Happy early November!
I’ve been rearranging and setting up stuff still. Since moving in to my new room, it has started to become very lively. To be honest, I thought for a bit that I wasn’t going to find enough to talk about this time but looking back, there really was a lot happening!
The first thing I had on my plate was to go to an event in Stuttgart. Now that I live in a bigger city, I really wanted to take more part in social life; previously there really wasn’t much going on and now… I have something to go to almost every weekend! Thankfully it was a small art-related festival where I found a bunch of cool and creative peeps! Through it, I became member of the local sketch club and started to go on Saturday meetings. It’s so nice getting together like that as I previously only have attended such meetings inside the university program. The meetings deepened my appreciation for the traditional media and makes me want to focus more on using different materials for my artworks. For this, I started to browse local art shops but found mixed results… so far it worked best for me to find stuff at second hand stores or flea markets for a cheap price to then be able to experiment with and not be afraid of breaking stuff in the process. I’ll be keeping a lookout and ask around for now because a big city has got to have the right place for me…
Talking about my internship; my main fields of work still haven’t changed: I do a lot in blender for the main project: creating assets, expanding sets and a lot of adjusting and assessing things. It hasn’t become stale because I enjoy being of use in a big project like it but I feel like a little overqualified in a way. I dunno but maybe there’s going to be bigger tasks ahead of me, I’ll yet have to see and I’m definitely not complaining either. Though since I am not obligated to speak about it in detail, I’ll instead start to talk about my personal projects at the studio:
The first being what I had started in late September: It was a combination of being inspired by a rainy autumn day and the plant studies I have done in Tropical Islands earlier that month and I’m very happy how it turned out! It for sure has been relaxing but I also wanted to grow some more and refine my water rendering skills. I wanted to treat pure water areas like blobby objects that are very clear in their reflection which worked out very well here I’d say. I purposefully decided against more realism by adding some transparency to the material and make it almost metallic in a way. I def want to continue showing off water this way… in my digital works that is as I have been shy to attempt anything like it in traditional.
The project following right after this was to work on the design of a 3D model of my character Zavi. Though working on it was… a mixed bag. For one, I wanted to do sculpting again after that head bust I did in 2021, which is a fine enough reason I guess. I would probably need it later for work but apart from having 1 3D print of her, there really wasn’t much merit to be had from this project. Thus continuing to work on it started to wear down on me and even resulted in a depressing day at one point. I realized, I deeply needed a break from this and continued to sketch some telegram stickers I wanted to do for the good later half of last semester which helped me a lot. I haven’t abandoned this project though as I’m too far in. I even cleaned things up and made a first test run on my dad’s new 3D printer. Though sadly soemthing about the settings is off and I have to find a fix for it before continuing.
What my next project is going to be, I’m not so sure yet. Maybe I’ll start to take my marker set to work since when I’m back in my place, it’s almost always too dark to work on delicate traditional things… or maybe I’ll look into making an animatic for one of my bachelor film ideas? I’ll see what strikes my mood the most…
But all in all, I really enjoy being at this studio, if not for the non-animation I do, then for the team and the opportunity to enjoy this new little chapter of my life and I’m already fretting the day it’ll end in a couple of months…
On another note, I finally really finished my animation film for real this time! 🎉
For its original showcase at my uni, I rushed out the mixing and did placeholder credits. Now I was informed it was shown at a festival and had to deal with finishing the credits, and deaing with the un-nice things of mixing it for a digital cinema package (DCP) that is needed by a cinema’s projector to properly play it. Which meant that I had to re-mix it for something else than headphones, which delayed the date of completion for about a week. Work consisted of adjusting the audio levels, scrapping sounds that were more than necessary and painfully de-essing the voiceclips manually since the built-in davinci plug-in worsened my voicetracks too much. By far the worst though was not knowing for what loudness to aim for, what decibels are too much. Whether or not the target system would play it too loud or too silent. It was (and still is) very daunting to not be able to properly test what you’re sending out to professional movie-seeers and -makers and just hoping for the best but it’s all that I can (afford to) do. Audio is a pain, there, I said it. And I know I don’t want to be responsible for it in any future projects anymore >v>
Other than that… Hey I finished an animation film wooooaaaah! But I sadly cannot show it yet. As it is a regulation with most festivals that a film may not be publically available in any way. Hence my reluctance to make it so. So far I haven’t manually submitted the film to any festival, it is shown as a examplatory film of our university. Bt at least I can say that my work in my internship is preparing me to send off films to festivals. So the following weeks and months will be casually submitting the film to the one or other festival in hopes to have it seen. And that’s more than I expected of this project when I had started it years back… So I can only be positively surprised đ (if the audio holds up)
To get some fresh wind in my mind, I decided to take a walk outside at the day of the finish. And it was very nice to roam about in the small but still beautiful forest area here in sunny autumn where the leaves are just everywhere around <3
Personally, I find it hard to relax given that always something is being done… I can’t help it, I feel I need to work on something otherwise I’m feeling anxious somehow. But forcing myself to go outside really helped. I need to consider it for the future. Also while I did some traditional stuff here and there, I feel it lacking in my routine… uh in my defense, it was a very busy month with little free time under the week so… I’ll have it packed with more birthdays and challenges and whatnot in November. So yeah, I’ll try to make it traditional art-focused and see how well that resolution holds up by the end of the month.
A last thing, just before halloween, I started doing a weekly little challenge to draw more spicy art – an attempt to get a little sketch going and loosen up an inner blockade of doing stuff like it. I’ve been feeling awfully ace in a sense, not to say there’s anything wrong with it, just feeling somethig being wrong with me. I’ve been struggling mentally for a long time as to why I do not feel the need to find a partner in life, many reasons point against my way of life being more comfortable in solidarity but as of late, I wanted to discover if there’s really truth to it and not being self-brainwashed against being in a relationship. I don’t know if I have stated it here before but I’ve never felt romantic love to anyone physical with me. I have felt it online but not to a point where it could be shared physically and now with trying to opening up more, I contrarily feel more anxious and reserved in return almost fearing a relationship with someone could turn romantic. I dunno, this might rather be a topic for a psychiatrist than one of my reflections but this fruity friday thing has the potential to help me in a way. I don’t know the extend to how I will share these in my social medias given how strict I’ve been against posting or sharing stuff like it and the current politic arch we’re experiencing in western-guided social media platforms eehhhpffft!
I digress.
Yeah, no. Uff. I think it’s late! (It really is). Oh yeah halloween! uhhhh I completely forgot about that. Damn. But yeah Halloween wasn’t on my radar for the most part. I don’t know why I just didn’t feel the spirit. I mean I did celebrate but in a lesser, more familiar atmopshere and not spooky at all. All I could think of was preparing for Christmas, honestly. And thats… a little saddening… given years ago, it was my favourite time of the year, drawing grotesque, expressive things and creatures, lewd pieces, bloody pieces… all in one… not this time. Can’t explain why.
Anyhow! Next year is a year too. Now it’s November, and it’s full of things to look forward to for me.
But right now…. I need to find some sleep. I wanna start the week with some energy at least. So I wish you all a lovely time and see you right at the beginning of the chrissy season!
~ Souvillaine