Despite all this, there's plenty of happy stuff happening:
I officially have a mentor :) The Studio Lounak has accepted me into their family- at least for a while- hopefully for a long time. We are meeting soon to discuss details of the graphic novel project and write a convincing application form for interview # 2 during the first week of December. According to them, I'll have to make my project idea a tad smaller because a whole graphic novel is sort of a big deal and I don't realize it. That makes me think about all the other graphic novels and comics I wanted to make when I was younger and it inspires me so much more! I could potentially create all of them!!! I feel like the Frankenstein doctor in the midst of a thunderstorm, madness in the eyes and yelling: "IT'S ALIIIIIIIVE!!!!!"
Also, I went to a lovely conference on the Assassin's Creed concept art and met Martin Deschambault (a fantastic artist that makes really atmospheric backgrounds), Jeff Simpson (character designer who mixes incredible realism with absolutely dreamy fantasy- and who is terrible at drawing anime :P), as well as the art director for the firm: Raphael Lacoste and Brand Content Manager Anouk Bachman.
While at Chapters (or Indigo- whatever they call it now) I discovered a magical book by Leila Jeffreys called Bird Love. It's basically a book full of portraits of birds!!! The photography is so nice you can really see the personalities of the birds as they pose and the detail is so crisp that it seems like a work of art created from a digital palette. Definitely putting that on my wishlist!!!