In Tenebris

Hello there! I am the Principal Concept Artist of a German video game developer. This is my personal blog and mostly related to my own worldbuilding.

[aeridanus]

Some sketches from late November before things went awry - I realized I hardly draw the environments of my Tenebra Versa headworld and had fun with it, and then the streak broke again ^^'

But - everything worked out with my new employer and while it's a little early for a safe prognosis, it could all be the blessing in disguise I needed. Despite being in onboarding phase, I'm at my calmest since a long time, and the Art Director is so much on the same wavelength it's like coming home.

Let's see how everything evolves, but it feels good :)

[aeridanus]

New employment seems to be secured and right after New Year's, I'm going to start. Absolutely glad it's going well.

Second round of Covid isn't nearly as bad as earlier in the year, but the general weakness and burnout are dragging on. Still, I found back into my wasteland of abandoned worldbuilding and worked out all the foundations I wanted to have in place since a few years now.

The little collage above shows a few early lifeforms of Sohaereàn, the Planitriangula or "flat triangles". They evolved from a triradial ancestor and branch off into different directions from this stage onwards.

[aeridanus]

Phew - it looks like I'm safe again. Despite the ugly spot the gaming industry is in, there were some interesting openings around the world offering remote. It would have meant taking on even more responsibility, and while I'm capable of managing a big team and dish out hands-on work simultaneously, I was terrified of having no choice but to push through a semi-burnout stage.

A German studio then pinged me, a bit more laid back and less noisy, and that felt right. I'll have less responsibility and more hands-on time, and I don't need to be in such a rush to develop the next set of skills immediately.

If it all works out, the transition will be seamless. I would love to be in a spot where there's enough energy do a good job and have some left for personal projects and sports. Sounds promising so far :)

But before that: Getting over the second round of Covid. It's less severe than last time, but it's dragging on. Oh well, this year keeps on spinning.

[aeridanus]

... And now we've been struck by mass layoffs beyond our control and I'm back on the market. Fuck this absolute shitshow of a year.

The AAA gaming industry bullshit bingo is going well.

[aeridanus]

Found these two in a sketchbook from 2019 when my best friend and I were on vacation, and I think I never shared them :D We invented two legendary Pokémon for the German federal states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. We wanted to complete the trio with Hesse, but never got to it again. These make more sense in German, but it's obvious that the Bavarian one spits beer and shits sausages with mustard, while the Swabian one spits wine and has pretzel rolls on its tail. Their paw prints resemble the states' coat of arms (of course stolen from Dialga's and Palkia's footprint lore).

I came across those pages when looking though old sketchbooks and I realized - there was another high point between 2018 and 2020 where I was intensely inspired and filling up sketchbooks like a mad(wo)man. That was the time when my colleage and I went to the Anatomy Tools courses in the USA, when I went to the gym every lunch break and was super lean and pretty muscular for a gal. And then, Covid came and I didn't even have a sketchbook again until 2022, and that one took one hand a half years to fill. It's also the exact fucking phase I was absent from this blog. What the fuck man - even with the giga perk of having eternal homeoffice since then, the Covid time left a sad mark even on my introverted self. I lost my drive at the same time I stopped regular and heavy exercise. Concidende? No. Then put everything else from the last posts on top, with a sprinkle of midlife crisis, and there we go.

It's good to think through all of this...

[aeridanus]

The pensive phase continues and I feel it's starting some overdue updates to my approach to more or less every aspect of my life.

I went through an image folder which contains everything I drew between 2008 and 2016, and hoo boy was I productive back then. It was a much harder time overall with heaps of overtime and negative people, but I still managed to create a lot of space for myself. Why is this different now? I have roughly the same amount of personal time, but it leads to much less. Taking a photo of a sketch and pulling it into Photoshop, even coloring it, feels like taking on the world (ordeal pictured above). What happened?

My drumming teacher became one of the most important and helpful people in my life when it comes to questions like these. I only start to realize how right he is when he says: Mind and spirit create reality. Something happened, in me and in my environment, which led to changes, and very apparently, I let them happen. I'm not at fault for everything, but I'm responsible for the way I perceive things, and how I act upon them.

