August has been packed with work for me. I can barely remember the time past two weeks ago. The reason for this crunch is rather simple: I’m losing time to finish all these projects I have been looking out to do.
Recapitulating my first two weeks of the month, I remember not having a particularly good time. The first project I started right after finishing my last reflection used up a lot of time but to no avail. I couldn’t grow to the design I had made and I already felt the time running out for me. I don’t really have an explanation why it didn’t work out, I just lost the feeling and motivation for it. But I still really like the concept and I’ll try to resurrect it in the future.
Then followed a time of… I’d call it pre-art block. I wouldn’t really know what to do, I had all these ideas but it confused me as to where I should go with my ideas. I then started sketching around and put some inspiration from the Alien Franchise into it. This time actually brought me some results:
The first sketch was fun. I used a method I had previously used for my painting attempts and I think these were supposed to end up as paintings. What had changed, was that I started rendering already in my sketch phase which I never had done before. I also worked with negative spaces that then were rendered with the background. All of these sketches were done with 2 layers and proved that I don’t need an extravagant layer hierarchy to achieve an effective value range to properly show off my figures.
I’d continue this little project over 3 more days with the goal in mind to finish one sketch a day while experimenting with the Xeno-design. This should have lasted much longer but I felt the need to discontinue the project, because another idea had struck my mind.
During the xeno sketches, I listened to my dark-toned, loosing your mind, type of playlist and I once again fell in love with the song Fixxxer. I previously incorporated it in one of my artworks but only on the surface to make a homage. This should be a more internal reflection of the song’s meaning. Having a character previously scarred, seeking absolution and a healing for his torment. Then I wanted to bring this character to my world and thought about how I designed Cynemar’s apparel. One term, also reflected by the song, more and more circulated in my head: Voodoo. The put some hours of research into this religion, at first to have the character be some kind of animal ghost but the human shape grew more and more dominant in my first sketches. More research and I wanted him to be a shaman, a healer, now he wasn’t a victim in my story anymore, he has sought absolution and dedicated his remaining soul-time to compensate for his sins in his life, healing and helping others.
I really like this turn-around and ended up cherishing this character and happily include him into my roster.
It has also been a nice switch in tones, although I find this approach a little too time consuming for now while not really allowing for much detail.
Then I had a weekend of vacation with my family. I used this time to reflect a little on my plans and decided I would need to drastically change my schedule and only work on these posters and my animation.
From there on, I fully dedicated my time to working. Only the weekends have been reserved for playing games and it had worked pretty well except for one day that was too hot for me to properly concentrate on work.
The first poster I tackled was about the film ‘Once upon a time in Hollywood’ and would function as a gift for my dad and a friend, so it naturally demanded to be treated with extreme care… which is the reason it is still not absolutely finished to this day. But I will make it swift. Just don’t know if I should post it here.
There were two more projects about the film but I simply couldn’t work past the sketches, I don’t know why but I had to stop there, probably the rush forced me to continue on with something else. So up until yesterday I had been working on three continuous pieces: that one poster that did work out, another one that I’m working on right now (and will be posted) and my first take on a choreographic animation. More on that now:
Having developed a traume for walking cycles from last month’s big animation (xD) as well as the never-ending storyboard, I really, really wanted to work on something with a determined beginning and end.
Where the idea originated from, I have no idea, but the character I was always thinking about was Axel, as he is by far the sportiest and active of my characters. I wanted a ground-pound move but I imagined it being too bland so I looked for things to make it more interesting: a double jump, fully free of any physical truth behind it. Animation is the art of movement, but equally simplification and you know why? To save work and have fun.
This gave me the opportunity to work on my mistakes from the last projects and learn much more about timing and spacing that I (falsely!) ignored on my walk cycle. The days got so packed with work that my sense of time faded too. I could have sworn I worked over two weeks on this animation simultaneously to my other projects but it was only about 7 days from start to finish…
I want to mention that I did a couple of small animations for my friend’s birthdays last week but enough for my past artworks for now.
Most of the applications I have to give out are due in October, which means I will focus on animation and print media fully until the workload can be reduced and I get back to normal projects: mainly drawing cool stuff that comes to mind. I think the next artwork I will have my characters featured in will be a Halloween special maybe? I can’t say for sure. Just know that I am most active just not able to post much. Things will return to normality again soon.
Until then, have a nice September! I’d love to hear what you did this month. Why don’t you share it with me? ^v^
~Souvillaine