Comic Con Amsterdam Recap

| Saskia

Last weekend my friend and I tried selling stuff at another con! The con itself was fun, though saleswise… it didn’t went as good. I actually made a loss at this con: I sold only one print and a few buttons. I do think I know why this happened, though. Firstly, almost all the things I sell are Zelda themed, and after talking with other artists, Zelda things just didn’t sell that well on this con. Perhaps there were just less people visiting this con who would like to have Zelda merchandise? It’s a thing I can’t control so I shouldn’t blame myself too much for it.. Except I better have not only Zelda prints with me next time! 

Another thing is the fact that my friend had actually printed quite some extra A5 and A3 prints for this con. I didn’t print anything extra as I still had so much stock from last con. Why spend another 50-60 euros on printing when I still have so much left? But that meant that there was more art of my friend on our table than there was mine. So perhaps we were unknowingly competing with each other for the attention of potential customers? Ultimately my friend sold wayyy more prints of her work than I did, and actually made a good profit. 

 This could be just because she sold quite some Overwatch fanart which was wildly popular during this con, and probably too because she offered prints in smaller sizes than just A2. A2 prints are maybe a little daunting for people to buy, they’re not really cheap and quite big, people might not have the space for such a print?

It makes me think whenever we should try to get two tables instead of one, so we both have our own. Everyone I talked to agrees that having your own table lets you sell much more than if you share a table with others.. Though of course the costs for standing at a con doubles, so you need to make more money to break even. :/

Or maybe I’m just too impatient, I mean: this is my second convention as a dealer and I already expect to make money out of this. 

If you’re interested in the products I sold, check out my Etsy shop!

Back from France!

| Saskia

And France did indeed inspire me! Though the things I’ve drawn there have to wait, as I don’t have access to a scanner yet. But don’t worry, there’s digital art to come too!

After some thinking I decided to give CenturyARkStorm-OCT a shot, but as a spectator rather than a competitor. I don’t think it would be wise to combine something as time-consuming as a original character tournament with graduating from art school! XD Nevertheless I’m very exited where the story will take us! I didn’t know anything about Zoids before Ra-ooo started this OCT, but as soon I found out it included robot dinosaurs I was sold! 

Then there is Comic Con Amsterdam, where I’ll have a stand with two friends. I plan to draw a few new things for that, but not too much. I still have plenty of prints left from my previous con left anyway!

Holiday to France

| Saskia

Ever since my summer break has begin three weeks ago, I found it surprisingly hard to start drawing for myself again. I’m not sure why, perhaps it was the fact I’ve worked so hard during my internship? Or that I now have time to do so much other things I never had the time to do before, such as playing games and reading? Or it might be the bloody heat that lingers in my room, even with open windows..

Is this the mysterious affection known under the name art block?!

In other news, I’ll be leaving for a three-week vacation to Normandy and Brittany, France tomorrow. Perhaps the sea breeze and the beautiful vistas will inspire me to draw again!

See you in August!

And that’s that.

| Saskia

My internship at Abbey Games is over, what a blast it has been! I worked on so many different things: character animations, buildings, trees and shrubs, marketing illustrations, icons and even UI! Still, it’ll take a while before I can show my glorious contribution, the soonest things will be revealed is in the first half of 2019. A little patience, my friends! 

I’m sad it’s over, but I guess it’s time to move on. I’ll be enjoying my summer holidays now and in September I’ll start working on my graduation project. Whatever my graduation project will be: I have no ideas yet. I’ll just see what happens. 

And hopefully, now I have a lot of free time again, I get back on track with drawing and painting again!

Internship!

| Saskia

This is already my second week of my internship at Abbey Games, and it’s really fun so far!  I am now working on animations for a new game, but of course I’m not allowed to tell you anything about it. Non Disclosure Agreements and stuff. 

