Knight of hearts, sketchbook, gloomy rambles, weekly blog posts & update

** This post is a 9 minute read! **

In this blog post:

Knight of Hearts Character illustration
Leonie’s character designs & sketchbook
#ArtvsArtist & trying to feel less existential with her art
Personal update: Gloomy section, weekly blog posts & routine

Knight of Hearts illustration

Brave and facing any mistakes along the way! 💪

Old character sheet!

This was the previous version where the design was more pushed in different directions plus more detailed and dark.

Too many Inktober pieces 2019 / Leonie’s character designs & sketchbook

#47 Melody

Singing in the waterrr 🎵

Enjoy being part of the song ~!

#48 Uh i dunno💦

Uh I don’t think I understood everything.

This is me when I’m processing information.

#49 Trash hippo 🗑️🦛

Open wideee! Junk food pleaseee!!

🍔🍟🥞🥓🍕🌭🍲🍿🥡🍩🍪🎂🍰🧁🥧🍫🍬🍭🍮

I rarely eat out so I just look at food 😭 Why is comfort food so good? :’)

#50 Goat mop🐐

Keeps your household clean!

A better roomba? I don’t know I never had a fancy roomba 😛

LeonieBear is late with #ArtvsArtist & trying to feel less existential with her art 😭

And that is totally a photo of me ;D

2019 was a lot of me trying to climb out of my rut and burnout, evident from all the broken record blog posts I’ve done this year ;P I’m just grateful that anybody still reads these. Please note I’m not trying to wallow for pity/sympathy points, I’m just letting my thoughts out as I go along. Still an ongoing healing process :’)

Toony fanart is my comfort thing to do. I’m just glad I’m slowly enjoying art again. I’m not quite there yet because this is so heavily tied to whether I can make a living with it :<

I hope to learn and level up in 2020!

Leonie Rambles Time!

Gloomy feelings section & freelancing

Trying to connect with people through my art again. Feeling isolated anyway because social media is a super passive and fleeting way to keep tabs on people. Reality and apathy hurts but it humbles me to keep going because I’m usually a “live in my own head” solitary, sensitive, silly kind of person in the end :’)

I’ve been trying to figure out how to brush away the unhelpful, negative feelings during the long, dry, lack of freelance work periods :’) The “I’m not good and/or fast enough yet to be valued” kind of thoughts. I’m not sure how to best keep the dark gloomy thoughts at bay. The mental health side of things. Ultimately I just work through it, vent about things with my buddy and ramble about it here really :’)

At the moment, I’m okay until mid December with my contract but I know dry seasons will probably happen and then feelings of not being good enough, not fitting in with the industry and tying my sense of self worth to whether I have a job slowly comes back. When you are your own business, nothing lasts because of on/off seasons of work, along with the bonus of constant worry. Lack of stability is especially scary when what you enjoy is mixed up with what you do for a living!

Oof I need more emotional strength to manage this freelancing thing especially when I’m lucky to :S And to not feel devalued and compromise my process in a negative way. How do business leaders, owners, managers, contractors & directors even handle this? Much kudos to you all D: All I can hope is to gain more confidence, the more experience I get in character design and illustration.

There’s been a lot of disappointment, mixed feelings and being let down this year in things and people too. I’m not blaming anyone and it’s more of a matter of acceptance and letting go as things/people change or were never really there on the same page. And being reminded that you’re not as important or valuable to them as you hoped.

And that the same goes for me as the homebody bear; although I do have a few good friends, most people are not a huge part in my life to be important, dependable and super close mutual friends. My fault really as I don’t really feel like going all the way out to the city just to catch up for a few hours. I’m lazy and stingy with my time, energy and money ;P When I don’t really need to go out and have nothing to do in the city, I need to somehow make the outing worth using up a whole day for it and if I really, really want to make it work. Not that I can afford to waste a whole day often when things are usually busy :<

Hey I’m definitely not entitled to anything, it’s more about whether I can tell where the mutual boundary lies. Because I’m not good at reading subtle cues and words. And then I end up getting someone’s or my own feelings hurt :< And I also find it difficult to invest into people – not without the long, quality time towards a common goal needed to build trust, respect, understanding and compatibility. All part of the learning journey for better or for worse.

