Illustration / Got a new apron, I got sick & freelancing + blogging ramble
* This post is a 6 minute read! *
In this blog:
- cold and apron
- coronavirus concerns
- requoting and vector art
- personal blogging & options
- my art insecurities
- distance from social media
- pixiv
- issues with sharing the same switch ๐
Hit with a cold earlier this week! Leonie’s mind and face melting off ๐คง๐ญ
Did this art on Monday before the worst of it kicked in. Started feeling sick on that day, struggled to exercise and wasn’t functional on my mat (just ran out of energy, soul left my body and napped??), my mind becoming mush, mild drowsy headache and brain fog, sore throat, my jaw pain/tension worsening, breathing through my mouth and my nose running.
Sleeping and breathing was a struggle as congestion wasn’t helping. The dull headache and jaw pain and running nose makes me feel like my face was melting. Warghhhhh zombie Leonie :’)
New apron!
On a side note, I got a new yellow apron to wear that looks like it’s made from flour sack fabric? I don’t have to tie it up to wear it but I have to wriggle into it instead. It seems to absorb water splashes since it’s thick enough to not seep through and doesn’t seem to be waterproof D: I don’t know if it’s a bad decision or not but ah well. It’s my apron now!
Drew this while I was half conscious/functioning and getting worse
Look at all the squiggles now! And stuffing tissues up my nose! Had to take 3 naps that day as I struggled to breathe when I did this. Wow look what happens to your art when you’re sick.
My soul left my body and just wanted to sleep the sickness away and kept taking naps every time my head feels heavy and terrible :’) I can’t even exercise anymore, use the Switch or do much art wah!!
I think it’s a heavy cold. I didn’t have a fever at least. Been feeling miserable this week. Held back from a doctor visit until I was sure it’s getting worse and more serious than a cold. I’m grateful that I’m slowly getting better so it’s all good. Just phelgm, coughing and heavy, grumpy headaches now. One groggy nap a day at this point :’)
Well I can’t leave the house until I’m not sick anymore and and I hope the scary coronavirus hopefully gets managed, contained and cured :< There is no cure for it, testing has begun for a vaccine and for those not so severe cases, it passes on like the flu? It seems to only get severe for those who are older and have other health problems on top of it. Sadly I’m not surprised about the racism surrounding it, fear driving people’s actions and people protecting themselves over others. Please do your own research for current status updates because I’m not fully in the know and please take care of yourself!
So this week with freelancing
Made a decision and requoted again for better or worse as the initial quote I gave for a potential project didn’t sit well with me. It’s probably out of their budget too. Or they backed off realising that I got sick. Or they don’t have the time for the project now. Or they were just hoping for something cute and low budget while I was aiming for quality. Or they found somebody else. I’m just speculating. I don’t know, they’ve moved on without further responses since the Aussie holidays ended and that’s completely fine. All the same, I shouldn’t have rushed to come up with an initial quote while I was starting to get heavily sick during the Australian holidays (then again I don’t technically have holidays so normal people holidays don’t matter to me :’) ) but hey what can I do now. I was sick and wasn’t really functioning 100%.
So if you’re a freelancer, please take time to quote and don’t rush it! At least one night of sleep to think it over, make sure you’re able to make something of “good enough” quality & greatness, on how much time things actually take you plus some leeway room! Manage your revisions well and have a base rate that you would never compromise nor go under since this is how you make your living. Well at the least, don’t quote again with a more higher quote like I did :’) Learn from my sad, disappointing mistakes!
I don’t like quoting the most as I either feel somewhat underpaid or they understandably just can’t afford what you quote it – it’s a delicate balance :< One off commissions arguably aren’t valued as much.
Maybe unconsciously I really didn’t want to make vector art versions of my illustrative art styles and hand drawn lineart as this project was asking me to execute that. It kind of kills and takes away the physical drawing process for the sake of scalability but I’ll do it if I must and strive to make things look like what I already do in Photoshop :< Hey I still get to make art somehow, even it’s not as enjoyable for me. As long as the end result is good, process doesn’t matter to other people and I don’t mind it *that* much since I’ve done vector art before.
