Reflection #12 – August 18

Dammit, what day is it?!

 Crap! I didn’t think my wonderful holidays would just slip past like that… ugh!

Anway, I welcome you to this month’s reflection! A month that was filled with lots of free time and potential and what I did with this potential in my free time will be covered soon. But first a quick recap on what little I did this month…

As stated in my last reflection, the first week of August was spent in the far north of Germany, in a little village called Wacken. Before and after this first week of August, it is nothing more than a normal village with cows and houses with straw roofs. But in this particular week, the village turns into Metal Heaven. And I have been there with my father! Our impression: It was awesome! It began with the campsite: A huge field filled with part wise improvised tent utilities one more impressive than the other. Of course you enjoy looking at pictures more than me talking about it so here you go!
It was a hell of an experience… to lay off your etiquette, live with your tent and supplies, dressed in black every time and listening to metal all day, meeting people with the same interests all day, greeting, yelling, hugging, talking! Hehe, it was great. Sadly this year was quite fucking hot, too fucking hot even! It was unbearable at times around the tent. So basically we spent all day on the crowded streets, at ‘chilling spots’ and chip shops, eating curry sausages and shashlik on our way to the grocery store and the local swimming pool.

 Not that the heat alone was troublesome… after the first day of concerts, a huge layer of dust was all over the campsite, making it hard to breath near the stage area even. Standing against it was repaying though! As I finally came to see and hear Danzig play. Proudly knowing that I saw them performing live and playing some of my favourite songs, it was already a pay-off from the first day at the festival. Further highlights were Clawfinger that I’ve never heard anything of before. What a blast. They rocked the whole place from the ground up, honestly haven’t experienced anything that wild in my life! Even Limp Bizkit (that I would see a few weeks after) couldn’t beat them in terms of mosh pits and crowd surfing (but to be fair, they didn’t play at Wacken ).

But yes, Limp Bizkit was on my list of Bands to see live for years now and finally I got to see them on a small festival throughout Germany a few weeks after Wacken. A great show, wonderful sound, powerful performances!
To not to stretch that any longer, here’s my last highlight this month: a pretty trip to Munich and their local zoo with my mother. A really nice trip even though there wasn’t much time to spend and the way there was unnecessarily complicated. We have had a good time together and I stocked up my photo gallery a bit more.

And now let’s finally switch to my artworks…

Artwork

Given that I had three weeks of free time this month, I only came to finish 3 projects of mine… Now that may not sound like much, but I sure as hell appreciate what I did in that time. I overhauled my style a bit and managed to make an important step i my drawing procedure: Skipping the inking phase. I had the idea to have some rougher lines stuck in my head for quite a while now, but I never got to actually use it. When I did some detailed linework, it was a lot of time-consuming work: I repeatedly hated that part. So why not just take your sketch layer and refine it to an acceptable degree? I used a concept idea in my mind to establish it and this is what came out:

Zavi – Damaged in the Wasteland

Hehehe, I still love to know that my previous work of her… where I about tried as much as I did with this now, has felt like pure torture to me, whereas this one, with a technique I came up with alone, was so much fun to do. From there on, I continued leaving out my ink and left my artworks a little bit rougher but more unique than before.

 After this artwork was uploaded, I realized that there’s a small but honest amount of demand for the literate background of my artworks. What followed was a not too short story about what happened after Zavi got shot in the head and how she was able to survive that day. Maybe the future will hold more in store for her story, some time when I’ve got the idea and motivation to continue…

Souvillaine – The Throne of Doom

This is exactly where the dirty mind of a friend and watching some video game trailers lead to. It is obviously inspired by the Horror Survival Game DOOM, where the horror has to survive YOU! I played it through on my PS4 lately and got lusty for more. DOOM Eternal will hopefully continue the series righteously and with improvements that the new-interpretation of the all-father of Ego-Shooters. But yeah, I tried out a more grotesque imagery with this one and I’m not talking about my gender-bent sona. Bones, skulls, a massive throne of granite and a half-naked woman with a shotgun on her shoulder… what is there to want more?

Souvillaine – Dead Vacation [Homage to Dead Island]

Oh look at that! Yet another video game inspired artwork! This time Dead Island. The reason why that old slasher came to mind again is because I played the follow-up franchise Dying Light. And I loved it! It plays much better than the original, even though there are some design issues and some annoying things. I remembered the nice times me and my friends had, playing this coop-gem together and laughing at the funny physics and relentless beat-em-up’s. Poor Zombies… I still believe that this undead-infected beach-resort setting is gorgeous and it drove me to drawing this as soon as the idea came to mind.

Upcoming Work & Planning

As far of now, there are no real projects planned for specifically next month, since I’ll get re-introduced with school final exam-horror and various job applications.

 There is one in the making, though. A gift art for  to try out her famous retro style. I’m still figuring out a proper composition and pose for that, so it will take its time.

Artist Shoutout

  Yacrical

 A visual artist with great sense for composition and extreme lighting. I’m a sucker for good scenery with characters, so there’s no surprise that I felt drawn to his incredible artworks. And once you decide to zoom in for some details, you’ll be soothed by a great painterly quality. Another good thing is that he often puts out some speedpaints of his works so you can see him working and applying the magic to the canvas.

 multyashka-sweet:

Yet again, scenery with anthros. The setting depicted is always a friendly and moody atmosphere. Most of the time together and always underlined by happiness and wonderment. Due to the dynamic of character’s poses and facial expressions and the fact that they are so smoothly drawn, this artist’s artworks never cease to evoke a warm feeling in my body. To achieve to evoke a intended feeling out of your work is my number one criterium for an amazing artist, keep it up!

 tatiilange (Tatiana Lange):

She might actually be my favourite pick this month. Tatiana might by my new found inspiration along my way. Since I see only artworks that I was trying to achieve on my own. Rough and sharp lines, dynamic poses, vast landscapes and packed with stunning effects, I am truly happy to have found an artist with such tension in her work.

 Thank you for inspiring my path!

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

 ~Souvie