpret it from their perspective of the series (though admittedly I'm subtly unsubtly pushing the klapollo agenda) I actually didn't plan the calendar too well in the sense that I just ran head first into pumping out the illustrations and the calendar part itself was more of an afterthought. I was writing out the game dates and saw some references of calendars putting illustrations in the boxes so I thought, "wow wouldn't it be cool if the dates also had illustrations?" Then I saw the empty space in the top right corner and thought, "wow wouldn't it be cool to have a little apollo on each page?"....and so I made my life harder... I also last minute changed my manufacturer (I had already submitted my order to the first one but checked out another one and was like WAIT THIS IS BETTER) so I had to panic re-format them, but I'm so pleased with the top coil instead of the middle part one---it has an elegant vibe. Admittedly I imagined the pages would have been a nice thick cardstock but lowkey my wallet ain't built like that so we settle for silk text (I imagine it's better for everyone else too....society...) Also I purposefully made Thanksgiving Canadian cuz I have the power to so I did. #Canada I'm so happy people enjoy the calendar, it was truly a labour of love to me and I knew that I had to do it no matter what. Alas, tis my curse as an artist to be able to make whatever I want but hate whatever I make....somehow the process of making the art sucks out some of the magic for me + my crippling self loathing makes staring at the calendar a little funny for me. I'll probably fall off of it as the months go by. Sorry for the long ramble but wanted to take the opportunity to yap about it. Thank you so so much and everyone else for supporting this project and all my other ace attorney things. I'm relatively new to the fandom but Ace Attorney came to me at a time where I'd been battling the worst art block of my life but simultaneously had built up the most technical skill. I forgot how wonderful it was to love something and share it with others and the feeling of being able to sit, pen in hand, and mindlessly draw just because I wanted to. The way Apollo Justice is coincidentally timed with my graduation...bro was literally made for me I love you. ok yap end