For when the road ahead is misty and unclear.

Hi! It's been a while haha no joke. My excuse is that I got stupidly busy with college courses, pew pew pew one after another, week after week, relentless. But, on the plus side of things, it was fun and I learned a bunch of crazy new things that got me excited. I'll get on to what cool new things I picked up just after a quick catch-up of events.

So, I went into 2022 knowing well that it's gonna be a hectic, scary, and productive year. I knew I'm gonna be waddling through the new deep dark uncharted waters of my career. And to be honest, it hasn't been easy... Earlier this year, I applied to two studios I wanted to intern at and even applied for a writing fellowship thing, but it didn't work out, kind of a bummer. Not all hope was lost tho. I got a good idea of how much more I needed to push and improve myself and as the saying goes, 'Good things take time.', so when the moment comes, it'll come and I'll be ready ( says the optimistic part of me xD). Anyhow, this year is slowly turning out to be stellar in its unique way.

Rewind to mid-January 2022, where the last "first-ever" blog was left off. A lot of stuff has happened since then, and I'd love to write them down here. We had this awesome documentary course taken by Gautam Chakraborty, I've some mad respect for the fellow. A great mentor if you allow him to be one. Four weeks of hell but man were they interesting. He talks a lot but heh who doesn't, just look at me! One of my assignments was to create a documentary on a craft, and the one I chose to document was large-scaled bread making.

Storytime? There's this commercial bakery right next to my dad's office, the kind responsible for your day-to-day packaged bread. My dad got me permission to record the process during a busy Friday, which I did and it was super neat. Did I end up with about 130? 150-ish? short/long recordings along with a ton of sound capturing. I haven't edited it yet, but soon, very soon I'll have it ready, and maybe if it's good enough I'll be happy to upload it here on my website. :)

Up next, is Blender. BOY WAS I OVER THE ROOF with the news. I've been dying to learn 3D software forever but never really got into it because it was obnoxiously confusing. I'm glad to have a faculty by the name of Shaheen Sheriff (check out his animations on YouTube!). He is a gifted animator and possibly one of the best mentors one could have. In just two weeks he taught us all you need to know about blender to 1. Navigate, 2. Edit, 3. Model, 4. Material render and 5. Animate! Fun fun fun fun fun fun FUN I kid you not! Two weeks sailed by like it was NOTHING! I'm so excited to finish my animations and upload them here, soon so stay tuned.

Oh and not to forget, My family decided to travel to our bungalow in Lonavla (a beautiful hill station that sits tall on the Western Ghats in Maharashtra, India). For what is a peaceful two-hour drive through the winding highways, we got there before we even broke a sweat. Home to one of the tastiest Vada Pavs I've ever had, this place is close to perfect. My favorite memory is of my dad taking the bed sheet and blankets, bringing them to the grassy lawn, and sleeping for hours under the ancient white Jamun tree. I even whipped out my acrylics and painted away in my sketchbook, it was blissful. A grand two-day run away from our hectic lives, and best of all I drove back all the way home. I was scared as hell cause It was my first time on the highway, driving at speeds of 90 in fifth gear holy mackerel. I was tired and sweating by the end of it with cramps all over my lower half but hahaha I cannot even explain the euphoria I felt.

That's about all otherwise this post is gonna become an essay xD. My college courses have all ended now, and it's time for our final project, pretty cool right? So here's my plan, since applying to the studios I wanted to do a project at didn't work, I've made up my mind to create a lore book on an original story. A lot of the details are still to be figured out but It's gonna be a complete fiction story, with some rich world-building through creating tons and tons of concept art to breathe life into the project. I aim to bring visualization to this world I will be creating in the course of the next six months. Why? The goal is simple, to improve and add something to my portfolio I can be super proud of someday. There's a lot of figuring out to do but that's why I titled this "For when the road ahead is misty and unclear".

So, for the ones who take their time to read these posts, I'd like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. And if you're interested to see my progress with this project, I'll be sure to drop a post now and then as a status update. Hope you had fun and have a great day! Cya :)