In Hindsight

So a year ago around this time, I wrote an essay that I wanted to post here, but I decided against it.
And now, I think I actually will, because I think it's really important to.

Most of the essay is me expressing really depressing thoughts. This is the ending of the essay:
"My main reason for writing this is to say that I'm exhausted. 
I'm tired of being told I'm not good enough. I'm fed-up of not being recognized. I'm sad about not being good enough for myself. I'm disappointed that I rank myself according to what others see and think of me. I'm sick of the fact that my professors still don't know my name and it's a month into the semester. I'm sad that I work so hard with things I never seem to achieve and understand. I'm ashamed that I spend so much time striving for some sort of fulfillment that will never seem to happen. 
Most of all, I'm finding it really hard to be positive and push on when I haven't felt any sort of achievement for such a long time. I feel discouraged by all these replies from talks and jobs and competitions. It'd probably be easier to stop trying and it would certainly hurt less.
For the time-being though, I will push on. I'll try to be strong, but it's just so soul-crushing when there isn't anything along the way to really give that boost to keep on going."

After writing this essay, I felt even more determined to make things work. By writing it out, I'd realized I'd written the answers that I needed: I have to do things for myself, and I have to do what makes me happy.

Since then, I've been doing things for myself, and rewards have been coming to me without me even expecting them.

Every now and then I have to remind myself to be patient and refocus my energy. This is another one of those times.

It all seems pretty obvious, but we do need to be reminded every so often.

Do it for yourself,

-Deena

Animation Collaborative

This summer was amazing. I attended this 2 week intensive workshop taught by Michal Makarewicz of Pixar. He opened up his own school called The Animation Collaborative. If anyone's interested in having anything to do with any part of the pipeline in animation, I'd highly encourage you to attend any of the workshops they offer at the AnimC. I attended the 2-week intensive demo and lecture on 3D animation. It was such an amazing experience, and I got to meet so many people, from all sorts of backgrounds and ages, who are incredibly passionate about learning and chasing their dreams. My teacher Mike was the most enthusiastic and encouraging teacher I have ever met in my life. His dedication and motivation just radiates off of him and inspires you. It was impossible feeling intimidated while I was there, I could only feel inspired by the people that surrounded me.

This was a cafe we'd hang out at after our evening class. 

It's about a two-block walk from the school. 

They have the best pancakes in the world.

It was also 2 blocks away from our hotel, Extended Stay.

We'd draw each other a lot (or mostly James would).

The lobby of the school is open for pretty much anything. 

A few improv sessions would happen before class.

Pizza during the class break.

Couches in the lobby.

We'd hang out on our laptops and animate things.

In the 'classroom'.

It was set up like a room in animation dailies.

We'd get to ask questions and add comments at any time during

the lectures or demos. It's such an open environment for learning.

The comfy couches we got to sit on (and sometimes fall asleep on).

Out by the kitchen was this huge map.

Students from all over the world!

Art up on the walls all over the school. 

There were three classrooms with alternating teachers

depending on the day of the week.

Oh, and the AnimC is RIGHT across the road from Pixar!

So many starstruck moments would happen when I saw some 

of my biggest idols driving out of the gates.

Such a mindblowing experience.

-Deena

Architecture Sketching

Began a new project to study classical architecture in the UAE. So I won't be making all the videos that I had planned to, but I think it's for the better. Just had to reorganize my priorities I guess.

Here are some sketches from yesterday. Megan and I have been learning how to draw using different techniques, and we messed around a bit with perspective. She learned stuff in 10 minutes 'cause she's such a fast learner, and grasped concepts that took me full semesters to understand.

Then we went to the mall and got some coffee after we studied some more buildings.

Came up with a challenge to draw each other while simultaneously using both hands.

The results:

Basically have five more days before I'm off to Iowa.

More sketching to be done,

-Deena

Beach Sketching!

My favorite subjects were voluptuous women who weren't afraid to wear itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikinis.

More summer,

-Deena

Productivity Ensues!

So I'm really hoping that the upcoming week(s) will be as productive as possible!
I've got some shoots lined up, and hopefullyyy, I shall execute before I leave on the 25th of this month.

Just a little list of what should be in store:
-A food photoshoot (What?! That's too awesome!)
-A cooking video
-A dance video
-A singing video
-A central Asian photoshoot

Ok, now I've realized I might not be able to do all of this in just 12 days, but maybe I'll get the shooting done and edit over my stay in Iowa.
I'll have to get organized.

