I’m not dead! – An (embarrassing) update

Hello! I know it’s been a while since I last updated the blog (not counting the 2021 creative resolutions).

2020 was for me, as it was to many people, very difficult. I’m in my last year of master degree, I had some very complicated personal matters in the mingle and I lost myself over the months. Which led me to both be extremely busy and I also lowkey neglected any hobby activities I had, including reading for fun and the blog. I wasn’t able to finish any reading request I had (and I feel very guilty for that), I wasn’t able to finish my reading goal for the year (by one book, but I usually I read twice as much so I feel like I failed myself), I wasn’t able to review all the books I have read, I wasn’t able to draw anything all year nor I was able to finish my masters on time and now I will have to ask for a extension.

Basically, 2020 was, in resume, a total failure for me, and it’s been really hard to deal with it. I was not in a good place, and I’m aware it has weight on the play of life, but I can’t shake the feeling that I could have done better if I was just… stronger.

I’m still not well. Things didn’t magically got better just because it’s a new year, but I hope, I hope… to be able to do better. To be better.

What I’m trying to say is… I didn’t abandon the blog and I don’t pretend to. Tough it’s small, it helped me immensely in my communication skills and to vocalize my honest opinions on things instead of just being a people-pleaser. I had genuine fun talking about things when usually I have no confidence to talk about my likes and dislikes to people by fear of their reaction. Here I was never afraid of not sounding intelectual enough or being too casual, too detached, too unpassionate, too loud or too eccentric. I’m not the best at expressing myself, when I do I often put the mask of the clown or of the recluse, but here it didn’t really matter.

That’s being said, as soon I finish my grad project for my master degree (that’s my top priority right now) I will do my best to update the books I didn’t review, finish the requested books I didn’t finish and review them as well.
In the end of the year I also created an art account on twitter to force me at least look at my old art to motivate myself, so here it is in case you are interested, along with my other sns.
After that, I will try to focus on my creative resolutions, as I pointed out on my previous post.

Thanks so much to everyone who takes a tad of their time to read the things I write or to see the art I make. It really means a lot to me. And if you’re here even after my “disappearance”, thank you.
I wish you all the best year!

Sincerely,
Anna.

Creative Plans For 2021? Sure, why not?

This is actually a post from my ko-fi, but I thought I might as well post it here.

Some of you may already know if you follow me long enough that I’m an illustrator/2D animator so my life revolves around art.
Well… the last #KofiChallenge of the year is about our creative goals and/or resolutions for the upcoming year, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and verbalize some stuff I’m thinking of doing next year.

★ First things first, I really want to finish the pilot chapter of the comic I’m doing for my master’s degree! During the year I also want to review and improve the worldbuilding of said comic, since I did it kinda in a rush.

★ Definitely looking forward to make more commissions! The commissions I did this year really helped me a lot. I also enjoyed doing them.
You can find info about my commissions >> here <<.

★ If everything goes well, I hope to find a job in the field, even if it is an small one. Or even a project to join. 

★ Absolutely drawing more to myself. I have some ideas for years that never pull out due lack of time or insecurity. Let’s try bringing some of them to life.

★ As soon I have access to a better PC, I would really like to get back at 2D animation, since I miss being able to do it. I also want to make a proper demo reel at once!

★ I’m currently editing a “big” zine (a revamp of an older issue) with various character designs and some illustrations to put on digital sale. If enough people show interest in a physhical copy of the zine, I might try to print some paperback copies!

★ I really want to go back to giving attention to my sketchbooks! I felt really happy and at ease every time I finished a drawing.

As you see, nothing fancy or extraordinary… I’ll try to do my best since this year I didn’t do so well since, well… *gestures at the current state of the world* and also because of a lot of personal troubles in the middle. This wasn’t an easy year, but I hope the next goes a bit better, at least in the personal matters (STAY HOME YOU PEOPLE).
I think I’m not asking for much, but I hope to be capable of doing something good for the next year. At least one good thing. 

Well I think it settles it for now. Let’s go to the next level of Jumanji xD

[Resenha de Antologia de BDHQ] “Weak (Edição Deluxe)” por Kachisou

_{Texture photos ⓒ Rosebein}

★★★★☆ 4/5

Review is in portuguese as the book is made by a portuguese author. If you’re interested in reading the review in english, send me a message and I will translate it for you! Also, I have reviewed the book august 2020 on goodreads, but completely forgot about putting it here until now (will backdate).

A antologia (Edição Deluxe) é composta de 4 histórias: “A tua força”, “Amigos”, “Medo” e “Senta!”. Ainda possui concept art, alguns 4-komas e entrevista com a autora.

Todas com uma narrativa simples mas com uma mensagem clara, o livro pode ser apreciado tanto por crianças como por adultos. Eu pessoalmente achei alguns dos “conflitos” em duas das histórias um pouco estranhos ou sem sentido, mas considerando o tamanho de cada uma talvez fossem a melhor solução para manter a narrativa simples.

A história que gostei mais foi “Amigos”.

Lê-se bem, e é divertido de olhar as páginas até mesmo pela arte, que foi sem qualquer dúvida o que gostei mais. O estilo da autora remete para os mangás dos anos 70-80, dando um ar extremamente nostálgico às histórias (principalmente se você for uma criança dos anos 90 como eu que cresceu justamente envolto em animes e mangás com essa estética). Os backgrounds embora tenham um traço mais descontraído têm uma ótima composição, o traço em geral é leve e expressivo, e a expressividade das personagens é especialmente fantástica.