Making and drawing things is something so integral to myself that something rather severe must have happened to lose such a big part of its spirit. It is a peculiar sense of exhaustion that didn't exist back then, despite having a soul-sucking demon spawn as a superior who made me question my value as a human being.

So, what is it? Is it perfectionism? Overthinking? Jadedness? Ageing? One part of the answer is maybe mental overload. I realized that my ability to focus is going to shit, and I'm not even active on any dopamine-rush social media sites. There's a reason why Fuerteventura feels like it's cleaning my senses, and why I feel deeply inspired to draw and do stuff while I'm there. I focus on the things I want to focus on. No Teams strobe light party, no interruptions, no thousand-tasks-juggling, no stupid politics, no ego arseholes I am forced to react professionally to. Mind and spirit create reality, and if my mind is full of ego arseholes and blinking bars, I'm going to have a bad time.

Taking care of such fundamentals may not only improve my personal life, but will also help with the quality of my professional work. Would be a win-win, to use the stupid corporate buzzword.

tl;dr - Aeridanus discovers that capitalism life = shit fuck

[aeridanus]

A redesign of another character from 2002. It was a feline phantasm for the longest time, and its design never really clicked for me. I'm not sure if this new look is final, but it's much better.

Ushu/Rhattash is a phantasm called upon by the Initus Sulhu after Thathes messed up Cryo's calling. Ushu's design is basic and functional - its sole task is to find Cryo and get rid of him if necessary. The skin flaps on the tail open to reveal a silky row of sensory organs, but apart from that, it's long-distance running and sharp teeth that do the deed. The red color is a personal preference of Sulhu and tells of his affiliation with the Red River, a movement between Initii who oppose the ancient decision to include corioalars in the ecosystem. Thathes thought similar, but was initially revolted by the Red River's cultist tendencies - maybe not anymore, as Sulhu is giving him a feeling of solidarity he missed for long years of his life.

[aeridanus]

New work is intense, but so much better. Still looking forward to some calmer months which leave more headspace for personal work.

Especially since I made the last image of Cryo, I was thinking about my personal drawings and headworld a lot. At some point in the past I started thinking I had to be "better" or "deliver more" in terms of personal art because as lead concept, you don't bother with standard lizard men designs, you have to be inventive and "original". Yeah, I love drawing lizard men, but does it make me generic and boring? Will people tell me, "This is what you do in your leisure time - you should be at the forefront of German concept art"? Will I be judged and rejected?

And in reality, I am those imaginary people scolding me for what I enjoy, and pressuring myself into not living up to "expectations" I projected onto me. I have been manipulated on that level in the past (mom: "You can draw, so don't waste your talent with this stupid stuff and drawing something proper"), and one thing is sure, no art will happen with this mindset.

At work, I am this high-level concept art monster, but it's not enough to make me happy on a personal level. I need the lizard men and loose, happy drawing sessions without artstation polish. Less pressure and more flow.

This means: I am proving myself eight hours per day already. Draw the lizard man, and while I like the last image with him being more animalistic, it's not him. Cryo is the guy above. He's fine, the creature from the other image is cool and can easily be implemented into the same world, but this here is fine.

[aeridanus]

I did quite a bit of written worldbuilding in the two weeks I had off between my old and new employment, and one of the characters I gave a bit more sense was Cryo. I invented him in 2002 when I was super keen on writing a headworld chapter which incorporated all the politics stuff I learned in senior grades. It was pretty cringe and after growing out of that, this character laid dormant for most of the time.

Back then, he was mostly a green humanoid with a lizard head based on a green basilisk, and I wondered how he'd work in a more reptilian form. I do like his old humanoid self, but this look is also nice.

[aeridanus]

Had some more chill time with leisurely coloring sketchbook pages. It's Goal and some derived ideas, I'm thinking about expanding his "lore" with some more darker shit that went down during the Lodger War phase of the Tenebra Versa headworld part.

[aeridanus]

Added some color to another sketchbook page of the beach slinker. It's fun to stay loose and not getting lost in detail :)

In general, I feel that I took a certain amount of stress-disordery-affliction from my old workplace. It slowly starts to surface, but it's not surprising and I know how to deal with it. Thanks, game industry, I guess? ^^'

I didn't do any sports the entire year because of the stress (which should have been a wake-up call sooner), so all my gainz are gone and I packed on several pounds of nice stress-eater fat instead. Nothing insurmountable, but it's going to take consistent work until next year to get some basic fitness back. We'd like to return to Fuerteventura late January or early February, so that's going to be my goal date.