For the past few days, I've been reworking my sketching style. I've realized that I spend way too much time sitting there trying to improve the quality of the drawing rather than fleshing all my ideas out and getting gestures down. I should be able to post some new sketches tomorrow.

Go out there and make something,

-Deena

001

Right... so I suck at this posting on a blog thing... 

I'm more of a tumblr person. It's a very, very bad addiction. I literally bursted with joy when I found out that tumblr wasn't blocked like Facebook and Twitter. But I must not slack off..

Internship is productive but boring and gives me allergies : /

It's hard trying to balance between what they want and what I think they should want. I'll just need to do more convincing and impressing. 

Other than that I learnt some pretty fancy stuff. woohoo

I also updated my Behance with some of my work, so check it out.

For now I'm spending my summer with Willi Kunz, but I must read less and practice more!

ffffffff

just messing around with letters.

Frustrated

All my internships ended last week... I think the sudden change from being extremely busy to all-of-a-sudden-not-busy-at-all has gotten me down. 

Yep, been sitting here for 10 minutes trying to explain it but I really can't.

Woke up this morning and wanted to storyboard a dream I had, but I just couldn't do it.

Wanted to make a feeling painting for it at least, but I don't know what direction this is going in.

Here's the WIP:

It's this hooker from my dream who was kinda masculine and underweight and wouldn't stop smoking.

I've no idea why I had this dream.

Just one of those days when you can't be constructive at all...

-Deena

Slow Days

So this has been a pretty bad week.

One of our university's best professors passed away.

He was seriously one of the best people ever, and I feel so blessed to have ever met him. He was so sincere, kind and entirely genuine. No matter how long the day had been, he still had time to sit with you and offer advice and help you. I remember when registration had closed, and I didn't get any courses in, and it seemed like my first semester was off to a bad start. He stayed back when everyone else had closed their offices and were leaving to go home. He sat with me and talked to me about my interests, and then he signed me up for a great semester. He was one of the first people to encourage me to transfer to Design. And although I had only really talked to him that one time, each time after that, whenever I saw him walking around, he'd always look my way and give me a big smile and say hello. Even though he met hundreds of new faces every semester, he would still remember you.

I'm so crushed to hear of his passing, but I'm happy to have met him. May he rest in peace.


I went to the funeral prayer at the mosque and later we went to meet his family to give our condolences. 
I don't think I knew what true sadness was until I finished speaking to each of his relatives that were at the majlis. I could see and feel the pain in them, and I felt so hollow afterwards, like I left part of my heart with them or something to that effect.


I've been replaying all the bad feelings I've ever felt in my head, and I just have to find a way to move on and put everything into perspective again. Drawing's helping me a lot, and Austin Madison made a challenge to storyboard 'Rejection' in 4 boards, and I figured it'd be a good exercise to get some of the bad feelings out:

And a last word:

Say the things you need to say to the people you care about.

-Deena

Intern

Last week was crazy.
I'd wake up at 6 am, get to the Dubai metro by 8, get to my first internship by 9. I'd design graphics for ads on facebook with an online electronics store. Then at 11, I'm back on my metro to go to my sound design/video editing internship. I leave there at 4 and take the metro to my other design internship, where I make infographics for an online fashion store until 7 pm. Then I get home at 9, and I fall asleep after I draw and write some ideas out. Gonna continue this for a week.

 

A windowed parking lot. 

From far away, it looks like the reflection is a face of a woman with bangs.

 'My' office at the editing internship.

At the metro.

It's been a tiring but really great experience. I've been taking a lot of notes and photos for a graphic novel idea that I've been trying to flesh out for a few weeks now.

Tryna be all productive this summer,
-Deena

Delays in Release Dates...

I'm upset that 'Brave' comes out two months later in Dubai :( Been waiting years to see this movie...
Anyways, here's two highlanders dishing it out.

-Deena

Design Days Dubai Schedule

So in our Design class for Second Year, we had a project to make a program guide for Design Days Dubai.
We got all the content, and had to take photos of the event to create an image. Only restriction was that it had to be converted to duo-tone.
We got to make our own fold, choose the dimensions, the number of pages, choose two colors and had a ton of creative freedom.

So this is a sample of one of my days.