Still I don’t want it to be the main thing I do. Maybe I’m too attached to drawing itself and I need to let go, especially if I need to survive in such a volatile industry. Or focus on concept art instead, we’ll see. I’m just going to see how I go as I learn and get better.
Vector art is great if you want things to be perfect at every size in physical print format so what can you do? When you’re freelancing, you gotta do art for the project, not yourself :0
Digressing, I hope the project goes to someone wonderful.
Since I missed out on an interesting potential project and the dry freelancing period continues, I guess I’ll just focus on getting rest from this heavy cold and painfully overhaul some of my working and living environment that’s in the way because some maintenance is arranged for the AC within next week or so. Not looking forward to that and getting out of action while it happens! One disruption after another! Eep!!
Accepting that personal blogging is dead & I’m outdated again – slow transition
Don’t mind me, I’m just rambling! I daresay only 3-5 or so people read these now because who reads blogs for personal updates anymore, everyone just goes to social media for the public tidbits :’) I know only a few special supportive people do actually read these at least (thank you so much!! ;___; <3)
Most people read blogs only if it educates them and/or people prefer podcasts and video. This is a losing battle as much as I enjoy rambling and blogging.
But I don’t care, I say as I reassure myself. This is my special ramble place where I don’t have to edit myself as much compared to social media. Social media is for the short, snappy, shiny stuff that you’re posting to reach other people. Here is where I go deeper and ramble away for myself and I accept it’s not for everyone. I’m not really focused on talking to an audience. I’m just rambling to myself and imagining a kind person who’s willing to listen really.
I feel like I need to change things up. Maybe I’ll make a monthly ramble youtube video updating what I’ve been learning or whatever comes to mind? Just so that I can practice talking to people since I’m a super hermit! Hmm.
Ultimately I’m just trying to focus on getting better at art as it is. I’ll just have to keep working at art and posting progress along the way for now. Stop getting distracted by shiny things Leonie! Art is not meant to be fun all the time!
I guess I haven’t found my creative momentum yet. I really need to define an exciting personal project for me to do but I often get stumped. I’m in awe of beautiful, storytelling illustrations but I don’t have the patience or joy to do time consuming, elaborate, cinematic background illustrations. I have illustrated backgrounds before, usually because I’m able to do characters too ;D When I do combine both characters and background I should try to be more smart and efficient with backgrounds rather than everything from scratch? Just thinking aloud, I don’t know. I’ll get to backgrounds one day, maybe, perhaps.
All the same I enjoy honing down drawing characters over everything else honestly. But so far it’s a constant cycle of pushing away the “I’m not good enough” feelings and struggling to get myself excited again ๐ Gosh my insecurities! No wonder people don’t read haha
Random thoughts to conclude!
Glad the terrible heatwave is over too as it made my cold feel even worse while I was doing chores. Tired and head feels constantly heavy but I’m slowly getting better :’)
Currently keeping social media presence minimal feels great as the internet is already distracting as is. I don’t really get the full picture of how people are doing but then again, social media is made up mostly of strangers, acquaintances, casual friends and maybe a few friends you see once or a few times a year. It feels quiet distant and passive to me and I’m probably not alone in feeling this :’)
I fleshed out my bare-bones pixiv page a little with work and the Animal Crossing switch looks so pastel pretty but not what I can afford. Plus the way my brother and I share our switch is already annoying when we lose our save data and games if we each have out own switch. Buying two copies of games?? Oof not something either of us can afford, ah well :< But we’re debating on it since we don’t want to wrestle over having autonomy over the same island, I learned. We don’t like the idea of primary and secondary console so we’re thinking things over if we’re going to be forced to split into getting another console, manage the trouble with sharing games and more expenses ๐ I’ll probably have to get the original Switch either way ;P
I’m still looking forward to playing Animal Crossing! Maybe I can bond better with AC multiplayer peeps! <3
Anyhoo, I hope your faring better than me! January has been mixed so far and I hope February is much better. Enjoy the week ahead and please stay safe!!
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