Ohhh how to start this? …
A warm and heartfelt welcome to you! I am glad you made it!
I’d like to believe it’s a good thing the last year seemingly never ended. Now thinking back to 2022, it feels like an infinite moment had passed in between. Just so much had happened this / last year, starting with my website finished in less than two weeks all for a school project. My internship at the festival I most enjoyed attending in 22. Trying out VR gaming for myself. Travelling by plane again after 6 years, watching a favourite comedian, buying new glasses! And this is only the start!
I’m positive this year was a landmark in my development as a person. Whereas I have wandered around without perspective or much guidance where to go next in life, this year has given me a compass and a taste for what is reachable and pursuable.
The aforementioned internship gave me an insight of how to build and run an event for people and the enjoyment it brings. And much later, I had the opportunity to start a small retail business and sell my works at a local furry con.
I am still very much without a distinct course, but I know how to take the steps ahead of me now and that’s blessing me with a clear mind and hopefully the energy to reach for the opportunities that will present themselves.
But first, it’s time to reminisce about how 23 went.
It was clear to me, at the end of 22, how the year helped me thaw up and grow personally. I believe it greatly benefitted me to have gone through that change and grow up more. I handled stress in a new way; pushing through and staying optimistic, learned to cooperate more, be transparent and strive towards a healthy working climate. All under the hood of an animation festival, which I greatly enjoyed both as a visitor and supporter.
Saying that, there is still a doubt haunting me to this day whether or not it was worth breaking up my study for an internship I practically could not have counted for my mandatory one. As I have yet to catch up on the courses I missed. But I somehow doubt pushing through with the plans I had last year prior to that internship would have brought me much further than I am now, but who can say that? All I know is that it greatly influenced me and potentially opened up a possible job field for me in the future.
After my internship followed a couple of months that I had to spend alone at home. My immediate idea was to flesh out a proper animatic for an animation short film that I had gotten the idea for shortly prior to the festival.
I structured my routine strictly, made weekly plans to manage my available time and focused on designs and writing of the script and world. Now I can say proudly, to have pulled through with that concept, the script is finished and the animatic is on a hiatus until the unforeseeable future. My main issue was (or is still) to get a proper voice actress for the roll. It is a very difficult one I would say. There are plenty of emotional parts and long takes to go through. Personally, I felt it wouldn’t be hard but trying out the script myself in a couple of rehearsals, I came to realize the challenge that was before me. Further adding to my issue was, a friend whom I had reserved for the role broke up contact to this day. Dunno what happened, if she broke her phone or anything but I hope to get in contact with her again and try out the script on her.
So, while this is on ice, many personal pieces followed for this year’s Art Fight. Oh boy was it a great month for my art! There were so many pieces finished and so much fun had. Finally I could bring myself to properly work out animation exercises and make people happy with it. I since crave this boost of creativity for the rest of days. Looking forward to the next one, as always!
With the end of that, I was able to treat myself with Baldur’s Gate 3 and some personal projects on the side, and still with that much free time… it took in the whole month TvT
Thankfully, I had taken two commissions in preparation for Eurofurence, which had drained me financially. The con itself wasn’t as glamorous as the first one had been for me, but I hadn’t expected that. Accommodations were much further away from the convention area this time, but also much more affordable, which sadly came with some stressful to and from travels. Seldom do I miss the comfort of a hotel breakfast, but especially during these con hours do I feel the envy for this luxury.
The speciality this time was definitely travelling with friends all the time and helping with fursuiting. The new con grounds much closer to the city centre also meant we had contact with ‘the open public’ – which I believe had helped many to open up with themselves and their part in the fandom. This year, I’m not too sure if I’ll be able to attend, I have laid my eyes on another con on close proximity to this event but maybe I will take it as an opportunity to try out the dealer’s den on a bigger venue… given I still have plenty of things to sell…
Right after came my last true vacation of the year; spending a week with relatives in Italy. And while I lightly frowned at the stationary life of our hosts we were tied to for what we wanted to experience, we were still spoiled by the great kitchen and cuisine at local restaurants and fig trees here and there ^v^. Truly a wonderful time.
Then, almost sadly, I had to return to my study place, a new flat with new roommates and old, slow habits. Though I was happy to return to my colleagues and finally get into working on projects some more… for a limited time as it turned out. With the time of the dealer’s den in December crawling near, my designs had to be fleshed out – which turned out to be an impossibility managing with the rest of my tasks. So I prioritized the more pressing matter and finished my lanyards, buttons and stickers and all the other issues that come with ordering prints on a deadline.
Passing forward for the sake of continuity, my income during the convention didn’t quite reflect the sheer amount of work I have put in to getting there. It is salt in the wound that is gaping open right now as my uni-time has suffered quite a bit and it will be hard to catch up now but just as with the internship-lesson prior to the year, I think this ordeal benefitted me on the long run more than a side project for uni could have done. I will continue to sell stuff at cons going forward but I will have to patch up my uni-life for now, not sure how it will affect my priorities in the future…
So October… My preceding procrastinations with merch designs had led me to a whole month of october without any cool spooky things to work on. Apparently, every time since the pandemic, I have to somehow suffer during the spooky month. The only good thing was that I could combine my Halloween special with the Furvester con book illustration… oh yes I haven’t talked about the previous one, haven’t I? So back out a bit to June, I was stoked to contribute a piece to Eurofurence and hopefully have it featured in their con book as a special kind of gratitude to the event and certainly also as little bit of advertisement to myself. I have spent weeks, finding the right combination of things, trying out concepts and designing a composition that would definitely make it into the con book. Which it did! But I didn’t truly know it until I was there and had it in my hands. What a moment TvT Move forward again, this time around in October, I rushed out at least something to work with and hope for the best, just to get the immediate affirmation that it is accepted for the con book. Whew. I still chuckle over the previous rush of anxiety where I didn’t know if all these weeks of work have been worth it…
December was a bit more noteworthy than the month before, simply because I have run so many errands. Travelled to my homeplace twice: first to check on my prints and have at least a little vacation and secondly, as a stayover for Comic Con to try out selling at a table for the first time to not be completely overwhelmed. Then, also we had a nice little school trip to Freiburg where I could do ice skating again in over a decade… and didn’t fall down đ
December was very enjoyable throughout, even though there were so many last-minute tasks that I barely had time to enjoy it fully. Still, with so much to do, I am happy I had some leisure at all.
And lastly, the Holidays. They were nice :3
I got a pair of bluetooth speakers which I am using to listen to soothing tunes at the moment and I had a wonderful cheese-baked onion soup that I want to replicate as soon as possible!
With only the con in the way, I’ll leave it to my future me to tell how that went in the next monthly reflection.
So, the only thing left are my resolutions. The most pressing matter are my uni works – as mentioned. But I will also have to be more careful about my finances. With me now being 25 years old, I’ll have to pay for insurance myself and loose some benefits. Meaning less money to spent, more to earn. I’ll see whether I can balance commissions and my personal work and dealing at furry cons with university stuff. Oh, as for personal work, I would love to go into a tropical island setting. Something that has been clear to me ever since I worked on my business card. I want to get back to my roots, find some spirituality, create new characters and stories and find myself a style to settle on for the duration of that project.
Alas, animations have to be made and new applications have to be sent out and I am looking forward to having my colleagues there with me to suffer through the same processes :3
Uhh, anything else? No? Probably? Potentially?
We’ll see…
For now, I will treat myself with a nice cider and wish the every one of you a happy new year!
~Souvillaine