Fanart / Week of Marina from Animal Crossing + last LeonieUpdate of 2020!
In this little LeonieUpdate:
- Lots of Marina throughout this week!
- Personal update,
- finished LEGO dinosaur building,
- Crossy Road End of Year update,
- reflecting on my art and feedback,
- plans for next year and more!
Finally for my week of Marina from Animal Crossing!
My adorable, kind octo villager! 💕☕
Reminder to let perfectionism and suffocating expectations go (:
Reminding myself to accept and let go of pressure, expectations, perfectionism and frustration. It’s completely okay to be average or terrible at things. I accept that I’m terrible and slow at lots of things. All the same I hope to have more fun learning and experimenting!
Once again, I have more fanart to add to this blog post this Xmas week (:
Tuesday / Eh?
Life is confusing and strange sometimes 🐙💙
Or this is me when my brain is zoned out and still stuck on the previous topic but people have moved on with something else :’)
Curiouser and Curiouser!
Wednesday / Whoa! Oh!
I don’t know how I feel about that! 🐙💚
When your feelings are confusing :’)
Friday Xmas / Meh whatever 🐙❤️
Sometimes I don’t have the energy and feel overwhelmed about everything :’)
There’s times when I’m at my emotional limit, can’t be bothered, feeling done and can’t process anything anymore ;’)
Saturday / Thank you for your lovely support 🐙💜
In light of what’s required for people to see instagram content, I think instagram will punish me for taking a long break and not posting frequently anymore :< If this is the case, this might actually be the last in a long time that you’ll see my posts if you follow my instagram :’) Normally I can’t and don’t post art this often so when I revert back to my regular schedule, instagram won’t like it. Maybe it’s better to follow me directly at my blog.
Thank you for your kindness & lovely support over the years, months & weeks! 🐙💜
Whether we interacted or not, I appreciate you all the same (:
I don’t follow many peeps in general and I don’t use every feature because I don’t want to use instagram or social media too much so I didn’t think I would ever grow my instagram audience beyond 200 :’) So I’m pleasantly surprised and grateful I got this far! Thank you so much :’)
Taking my long break until February; all the best for the rest of December & January! All the same, stay safe & catch you on the other side! 💕
Last little LeonieUpdate reflective ramble for the year
Note I didn’t actually say “last blog post for the year” ;D
Anyhoo my bleeding eczema thumb is finally healing up because I stopped cooking and rested my drawing hand for about 4 days last week :’) It’s still super sensitive and dry though so I’ve been putting on ointments and cream a lot because it will come back if I don’t :< I can slowly start to make art again though!
It’s been a reasonably alright past week and weekend since I’ve been doing the usual games, watching things, juggling life things and feeling existential :’) I enjoy not having too many things on my plate and taking a break from making and learning art, as much as I feel unproductive, weird and restless when I’m not doing so.
My LEGO building progress continues with my T-Rex~! (animated gif process)
Animated progress for my T-rex! 🦖✨
The base, legs, torso and arms are done!
I did the 1st half during a heatwave :’)
Hey it was fun documenting along the way too!
Because I know I’ll only build this once ;D
I looked at a lot of videos of cheerleader flips, poses & pyramids for this one!
Let’s keep doing our best!
A little Crossy Road End of Year update! I helped with the art :0
This little update happened plus the marathon runner character! Originally there were 8 cheerleaders in the pyramid; I guess 2 were cute to make it more compact :0
I also learned how hard cheerleader people trained to do these tricks and flips elegantly and confidently! Whoa!
ActuallyAutistic #CreatingWithAutism
My #topnine2020 in order, according to instagram likes 💟 (posted from weeks ago)
Seems instagram generally prefers my stylised toony art more than my cute stuff 🤔 And twitter is another enigma & likes my birthday post the most this year :’)
Whelp time to quit doing cute art 🙃😂
Here’s my #ArtStationRecap2020
I guess I got busy with art?? I think I’m reaching some people? I don’t know what to make of this haha
Art vs Artist 2020 I posted a week ago!
My little ArtVSArtist2020 with my personal & recent picks! 💙💜💗
I’m not comfortable doing selfies or showing my face. My self portrait in the middle is closest to how I am right now ;P
And it seems like I really love blues, purples and pinks!
Thank you for your lovely support this year 😭
Reflecting on my art and changing gears with my blog posts.
I joke about quitting cute art with my TopNine2020 above because I’m often thinking about this.
