Reflection #76 – July 24

The end of July is here and it is about time I wrap it up!

Because there was so much going on…

Everything I could have done this semester for Uni has been done. I have finished 8 courses and still waiting for my grade on the 9th – which is as much as I have done at the heigh in the base section of my Study. Given how much I had to do on the side, it is safe to say it was the busiest semester I have had. Not much is left for my study, though I still have to estimate 3-4 semesters to achieve my Bachelor. But given how much I gain from my study time in terms of expanding my skillset and grow socially, I’d say I’m in no rush to finish it unless I’m pressured otherwise.

However, this month has taught me the value of focus and restraint as I’m feeling I’ve been struggling to balance too many things at once.

Let me lay out the different projects I had to finish in July:

At the last day of June, I have made an order to get my designs (mainly buttons, sticker and keychains) produced. A few more designs were added later and a few alterations had to be made until they passed the approval period and got into production. This order was under a very strict time period, which thankfully also arrived just in time but had put me under a lot of pressure for the weeks to come.

During the first week, I had to prepare for my last theoretical exam (maybe ever) and also start on my first artfight project:

My goal was to (like last year) to work out some animations to include in my portfolio but sadly this remained the only animation I could work out this year, simply because it took too much time compared to an illustration. This and my restraint to delve into the software that is TV Paint and all the problems that go along with it, I abandoned this short endeavour to make animations just for now (with more ideas cooking in my head though).

This week had passed and I moved on to do two birthday gifts for the same date.

As my dear friend Lukao’s grand comic project is coming along wonderfully well, I decided to do one of my own for his sweet celebration day. And this was the first time since that awfully embarassing parody of Spongebob’s Survival of the idiots. And it was fun, so much so that I can think of doing one for practice once an ideal idea strikes me.

Not far from this day was the fair at our uni which all of the fun yet stressful preparations of designing products and such were leading towards. It was a very nice day, although a hot one, which wasn’t as lucrative but still presented a nice opportunity to test my booth and make some adjustments for the big week at Eurofurence at the end of September. So I am glad we even got the opportunity to offer our works to our co-students and brighten up the fair in a sun-lit corner at the campus :3

Anyway, back to the busy-rant…

Now, after a month-long process of being interrupted again and again by pressuring deadlines, my Submission for Eurofurence’s con book was finally finished. All in all, it was once again a very fun process, luckily not filled with drawing boney skeletons for weeks this time. I was able to capture the whole progress like with the Fruit Hat piece and uploaded it on Youtube. It doesn’t seem like I was spending that much time with it actually, it was all a straightforward process, not much experimenting involved and thus it flowed very easily. I once again managed to add a few easter eggs for fun and hope some people will be able to point them out ^v^

And I don’t really know if I could point anything out that I find flawed or needed improvement. I’m very happy with it and hope it will be accepted to be featured in the con book along with my characters :3

Though there was not much time to rest during the weekend, as I am volunteering to help out in the art department of a con I most endore and am looking very much out for this September. Small designs had to be worked out which I had procrastinated but a deadline at Sunday gladly helped me to get to start my work on things.

Not long after, did I finish this piece for artfight:

I was able to work on it during the hot days outside in our cozy workplace at Uni and it was a nice change to work with different brushes yet the familiar overlay of CSP. It is a sweet piece with a sweeter character that got a lot of love from pretty much everyone who came by and looked at it. Though it is starting to show my fatigue I had for the month. I decided then that this was the last big project for artfight that year.

For the last full week, I was left to do a few minor things; celebrate the ending of the semester with some comilitones, work out the previous concepts for the convention and do small and quick works as revenges for the attacks I got this year.

Though my output was pretty high this month, I kept feeling exhausted and me deciding to move out of my shared flat didn’t help.

But I can’t help but see that it all has been a culmination of things that were necessary. If I would have changed one thing is that artfight was just a tad too much and just added on to the pressure and weight of all the projects that were going on. Yet I couldn’t have skipped on this event that I’ve been looking out for every year.

While there’s still a few thing to work out: mainly the leftover designs, some preparations for the cons and making a new con badge to close off all the things I have to work on privately while the next semester is around the corner.

Still it feels relieving just thinking about that most of the hassle has been dealt with and I can focus again on the things necessary to go on with my study and hopefully find the time to focus on a few images before the year closes off.

Later in August (shortly after my move), I’ll be on a week long vacation to calm down some. But that too will incorporate some traditional drawing in preparation for eurofurence. Let’s just take things one at a time to not get too overwhelmed with it all.

I spent the last couple of days not doing much and it helped to get my mind off of things but I’ll soon get back to the business. Maybe I can doodle around a bit, who knows.

Anyway, not wanting to leave this on a lower note than necessary. I’m very excited to see what this and the next month will bring and I’m already looking forward to starting the next semester with a more structured schedule to not get lost in other little projects…

I wish you a wonderful motnh of August, may the weather be good and you find time to enjoy it!

~ Souvillaine