In Horoma's Head 02
Another preview of an upcoming project
Hi everyone,
Here comes the second installment of this new In Horoma's Head newletter.
In Horoam's Head newsletter is a simple, monthly approach, that is just my way of sharing what I have been up to every month in the hope, as usual, to start a conversation with any of you, if any of the topic raised your interest!
So what happened in February? Well, quite a lot. And not much at the same time. 🐏🐏🐏
The Youtube channel news 🎵🔈🧠
This past month I've released three new videos on the channel.
The first one was a new take at making tutorials a little bit more actionable and yet keep them theory oriented (you know how I like theory). So this lead to a short and simple yet quite effective tutorial on how to master the power of the burn and dodge tools in photoshop. In which I cover the basics of the tools, how to use them non-destructively, and also what the hell you're supposed to do with them!
Second video was a video of a critique of my own work, covering a really nice refurbishment project I did a couple of years ago.
Last video was an adaptation of an article I wrote some time ago on cgarchitect covering how to work with an archviz artist or studio. Basically aimed at architecture firms and property developers rather than archviz studios (hence why I tried to get it published on archdaily but without success so far 🤐), it is still interesting for our side of the picture because it can help in understanding common misconceptions our clients might have on how to deal with us, thus helping you to fix them before they lead to any issues in your business relationships. I think it's an important topic so I invite you to take 10 minutes to check the video, or even just 2 minutes by gliding through the 5 sections of the video to get a grasp of the idea.
The thrill of teaching live 👁🧠🙈
As mentioned in the January installment, first week-end of February I ran the beta of a live-course I intend to launch in the coming weeks. I don't remember being this stressed and anxious about an event since my thesis presentation 6 years ago. Fortunately it went better than my thesis 😁
The perfectionist's curse 😨😩
Although right now I'm finetuning the presentation for the course and finishing implementing ideas and feedback from the people who attended (that I thank again for their time 🤩), something a bit unexpected happen the following day of the presentation.
Even though I convinced myself that this was just a beta and that I knew there would be a lot to fix needed, that most of the content was there but needed finetuning, and despite the really positive feedback I got, I felt extremely bad and disappointed in the work I've presented and started questioning the overall value and quality I was really able to deliver in this course. It took no less than a whole week for me to get back from what Seth Godin would call "the dip". The positive feedback from the attendees really helped, and taking a step back from the intense week I had just gone through also helped.
I'm happy to be back on track and really motivated again by this big project that I've been undertaking for the past year almost.
The world of just for fun 😂🙈😂
One pretty stupid thing that helped getting back from this pretty low morale period was the funny and funky youtube channel of Marc Rebillet. I think I've watched all his videos now. Crying of laughter at non-sensical lyrics is a pretty good feeling.
Another nice advertising that can bring a smile on your face and reminds me of my usual Mondays.
Can't hurt to laugh a bit and release some steam.
The world of books and comics 🤓
As usual I'm reading a lot. I took a break from theory though, and finished reading the issues I was missing from Black Bolt and Death of Inhumans. Nice story and drawings, and great color palettes that I've made sure to save in my library for potential future use.
I heard Spawn is supposed to be quite a classic in the comic world. I hope I'll manage to find one issue in my local comicbook store.
Chaosgroup new ecosystem ✌✌👌
A couple of days ago Chaosgroup premiered their new ecosystem on Youtube. A nice rebranding with new tools that will probably find their way into my workflow eventually. I unfortunately don't have an RTX card at the moment so I can't play with Chaos Vintage, but I'm definitely looking forward to getting my hands on one 😁
The world of podcasts 🎤🎙🎧
I've had podcasts for ages on my playlist but never made the time to listen to any of them. Recently I've been dedicating an hour per day for active listening and note taking of podcasts such as Wrong F-ing Question with Mike Golden and Hrvoje Čop (not really active lately unfortunately) and There's Something About Archviz animated by Federico Biancullo. Both of these tackle interesting topics of archviz that are often either not tackled at all, or usually trivialized way too much. So I encourage you to check them out! I'll probably give a quick selections of the ones I liked the most next month.
Leaving the uncanny valley 👯♀️
Unreal recently released a preview of their new metahuman software. Impressive stuff to do character design in minutes instead of hours. Can't wait to see it in action and how archviz will maybe be able to implement it in interesting ways. While I would love to dedicate some time to learning Unreal, I just have had too much on my plate. This is one of the few drawbacks of working alone, experimentation has to be carefully planned and you just can't stretch yourself too thin learning too many softwares.
That will be all for the moment. Hope this little overview of In Horoma's Head gave you some interesting pieces to think about. Next month will be mostly dedicated to finalizing my course for the final launch. I'll let you know about it by then. Amongst other things as usual.
If you find this utterly boring and useless, please let me know before unsubscribing 🎀. If on the other hand you do like it, then I'm glad, and feel free to share it with your archviz pals that would maybe like it too.
All the best for the upcoming month!
Cheers
Simon