Revisiting the happenings of last year and to come out positively is rather hard considering just how much bad has happened and is ongoing. It has left me frightened and deeply concerned about my wellbeing and the ones among my family and friends – a harsh wake-up call of the state we live in and our not-so-distant future.
And even though I’m lying ill as of this very moment, recalling last year’s events gets me easily derailed to some good things that have happened as well.
Due to the lightened corona measures and lockdowns, or rather lack there of, I was able to re-attend social activities and events; I was able to have my first full semester in person, really getting to meet my co-students and spend time with them. I went to the international trickfilm festival, visited a concert and went on a week long trip on my own to- well to attend my first furry con of course :3 Which probably has been my highlight of the year. Not only could I meet online friends for the first time, meet new peeps and buy sum cool artist’s stuff, I really started to grow warm to the fandom in a way I wouldn’t have anticipated. So much so that I looked around and found yet another convention taking place… in my hometown… on my birthday :DDD A fantastic coincidence that helped me greatly to thaw up my social iceberg and made me excited to visit the next one and further push my boundaries, maybe help me to traverse the continents to visit some more friends on cons someday…
Interacting with the community that closely also sparked possibilities of making my own suit and applying to offer my works at the dealer’s den.
But certainly my activities didn’t stop there, school allowed me to test my abilities in new fields, while the filmmaking section wasn’t as fitting (yet still fun and challenging). Testing the audio department proved to be quite thrilling, I was encountered with an all new environment to work in and had to pick it up quickly to meet deadlines, even managed to earn a little on the side with my work despite me fearing it would be too much to handle.
Yes by the start of March, I was about done with the most stressful time at school, not most work-heavy though.
Then by October, I entered another semester, this time with a more flexible schedule. I don’t feel like I was at my most productive with school projects but I take a more relaxed study time over the Dec-Feb crunch I experienced last year any day. It helped me think of a quite balanced work-week, when all school-related stuff can be covered during Mo-Fri while the weekends are reserved for short personal projects. A little challenge I cast upon myself was to produce one artwork a week within that limited time frame and it has worked pretty well, causing me to start small and slowly build up what I could achieve in two days. And while I sometimes had to upload it the day after Sunday, I felt very proud with the stylised results… but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s get to what exactly I did draw this year.
Remembering my stats I put up in my summary of art, I can say that my project-output nearly doubled since last year – which was to be expected as I stepped away from doing the sketch-page / speed-painting challenge I put myself through the first half of 2021 as they have gotten way too time consuming and repetitive for my own good. And while I am a bit saddened that I haven’t done a proper painting study this year, I did do a fair share of sketches to stay exercised in that field and definitely should continue in that direction. Of course I could reserve a day a week for studying… I really should.
One thing that definitely influenced my work this year was getting a new graphic tablet. At first, the increased pressure sensitivity helped me a lot with sketching and allowed me to try out a new style that I developed over the first two months and came back to at some points in the year, it’s a very fun method to practice shapes and shading and usually was super nice to work with ^v^
Another notable influence is the higher colour fidelity… sadly not all too positive. While I absolutely adore the deep colours I get, balancing them on both my monitors has become a dreaded new step in my work-routine that caused quite some sighs. I don’t even know how to approach this, it’s just something I have to deal with.
One thing that sadly went away was the efficiency of my the brush i used for realistic rendering, which is quite a loss, dunno why it doesn’t work anymore, thus I had to slowly get to different methods which resulted in some more textured, yet balanced brush-stroky painting. A tad more time consuming still with some practice but I like the look of the new textures enough to not regret missing my once beloved brush.
Looking at my artworks, I am very happy with them this year. I like how varied they look, how many different aspects and themes they represent, there have been soo many new styles this year that all found their uses throughout and I like having all those methods for upcoming new challenges to tackle.
Especially how these works developed in October to November have been blowing my mind with how colourful and focused they are. I’d like to continue in this direction specifically, stay figure-based; mostly realistic but with cartoony elements and whacky effects to spice things up, I think that’s what I’ve been getting back to a lot over my journey.
Hmmm looking back, it’s sad that – despite my many announcements, I have found little time to create some actual animation work, now I’m forced again but I’m afraid there are some overdue animation practices still to be done.
Working on / updating reference sheets planned from the beginning of last year haven’t been exercised as well sadly, in fact I haven’t finished a single ref sheet sadly. With Souvillaine’s I’d still struggle actually finding a notable design change to make it reasonable, as for updating Zavi’s I haven’t found any noteworthy update to do so until a little while ago, which will hopefully result in turning her into 3D. The new xeno character also is still in the never-ending brainstorm-factory. Who knows when I’ll ever finish that. But ya, that’s about that.
I guess I’d also like to get into scenic pieces again and divert a little bit from figure drawing primarily… just as a change of pace and since I really liked my Autumn celebration this year which headed in that direction the most. It’s just always a struggle with colour balancing and finding a place for my new found cartoony effects to fit well into a scene…
Also the whole discussion about AI in the past few months has really turned my stomach to the point of considering of tilting into the traditional sector some more, well not entirely because of it, I always adored sculpting and would like to follow and try out this wonderful medium.
Ahh so what is left to say? Commissions, I am working on a big one in the background and will keep it that way for the following months, not even sure if to post it since it’s been going on for so long, I hope to deliver during my next lecture-free time. Then I have at least one idea for an upcoming artwork inspired by a cool song, I’ll see where it takes me. Though most of time is reserved for school for now, as I have got to get lots of things done and wanna have at least a little bit of free time during weekends to relax.
More updates following in the next monthly reflection then!
I really don’t want to say stuff like “Don’t worry, next year can only get better.” as it’s always tempting fate in a way, instead, I say: take what you can get, make most of your time, try to look forward to something nice but most of all: enjoy the moment!
Have a good year!
~Souvillaine