So what all happened the past 2 months?
Pretty much actually!
School’s been occupying me almost the entire time, only during some weekends did I find some time to keep time off of projects and I spent a little more than a week at home with my family over the holidays and my birthday. Not gonna lie, it’s been probably a tad too stressful for my taste, and most of it was due to the shire variety of different course-projects. But careful planning, setting deadlines and the lack of personal projects helped me to get done with everything in time and still open up some wiggle room to learn for the upcoming exams.
In hindsight, the second semester has been overbearing at times and I would have enjoyed it more if the workload was lighter. Then again, it was my choice to overwork and probably do more than what was asked in some cases just because I wanted to push myself. And in that regard, it has been kinda rewarding. The whole semester taught me the demands of the projects we think we wanna make; that we often overlook the intricacies of the workload ahead and how important it is to follow a well-crafted guideline not to mention to be aware of the help we will need along the way. It also helped me appreciate all the craftsmanship that goes into the media-products I consume (even the not so good ones).
So what to do with that knowledge?
So far, I’ve been mainly invested in animation class and do consider it to follow through the main term with the ultimate goal or the bachelor thesis being a medium-sized animation film. But to even consider this goal, I have to double down on preplanning, world building, story development and so much more. But for now it’s a good thing to keep in mind and work towards on the sideways. It would be ideal to catch up on some animation exercises and concept art, but let’s not just dwell on that fantasy for much longer.
The biggest change that happened in regards to my art-work was the acquisition of a new tablet. Now I’ve been shy to talk about it for a while and finally want to tell you how my experience with it was so far.
I’ve had my old Huion tablet since late April 2017, so almost 5 years and it did very well the entire time, never had any problems with it… until: Well the pen is slowly giving up. The buttons already don’t work anymore (though I have switched to a full keypad-workflow) but more importantly is that the pen charge is continuously decreasing. And yes, that thing has to be charged – I haven’t found a single one on my recent search for a new one that requires charging, which does feel like a thankful raise in the standards on the market because Huion just doesn’t produce these old pens anymore, so if that pen for my old tablet eventually stops working, it would basically reduce its value to a simple Full HD screen.
So why get another graphic tablet? I’ve considered getting a simple pen tablet and valued my options, but I had to look back to display tablets because in the past 5 years, this workflow really manifested itself in my life and I love having a second computer screen that I can use for all applications and switch over to do drawing when I feel like it.
I’ve been having the XP-Pen artist 24 for no more than two weeks now and so far, I really like it. I got it at a discount so it was in the same price range as most of the competitive products I’ve been considering so I do take it as a samey-priced update to my old Huion; I got a higher resolution, slightly larger screen, higher pressure sensitivity, wider colour range, tilt functions for brushes and a pen that I don’t have to CHARGE!!!
While it is a little bit too large for my comfort, I only have one gripe and that’s actually the colour range. I do see the “new” colours on my monitor and they’re looking fabulous but I didn’t take into consideration how this new colour depth would impact my artworks. When comparing the tests I made to my main computer screen, the colours went from vibrant to kinda washed out and a little bit darker than on my main screen.
This sorta has been around with my Huion too at least in the brightness-department but the colur depth is really driving me nuts at the moment and I yet have to find some workaround to it. I tried switching my tablet’s colour settings to the same as my main monitor but it didn’t really help and over the years of feedback I got on this site, I never once heard anything regarding brightness… so maybe my PC screen has been the perpetrator all along?
Only time will tell.
Uhhh so I’ve been doing a little bit of sketching that I posted here; some li’l fanarts of friend’s characters to try out the tablet but nothing too fancy. Still happy with the results though.
In February, I’ll finally have some free time on my hands again and I’m planning to spend some of it with a personal commission and some smaller things here and there but mostly just relaxation.
Okay, I’ll get back to it, got some final projects and exams to finish up.
In the meantime, hope you all are having a nice second month into the new year.
See you all pretty soon!
~Souvillaine