Why This Comic

| Saskia

Only one week left of these black and white panels, and then it’s done already! I didn’t notice until a few days ago that November is actually Zelda Month (for YouTuber PeanutButterGamer at least), a perfect coincidence! If I noticed before I would have planned this comic so that it would also start November 1st, but with Inktober I just always forget about November being Zelda Month. Oh well.

Anyway, only one week left, today we’re gonna start with the refrain of Vida La Vida. I thought it would be nice if I share my motivation for this project, along with some process which I will post in the following days. 🙂

I got the idea for this when I had been playing Ocarina of Time for a few months or so. I suddenly realized that the lyrics of Coldplay’s Vida la Vida fitted Ganondorf’s situation very well.

If you’re not familiar with the lyrics, the couplets go like this:

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemies eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing
Now the old king is dead, long live the king

At that point I was obsessed enough to hear storyline clues and character motivations in every song, but this one fitted perfectly if you asked me. ^^ For me, the lyrics tell Ganon’s part of the story of Ocarina of Time. This was December 2014 if I remember correctly. I forbade myself to start working with this idea before I finished the game, so I would know exactly what happened to Ganon, what is shown and what is implied, what is told and what is not told.

When I finally finished the game (June 2015), I was fascinated how it all came together in the end. And also how Ocarina of Time as a game fits as a keystone into the whole timeline. It might not be the greatest of stories but I loved it and I still do. What hit me when I heard Vida la Vida was how tragic Ganondorf’s obsession with power actually is.

Even though I haven’t grown up to this game (I was three when it came out), it feels special to me. Heck, I didn’t even know it existed before 2011 till the 3DS version came out! I’ve played the original version from 1998, and of course are the graphics horribly outdated, it still has a very nostalgic feeling to me. I would even say it has some timeless appeal. The graphics might be dated, the polygons might be countable, the music might sound tinny, and I’m probably biased as hell, but no, it’s true this game is something special. And I just had to express that. 🙂

Life Updates

| Saskia

I haven’t been really active for a while because there are so many things going on now.. School has started again two weeks ago, and first of all, I’m in my 3rd year now, which means I’m a senior student! One year and a half and I’m graduating and I don’t feel ready for that at all!

Thinking about that, I discovered that a lot of illustrators do have a side job to have enough income. Or at least I suspect it, after reading a few books and such… It’s at least eye-opening because I always thought felt you either make it or your don’t in this business, and if you don’t you’re a loser.. But getting clients and contacts and promoting yourself take a lot of time, if not money, so it makes sense that you have other ways of getting money, before you actually start living from your art…

Back to the project we’re working on right now. Luckily for me, the theme about this quarter is game design, so I can finally use and train the skills I’d want to use in the future! Unfortunately, the team I’m in is quite a diverse mix of personalities and we have a hard time deciding what to do and how we’re gonna present it.. So either it turns out great or we will fail miserably. I feel we’ll get into a fight at each other at least once during this project, if not soon. :/

And then there is the Portfolio Night on the 12th of October! All kinds of professionals and studios and companies will visit and I have the chance to show them my work… Which means you have to make the best impression! With lots of good works to show! I have such an hard time picking artworks that are worth showing.. 🙁

But let’s end all this stressful talk with a happy note: if everything goes well, I’m going on exchange next February! That means I will be spending four months at UMPRUM in Prague! Yay! 😀

Back from Vacation to the Baltics

| Saskia

The reason there weren’t any posts for the past three weeks: holidays. To Latvia and Estonia, to be precise, and a one-day trip to St. Petersburg. 🙂

If you ever to to St. Petersburg (or Moscow), go eat at Теремок (Teremok)! It’s a Russian fast food restaurant, although I can’t say it’s really fast food you’re getting. You can choose between soups, buckwheat and many different blini (Russian pancakes) with meat and vegetables and potatoes or fruit or chocolate. Delicious! And so much better than the McDonalds which is everywhere. >.>

On the way home I suddenly realized how terribly designed my country is – the landscape in Latvia and Estonia isn’t that different at first sight, it’s almost as flat as the Netherlands but with lots and lots of forest. But in a country bigger than mine but with a population that’s less than a tenth from here, there is so much space and nature, it shows it is really different. In the Netherlands, every single square cm has been planned and designed, every field, hill, dike and ditch is man-made. Look at aerial photographs and it’s a checkboard pattern of fields and ditches. Heck, we even create land out of water! I never fully realized that until now.

Another thing I noticed, I feel the people are much closer to nature in Latvia and Estonia. We’ve seen multiple times people collect berries and mushrooms in the forests during our hikes. In the Netherlands there are very little people who do that, even though there are plenty blackberries and raspberries to pick here too. The people who do pick berries are mostly Polish immigrants XD. Some even think it’s weird. Thing is, these plants mostly grow on municipal grounds, so it’s also there were people walk their dogs and the like. I even think it’s illegal – same as it is actually illegal to pick flowers from the roadside when they were planted by the municipality. >.<

Anyway, I’m glad to be back home. 🙂

Too bad school starts in two weeks.

Welcome to my new personal corner of the internet!

| Saskia

This blog is a continuation of my old blog saskiadeklerkwdka.wordpress.com, which is written in Dutch. I mostly wrote about my experiences and projects at the Willem de Kooning Academy there.

In third grade I decided it was time to make the jump to a more professional portfolio website, written in English. I didn’t continue blogging, though, as it took a lot of time to document my projects so thoroughly and I didn’t really feel compelled to do so anymore.

When leaving for Prague to study animation for four months, I wanted to try blogging again, which became saskiapraha.tumblr.com. I have since moved those blogposts onto this site. When I came back, I found I liked blogging enough to try to keep it up at my Tumblr, with varying succes. Now this site is up and running, it is time to crosspost news and updates from here, too!

So welcome to my new personal little corner of the internet!