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Intro
Welcome to my artblog! Here I will talk and reflect specifically on my artjourney (especially for school i think).
I will mention thoughts and experiences and it may vary from serious shit to super random stuff.
My storytelling skills are not really great so i will probably go all over the place
My portfolio is still under construction but you can have a little peek.
Feb 11 2025
New goals
The evluation day was good. It went fine and i got alot of feedback. It was very emeotional as always or a few people. This time two ppl got in tears but it's all okay ofcourse. It might be because you're getting judged for your reflection or it's just that most students are still searching for something specific and if they make a mistake or if they don't know it yet it's the end of the world. But i don't know, just pressure. I didn't tell them abt mental stuff that i was struggling with so i just went for workprogress itself what my behaviors were, because i also didn't wanted to cry lol.
Anyways, my new goals that i want to focus on are:
The last one is because i somehow get more inspired outside of school. Probably because i can focus more on themes I MAKE for my projects and i don't really do that at school for certain assignments. So i just make something from only media that school shows to us that i'm not inspired by and make something i don't really want to do.
Like during Experimental Animation i was trying to work with different artdisciplines to work with but the inspirations we got were all pretty alright but not that i want to look at it again.
My mind only focusses on school like:'Everything you get from school you have to use it.' I tend to go further than that to kind of copy my classmates themes, but they make whole other shit than i do. Most of the time It sucks. I want to be able to grab my brain at the right threads, the threads that connect my OWN inspirations. And to focus on what i want.
Feb 9 2025
crisis
I should've started this blog way earlier at the start of my school but whatever. I'm having a crisis of how i should explain my development for a few classmates and teachers at the evaluation day. So, lemme try it here
At the beginning I was trying to find my comfortzone and found out i always just doodle in my sketchbook and never actually make a huge project. And that's when i also realized, during the process of making a project, that i tend to do it for someone else instead of my own. By someone else i mean the teachers at this moment because school wanted me to work on multiple projects to make sure to come out of your comfortzone, what i did, but i constantly did it for school instead of mixing it with my own journey which i should not do. I wanted to get done with things as fast as possible so for the MAIN huge project (4 week project) i wanted to change my behaviour to step out of that mindset of thinking i do it only for the teachers. I still kinda failed because i still went back to that mindset during the making, so i still have to work it out further to show the teachers "wHaT i'M ReAlLy MaDe oF". I did say to them earlier that if i look at inspirations i will work on my own projects for myself, but i realized that it still doesn't get me out of that mindset. I think i'm not fully seeing the bigger picture yet what i've actually done during the experimental animation class.
I did a little bit of everyhting: tried to play with limited animation, stopmotion, foundfootage, collages, to step out of that "only doodling" mindset first and to see what fits with me, what do i like, what i do want to work further with. I got really interested in shadows and lightplay, but i think the main thing that actually got my attention is mixed media, eventhough i havent really done it yet. Only at character animation class lol. For the 4 week project i wanted to see how color and shadow could have an effect on different contexts of the situation by also using an emotion. An emotion mixed with color and shadow can really show the characters situation.
But i did that for the 2 week project... i needed 2 weeks more how to work that out in a scene... i didn't do it because i wanted to get it done fast.
so i added even more different lights and shadows, and yeah the teachers eventually said to me that they didn't see "wHaT i'M ReAlLy MaDe oF". That lowkey hurted but i get it. I also rly wanted to learn how to add shadows like 2d animators already do in the professional field and it blew my miiinnd bro. it's so easy (Might gonna write a tutorial about it. It's in After Effects btw.)
This is how the 4 week project looks like. It's just more and more of the same kind of thing...
Anyways, For the rest of the other goals i apparently had was storytelling. I saw it just now after looking at my last year's future goals in an old presentation... oops. I was so hooked up on the experimental animation class bro. But i did kinda work on it... through concept class and storyboard class. In concept class it was nice to work on different kinds of stories and why you would choose that story and how you came up with it. Definitely thinking about the character's development and i want to work on that more for my endmovie so that one will be my future goal that i, this time, WILL remember and WORK ON.
