Ohhh why, after weeks of preparation, do I feel so anxious before a con?
Back in my childhood days, I’ve been getting so excited for a vacation trip that I often times got sick right before the plane departure. I don’t feel that level of sickness now, I’m just very anxious I might lose a suitcase or miss my train. For the actual convention, I’m more excited than last year… a good sense of excitement, not the stressful dread of last year <v< It’s not my first big con as a dealer anymore, everything is settled already and all preparations have worked out… well, most did anyways. I even have booked a train with late departure to make extra sure I have enough time to get to it this time. Now why is it still so hard to relax? TvT
Ahhh I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s focus on the past few weeks and what they entailed…
All in all, I had a great stay at my hometown. I’m sad it’s already over because I surely could’ve stayed a bit longer at my dad’s as I was just getting settled in properly. Hehe, but I shouldn’t be, because I know exactly that I’d be slacking off some more ^v^ Yes my time was one of relaxation mostly with lots of time to myself. I had a big kitchen, a balcony, a small working room and a cat to cuddle with – ohhh I’m gonna miss the biggie so much! And yeah, I also made sure to meet up with friends and family lots. Luckily, I don’t have it far to return from my work place to my hometown over the weekend so occasional meets will still happen.
Now, let me talk about my first finished project this month, the commission that I finally got time to keep working on!
Working on this possum gal was very enjoyable and I have been looking forward to this project for a whie because my client OuroCat has been making it very delicious for me °>
As it’s not inherently obvious, this was a design commission though most of the apparel pieces were nicely selected beforehand, my job was more or less fitting them together nicely. Some parts like the fishnet leggings were completely new and adding more and more accessories was a delight. I could just keep adding bracelets, rings and piercings. But ah, by time it got to a lot and I felt the need to really get on going. As fun as it was to bring life to this character, I can’t help but feel like I was jumping into old habits a bit too much. What I would want to try out is a more painterly approach to details and accents, though with commissions, I always feel like a sketchy and painterly approach wouldn’t be on par to what I offer as commissios, what people might expect of me or in short: with clients involved, I tend to go on the safer more mundane route. I should losen up, maybe make changes to how I offer digital commissions but so far, I haven’t felt the energy to make some changes. Maybe with the next projects this might change…
While working on this project, I had to be on the lookout for a place to stay during my internship. The process of finding new flats online was new to the beforehand meeting up with people and getting offers by talking to them face to face. Here, I learned that the past applications I sent out had helped me to be direct with my demand and what I had to offer and be authentic with introducing myself. Still, I grew wary a bit as offer after offer was declined and I was forced to rise my maximum rent price to get more offers. And there were nice ones though sadly either too far away or too costly for me. As luck would have it, I caught on a quite spontaneous offer and was able to visit on the fly on the next day alongside a second apartment inspection later that day. And luck didn’t begin to describe it, it was a small yet charming flat and my future flat mate was immediately flattering. On top of that it is in walking distance from my work place so absolutely ideal. The second flat I visited wasn’t nearly as good and thus I got back on contact with the owner and had an ‘Accept’ the same evening. I am just so happy how the next semester has formed from a battle of anxiety and dread to the most wonderful outcome I could have dreamed of. And I don’t want to keep talking about it, I know the future me still has some of that in store so I’ll just head on over to my next project.
As pretty much my biggest fear of not getting a domicile for October was taken cared of, I had to start using blender some more… which I didn’t.
Instead, I went on the drawing board and just let loose. no influences, no purpose and no expectations coming out of it. I just wanted to return to the island setting, my chill project I haven’t gotten to for months and it felt very very nice. I wanted to keep it as simple as I could, the sketch was done in a day, lines followed suit, color and rendering took no longer than two days and finished was a piece I can be really happy with. That and the overwhelming feedback I got of it, that it is widely cherished and shared gave me such a warm feeling that I don’t have to be a try hard with my work, overthink things or needing to keep things realistic… no just letting go of expectations and moving with a simple idea.
It’s what I want to return to soon after the conventions. And I’m fairly certain that I’ll have enough time alongside work to keep on doing stuff like this too keep my artistic drive up and creating silly little pieces.
Oh there is plenty more stuff I did that I just remember.
Like, I helped out with Schl4fy’s art book, which I reserved possibly too much time to overanalyze and give a disproportionate amount of feedback to, simply because I now had the time for it, it was very refreshing to do and a delight to read through ^v^
On multiple occasions, I visited Alpha Ki’s family and art friends and we spent some lovely evenings together where we kept working on our projects in preparation to EF. Then I met up with the producer of multiple animation films who has her seat in my hometown and we had very insightful and lengthy talks over the industry and animation projects and what not, which gave me lots of new outlooks on where to go or what to do after my study. And knowing there’s small animation and filmmaking clusters here in the area made the space here a little warmer and more familiar. It made me appreciate more the cultural side of things and how communities no matter how small make it so much richer as a place where you have been looking for meaning most of your life.
On another note, I m´finally got to working in 3D again, though not like in previous projects like sculpting o prop designing and modelling but rather 3D printing an ajustable grid for one of my boxes to sort and keep my sticker inventory in :3 Which is a stretch but I noticed I just needed a motivational push and that was designing something useful. While it is a small project, it did help me find that tie to getting back to Blender and starting off with the basics to 3D printing along the way. And it works very well for my purpose. The adjustable attribute to this grid served two purposes: for one, being future proof so I can make some grid spaces larger and some less for the appropriate sticker sizes. And two: it was actually easier to make them fully complementary so I didn’t have to meticulously measure out every individual space.
And this whole thing made me hungry to design figurines of my characters in the future…
Being part of my lengthy preparations of my con booth were also the redesigning of various displays, price labels and info sheets as well as preparing a last print order of my most recent artworks. Last of which was a bummer because the printing company managed to make quality misprints of nearly half of my order, which made me quite disappointed. While I am in contact with them to arrange a reimbursement, it got me thinking once more to switch to a fully independent printing method… I just have to buy an actual printer TvT So if this year’s Eurofurence turns out to be good in sales, I might actually make it happen next year but that’s a bit too much for this reflection…
To get back to the conventions and my expectations…
I’ve been looking forward to Tropical Furry Islands more than Eurofurence, I must admit. Simply because EF is, well… mostly work for me. While I enjoy dealing and doing commissions wholeheartedly, it does take in most of my convention time… and that’s a bummer. Because I’d kinda rather have the flexibility to go to panels and meet up with friends and make new acquaintances. It’s sort-of the curse I have to bear, that I cannot be at three places all at once. And that’s why I love that there is TFI, where I have enough time to relax, it’s small and you get to make your own meals and enjoy the con atmopshere on the side… it’s lovely and exactly for me but I know there’s gotta be EF too to really appreciate it ^v^
Alright. When the next reflecton will be out, I will have 2 cons behind me, another moving and a whole week of work at my internship… it will be… no, it is exciting, still. Maybe a little more now that I’m thinking about it.
Here’s to a delightful September and I’ll be back later than sooner! Now I wanna lean back and try not to overworry about things…
Sincerely,
~Souvillaine