December Update: CTNX, Animation tests, Sketches and more

Happy holidays dear patrons,

Hope you've all been well wherever you are. I've been a bit around, so let's jump right into the potentially (unless I'm real efficient about the year round-up) last update of the year!

(speaking of jumping right into it)

CTNX

The big thing this month was definitely going to LA for CTNX. It was my first time in the US, and making all the logistics work took up a lot of my thought space. Turns out, it was easier than I thought in many ways. Though the jetlag could definitely be felt (all of a sudden I turned into a morning person!).

I spent a lot of the time going to panels, getting inspired, and talking to people. Did a talk about indie animation and social media, and gave portfolio reviews. It was a good time, but also a culture shock - because there sure were some 'interesting' types over there. I also got to finally meet Matthew, who has been composing music for my animations for the past 10 years, in person, which was really cool! All in all, I was there for 10 days, and it took me about 3 days of travel to get back home. Coming back, I felt creatively invigorated - though socially exhausted. And somehow my sense of time went totally haywire on return, so I'm kind of looking forward to getting back to a 9-5 job rhythm for a bit.

PITCHING

While we were in LA, we went to visit a certain streaming service for a little post-pitch chat. It was more of a formality though - right now a lot of these bigger streaming services are very careful with their content purchases. Something like Tales of Zale, which is "cute on the surface, but tackles darker subjects underneath" isn't really considered a safe choice to them. Which is fair enough, but it's nice to have given it a go, and the folks over there were otherwise very supportive.

Meanwhile, we've still got the Copenhagen pitch coming up on the 9th. Fingers crossed for that one, because it is definitely considered plan A, and the most viable option in the current landscape.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Alright, so to be perfectly honest I've just been a little bit burnt out on the behind the scenes content I initially wanted to make. I put a lot of it into the book, and really went overboard on the release. After overexerting myself to that degree, I'm finally free to have fun with drawing again, but the editing and writing of this content kinda puts a block on it. It's annoying, because there's a lot of stuff I'd like to talk about in regards to my experiences making Flickering Lights. But I wrote a whole script on storyboarding and then subsequently scrapped it because it didn't feel quite right. I think I'm going to have to take it at my own phase and see when inspiration strikes.

Meanwhile, I did get my recording setup up and working, and recorded a BTS video about the music creation together with Matthew and Marquette. Matthew is editing that one, so that is going on in the background as we speak (although it was a lot of content to edit, so may still take a little while). 

MUSIC VIDEO

I've just gotten back to the music video editing after the CTNX return, and it should be close to done. Unless something comes up, we should be able to release it in December. This a release of the song at the end of 'Tales of Zale - Flickering Lights'. The rest of the OST is coming up as well.

SKETCHES

There hasn't been too much time to work, but here's a little collection of doodles I did during some of the panels at CTNX:

Still drawings/illustrations have never been my primary focus or strong suit. Over the years, I do feel like I've gotten closer to something that works, but It'd help to gain some more tools to work with. Now that I don't have a big animation project hanging over me, I'd really like to take some more time to do style studies to work towards that. Below is a small Zale and Elva illustration, taking inspiration from one of Bluekamadori's render techniques. I think I still got a bit more work to do to really capture it, so I may give this style some more gos. But I'll also try my hand at other artist's style to get a better sense of how they approach making a done, cool-looking drawing. 

Also, since I tend to stay in the realms of 'cute', I tried my hand at making a monster for a change of pace:

SHOP

The shop has a new item! It can't be purchased directly, but it comes with every new order for the rest of the month: a Zale Christmas card!

UP NEXT

On Monday, I start with some new work over at Nørlum. There are two projects that I will be attending to, and I think it'll be nice. It's been a while since I last did traditional 2d animation for anything other than my own productions. It's easy to get a little bit too comfortable when only doing things one way for so long, so I think the change will be healthy. This, among other things, inspired me to pick up Toon Boom Harmony and start learning this new software.

(This little guy was just a test I did to have something to compare production approaches from TVPaint to Toon Boom with.)

ROUND-UP

This month has been a bit all over the place because of the travelling, but it's also been quite refreshing. I feel like I've been getting some of that rest I so dearly needed! Unfortunately, I also lost a bird in the midst of it all (as those of you on the Discord chat already know), so there has been some emotional ups and downs. I'm definitely looking forward to tackling whatever new challenges comes my way now though. First job, then pitching, then my own pursuits in creative improvement, and potentially future projects. Right now it's the exploration phase :)

Talk to you soon hopefully!

- Sif