Life Update + What I'm working on!

Hey Patreons!
Thanks so much for your continuous support. To make up for the time I was inactive, I’ll be releasing some cool stuff in the coming days, so keep an eye out!

I wanted to give you a little update on what has changed for me, and what projects I’m currently working on.

As I mentioned in my last update, I moved to Berlin! At first, I was just subletting a flat from my sister’s boyfriend, but after 2 months I found my very own place. Yay! Honestly, I thought as a self-employed artist in a city like Berlin, this would take much longer.

The past 2 months I’ve spent getting comfortable here, buying furniture, finding a new gym, and trying to make new friends. Still working on that last one, but luckily three of my siblings also live here, so that helps a lot.

Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m still figuring out my place as a self-employed artist. Back when I worked in a VFX studio, it was very clear what my job was: I was a 3D modeling artist, so that’s what I did. Since being on my own, I’ve been experimenting with different things, trying to balance passion projects with making a living.

I started with YouTube, putting in a lot of work to grow the channel. Then I spent time developing an addon, which also brought in some income. Later, I tried going back into a VFX studio, but that didn’t work out. That’s when I started freelancing, which is where I’m at now.

Each of these paths has its pros and cons. Some months I’m really motivated to make YouTube videos, then suddenly I’d rather focus on a big personal project, and the next week I feel like freelancing. I don’t think this will change anytime soon, maybe it never will. Maybe that’s just who I am, and I need to learn to work with it.

Overall, I feel like I’m making slow but steady progress. Back in November 2022, when I lost my job, I felt like I had lost control over my own life. The job ended because of the economic struggles in the whole industry at the time (which are still partly ongoing). There wasn’t really much I could have done differently. But it was hard, after spending years working toward my dream of working on big movies and shows, finally reaching that point, and then losing it so quickly.

I always wanted to become self-employed someday, but this situation pushed me to really go for it. Being my own boss gives me control: over what I work on, when I do it, and how much I earn. I’m still not fully where I want to be, but looking back, I’m proud to have made it this far.

What I’m currently working on

Most of my time right now goes into freelance work. This is still the best-paying option for me, so I rely on it as my main income.

At the same time, I’ve been developing new products. Just a few days ago I released 3 new packs, and another one should be online in a few days. I don’t know yet how well they’ll do, but I’ve already learned a lot from the process, and I plan to make more.

The 3 new products are Space HDRI packs. Originally, I was working on an Aerial & Aviation HDRI pack, but the space packs came together pretty quickly in the last week. Over the next months, I plan to share some of these HDRIs here with my Tier 2 supporters.

The Aerial Skies HDRI pack is also in the works. It’s a set of HDRIs above the clouds, made for aviation and aerial shots. The main idea comes from a trick I used a few years back for my Planetary HDRI trailer: using a gradient to move parts of the HDRI at different speeds, creating a parallax illusion. It’s hard to explain, but basically it makes the clouds move with depth, which allows for really cool real-time aerial shots. Once the pack is ready, I’ll make a video explaining the trick in detail.

Besides that, I’ve also continued my VFX and camera tracking experiments. I got really motivated again when CG Matter released his new camera tracking addon. I never really liked Blender’s internal tracker since I always ran into problems. I even tried some industry-standard software, which worked great but came with a monthly fee. Fair if you use it all the time, but not worth it for me. CG Matter’s addon makes things much simpler, and I’ve had a lot of fun testing it.

And just today, I was experimenting again with creating large-scale landscapes. My goal is to find a faster way to make wide environments without spending days on it. For this test, I scattered a forest, then took it into Photoshop for quick sketching. I even used generative fill to extend the forest and add a town in the distance. Of course, this is just for idea generation. If I continue the project, I’ll do proper matte painting and modeling.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading and for your patience with me!
Feel free to share your own ideas, goals, or struggles in the comments.

Have a great week!