Introducing Loomic's 800day Deathline Challenge.

Hi there.

 This is Mitch or Michael Loos aka Loomic. I study Communication-Design near Cologne Germany.
I aim for a career in the entertainment design industry as an Illustrator,Animator and Concept-artist.

In a distant future I want to produce great content like Films and Games, but first I want to work and get into the industry.

Roughly eight month ago, I started the Crimson daggers Deathline challenge.
My goals were essentially the following:

To paint 48 paintings, to do sports and get super healthy and fit and to go on writing a chapter of my book each month.

But in may last year i got RSI, because of my reckless wish to get better at any cost. It got to the point where anything I held caused sharp pain in my wrist and thumb joints. The Doc put my right arm, form Hand to elbow, in cast and when he removed it, two weeks later, he said there was nothing I could do to improve my condition other than to take breaks and that this condition would never turn back to a state where I could work a lot. Thankfully that was not the case as I would find out a year later.
However there were things that year that had to be done...  My first exhibition, for which I still had to paint 3 or 4 paintings for example. I really fought to get at least these few pieces done during my  summer term vacation LINK. I tried to do only the really necessary stuff, but the fear of losing the ability to draw permanently was omniscient and really depressed me a lot. Furthermore, because I was so depressed that it was all I would talk about... I didn't want to bother my friends with that so I went solitary with my fears and doubts.
Luckily  2011 was the year, Game of Thrones got popular, so all I did that summer was reading all those books. That was a great adventure. During that time my condition improved greatly but was still there.
Then In November the Deathline started and 3 weeks into that I felt the pain crawling up again, but was ignorant of it. I told myself that if I just did some practices against tendinitis, that  it would work out fine.It did not. I took no breaks, since I had to keep up my schedule, to paint a painting each week, to reach my goal of 48 paintings. That went well for another two weeks and then the RSI was back even worse than before. I had to stop the Deathline. It was so frustrating, I just wanted to be a part of this great project.  Months went by and the condition slowly improved again but I was still so depressed that I couldn't take my stand in the fight against mediocrity. Well there was something important I learned from that.
 It was something Daniel Warren said, some time before. He said, that every artist has his own history and career. That everybody should make their own story rather than to try to copy the stories of their idols.
I'm currently attending a design school, did I mention that before?
This school consumed a lot of valuable time and only recently started to work the way I hoped it would from the start, two years ago. Projects and Assignments got more serious and now I'm able to bend them in favor of my goals and career. Everyone who attended design or art school will agree, that you need to do a lot of 'unnecessary' stuff there, if you have a clear idea of how your work will look like in the future.
However, Daniel's speech echoed back to me and although everyone complained about art and design schools I stayed.
This RSI is part of my story and it shaped my path and made me a little wiser.
I thought about all the things I did in my life and I decided that I won't ever give up or doubt myself like that ever again. I never bend or broke on the tasks i was given before, so I would not start doing it now.

 You have to chose, who you want to be and act accordingly.

The idea is to keep faith in yourself and keep moving forward. Because any other one who made it, went through similar hardships, they might have been even worse than the once you're facing right now.

I choose to be happy walking my path to glory and success, no matter which hardships await me.

With this attitude I found the right treatment for my form of RSI. I can draw and paint a lot again, if I follow a few rules. And now that I finally can, I'm tackling the Deathline again, but on my own terms, fit to make me the person I want to be.

800 Days, 3 goals,

Two Years and seventy Days, starting today.

This Blog is supposed to be like a Deathline-Diary-Sketchbook, where sometimes I write something and post a page of sketches every day. This might change or evolve according to the progress I'm making with my goals.

Here they come:

1# To Create a stunning diploma, that I can be proud of and that could be sold with good consciousness. (The Work within that diploma is supposed to be my portfolio).

2# To become super healthy and super fit. Which means that during these 800 days I want to do sports almost every day even if it is just 15 minutes of crunches and push-ups(weekends excluded). And to lose 25lbs for good, doing so.

3# To have three affixed goals leaves no room. I will think of another goal that will fit my schedule but for now the first two goals are most important. I don't want to limit myself just yet or overdo it again.

These goals will keep me busy for some time.

If you're interested in the work, I've done previously you can go to my old study blog here.


That's it for now. Just a little sketch for today. It's my brothers bday today, so I had to keep the drawing short...

15 min study with pilot ballpointand Pentel brush-pen

Have a great one.

regards,

Mitch