Reflection #69 – November 23

No joke here?

– how uncivilized…

Wow, this month sped by like it was nothin’.

Let’s start off with the only illustration this time because I went on to work on it quickly after Halloween to get some relief from graphic design and do some good old figure drawing again.

I always like to draw hyena characters and I have grown accustomed to the process. With this commission, however, I was not only pleased with the species but an interesting change in posture and proportions. I was assured artistic freedom, which is always appreciated to have but I wanted to cherish the original design and experiment a little with this new body shape. Although it is not all that new, is it? If you recall last month’s Halloween special, I had already a rather similar body though shrouded in a silhouette. The mix of much bigger hands and arms, smaller legs but preserved head size was a little cartoony but still brought across that this character was strong and expressive. Needless to say working on it was very fun and my client seemed very happy with it ^v^

Unfortunately I could not experiment much with the style of the piece; there was still so much to do which prevented me from taking it a step further…

For some reason, I thought after most of the merch designs I had finished last month, I’d be over the hill regarding work load… I was wrong!

Perhaps, November was even more work-heavy than the last, despite not nearly as much time has been put into designing stuff. The reason being all of the designs now had to go into production, and boy was I not ready for all the refurbishing I had to do… The day I originally wanted to order the printing of my illustrations was early in the month. Turned out each and every one of my illustrations was missing the appropriate canvas extension for print, then the output was wrong for .jpg files, then they didn’t take .tiff files, when I had finally finished everything, it was the 15th already.

A more fun detail was when I closed in on the deadline to my vograce order for stickers, buttons etc., I came up with all the silly ideas for even more merch, decided on a whim to turn one of my illustrations into a standee, which was lots of fun but also hella complicated with the design I chose.

Then more files had to be polished, refurbished and rendered, was practically turning into a maniac for size differences and pixel conversions, still anxious about the actual print quality and colour difference to the initial design. Tomorrow, I will find out how the print results look like and whether or not I have to re-order some if needed. This is still a huge undertaking for me given I have done nothing of this prior except simply ordering prints for myself in very low quantity. For 3 weeks now, I’m on edge, very nervous about the result and I am positive it will get worse leading up to the con as I still don’t have any assurance if this all will be worth it.

But one thing is there; I am very much inspired.

Following up was the design of my business card. And for the first two days I was so clueless as to how to approach this project that I doubted I’ll even bring myself to finish one in time. I had to go deep into myself, what I truly wanted to present myself as, what elements are important to me and how my style would shift and change with regard to the next couple of years.

It was weird, thinking I will have to decide on one theme and one emotion to express myself with. Then I thought of the first year here on deviantart that I felt where I belonged. Back between 2018-19, I had started to dwell in the chill dark sunset vibes of the Caribbean beaches, Black Sabbath’s ‘Planet Caravan’ playing on my profile page. And again, with music now by Kiltro with the same yearning for calm and peace and not a worry for the moment, I wanted to paint my expression with these emotions. And the more I worked out the design on my business card, the more yearning I had to express this feeling. Something I think had sparked in me at the end of last year, now finally smouldered up again.

And now I yearn to make more, create illustrations, stickers, buttons with this feeling in my chest for the next con, another opportunity to spread relaxation and the melancholy of a dark, otherworldly but at the same time very peaceful sunset at palm tree beaches.

While the business card was finished today and ordered just as well, it dawned on me that my school projects have suffered a delay throughout the last 3 weeks I was fully occupied with the merch stuff. It is apparent, to now pick up the pace and catch up to get things rolling again. An animation short film, designing a card set and developing a game alpha test all comes up now. At the same time, I brought myself to enlist in at least one Secret Santa and will have to do a badge portrait as well as my banner for FV. Things have not calmed down but I still got some energy left in me for the rest of the year.

Anyway, I see I have not once checked up on my social inboxes for a month, will take a look at it tomorrow perhaps before I’ll depart to be at my family’s for the weekend.

December will be holding a lot of surprises for me, I am excited and a little bit afraid, but I am – in any case – looking forward to be writing my annual reflection again!

Until then, have a wonderful time, hopefully the weather will be nice and you all can enjoy any upcoming holidays!

~Souvillaine