For the rest, I hardly applied Visual Development class to experimental animation class because i didn't know how to. And now i'm really fucked because i don't have physical art shit to show to my evaluation day presentation that are part of my artdevelopment. So my presentation will suck probably. But this blogentry really helped me get my reflection in order because it felt like i was on some chaotic mindset shit and i felt lost most of the time of what i really want to do and how i would do it.
I think I'll get something out of evaluation day anyway, since it's just going to be a conversation between classmates and me, while the teachers are there to direct the situation, who's able to say something, idk.
Through the entire process/development and all, i've learned that i like mixed media, that i tend to get back to doing stuff only for school instead of mixing it with my own journey and how i would do it the next time. And i like to work together with people.
The evaluation day is tomorrow btw... i'm scared. I'm really in the mood to get sick for the entire week so maybe i'm going to manifest that. Or I just really need some coffee.
Jan 24 2025
oopsies
I just got home from school with a wacky feeling because there was a liiiitle incident where i accidentally broke a wooden block during filming with my team... Uh i told my teacher about it and he said not to worry about it. But agh shit i still feel so bad.
But then i saw that TVpaint Development insta (the official insta of the animation software TVpaint that many studio's use) mentioned my animation on their story so luckily that did make me feel a bit better lol. I still want to apologize to the person who made that wooden block though. Anyways, here's the animation. It's in Dutch btw
Translation:
'What i don't get huh...i understand that you're hungry...and that you want to eat something, but then you eat SHIT?'
'No but, Eddie...!'
'Yeah nvm Armani, it's fine...'
The original audio is from a dutch show called Rundfunk.
This animation was a character animation assignment for school. The maincharacter happened to look alot like the old guy from the anime Eternal Family by Koji Morimoto, but that's okay.
Aaaagghhhh i still feel so wack and stupiiiid.
Jan 21 2025
struggle
What i struggle with right now is how to focus on one solid idea. Ofcourse i don't want to commit suicide if i forget any ideas, but it's kinda hard to stick with one. Yes, maybe i could mix them up to one huge idea but most of the time its a minus-minus or plus-plus pole situation. That could have some interesting results maybe but most of the time it doesn't suit my interests.
Maybe i could experiment with that later.
What makes it something interesting and appealing for me?
I guess if it's something i haven't seen before because ofc i want to come up with unique things like almost every artist. But also a thing that i've seen before but not often. I definitely want to make specific feelings for myself and the audience. Definitely a feeling of confusion because it's fun to keep walking around with only questions that you can't really answer turn into just a feeling (of confusion). So that's where multiple interpretations bloom because you want to understand it, you want to make connections.
I'm still left with many different ideas that i can mix with this goal but I guess i just have to choose one randomly and work on that further with dedication if i'm not able to stick to one.
Jan 20 2025
What i want to learn
I'm planning to make a animationreel for my portfolio. I guess im also gonna code my portfolio website since i'm hella broke in general for buying squarespace or something. My website doesn't have to look that interesting, it's all about the contents.
Right now i'm just going to plan to focus on my artwork as whole to put in my portfolio because i handed in my motivationletter to do exchange in Switzerland last week. For a business portfolio i have to add the best qualities i have in it, for example 2d character animation or visdev or storyboarding. Not too much but definitely put 2 of your best ones at the top. But right now i hope i have enough time to work on that for later. Right now i want to apply for a school which is something different.
I'm so scared. Someone i know has done exchange overthere aswell at the same school i want to go to and they said to me that i definitely have a chance. But you never know ya know, im so nervous.
I'm even scared to talk about it right now because i've always experienced when i looked forward to something really bad or when i kept thinking of it, it just didn't happen. It could be anything from just an appointment to this. Maybe even a vacation. But when i thought about it once and never again then it will happen. Like when i was a kid i wanted to go to Scotland because of Harry Potter but never thought about it years later, until 2 years ago i actually went there. Also with applying to my own school i was like 'yeah nvm they're not gonna accept me. i gotta accept the failed attempt.' But eventually i got in. So i tend to keep holding on to that mindset of waiting for the surprise rather than thinking about the expectations.