In turn I’m a super hermit who wants to focus on art and learning so naturally I become painfully aware how isolated, ignorant and boring I am. Ouch. Loneliness hurts too so I make art (as that keeps me busy) and ramble about feelings here as an outlet :<

So it’s super heartwarming and special when out of the blue, people are encouraging and supportive with kindness and understanding on my online posts! Thank you! <3

Or people are just indifferent and quiet and I have to eventually learn my own personal lessons – evident from my blog rambles and how I keep switching my schedule here! ;D

Reflecting and going back to weekly blog posts again to make it work better

Due to inktober, again I feel like I’m focusing too much on social media as an audience engagement tool and a weak, passive attempt to maintain friendships and connections. It’s becoming a detriment to me, my mental health and my art. And that I’m wasting too much distracted time on it and my attention span gets scattered in a bad way. I hope I don’t get too carried away by inktober next time but no promises :S

Scaling down again on twitter and instagram usage in recent weeks helped a lot! Not using facebook at all anymore feels super great too! I feel less obligated and just check when I feel like it. I still lurk at youtube, twitch, discord and slack though I’m managing the last two ;D

And I don’t feel I can use social media to bond too deeply but it’s what I depend on :’) It is a marketing tool, a soundboard, a mini blog, a crowded void, a stream of consciousness, occasional impromptu conversations and a place for updates from people/accounts you care about and/or interested in. Hey I’m using it to get and give updates too while I deep dive into reflection ramble mode here 😛

So in that light with how people consume the internet, I’m going back into shorter weekly blog posts instead of doing fortnightly ones. Fortnightly works in getting more people to view the blog post though! :’D

Plus my reflective rambles and personal updates should be secondary as much as they’re important for me to understand myself and my experiences better. It does feel great to feel understood and heard though. I’ll just have to live with having less people reading these :’)

These blog posts are also getting long and I need to break them down again anyway. If times get too busy, I just won’t post as much art on social media and keep blog posts weekly at minimum or actually take a break where absolutely necessary.

I think I can manage this flexible weekly schedule now.

Changing gears once again as my priorities change. I hope this works for you too! I think I’ve lost a few blog newsletter subscribers (which is okay because I’m just focused on blog posts over doing special mailing list emails)! Also you can simply get blog updates on social media or via follow by wordpress – all the options! I personally check email updates more :< Social media posts can be missed if you post at the wrong moment too. But everyone is different so who am I to judge! We all have preferences with the internet :0

Sidenote that when people talk how youtube/streaming is the best over everything else if you wanted to “reach and build your own audience as a creator” and update people it becomes disheartening. I’m not inclined to talk on camera, I don’t have that stage presence, I’m already drained and filled with dread thinking about it and I don’t like talking and drawing just to fill in dead air. That’s not me. I’m already an incoherent mess who manages constant performance anxiety and tension strains from it. I thrive best when typing my feelings out at this blog :<

I’m not using social media as a mini blog like most popular people are because I feel more nourished and genuine writing and rambling my thoughts here. Here I’m not worried about editing myself down for short, snappy social media consumption all the time ;P This blog is for me to document and share my journey and not really to teach anybody anything :0

As much as people are saying blogs are a dead way to market yourself and how most people refuse to leave the big social media platforms, I don’t care. I enjoy longer form content too :< I’m hugging my little blog to the end. It’s my learning journey journal and online home! :<

Sorted a general routine for myself & personal rambles

I’ve been feeling super determined lately that I’ve actually put up a flexible routine on my whiteboard!! 😀 I’ll probably keep adjusting it as I go along. Pretty proud of myself for actually getting myself out of the apathetic hole and finding some belief in myself again to just keep to a good, realistic routine! Days when I have work, days when I learn and times when I allow myself to just forgo plans and just relax.

And I’m doing yoga exercise most days of the week! And Ring Fitness! I’m kind of sore! Letting myself sleep in and skip exercise if I need more sleep too. And I feel better having a whole autopilot morning routine where I get all of that out of the way before I start working at a computer. I’m still terrible at taking breaks from the computer though :’) That’s a big one I’m weak with.

Now that I’m on this unpredictable freelancing ride for a while, I’m feeling more accepting of my simple, homebody, focused life (with helpings of a stressful, toxic, grumpy family member). It’s getting super busy during the last two months of this year too so I guess I’ll keep being a hermit :’)

Doing the best I can with what I have.

Thanks so much for reading my little blog, feel free to leave your thoughts and see you next week! You go do your best too! ★

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