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I trialed Affinity Designer and I liked it better than Illustrator.
I had Illustrator CS6 at home and it wasn’t pleasant for me to work with. And I refused to get my own Adobe CC…I can’t afford paying a monthly service fee for software.

Affinity Designer crashed on me a handful of times though.
Still I bought it because it felt much more user friendly and I got used to it.

I was and am also battling the weight of existential dread and a long running creative rut….as you may know. I was debating on what I wanted to do versus what I needed to do. Wants versus needs. And vector art is a “good to know for work” despite having other things I enjoy doing more. I haven’t been doing much vector art for work either [well until last week] so I have to bite the bullet and practice in my own time if I actually wanted to improve at it.

Can I really do it? And I had to finish what I started.
The vector art I did during Global Game Jam was under pressure so I wanted to have my last go at personal vector art practice under different circumstances. And then I can just let it go until I need to actually use it for something.
Plus I intended to make some BurpStickers with vector art this year.

So here we are!

Worked on this on and off for almost 2 months and spent too much time going against the resistance, figuring out a new program, how to design things and nitpicking the art style throughout. I hated what I was doing. Kept pushing through it. Got exhausted. I took a break in the middle as well because I needed it. Glad I did.

Hey, self care is really important. Learning does make me happy and fulfilled but only if it’s with clear purpose, enjoyment for myself [and not solely to please others] and it’s not overwhelming and stressing me to the point of deteriorating my own self worth.

It’s no good if you are frustrated as an artist and you’re forcing yourself to do something in your own downtime. Time allowed me to feel a bit more at peace with things. Sure I am not enjoying it but it’s okay and I’m learning some things. I’m gaining some confidence with vector art…slowly.

I didn’t want to worry whether people liked or wanted them at the time. Because as much as I appreciate and admire them enough to create and gift stickers for them, this journey is not about them.

Nor is my hardwork, time, expenses, struggles, despair, losses, mistakes and existential dread important or relevant to anybody. I don’t think people care about that side of things.

I know friends and acquaintances usually don’t like what you do enough to actually buy your services and products or attend to your events/talks/gatherings/etc. Life gets busy and you’re not a priority or something they truly care about. They have closer friends, significant others and family. That’s the harsh reality.

But some will support you anyway in spirit if they care enough…that I’m grateful for. (:

I can’t say anything myself when I don’t initiate things…in person social connection is not a habit for me because my energy levels are super low but I cherish them when it happens <3

People usually just focus on the goals and results and work backwards to skim over the journey. There’s so much demanding one’s attention and time so it’s to be expected. Life right?

As many people say, no one cares as much or even half as you do.

Hey I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t know how things will work out.
Maybe people will actually buy some [Tara did at least!] but I don’t expect it.

I just knew I had to finish it. My desire to get it done drew me back in again. Yes this is not smart business but hey I’m stubborn ;P
I want to get things done if I believe in it…whether I enjoy it or not.

Eventually when I started making CatBlobs, I grew to like more what I was creating. Especially since it’s beyond the cat studies I’ve done already.

The “oh I don’t hate it myself or my work as much” stage. I’m not sure about the process itself but the freedom to tweak curves in vectors makes it annoying too. It’s easy to mess things up, especially seemingly simple and minimalistic designs.

It seems quick and cute but it’s been time consuming for me to tweak every. single. sticker. I had to stop tweaking so I can move on most of the time. Mistakes happened but hey as they do.

I planned 100+ stickers from studies,
ended up making up 63 stickers and it went down to the finished 59 stickers…whoops.

Am I more confident with vector art?
Well this sort of art style, yes. There’s countless styles! So not really confident in general…I need several years under my belt first. Maybe I’ll test out another art style if I ever feel like pushing myself in vector art again. That’s struggle for another day though…for and during work!

I really like how clean, flexible and scalable vector art illustrations are though.
I feel like I’ve finished something! I like how CatBlobs turned out!
It took me long to design a vector art style I can go by. Once that got established and ironed out, it flowed faster for me.
Once again, I hate it less 😉 I appreciate vector art more.

Now that I’ve done the art side of things, one big repeated lesson remains with me. Is that I won’t force myself to learn something if I’m not enjoying it or having fun with it during my attempts. Work may have exceptions but especially if it’s my own personal time. It’s been happening a lot as I tried, learned and struggled with different things. My self confidence in myself as an artist and person has taken a battling.

I did not protect my “fun” recreational/creative time, as they put it.

When you’re struggling and being terrible at something…how bad do you really want to do it? Are you enjoying the frustrating and tedious sides of it as well? The journey? Is this important enough to take as much time as you need to grow? Or is there something else that sings to you more? Too much choice and impatience sometimes creeps up on me because thanks to social comparison, you’re always feeling like you’re not enough as an artist and a person.

But I’ll keep working on it though. Self awareness.
I’ll learn to be more at peace with how things are right now.

And then this happened:

And I’ve burnt out on learning vector art for my own personal work. I even deleted all the videos recording me doing them…I don’t want to make a timelapse from them. I’m done right now. I’ll need some exciting purpose for me to go through it all and do something with it again.

A break is needed. ;P

Oh! Also I super respect people who do merchandise art, I have too much to learn as a newbie!

Anyhoo creative wise, I can move on.
I did it! The frequent cat sticker art is over for now!

Thank you so much for reading and see you around!

I’ll just continue fighting & figuring out my life and art.
And curl up into a ball for some quiet time with existential dread :’)

Gosh I should probably check on social media soon too before I go on another break again.