On the contrary, I had some first onboarding calls with my new employer and the contrast is difficult to put into words. I feel respected and wanted in my position, no sexist bullshit to deal with, and the key people I talked to were a joy to listen to. Please please please, end of bullshit phase :´-)

[aeridanus]

The sketch page which also had the raw version of the first "sand slinker" image. I'm not sure whether I like smooth and shiny or smooth and matte skin better. Maybe there's both?

Those sketches came after a series of doodles revolving around Goal, and I started to think about the reasons behind his looks and which came first. Some drawing and worldbuilding groove, yay! :)

[aeridanus]

It's an overcast day and I'm going to have the beach to myself, you thought... and then, this fucker trudges along. There's this ghost story of them coming out when it's overcast, and since it's almost never truly overcast, well, who would've thought. They won't eat or harm you, they will mind their business until they disappear behind some lava rocks. Maybe they're there all the time, disguised as rocks, but maybe not? Maybe they live in undiscovered caves beneath the barrancos, where there's always a little stream of water running towards the shore. Who knows?

[aeridanus]

Some babbling about the last months, the insanity is finally boiling down.

Since autumn of last year, things at work got increasingly stressful, but we were able to cope. Went to Fuerteventura in March to recharge, and in April, I fucking finally made it to Lead Concept Artist, after struggling against some bad management for the better part of a decade. Shortly after that, things started to escalate with ferocity, and our move came right on top of that.

The move is behind us and everything went well, but the situation at work became unbearable, especially for me. I finally took the decision to end my time with my employer of twelve years and have a new beginning elsewhere. I thought I'd seen it all in those twelve years, but with every week being worse than the week before, I slowly slid into a state of mind where nothing but work existed. We didn't even do overtime, it was "just" the feeling of the team and myself being consumed by the arrogance and ignorance of management people unfit for their roles, and ultimately, being confronted with the realization that I can't do shit about it, no matter what I do. Being a little woman didn't help either, as fucked up as it sounds.

Now it's all behind me since Thursday and I have two weeks of leftover vacation/overtime left before I start at my new employer. I'm looking so much forward to leave all the stupid politics games behind me, and while every place has its own set of issues, at least the insanity of what we experienced over the course of this year will be gone.

We actually had a second vacation on Fuerteventura only two weeks ago, but as we weren't able to re-schedule, our flight left on the morning after I handed my notice in and had to tell my team. It took six out of eight vacation days to come down from the chronic stress of the year, and only now that everything is done and final, the recuperation phase starts.

My brain is in complete idle mode currently. It's not like burnout, it's "just" idling around and happy with that. Feels like it enjoys having less electrical activity for once. Now would be the perfect time for Fuerteventura, but eh. Learned something about vacation scheduling for next time.

The photo above is from this recent vacation. I took the infrared camera and the "red plants" Kolari filter on board and filmed the takeoff. We were taxiing to the runway when this Lufthansa A340 took off right beside us, and with the red grass and the stormy sky, it came out like these fancy flickr-insta retro-hip colorgrade-things. x)

I hope to get some drawing mojo back in the next days :)

[aeridanus]

BOOPS BINO

BINO IS FOND

[aeridanus]

I must know who Bino is, that name is adorable :0

Heyhey :) Bino is our corn snake. The animal shelter gave him this name because he's albinistic and, ironically, Bino is the name of a German mascot mouse from the 90s :D

[aeridanus]

We finally brought the move behind us. I dropped off the keys of my former flat today, and now only cleaning my partner's old flat is left to do. I was most worried about the transport of Bino's huge enclosure, and the moving guys had to play Tetris in the narrow staircase of the old place, but they brought it here in one piece. Bino is now sulking because he had to live in a plastic tub for two days. x)

It's only starting to settle in that this is our new place now, there just wasn't any time to actually process things among all the stress. I'm so much looking forward to have a daily routine again, with normal working hours, sports, some calm, and finally time and headspace for drawing and worldbuilding. <3