Reflection #10 – June 18

Good day to all of you and I welcome you to yet another monthly reflection, this time; June.

 This month was HOT, freaking hot. It was the month when – for the course of over 2 weeks – I hadn’t a sweat-stained shirt on. I can’t stand the hard transitions between mild and hot weather and it’s only going warmer as far as I’ve heard. But enough of the weather.

 Before i can switch over to my artwork-related reflection, I have some more personal stuff to get over with telling you and not all of it is going to be pleasant to fall from my tongue.

 I usually like to start with the negatives so it won’t have a bad aftertaste. Unfortunately, today my grandma (matrilineally) passed away leaving her with no parents. I am not the kind of guy who likes to present this kind of information on a platform that’s meant for art and art alone, but I felt the need to say it if I left some of you wondering why I was saying ‘I have personal concerns to deal with right now’ and might sounded repelling on the process. To those of you: I’m sorry for that. I don’t want to have this in the room for longer than needed, so let’s switch over…

 The good news are that I will travel to bella Roma on the 15th with my class and I am super excited to visit this particular place in Italy. It has always been on my travelling wish-list and in two weeks from now, I’ll finally be able to revisit all the places I terrorized in Assassins Creed Brotherhood >:3

 Another one is that this school year is almost over, all class-tests are done and partially messed-up, therefore I will have more time for my hobbies what could mean: more frequent artworks and generally more work put into them. What a nice segue…

Artwork

Even though there’s only a small amount of artworks finished this month, I could very well fit them to the category that reflects on my studies: Ambient and Light

Carribean Honeymoon – [Art Trade]

Starting off with an Art Trade with , featuring her Sona and original species on LOVE <3. Which was a lot of fun experimenting with posture, details and ambient light. I see that, for the first time, I managed to get subsurface scattering to work right, but who knows… maybe a few months from now I’ll say the same.

Viscerin’s Blade of Chaos [GIFT]

Done for, my beloved , this turned out more than a painting than a drawing in the end. In fact, this may be among the most painterly things I ever did. I remember pre-rendering the background and the clouds in the end because I simply wasn’t happy by how the simplistic background was looking. Took me two more days until it was done. Well, I had more time back then. This was before I realized that the same person’s birthday was a week ahead then… won’t ever happen, that I forget a birthday, my dear!

Stay for Tonight [Contest]

Lastly, I finished this one today even. An entry for ‘s contest. It happens to be the most difficult artwork I’ve done in months, which is probably due to being a contest entry, and I am always unsure about doing them. With my own works I can see the line where I feel happy, finishing a piece, here, I never felt it was there. I had the character right, the lighting set, the background rendered. But it felt unfinished. And I didn’t know why. So I thought the background was lacking details. Asked my friends on discord what to add and luckily,  told me that it is okay the way it is and further objects would only ruin the focal points. And yeah, if I wouldn’t have listened to him, I’d probably be insane by now.

Upcoming Work & Planning

Okay, I realized with so many things blocking my hobbyistic freedom (believes that’s an actual word) this month, I decided to finally come to be doing my reference sheet. And only that one. So I’ll be focusing on my sona’s new look, fullbody, multiple angles, multiple facial shots perhaps and clothing. From my slim experience with creating reference sheets for characters, I can tell that it won’t be particularly easy or done quickly. I still want to take my time with that to eliminate any potential bad design decisions and make multiple versions of it.

Also, to keep this up, my Italian trip will disable me from working digitally, and chances are slim that I’ll be sketching something on that trip or even posting it here. Since my sketches usually turn out bad and that’s no self-criticism, that’s de-facto: true.

Other than that I want to do something wit my new look, of course. Some different body shots are in planning and some cool ideas are already in mind. Like doing a post war veteran resurrected from the dead, turning at his former enemy. Or a more peaceful setting with me slurping a milk-shake for example. All possible things, all in my head, going to be worked on sooner than expected I hope.

Artist Shoutout

If you didn’t know, this is where I honour all the wonderful artists I found this month. Don’t hesitate to check their profiles out!

Lurelin:

 Here’s someone who definitely shines through a lot of fantasy artists out there. Her comic lineart style and fantasy settings are something to look up to for me. Also I’m loving Lu’s original species and the ‘bro-pics’, showing just two male characters being cool with each other, I love them, they definitely show a lot of sympathy. All in all a worthy pick to be mentioned here.

 Augustus13:

 A quite young artist, yet fully convinced me of a growing and very skilled way to present anthros, especially their busts with such an interesting variety in colour, scenery, light and mood.

 I love the Glasses Everywhere series you did, and I am sure that your comic in planning will be no less intriguing!

 TsaoShin:

 I guess it is unlikely not to know him. At least I have never met anyone with a larger range of artists following and loving his incredible work. I count myself to that group now. With so many adorable and wonderfully painted favourite creatures like Spyro the Dragon, Toothless, Stitch or Totoro, Eric Proctor hasn’t covered what isn’t considered cute by the mainstream of movie lovers or related to any other sort of FanArt. And that’s enough to make my heart go up in bliss.

And that’s it for this month’s reflection…
 See you at the end of July,
 Souvie