Gentlebree

Hi there!
It's been a while I know. I come here less often as I find it easier to upload art stuff on other social media. But! I thought someone here might still be interested in commissioning me so here you go:


I've just got a price list for traditional artwork, but if you'd rather have something digital, don't worry! Prices for digital art will come out soon, I just need to put together few things. I'm technically open for those as well. 
You have more contact details in the info sheet, so you're welcome to message me outside DA (preferable if it's urgent).

Hello everyone! Hope you all had an amazing Christmas.
Just felt like writing a things or two about recent life updates I'd like to share with you all.

So, I'm writing this journal using the Deviantart app, and must confess I quite like it. As the title mentions, my laptop is slowly and painfully departing. First it stopped recognising my beloved Cintiq, making it absolutely impossible for me to use. Went back to my old little Intuos, but i was a little bit rusty, so any attempt to produce digital art ended up being a failure. Had a little bit of fun with the Inktober meanwhile, but nothing more than sketches was produced.
If I could have at least attempted to use my Wacom tablet before, now it's completely impossible. For more than two weeks now, my laptop would freeze all of a sudden, no matter what software or task is trying to run. I have a feeling the driver update I did for the graphics card was the biggest mistake I could make. Obviously suggested by Windows, but the problem was, the update was never installed properly, as the laptop froze half way through.
Good thing is, I have a job now, and in 2/3 months time could probably be able to buy a new computer. No more laptops for me, as well as no more Microsoft. I hate how expensive Mac computers are, but to be honest, this past few years have been a nightmare whenever I was trying to do some animation on my laptop. Fair enough it was probably not the right machine to use for animation, but still, it just added stress to my uni days.

All of this happened when I got a job in retail. As a full timer, my time off has been spent sleeping and doing grocery shopping. I really long for some time to dedicate to my portfolio, but at the moment it's quite hard. I don't mind my job, and I'm actually learning quite few things about how to present and sell something. Not to mention this experience is making me a little bit more confident. I can't say I needed time off from art and animation, but I needed to experience what going to work very day means. How to deal with saving up, as well as understand how much I will need to earn in the future to cover all my expenses.
My only regret is the lack of art activity. There're moments when I get really inspired, but I'm absolutely exhausted. Also, I'm finding it very difficult to organise myself properly, as every day my shifts are different, and I usually never get more than one day off at time. So is the end, that day is usually designated to relax and do grocery shopping/laundry/house cleaning/doing boring adult stuff.
On top of that, my family is pressing me to get a job in animation because "that's what I really want to do". I confess I'm absolutely uncertain about what I want to do. I'd definitely love to get an internship/stage in a studio, to experience what it's like to work in the industry. I was meant to work on my portfolio on the meanwhile, but that didn't happen, and I feel like I'm stuck in a limbo. I want to carry on with my retail job at least for another few months, maybe asking for a part time contract instead, even though full time is bringing me quite a bit of money.
But every now and then I feel like I'm missing somethings, and my family doesn't fail to remind me how I waste my time every day. I already find it hard to live up to my expectations, but now I have parents telling me they WANT me to get a job in animation, and will not be happy with me until i demonstrate being an artist will make me earn good money (insert hysterical laughter).

So yeah, this was to say that I apologise to whoever follows me for my art on social media for not being active lately.  I really enjoying sharing my work online and the response I get is always very interesting. It also pushes me to stop feeling bad about my skills and just produce more, which is something I need to work on.

I'm planning on writing another post before 2016 falls upon us, but in case i don't, hope you guys have an awesome New Year start.


Ps: writing a journal on my phone was actually quite tricky, so apologies if there's stuff that doesn't make sense.




       

I appreciate your thought when giving me llama, but as you probably noticed, I've removed the badge from my page. I'm not on this website to collect badges, so please, do not give me any. From this moment on, I will not give back llamas. I know there're people who enjoy them, that's absolutely fine, it's just that I'm not one of them. 
If giving a llama badge is a way to say you like my page, please take time to drop me a line instead, as it would definitely bright my day up.

