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Intro
Welcome to my artblog! Here I will talk and reflect specifically on my artjourney and thoughts.
01/21/2025
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.
01/20/2025
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, eventhough 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 NOTHING about visual developments including COLOR THEORY, and CHARACTER DESIGN and LAYOUT and CONCEPT ART ESSENTIALS. We have to find that out ourselves. 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.
01/19/2025
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.
That somehow reminds me of my artschools goal to always think about the 'why'. Fuck off. It feels like i need to take everything so serious eventhough everything isn't fucking serious. Life is fucking weird and doesn't always have to get an explanation. The same for art. It doesn't always have to have an explanation on why the fuck it looks this way. If someone asks me to elaborate on something with the question 'why' i will fucking kill them on the spot. Ofcourse sometimes it's interesting to know why but it depends how you ask it. It's drilled in my brain which i don't like. It's a sleep paralysis demon but this time im not sleeping, i'm fully awake within a nightmare. It's not a lucid dream, it's reality.
I think the question 'why' can kill creativity on some aspects. When i think that a certain something looks cool then the teachers are like 'why?' and sometimes you don't have an answer for that. It can be purely a feeling that just aligns very well. 'No but there's definitely a reason.' NO JANET THERE ISN'T. IT JUST LOOKS FUCKING COOL AND IT'S AWESOME.
The downside to this 'why' is that i start to think why i like every artpiece that i come across, and if i don't find the answer i tend to think i'm such a bitch for not knowing. So it exhausts me for both, for analysing why and if i don't know why.
I think you should definitely use the 'why' when you want to work with people in the workfield. But for the rest, most of the time i like to let the mystery take over.
'why?'
'You dont have to know.'
P.S: i'm very bad to make it some sort of good article about my thoughts about subjects but unfortunately it will go to multiple directions.