Now that I’ve graduated from WdkA and I’m back from my vacation, I can put all my energy in getting illustration jobs! I’m excited to start this new adventure, though a bit nervous juggling all the tasks that come with being a freelancer. Though I plan to do mostly commissioned work for studios, I also try to keep up with the comic conventions I’ve been doing.
Two weeks ago I shared a stand with Tosca Hamel at the Netherlands’ largest comic convention, Dutch Comic Con. It went pretty good, actually! We’ve made enough to pay for the table, met a lot of new people and had generally a good time. I sold the merchandise I still had from previous conventions, but I also had a few new prints made:
Contact me if you’re interested in any of them! The Zelda prints are A3 in size, Gabite and Grovyle both A5. I plan to open an Etsy shop in the near future, so all things I have for sale can be found easily together.
In other news, I’m hosting a giveaway on Instagram at the moment, ending April 16th! You can win three signed prints and a sketch drawing, please check it out if you’re interested!
I did it, I graduated! I have officially a Bachelor in Design now! š
And here it is at last: the final lineup of harpy characters from my graduation project. Unfortunately I didnāt have enough time to iterate on colours too, perhaps I will still do that later on. š
In keeping up with the tradition, a list of memorable things happening last year!
I did an internship at Abbey Games! One part of my contributions are out, the last DLC of Renowned Explorers released 12 December, so I should be able to share stuff soon. :3
2018 was also the year I started seriously trying to sell prints and merchandise. I did my first two conventions, and both were extremely fun! I already have plans to attend the largest Dutch convention in March, excited how that’ll turn out!
Back to living on my own! I became good friends with the girl that lived in the space before me, she goes to the same art school as me and we discovered we have quite some mutual friends. She introduced me to a local draw club and lots of other people too. š
Human characters! For a long time I felt very uncomfortable drawing them, but I feel I have reached a point that I can draw a person and think, yeah, that looks like an anatomically correct human being XD Due playing pen & paper RPG’s I also made up human characters, I never really did before.
Started working on my graduation project in September, which revolves around the mythological harpy and character design. If everything goes well, I’m done with school by February! :O I’m really excited and a little scared at the same time, as I won’t be able to call myself a student anymore, I’ll be part of the workforce!
I joined my first Original Character Tournament! Though, can I really say I joined when it has not started yet? The deadline for auditions has been extended twice and I’m still far from finishing my audition comic. š I greatly underestimated the time it takes to make a comic, and with graduating and other projects I kept procastinating on it. Though as a spectator, my deadline is not the same as for competitors, so I aim for the end of Round 1 instead of January 13th.
Did Inktober every other day, and it was much more relaxed that way. Best way to be part of the challenge without taking too much work on my plate!
First year I was able to somewhat keep my Instagram updated – still forgetting to post art every now and then. Last spring I wasn’t online much on DeviantArt too, previously my most active social media account. I really want to change that, though it won’t be easy: most people I follow are less online as they start to work professionally. Still, it’s not impossible, is it? :/
What kind of great things happened to you in 2018? š
Almost three months in, I am high due telling you guys more about my graduation project, donāt you think? I like sharing my progress, especially my thoughts behind the creative decisions I make. The problem is that writing blogs like these take time, time I rather use to actually work on the project. :/
Luckily, I found a way to deal with this!
Normally fourth year students start on their graduation project in February and finish around the end of June. Then there is a degree show in the first week of July and the school closes for the summer. I decided last year I didnāt want to graduate yet and do an internshipĀ instead (best decision ever), and start graduating in September. There are many cons to this: you still have to pay tuition for a full academic year, teachers have less time for you and you have a few weeks less time in general. There is no degree show in February, but you have the opportunity to join in July. Fortunately, there are pros too, and one of them is that you actually have time promoting and preparing your degree show! Instead of stressing until the end of June about making the deadline and putting all ends together, I will have time to plan this thing months ahead!
That is, if I graduate at all! XD
So this is the plan: I am gonna share visual progress, sketches and finished drawings, and photos of the finished project when itās done. From February onwards, I will write a series of blogposts about the more theoretical part of my project, the whyās and howās basically. Ā Itās a bit like the postmortem articles about game design found on Gamasutra: reflecting on the progress of creating something while the project is already round up.
Or perhaps Iām so devastately tired that I just sleep until half March.
On another note, I am slightly ashamed to admit Iām hardly making any progress on the CenturyARkStorm-OCT audition comic. During Autumn Break I made around as much progress as the rest of October and November combined!Ā The deadline being postponed January 12th is nice, though I think it would be best if I tried not to make it. Sounds weird, but as a spectator I can still join in during Round 1, and the final deadline for my graduation project will be around January 21th. So I better not try to get my graduation project in the best shape possible and try to finish these bloody ten pages I have unfinished on my desktop for three months already. Ā I have said from the beginning that itās gonna be hard to juggle, but itās just too much fun to give up, especially when I’m so far into this already!
But, letās end this blog on a happy note! Thereās the new gameplay trailer of Godhood, the game I worked on during my internship! It was published a few days ago already but Iām terrible with keeping up with those things! Iām glad to see my trees are still in the game, as well as the shrine I worked on at 0:16-0:25! I made the leopard statue at 0:48 in the battle too!
Long time since I wrote an actual blogpost here! I thought it would be nice to tell about the things Iām working on and so.
At school Iām working on my graduation project, which consists of a research paper and a āpracticalā art project. For my research paper Iām researching the harpy and what this mythological creature can mean to us nowadays, perhaps as a symbol. Yes, more harpies! I wasnāt sure if this subject would be a good fit at first, but seeing how this creature has nestled in my mind for the last year, I know it wonāt be something I get bored of quickly.
About the practical part, I havenāt got a clue what kind of product this will lead to. Iād love to make a bunch of harpy characters and tell a story, either through a comic or illustrations, but it has of course to build upon the research paper. And you canāt really say anything about a harpy without saying something about the fact that all harpies are female, right? Do I want to make a feminist statement? Iām not sure..
What else? Like I said earlier, Iām preparing to participate in CenturyARkStorm-OCTĀ at DeviantART! I almost got my character application finished, that means, the art is finished, but writing about my characterās personality and backstory is such a hard thing to do XD Especially when itās set in a world I know very little of; Iām absolutely not familiar with the ZOIDS universe even though I tried to read up as much as I can, so I hope my ideas make sense! ^^
The deadline for auditions is November 1st by the way, and we could use any extra competitor to make this happen!
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!Ā
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!
