Reflection #35 – October 20

Hello and I welcome you to another monthly reflection! This time, I have to look back on a quite conflicting timespan. I started off October with enthusiasm and it would continue until I was knee deep in my final preparations for my portfolio. I was very focused on it that time and I had to scrap the only project I’ve been cooking up then because I didn’t know where to go with it. During this time, a lot of things came together. I was beginning to feel existential dread, I wasn’t sure whether or not my portfolio gets accepted, if I have to face a challenging admission exam, if I would be good enough or if an application would be approved. I wasn’t sure how my next year would look like, if I still would be stuck without continuation towards a profession and, well I still am in the unclear about it which makes me nervous and the news about a second quarantine now hitting my country and state certainly doesn’t help with it. Certainly nothing in that regard has changed for me, but since I feel much better now than I felt during the middle of the month, I guess that I have distracted myself masterfully. Well, I did play through Ghost of Tsushima entirely this month and as the completionist that I am, I worked for the platinum trophy… which helped, but certainly not as well as my biggest passion… This brings me to the artworks I was able to put out this month. Because despite my depression and failed projects, I still somehow was able to finish 6 projects this month, of which 5 were done in the second half of the month. Albeit they are not very refined and I did like the quality of some of last year’s works more… just so you won’t hear praise for me. Well then, let’s start with:

Just one Bite

I wasn’t very happy to be working on this, but I think it deserves to be talked about. As I stated numerous times before, this is the result of a very, very short dream I had of which I wanted to capture the last moment. This was the second dream I could remember in the last couple of months where hyenas appeared in my dreams. I usually don’t think too much into symbols in dreaming; I was crushing my teeth in my mouth, fell from buildings, was out in the open water before but never did I dream of hyenas. Sure, I think about them often but usually not even what I think about appears in my dreams. I got curious and looked up the symbols of hyenas and according to a site regarding dream interpretation, I found that they indeed are a symbol and usually occur. As usual, there are quite a lot of ways to interpret them, I can discard envy and the longing for a sexual relationship but what most definitely is applicable here, is to be in a desperate position. Maybe it indeed was a reflection of the situation I was in at the time. Why there was three of them or why they were fluffy and pitch black, I am not sure. In my dream, I felt enticed to care for them until one of them bit my hand and I panicked. Maybe it is a reminder to not be fooled by a tempting offer, to make a premature decision or to lose my calm. Those things never hurt so I will just take the reminder and go on with the next artwork.

Feast

This is a follow-up to the previous artwork. After I had the dream, I couldn’t help myself to think about how this dream would have ended. For me, there was no other way I could think of and my sort of self-destructive mentality I had at the time didn’t go against the idea. My original intent was to draw the story in three phases; First, the one you see above, the second where the other two feel agitated by the one biting my hand and start to bite into belly and neck and the third where they are sitting and laying around the carcass. For some reason, I wanted them to grow very fast so that in the third image they reached adulthood. Also, in the second panel, Souvillaine should not have been in pain, sort of simulating that he is accepting the fate and wanting to be devoured. The theme of devouring is something that frequently occurred to me this month. I recently enrolled in my Netflix abo after 9 months so I just had finished the last season of Castlevania and just started Beastars and both had clear themes of devouring in them. There followed a couple of other sources like the movie ‘The Platform’, which is all about eating to survive. I guess the theme stuck with me through the rest of the month, but I won’t get into fantasizing why exactly I have been so fascinated by it.

Desire

And lastly, I was boosting my workload to finish this year’s Halloween Special. Doing something out of an impulse and for a need can turn out to be veeery bad, mainly because you just don’t have the time to double check your lines, your composition and your anatomy. This was troublesome for me but I indulged in the absence of details I could bury in the darkness and it was fun to actually create a candlelight romance piece as on top of last year’s romantic mutilation. A big shoutout to my bro marcioo9 who happened to be doing the same premise and upon sharing some wip works, I borrowed the idea of those piles of candles and the bath tub they’re standing in. I just regret a little that I decided against the blood because I felt I didn’t want to connect violence with sexual interactions as it makes me very uncomfortable… at least definitely with posting those works here ^#v#^ Now, I just can’t help but miss the blood here, as that’s totally Fiara’s trademark feature xD Well who knows, Maybe I’m gonna add it in the future…

So all in all, this was a very bloody and mentally challenging month for me. I definitely can’t say I should’ve finished more projects because that couldn’t be further from the truth, i am very happy with the work I did and that I was able to still celebrate the spooky month’s themes and stepping out of my comfort zone was very refreshing. The future artworks will be tame in comparison and more nodding towards the stuff you’ve gotten used to see from me. Let’s see if I can name something specific (no promises though).

Even though Cyberpunk got delayed again, which hurt my hype for it quite a bit, I still want to follow through with my initial plan to portray three of my characters in the setting without much background integration though. Who these characters will be, I let you fantasize.

I also have some commissions that I have to tend to sooner than later but I yet have to debate whether they will be executed in private.

That’s all I will say for now.

I wish you all a great next month. Make most of it and I sincerely hope to keep my positivity up.

See you back at the end of November!

~Souvillaine