Reflection #58 – November 22

Yet again I was counting to the day to write another month in reflection and the day came quickly. Although I’m looking forward to the holiday-swelling spirit of December, it is kind-of daunting to be knocking at new year’s door once again…

Uhhhh, quick I lost track again – how was November?

It was great actually! Went out of October with a good mind and school was keeping me occupied quite much. I didn’t think I was doing quite enough for my projects so I created a proper To-Do list on my phone so every time I was feeling clueless what to do, I only had to glance on the list and let my priorities decide what’s best to work on. That way, it at least felt like I was more productive and my compulsive orderliness demands me to put in the work to keep this list from growing. I’ll see if I can continue this behaviour or grow anxiety from ever looking at this list again xD

So the beginning was quite alright, things got a bit more busy later on and I do have to confess that my time was cut rather short after God of War Ragnarök came out <v< was playin it throughout the week despite my weekend policy but damn, it was worth it.

So anyway, luckily I was able to produce 4 projects this month, which I want to discuss now:

The first one deserves a spotlight, so first some background info:

Originally, I was planning on working on a big commission that I got earlier this year and wanted to make progress on it. But it turns out to be very difficult and challenging for me to render. Especially when comparing it to my last commission for the client, I felt very, very bad for not managing to keep up my standards, so I kept retrying and retrying but could never perform quite well. This eventually caused a big tremor in my self-beliefs. I wanted to do anything else but swore myself to at least do some art. At least I had the vision from last night’s pre-sleep and sketched it out quickly, I liked it but could have left it there, I decided to go on and disregard any rendering that caused so many headaches beforehand; I didn’t want to think about what colours I should use or what brush, I just threw them onto the canvas and things eventually started to work out. I didn’t see an ugly phase and could just add layers with increasing comfort in what I did and it’s what I absolutely adore about this piece; it’s genuine, there was no second guessing, it just flowed and I managed to finish it in only a couple hours all in all. And what baffles me is that I couldn’t recreate it since, probably because I tried to up it a bit again and again and had to work with existing colour palettes for these. With time, I’ll see how well it’ll hold up and eventually find a place on my wall for it I think…

My next work was made under similar conditions, though this time I wanted to do it for a friend who had a bad time. I knew drawing their shark sona would help out and so I went on to do it. The aforementioned colour palette came in handy here even, as I love her glowing body hues. The most difficult part here actually was the hair. I tried a couple times to approach it in the usual way but eventually – under time pressure – gave up and added a very blocky structure to it, which worked very well in the end. The sharp edges gave it a very strong sense of direction and energy contrasting the otherwise very round forms. The colours overall couldn’t get that crazy as I wanted to preserve the clean forms, which was a good decision I’d say now the only thing I’d have approached differently would be her markings, they look rather flat.

Next up is another giftart, this time for a birthday. At this time I reserved my weekends for these as they’re all rather simple in planning and execution, though I got a bit stumped with coming up for a theme here. I went with the Metal Gear Rising Revengeance cover art and adopted it for his sona he has shown me a few days prior to that. It was easy from there on, although I devoted most from my initial plan to keep it as colourful and wicked as the first two projects this month. I still think it has a dynamic yet balanced colour scheme going on, the pose was very quickly down as well, with a little boost of self-posing for it, that and his design really helped to finish this one quickly.

Last one this month also began as a pre-sleep idea but was also largely inspired by one long time favourite art piece by wyum, who has depicted their figure in quitet he wounded but elegant posture. I derived enough from this initial spark to call it far from the origin and confidently my own. Also, working out Zavi’s and Tobias’ journey after ‘Starting Over’ has been a constant thing in the back of my head that just yearned to produce more. I just love to draw these two, the world they inhabit, their history and the tension between them… giving him some more attention in particular after years of neglect is only fair in my opinion.

I had a good bit of trouble finding a right stance for this. Long, digitigrade legs have always been rather hard if the figure has to be standing. But I’m getting there eventually. I also decided to ditch his flappy bird tail, given he’d make efforts to prioritize secrecy and manoeuvrability over his biological aesthetic traits.

I am very happy with how this turned out, even though balancing the colours for the final render took me several attempts even causing me to return back to CSP while I was uploading it. Hopefully I can do more in the – not so distant – future.

And those were only projects I have done for myself. School work aside. It’s quite possible that I’ll post some animations or designs soon but no promises.

While I’d love to continue with these weekly uploads, I’ll have to tend to my commission to get that out of the way and not understate the possibility of school projects becoming too demanding that I won’t be able to keep my weekends clear of work.

Though I have at least a secret santa and one fanart I’d really like to get done.

We’ll see about that.

But next time, I’ll return with another annual reflection…

Do enjoy your December-y shenanigans <3

~Souvillaine