So...I know I've been saying this for almost every single journal I wrote in the past 3 years but yeah, it has been a while.
My previous entry featured a sort of hiatus explaining why I wanted to leave DA. Although I still share those ideas regarding the administration and some users' behaviour on this platform, I must admit I missed it.

As some of you know, I have recently graduated from an art university, obtaining a degree in animation. Although I was happy with my achievement, I came to understand that my life has an artist would have changed from that moment on. First of all, I have never really considered myself an artist or an animator. I was always speaking about myself as a student or some sort of wannabe, with a great enthusiasm and passion for animation (because i really do love talking about it), but nothing more than that. Everything i produced for university has deeply disappointed me, eventually leading me to stress management problems, leaving me in frustration and despair. For the most part, i thought i had nobody to talk to regarding these problems as i noticed most of my classmate didn't seem to suffer the same anxiety university was given me. I think i've always been taught not show these kind of emotion and feelings, and under the influence of my family i've always tried to hide them away, especially from my tutors. This was the biggest mistake i made, as it later turned out that my tutors were probably the only people i needed to see and speak to. 
Still, when i applied for an animation course I've actually never paid any attention to the fact that i was bringing myself to a whole new stage, from an occasional doodler to a serious art student. Not that it would have made me change my mind, because, looking back at it, i wouldn't have taken any other courses, but that hit me later on. I think that happened during my second year, so fairly late, as i did a year of foundation studies before actually starting the bachelor degree. This is when i stopped drawing for myself and starting using it as a way to achieve high grades and please my tutors. I probably gave too much importance to what they wanted to see, or the kind of film they liked to see, rather than what i wanted to produce. So most of the times, they liked my work, and i absolutely hated it. Knowing that they saw something they really loved in what i did made me happy for like...the entire length of my tutorial (about 20 minutes). Then i'd go back to work, or home and feeling absolutely shit about it. I even had friends from my course underlining how stupid the whole situation was, as they were probably facing the opposite problem. I was living with one of them and hearing this every day obviously didn't help. (I also had good friends that were able to help me so much, despite being back in Italy or some place else.)

I think this is when i started missed the freedom to express what i was going through without having to be told i was wrong. I remember Deviantart has been my relief valve for quite a good time, especially during my final high school years. It really made me feel better writing about what i was feeling. You could say a personal diary or notebook would do the same trick. Unfortunately not, or at least, not for me. I even bought one last year, wrote about 5 pages and that was it. It's till parked on my desk today, but i still can't get used to write it.
I think it's mainly because you feel like your complaint/thoughts/feeling are shared by someone else, maybe someone who's going to read that journal one day. I personally have experienced some sort of relief after reading some other artists' post. They made me feel i was not the only one having problems, and knowing that they eventually found a way to cope with that made me feel more optimistic about my situation. But i feel like i can't just start a new blog. Most of my problems regard what i do daily, which is mostly related to producing art, so naturally, I'd be more inclined to share my thoughts here, where i can find some feedback from it. Also, i've always been taught to separate my "profession" from my life, so all the website and blog which i use to share my work, have to remain "clean", just in case someone might go through that one day. I want people to judge me from what i produce, at least for my profession. It's already hard as it is to find a job and pretend you're the best person they could ever encounter: you're not just talented, you're also funny, easy going....you can go on. 

So, what i'm trying to say with this post is that I really want to try and come back to Deviantart. Both to publish work and to share my thoughts. I want to be able to say whatever I feel the need to express, without the fear to be judged as a crybaby.





With this said, I'd like you to have a look a My friend Mizuiro-Konoha's journal. She's offering a giveaway, so if you follow the instruction on her journal you could get some free art from her! Great, isn't it? 
For all the info and rule, please, look here: <da:thumb id="564952273"/>



Hope you guys are having a nice week. If not, endure a little bit more, the weekend is just around the corner. See you!