I totally said I needed to write about December too, yes?
Ah well then, at least it’s not so much, only the convention.
Anyway, hello and welcome to this year’s first monthly reflection! It is going to be an interesting way ahead but let me first focus on what’s in the past.
Alright, my 4th Furry con… Spending like 5 days on a convention near my Hometown is still a weird fact to me. A lot of preparation went into it this time. Of course due to my table at the dealer’s den there. I spent some busy days prior to it on managing and preparing my merchandise, tinkering with cardboard, glue and toothpicks and doing drawing exercises to properly offer commissions. So there was no real vacation to be had. Still a very pleasant experience. I have sat much less in corners and did more playing cards or board games this time around.
Overall, it was a busier time than the year before but I managed to stay cool mostly. Of course managing con stuff and the private life with friends and family is a difficult matter that luckily worked out for the most part. To get the gist, I had to find the courage to open up and merge these two sides. Starting with my birthday: I brought people from the con into the small circle of friends and had a great time together. Which led me to finally open up to them about my weird affinity to animal people.
The next day was finally the first time I was open to deal. The small scale of the con definitely helped not to be overwhelmed at first. Then I got overwhelmed (positively) with how well it went; lots of people showing interest in my work, having fun to browse through my folder of artworks and laughing at my silly jokes. It was quite lucrative as well, with one small commission in the mix. The first two shifts were over too soon but I was open and ready to spend some time calming down. The second day went on and about with a first depression of the people there and the interest my stuff had gathered. With two commissions and a very generous customer, it evened itself out to a semi good day financially. What was so much better tho and a highlight of the day was that my mom came to visit and see this weird convention with open eyes. I led her through the dealer’s den and showed what people like me do, she even got to hug a suitor, which was so wholesome. ^v^ I spent the rest of the day playing board games and video games too :3
The last day at the dealer’s was – to say it bluntly – a bummer. Despite a good flow of people in the beginning of the final shift, my works had barely been looked at, even with welcoming invitations from my side. My expectations of a good, round ending to close the work off had been crushed. At least there was a magical someone there, buying one of each button I had – which I later met wearing them all at the afterparty – it warms my heart still and I hope I won’t forget it. This low sadly meant that my entree cost for all the merchandise I produced, have barely been covered if you reduce the price of the con ticket. Certainly not the best outcome but not a bad one either. It was my first time selling my own stuff eye to eye with the people who visit the convention and I don’t regret it at all, because I had a lot of fun still and hearing an overwhelming amount of people like my work was soul-lifting. Even more so given some were even ready to support me for it ^v^
In retrospect, there are some things I could have done better tho. Despite my preparations, I still felt a little underprepared in the beginning; my comm-advert book had to be illustrated more, I had no prints hung up to catch more eyes, standees, I thought were damaged weren’t presented, I had no cage to fully present my booth and line it up with my neighbors und I felt that working on commissions during the dealing took my attention from the guests and also added some further pressure where there shouldn’t be as much. With that in mind, I truly want to do it again. I have found new insights to the community I only grew to loving during my first convention. I have new motivation to draw and design and to work and it has given me another purpose during my time at a convention. It was still a bit saddening that I wasn’t able to partake in the panels I wanted to visit or that there wasn’t any time to actually browse and buy from my fellow artists but I could still do that on conventions where I’m not able to deal, like with cons outside of Europe I want to attend. If only the flights weren’t so expensive… TMT
After all this, I can safely say it was a big step up from last year. I met more people, opened up even more and was able to grow as an artist.
My next To-Do is to actively start helping with con business, I have thrown my eye on one already and will see if I can help out in the graphics department.
OKAY, this reflection is turning out to get very long, let’s continue, there’s much more to talk about.
Right after the con, I was able… well no, I caught a flu and had to lay low for a few days. Which helped me with calming down and getting some rest after the culmination of 3 months of work playing out in 3 days. I ate some leftover cookies and drank chocolate milk; a very pleasant time before school was calling me to return. I wasn’t ready to continue to work on projects just yet. The first thing was to update my Icon, then create my Summary of Art and write the Annual Reflection of course. The first week, I spent brainstorming my then announced Island setting, drawing doodles and designing vegetation, fruit and creatures:
For all the concept design work, I used my tablet while enjoying the atmosphere of my study place. Having these creative and fun people around was a bliss, while not always contributing to my productivity <v< Still, by showing them my sketches, I got some neat ideas I want to realize. And some slower lectures helped with my drawing intensity. Future sessions will also include some minor animation work, which I might share sometime?
I then felt the urge to experiment with the style I was aiming for and was in the need for a new profile picture… How fitting to just combine the two!
The design was loosely created, focus only on a simplification of shapes with rough outlines of the figure. And rendering went surprisingly smooth. The new, simple cel shading was a nice exercise to find the right colors and I managed to bring the figure more alive by selecting which lines are visible and where they are painted over. This makes for a good synergy, though it won’t be always as easy to execute as a future artwork will show. Continuing with this piece; I went for a simple background with flow water-like shapes and some overlay secondary lights here and there. The very loose style of the outlines merging in the background work very well I think :3 And I am still able to portray lots of details where I need them to be.
Aside from some comm talk and designs, which I’ll be showing later, there was one weekend in particular that had me hooked. I was partaking Little Island – an online convention. Originally, I took it as opportunity to offer commissions but, ehhrgh, forgot to change my pricing to the exchange rate of Singapore Dollars, which made my comms horrendously overpriced xvx I couldn’t just change it tho, as I managed it all over my website. Hence nobody actually went to order from me… but ah well, it turned out to be a wonderful convention regardless. For one, I was able to work on this raffle headshot all the while, which started out very different and left me worried for a while. It was only after my lunch break (at 10 AM oh gosh), that I restarted the progress and worked more in a style that befitted me. A more grounded, animalistic take on a moray fish hybrid much to the recipient’s enjoyment as it turned out ^v^
On the convention, I joined some interesting panels and spent most of my afternoon in a call with fellow artists. I made new friends and bonded with the ones I had going in more. Def a win these online cons, wouldn’t have expected 😀
Oh, lest I forget; a lot of the time after my return to the study place was spent writing lots of postcards to my friends and send them out. It was wonderful to use my postcards for some good ^v^ And the best thing in the end was to get uplifted whenever someone got their card and told me about how happy they were, actually saved me quite a bit yesterday when I was on a low mood. I def recommend you all to think of our long-distant friends and send them a piece of love <3 Alright. There is not much space left in my schedule. I have to work on finishing some concepts for school, the deadlines are getting closer. There is much left to do. I want to make more designs for my island setting. Prolly one illustration with Souvillaine, a character design and more illustrations with another character. Then I’m partaking in a lot of lessons in the following weeks. It’s gonna be a crammed February but at least we all got an additional day, am I right? 😛
I’ll continue this next month and hope I won’t be too busy to write this on the one-in-every-four-years day!
I hope you all had a good start in the new year and I wish you the best going forward!
With love, Souvillaine~