My August was filled with events, starting off with TFI, to which I can finally show what I’ve been designing:
It was the first T-Shirt design I made that got into printing, a new landmark in my experience ^v^
Said motif started off as a sticker or postcard design and was also printed as such but the impressions was shared that it’d also fit very well as a shirt and I agreed to take on the task. It was all relatively tight with the deadline and I also had to do a move and travel to north Germany at the time but I managed to pull it off and everythign worked out! I’ve also done the backgrounds for the badge lanyard though forgot to include it in the picture here >v<
All in all, the convention was what I had hoped for. The location was breathtaking at first, I got to see a real tropical forest in an artificial enclosure, the temperatures were hot but not crushingly so and lots of pools to cool down. I’d have wished them to be a little cooler but nothing to complain about. It was also a blast to be there on a furry convention, given we had 5 days to spend and enjoyed priviledges that normal visitors wouldn’t have among them were: late night stays in the main area, all inclusive sauna and some snacks and drinks thanks to the staff members. It is the first convention I really feel the desperate urge to sponsor it and help out from now on, even though I’m not too sure if I can manage to go there next year because I really get to get another internship going for my bachelors.
While the stay itself was almost complete relaxation, the days before and after just stressed me out. Preparations for Eurofurence hightened and in addition to that, I had bureaucracies to deal with at my new living place, which cost me two days I would have liked to prepare my booth properly. These days merge together now in my memory, because I was doing so much at the same time. Though I remember I got stressed out because I had to run after a package as well, more stuff arriving a bit late and I had to rebook my travel on the same day of my departure. Nearly missed my train in the morning and arrived hella late… though I did spend a bit of time in Berlin which was a nice sightseeing-opportunity.
Stress didn’t go down when on site then. While meeting people and even standing in line for reg was a good experience, I quickly had to go on running some last few errands before I could start building up my booth and my confidence grew with it. A beach-bar booth with a straw-hat wearing guy behind it? Yeah you cannot feel insecure I tell you ^v^
After most stuff was prepared, I had to get back to my group but I got sidetracked because on my way out of the restricted area for dealers only, I stumbled over Bubblewolf’s art in the Auction area. At this time it was only accessible with a ticket – which I didn’t have – but I snug in anyway to find my beloved artist who was part of making my very first convention such a treat! And eventually I found him and his gang and we could meet up for a few minutes before I had to run off again. While we were hoping to get a proper get-together again, it sadly didn’t come to be – but I blame noone – the con was just soo big.
Up until the next morning, I had some more stress, it all piled up until I could finally sit down and start dealing. This time was actually super relaxing and healing to me after all those tight months leading up to it. I didn’t even worry too much about making any income because I was constantly in contact with nice people who showed interest in my works regardless of the thought of buying anything and I was just as grateful for it.
Time ran by even in the slow moments, I only regretted how little I saw of the actual convention, wasn’t even able to see much of the dealer’s den apart from my primary field of vision… but this should change. As soon as it was over though, I had to get to working on my commissions quickly as I was worrying not to be able to finish them on site – a worry which had me up the next morning.
The third day was arguably a bad one. As mentioned, I had little sleep, waking up early and not able to rest more, starting the day, I was already exhausted and felt little change when dealing. Snacks brought me through the day and for the first time, I got to see the DD some more properly, made some purchases for me and a friend.
In the evening, I attended my first panel: a hyena meet, was super sweet and for some reason I felt to need to ask someone to slap me in the face… really I have no explination as to why but I enjoy having the curage to go with it!
Though then right after we are met with an emergency: one of our friends had to be rushed to the hospital and I made some hasty sprints to and from the site to bring her stuff. Afterwards, we tried to get back to the ordinary, me myself trying to work on commissions though needless to say, the mood and worry was eating us up, ending the day on a sour note.
The next day was the last one dealing. But first I attended a bird meet with a few friends, it was pleasurable and once again I felt the need to arrange a suit of mine in some way.
This day in the den was def my favourite one. Not because of the sales really, but because I got the courage to ask other artists to do some trade. And after a shy first approach, I grew more confident and ended up sprinting around from my booth to another table, asking, talking, browsing and coming back feeling better and better until the den finally closed and teardown happened.
The rest of the day was just to finish up commissions, which thankfully all got finished and picked up by the end of the day.
At Sunday – the last day of the convention, all my batteries were running on low energy mode. I just could barely get up, slept like a stone and just about woke up as one. Luckily, we didn’t have much planned. After a hearty meal – the first one since my departure – spirits were better and we went to visit our friend at the hospital with a broken leg. We were able to joke about it but were all deeply touched by her situation.
Nothing more was going on. We went to the con venue once again for the last meet. Most people already headed home and I could feel why. We exchanged some few last conversations and then too headed back to our hotel. Monday was the last regular day we initially had picked to spend all together for some leisure and calming down after the con. But my spirits were in neutral and deep down I was ready to be home again. Yet we spent the day with another good lunch and visited the Miniature Wunderland once again with a lack of alternatives and the assurance that it would be a nice experience.
In retrospect, the convention was hard for me. All the preparations before it and the many hours spent working on designing product didn’t feel like they have paid off all that well. I did meet my desired income but expenses were high and didn’t amount to much in the end. I still like dealing – after all, I want to get some profit out of my work – but for now, I promised myself not to make any new products for the next convention and the one after. I need to focus on other things now, mainly my portfolio and my remaining School projects.
In the future, I’m considering taking the second of the dealing days off to focus on commissions and have more time actually enjoying the convention.
Next up is furvester. I can test out how things will be there with a more relaxed approach…
Starting with this month, I’ve been getting more into traditional art due to the commission preparations to Eurofurence and want to share a few pieces of the time here and my reflections on them:
My main issue so far is consistent proportions… from my digital workload, I tend to increase the headsize automatically to scale it down for the body and increase detail in the line-weight, of course I can’t do that traditionally, which had me struggling and redrawing the face a fair couple of times. As well as I don’t always know what to do with the pose, so I stick with what comes to mind first in order to get the piece started since every one of the pieces is essentially on a deadline.
I’ve also been experimenting with rendering, which isn’t fully fleshed out I think. I don’t use white to render light anymore because that has led to too chaotic results. I’ve since adapted to focus on what the ref offers, using whites to do highlights, rimlights and accents, using black parallel hatching for shadow and dark tones on the body.
So far, the simpler the work, the better it looks – at least for me. So I’ll try to continue to follow this mindset.
After the convention, I mainly rested. Did some well deserved time-out, had a movie night with my dad, cooked some food for me, played a few games and the likes.
At first, it was hard to get back into drawing. I felt too lazy and exhausted from the convention, but receiving a wonderful artwork from Schl4fy, which I met during the con, I felt animated to get back to the drawing board and do this little fancy artwork for her in return that I just finished today ^v^
It was def a good thing to pick up the pen and get to drawing again as I feel better off planning my schedule and starting it off at uni soon again.
Next month, I have a commission to work on, perhaps a piece for furvester’s con book (Idk yet) and a big maybe on personal projects. I def want to keep traditional pieces up so I might do one every week at least. The rest will be exclusively meant for school projects. Will see how that works out!
Alright, I’ll see you again at the end of October, but presumably not on the spookiest days!
~Souvillaine