Anyways, i wanted to talk about what i want to learn more and what interests me. I really want to focus on more 2D Character Animation because it's fun to let things come alive and it feels like i got to play in the animation because I decide how they're going to move (kinda... based on the animatic but still). I want to become as good as Calarts and Goblins students (sorry, I lowkey hate the privileged ppl who are rich to be able to go to those schools and get lessons by celebrities) It's going to be a little harder though because my school is offering almost NOTHING about visual developments including COLOR THEORY, and CHARACTER DESIGN and LAYOUT and stuff. We do kinddaa learn it in other classes but WAY less. We have to find that out ourselves mostly. Which sucks for me because i need personal help from someone with actual semesters about that subject. We do have a "visual development" class but it constantly feels like it's not animation related at all. We were working on creative processes of how you can develop creative things in different ways, which wasn't really needed because we had to take random pictures and random abstract paintings and i could hardly mix it with my animation process. It did help to know what works and what doesn't so maybe it was needed but i'm definitely gonna tell this to my teacher 100%. The only useful lesson from that class was that we had to redraw conceptart/illustrations from books and mix them together because i got to see different types of styles and ideas. But yeah, theory of design lacks alot here in general. I don't care if we have to figure out different ways of getting ideas already because you'll already find that out during the making of an actual project.
Oh and we didn't even learn about handy tricks of layering while animating with TVpaint using different colors for certain limbs or something. Idk how that works yet. Someone from another year went to do internship and he said they've learned WAY MORE shit from that studio about 2d animation than at school. Which is also a good sign but also kinda upsetting. I believe it's handy to already know a few important tricks and stuff and then learn a bit more about it to be able to apply it to a professional workfield.
So i really hope to learn these missing essentials at that school in Switzerland, based on their semester table.
Sorry that i went for a kinda negative rant. I'm just eager to learn some visdev essentials of how to make my animations stand out more to not only get drawn by the story but also the visual aspects of it. In addition to that i want to be able to know how the professional field works on these things while applying these essentials.
Jan 19 2025
some bullshit ig At the beginning of the new year we had to set some goals we want to achieve. We were going to start working on our experimental animations, thinking how we were about to step out of our comfortzones. We had to make them within 4 hours.
For me i didn't really know what my comfortzone was so i was planning to just find out on the way during the making of it. Looking back on all the animations i've made,I realized i saw every project as a schoolproject instead of mixing it with my own personal journey. Like it felt like i had to make it for the teachers and not for myself aswell.
So when we had to make a 4 weeks project you had to really find out what you wanted to explore within animation.
What stood out to me was how lighting can tell alot in an environment and how it can enhance the mood in a situation. For 2 weeks i looked at how lighting, with a character's action/emotion, can be interpreted in different ways without using any background. It had an interesting result where, with each different use of light with the same character's emotion, came two different interpretations where the person is situated. My character did some sort of happy gesture, but the lighting made a huge difference by changing the context of the situation.
We had to explore further what we wanted to do after those 2 weeks and i realized i got right in the middle of an uninspiring mood where i got zero motivation to do anything. This project felt too serious and it felt like the teachers would look at your work too strictly. You always had to tell why you did certain choices anyway. But I 100% felt like they didn't have a care about whether you got into depression or not. The end result had to be some kind of movie scene anyway where you use those aspects that you are still exploring. It could also suddenly be something else, but that it still relies on your first major research.
But, I was in a kind of creative depression and started making more different light situations for more variety, because I had no more energy. I was basically doing the same thing over and over again which wasn't really the intention. So I ended up without a movie scene but just a series of lighting and color situations. At the evaluation they said that to me, which makes sense. Of course the teachers want to see me grow, but damn it's so hard to get out of such an unmotivated situation despite going out enough and watching different media to find motivation. I also tried to get out of that mindset that this project is not only for school but also for myself. But unfortunately, I couldn't hold that mindset.
This entire journey felt so chaotic and i'm still in the middle of it. I really want to stop worrying so much about things.