This is the layout of one of the program's sides.

The other side is a poster.

Front cover.

You have to unroll the program guide to unfold it.

Each time you unroll it, the panel on the right changes

its image, so it's unpredictable and each day feels different.

And if you flip it over...

...this is what you see.

At this point you'd be able to see the poster if 

it were printed on the other side of the paper.

(So in this case, it'd be on the inside)

And this would be the poster.

Typography will be the death of me.

-Deena

Lazy Days

My absolute favorite part of summer is being able to draw in bed all day.

Funs,

-Deena

Laced

Improv shoot with my sister to welcome in summer of 2012. They're inspired by this old postcard I had when I was a kid.

Role Models and Idols - Artist

So I felt like talking about my role models and idols, but I want to divide it up so I can give each person their own post.
First up is an artist. A concept designer/illustrator/storyboarder/matte painter to be more specific. He works at Pixar and is one of my most favorite people in the world, and his name is Paul Topolos.

One day in the summer of 2010 in Malaysia, I was trying to entertain myself with some newspapers while I sat in my grandparents' living room. My siblings had gone out without me, as they usually do, so I read the newspaper until I reached the ad section. I never skip the ads, because I always criticize the design and concept, and that's when I saw the ad for a lecture series hosted by a Malaysian university. When I read more, I found out it was about Pixar and they would have 8 Pixarians speak at the lecture series, taking up three days of summer. And because I was completely broke, I asked my mom if she could pay for me, and I broke down the amount of money and told her how I never went out or did anything and that she should help me go. And so she agreed and yea:

Amongst all the awesomeness, 

the highlight of the lecture series was meeting Paul Topolos.

A landscape he did in Wall-E

I really wanted to meet him, and I had a question I really needed to ask him. He had been really confident when speaking on stage, and his work is so beautiful and amazing, and he was hilarious and I wanted to know where all that confidence and humbleness was coming from. So I asked him: "Do you ever doubt yourself?" And he looked back at me, and said: "All the time."
He went on to explain that he does it because it makes him better, it makes him push himself and work harder. He said that he didn't actually like anything he had produced, he'd always think it could be better somehow.

This was probably a turning point in my life. I really sincerely believed that once you got up there, and was so amazing at your work, that you'd KNOW you were amazing. I was blown away when he said he still couldn't believe he was working at Pixar. This taught me this whole other aspect of humbleness, and it reassured me that I wasn't incorrect to doubt myself.

I still really do believe that doubt is an essential part of what we do.

-Deena

Habib Media Innovation Award

So we took home 2nd place in the Documentary category for our short on 'Revisiting Tarab' that we made during our internship at the Sharjah Art Foundation, on a night of musical performances.

The height difference contributes to our success. It's all about contrast, guys!

Our documentary was screened at the award ceremony.

Was awesome to be able to look behind us and see everyone's reactions while watching it.

Unfortunately Samar couldn't be there due to finals, 

so let's say the girl on the far right is standing in for her.

I'm really happy that I was able to collaborate with two of my closest friends and make something that felt so easy to make. I enjoyed every part of the project, and I loved how we had each other's backs the whole time. Sometimes I was unable to be at the location, so Naima and Samar would take care of the things I needed to do. Samar constantly ran around grabbing and reassembling the tripod, switching my lenses, and speaking to people we had to interview. Naima's like a well of knowledge, and she'd always know some special insider's secrets and we'd be able to use it. She worked on assistant camera, and I really believe that her shots really spoke of the environment and the people at the night of the performance. Her compositions are always unconventional and feel so personal. Both Naima and Samar are incredibly assertive people, and so many parts of this documentary wouldn't have come together without that assertiveness. The editing process was challenging, and we dealt each other a lot of criticism, but we all worked so closely on it and I think what we ended up with was really strong, and really true to our artistic preferences.

Our documentary basically focused on the interactions between people, the response you evoke and how good people have positive influences. Seems like a no-brainer, but I think we often punish ourselves and keep on hanging around people who are no good for us. If someone hurts you all the time, makes you feel like you're not worth it, or doesn't put the same amount of effort into the friendship as you do, then you should really stop trying with them. Focus your energy elsewhere, and eventually, you will feel much better.

I honestly don't know how to end this post. Mostly, I just wish I were able to thank Naima and Samar and somehow show them how grateful I am to know them.

-Deena