0x151e86b0…cfe9sent to0x068c8208…5390·#18,778,458·view on Etherscan
0x151E···CFE9Introduction
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Joyn me (he-he) in my journey back to the place of happy childhood memories once again. This time the adventure is going to take us back to those summer camps most of us used to visit.
Motivation and the general idea
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There were two initial sparks that made me sit down and start working on this piece. The first one was the general idea of bunk beds being a good theme for playing that nostalgia note. A lot of people have siblings and underlining the theme felt like a good connection to emotionality.
Unfortunately I do not have siblings so choosing summer camp bunk beds felt more aligned to my personal experience.
The other motivation was reminiscing my childhood the other day. I had one very specific summer camp that I used to visit every summer for multiple years. I think that in the end I went there for 7 or 8 summers in a row. Many of my growing-up experiences happened there. The name of the camp was Summer Time.
*What Summer Time gave me:*
* One of my first real-world heroes when I watched an older (17 lol) guy do a backflip;
* Understanding that people can like me (I was very unpopular in school, not so much on Summer Time);
* My first kiss (and break-up);
* It was one of the first places where I realized that I was talented for English (a big thing when you are 10);
* My ultimately favourite soda (still being made in south Czech Republic, those yellow crates and bottles in the artwork are those sodas);
* And many others..
Summer Time was an incredibly forming experience for me, and I cannot believe that this is the first time I have taken the theme and imprinted this set of memories in my art. But finally here we are.
Technicals
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After working on a quite different Wait Here piece and then absolutely trashing my mental health on another piece for 2 months (that I didn't even finish), I dived into more comfortable waters. I circled back to a mix of cartoonish and realistic depiction of a rather small environment, a cottage room.
What I have always felt like is that a certain level of playfulness in my style is a key element to emphasize what my art is supposed to say: There is a little kid inside of you, don't ever forget about it.
After the Curfew is a manifestation of that.
*Note-worthy technicalities:*
* 1.33:1 Αspect ratio. Second piece done within these dimensions, nevertheless still a novelty in my whole body of art. Up until recently they have almost exclusively been coming in square ratios.
* For more Blender/3D savvy enjoyors: Outlines and strokes are done by mixing Grease Pencil and Solidify Modifier. My process of outlining objects in my artworks was always done 99% with Solidify Mod. and using black materials for paper outlines.
What I have done here is that the bottles, floor and wall planks are also slightly stroked-out using the grease pencil method. That effect ultimately strengthens the overall cartoonish vibe of the piece.
* I found an absolute gem of a way to get those bunk beds some edge wear. Now they are heavily worn out by all those kids living in the cottage over the years.
* Since After-Effects is currently receiving a silent treatment from me for being such a laggy software, the whole compositing and postproduction has been done in Blender. All colour grading, vignette, glares, grain, you name it. Everything you see is fully done in Blender. First of it's kind regarding my art.
* Sound done by my girlfriend. The gist is that I've collaborated with my girl and she provided the piece with this beautiful sound design. Feel free to read more about this below in the following section.
The inspiration for After the Curfew was intense and the work was very focus-driven. I finished the piece in just about 4 days of work (+ rendering times and post production).
I guess I just had to get it out, to feel better and remember those times of summer camps.
Soundtrack
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Sound design has been a very important part of this creative process. The music in the background is made by my brilliant musician girlfriend.
This is a huge step forward for me personally since I have always been a very lone wolf and wanted to do everything by myself. I am happy that I found the courage within myself to let her in on my creative process, because the result is worth it.
She is – just like me – a very intuitive person, so working on this together was a pleasure. I showed her the first phases of the artwork and told her what vibe I was going for (basically briefed her). She then did some magic with her keys and in Ableton and here we are, the soundtrack was 90% done.
The final tweaks were my favourite part. We were sitting in our kitchen handing headphones to each other and tweaking small details until the beat was perfect. It was a very bonding time for us.
Then I just took the beat and enhanced it with a sound of some crickets and steps of a supervisor on the gravel outside of the cottage.
*And voilá, sound was done.*
Challenges
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Obviously there were some as this was a creative process as any other:
* Compositing in Blender was a huge challenge. I usually use that function of Blender just for a few basic effects like denoising or lens distortion. Here I used it for the complete post-production of the artwork so I had to go through a few videos and just learn a bit more about it.
* Lighting was a bit sketchy. It worked out great but I was struggling a bit with the colour tones and didn't really know how blue should I really be going. I wanted the piece to look nightly but at the same time not dark or eerie.
Final thoughts
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After the Curfew was a very intense and quick project for me. It didn't really take long to plan the piece out or to brainstorm too much about it. I just sat down and started working.
All the more reason I am happy the piece worked out so nicely without too deep of a preparation. Looking forward to seeing it's life on the blockchain.