Acho que a única coisa que para mim pareceu mais estranho, é que algumas das histórias parecem diretamente traduzidas do inglês (de forma literal), fazendo com o texto soasse estranho e pouco natural em certos momentos. Algumas palavras continuavam em inglês pelo meio ou até mesmo a construção frásica era mais próxima do inglês do que o português (um erro que cometo várias vezes quando faço traduções distraidamente) e isso quebrava o ritmo de leitura. Achei que ficou meio estranho.
Entretanto, isso é muito pontual e não impede a leitura.

Gostei mesmo muito do estilo do mangá e foram várias as vezes que folheei as páginas apenas para absorver os traços. Espero ver mais trabalhos dela!

[Book Review] “The Little One” (The Noon Universe #7) by Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky

 

Texture photos ⓒ Rosebein | “Малыш” Illustration card ⓒ Lev Yakovlevich Rubinstein

★★★☆☆ 3/5

“The Little One” mostly known as “Space Mowgli” or “The Kid” is a russian sci-fi short novel about a group of investigators who land in the Ark planet – a supposedly uninhabited and sterile planet – that the crew try to verify if it’s possible to terraform into a habitable one, and the first contact they have with an unexpected (and apparently only) inhabitant: a little savage humanoid boy that looks simultaneously too much and too little like an human.

The story is part of an extended universe called “The noon universe” and despite the book being a standalone (I have read that some of the characters appears in other books) many of the terms, objects, races and historical events that are mentioned on the book are hard to follow because it’s assumed that the reader are familiar with them.

Also, because being the book hard sci-fi from the 70’s, some of the sci-fi terms of the time are very archaic or “over the top”, making the read a bit funky. I have read a translation that dates from the same period, so the technological terms are very old and not adapted to new audiences. Younger people probably wouldn’t get most of it. Maybe newer editions take this into account.

Storywise I liked the overall plot despite the loose strands of information I lacked by not being familiar with the Noon Universe. The book gives you at least enough information so you at least don’t lose interest.

None of the characters are much developed, they kind of stay in a archetype\stereotype state throughout the entire book, but I don’t think it was a bad thing in this case. The book was small and even though there was a part it was dragging enough to have time to develop said characters (Stas was maybe the more developed because he was the narrator, and knowing his way of thinking we get to know him better than the rest), I think if we got to know them more emotionally, the way they interacted with the kid wouldn’t be the same, or at least we wouldn’t view it in the same way. I say that because by not being close or empathetic to any of characters, I was able to watch their actions towards the kid with no bias.
After a major action of one of the characters by the end, we get to know them a little better because they all react to the consequences of this action, so we get to see a hint of their true colors. By this point, I finally had a bias towards some of them. And I think leaving this to the end was great.
There’s a downside to it: as they are left in a stereotype state for most of the plot, of course, there’s cliches and common tropes we all are tired to see, but oh well *cough*emotional angry female*cough*

A thing that made me confuse several times throughout the book: The russian name system. The same character sometimes has up to 3 or more names that are casually changing along the narrative with no warning. Don’t get me wrong, portuguese\brazilian people have up to 6 names sometimes, but we barely get adressed to more than two if not in formal occasions. But in this book, the same character can be adressed diferently by everyone, as their full names only appear late or never at all, you just guess it over time “ah it’s name and surname” we just lay there very confused of who is who. The main character is called “Popov”, “Stas”, “Stanislav” randomly and I was loosing my mind until I figured out his name is Stanislav Popov and Stas is short for Stanislav.
Also, short names sometimes doesn’t match the full name, or the same name has small variations (Maya, Mayka) AND IT’S SO CONFUSING!!! There was once a translator note saying “Shura is short for Alexander” like 20 pages after this character was introduced, making the story completely different for me, as I thought “Shura” and “Alexander” to be diferent characters.
It could be a translation issue, yeah, but still I had a hard time reading because of this (and because russian names sounds a bit too similar to each other, since I’m not used)

The book has neither a bad nor a good ending. In fact, it doesn’t even have exaclty an ending. The ending is open, we don’t know how the situation ended up, just the situation of some of the main characters.

I was not dissatisfied with it, but I thought something was missing because a loooot of questions were left unanswered, and they made such a big deal of them in the beggining.

[Book Review] “Worldbuilding: From Small Towns to Entire Universes” by Kevin J. Anderson

 

Texture photos ⓒ Rosebein

★★★☆☆ 3/5

“Questions often spark more imagination and more ideas than straightforward answers do”

This is a how-to-book that has a different approach than the usual Worldbuilding books: It gives you questions instead of answers, and that’s not bad at all. The book gives you no awnsers at all. Do not expect one. The author himself warns you about it.

However, being the book already very little, the actual useful part is even smaller. There’s too much biography (as WB examples) and “I did this and that” for such a tiny book, in my humble opinion. I know it comes from the idea of “giving an example” but for most people, using a real life person as object of study…does not work. I think it would have worked better if the author had used a widely known fictonal charcter instead of himself, so people would relate more and maybe understand better some of the points he were trying to make (I got the points, but it felt weird because well, it’s a real person in our real world, not a secondary world).

The questions that the book gives you are realy important. They make you think. They also made me realize that some things are lacking in my worlds, some things are very well done and some need adjustments.

Sadly, this useful part of the book is far too short. The first half of the book is basically book covers of previous works of the author and his story around those books. It gives very little insight about worldbuilding itself honestly, it’s basicaly a work biography.

This book could have been so much more, but oh well…