Shame is, though, that there is less time for personal art. I’m travelling two hours by bus, metro and train to get to the studio and again two hours back home, monday till friday, and on saturdays I work from ten till six, so Sunday is my only free day in the week. I don’t really mind right now, I can finally read all those books I got but never came to read! 😀

But then I looked on the calendar and noticed that the convention that my friends and I want to attend is only three weeks away… And I haven’t finished a single piece yet. Oops. 

So I suppose I’ll be sacrificing some sleep this week. And next week probably too. I have some Zelda things in the works already and some other fan art planned as well, but I’m not sure if I get everything done… 

We’ll see! 

About that 3D game project …

| Saskia

“I’ll keep you informed on the progress.” That was almost two months ago. Oops. ^^;

Of course I should have written something earlier, but all of my energy went into creating the concept art, illustrations and 3D models for this game, as well as applying for internships, my new job and on top of that the usual December festivities … I didn’t have much energy left for dA. But now I have one thing less to worry about: I secured an internship position at a small game studio, whoo!

Then our game!

Poster by Sarah Bergmann

It’s called Aurora Trail and it’s a puzzle adventure game for pc! It has just recently gotten a Steam page and we’ll release publicly January 8th! Early acces will be earlier, naturally, so if you want to play it earlier I can probably give you a Steam code around Christmas. ^^; We have a Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter, as well as a website, if you want to follow us (and see pictures of us in real life!) 

Life Updates

| Saskia

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who has downloaded and played our game, Wake! We passed the project with a very good mark and we even made it to 280 downloads! 😀

We immediately started to work on the bigger project with different people. Today we got our first feedback on a prototype we build in minecraft and of course still lots of things need to be done. The exact setting is still to be discussed, but the core of our concept is that you play together with a group of 4-5 people, while one of you is basically a mole who has to prevent the others from reaching their goal (which is still to be decided). I’ll keep you informed on the progress! 

And then there is Inktober. I’m still days behind, in spite my efforts trying to catching up a last week during holidays. XD I hope I can manage to keep up at least this weekend, I really wanted to finish Inktober before November begins! 

On a sidenote, a group of classmates and I are joining a big exposition called the ‘Kunstroute’ in Alphen a/d Rijn (Netherlands)! So if anyone is near or in Alphen on 4, 5 or 6 November, go check it out! I will be presenting a bunch of Inktober drawings.

Thanks everyone who has wished me a happy Birthday! I’ve had a great day. :3

Portfolio Night!

| Saskia

Yesterday was the day: professionals would be visiting us and looking at our work. The idea behind it was a chance for us to start networking and make contacts for our internship.

As I am planning to go on exchange to Prague instead of doing and internship one would say it wouldn’t be that bad if it wouldn’t go so well. But I was so stressed for it that I actually needed some time for my own after building up. 

… But it went actually pretty well! Two game studios talked to me and gave me their cards! The whole atmosphere was really relaxed and informal, we even talked about the new Zelda game, yay!

I am really happy now and that it is behind me as well. I am actually the only one in my class so interested in games and wanting to design for games. In the Animation class there is more interest in the game industry, but at Illustration there is not for some reason. It made me stand out, which is good, I guess! 😀

Inktober and other life things

| Saskia

Tomorrow Inktober is starting again and I’m super excited! This year I’ve decided to use the daily drawings to play around with story ideas for the harpy characters I came up this summer. Yes, the one winged harpy isn’t alone anymore: I have ideas for at least five other characters and a vague plot line! 😀

I’m not giving away any more, but I shall provide enough context with every Inktober drawing so you can slowly getting to know these new characters and their quirks. For now can tell you that Ms. one-wing has gotten a name, Jurmala, and she loves to put on pranks! 

In other news, the game project is slowly getting on it’s end. Next Wednesday we’ll having a presentation where the game has to be basically finished. If any game-breaking bugs appear we have till Monday 9th to fix them and finish all the paperwork! After that, we move on to our next project (a 3D game)!