I feel like cute art would potentially lead me to doing either merchandise (stickers, prints, toys) or illustration for kids’ literature. Perhaps one day if the right project comes along! At the moment, I create cute things, fanart and comics to express myself and not to deliberately monetise it :< It’s definitely not something a substantial amount of people would financially support without a “huge project” attached to it. It still makes me happy doing them and some people seem to enjoy them too! (:
Social media is a job in itself and hearing that people aren’t seeing my tweets or posts because of evolving algorithms is frustrating and discouraging when I put so much effort to reach those who are interested 🙁 Most people can’t or don’t see my posts, some scroll past it and a very, very tiny percent engage with posts (let alone read this blog!)
Meanwhile social media rewards engagement, replies, retweets, likes and conversations through quality, attention grabbing, valuable and/or interesting content/topics to keep people on the platform which is another difficult thing to build and achieve in itself when people might not even see the posts in the first place. Definitely not worth burning myself out over since social media platforms are always changing to their own whims/needs and not mine and how I work. I often feel like I’m posting to the void, hoping things will reach some people over my lifetime :’)
Aside from a small handful of kind people, I’m usually not getting too much useful feedback on social media and it’s better if I ask trusted peeps or dedicated groups for feedback. Even then, I’ve been doing a lot of trial and error on my own since I started this blog and ultimately I have to be the one to decide and test out what works best for me ;P
That said I explicitly asked for feedback on my ArtVsArtist post last week (and I’m open for more feedback whenever you’re able and ready!) The gist is:
- keep doing what you’re doing; do more cute things
- pastel-y colours and use of colours are great
- do more complex illustrations with more than one character, with character interactions
- personal favourite(s) were shared with me because it resonated for one reason or another
- and in past art posts a few have said that this could be on a T-shirt or something (but it’s fanart so its a grey area)
So both cute things and boundary pushing?
Note when I experiment with my other art styles, challenges and studies – they seem to fare better overall. Is this due to novelty? Because it’s a beautiful portrait of a girl? Because it’s emotionally resonant with its vibes, moment and/or message? Is it because it’s a popular topic, piece of fanart or another artist’s drawthisinyourstyle challenge? It feels like when I do cute things for fun, people know that it’s my comfort zone default so they don’t really resonate it with it as much? Or perhaps most of the gamedevs that follow me aren’t really my audience. I don’t know.
This all just shows that I haven’t found “the sweet thing I enjoy and will get paid for consistently” so I got to keep learning, exploring and creating :’) And I definitely do want to improve and iterate my art skills to keep myself interested in the art process!
Yes. It’s both fun and frustrating figuring things out! The freedom and struggle of the creative journey ;P
My progress?
I’m quite happy with my slow progress so far and there’s been a lot of meandering, sadness, confusion, disappointment and art struggles along the way. I lean more towards toony cute styles, colourful character illustrations, comics and rough character concepts!
As mentioned, I don’t know where I fit in yet because freelance is unstable and I have yet to find my niche, something that sings true to me. It definitely leaves me existential, lost, depressed and anxious whenever I’m planning and reflecting like this. All the same it’s important to evaluate how I’m going! I’m going to keep experimenting and learning on this scary lifelong learning journey of mine :’)
Changing gears for my blog posts next year
I do want to change gears further and focus on learning things. This means I won’t be posting as much finished illustrations and comics next year. We’ll see how it goes because I don’t know how juggling all this will look like until I go through lots of trial, error and iteration as usual.
As a start, I’m going to test making every other Monday post a patron only sketchbook one! In these I’ll be documenting what I’m learning in the moment and write a LeonieUpdate of the past week! I won’t overwhelm and stress myself out trying to do two considerable blog posts (a Monday LeonieUpdate and a sketchbook post) for a given week anymore! Plus any other extra, short, fun art posts will happen during the week when I’m able!
In short, I’m alternating between public and patron-only posts on Mondays, keeping my blog going weekly at the least. I feel more relieved and less overwhelmed with this plan! I hope it works out for us when I test it out next year ;D As usual, thoughts and feedback are welcome now and along the way (:
Generally I shall continue building towards a stable freelancing career, sharing my learning journey in courses/tutorials and rough studies with my patrons and do my best at illustration, character design, personal comics, expressing myself and at life things :’)
Interesting finds!
- Doctor Ramani’s When narcissistic relationships make you obsessive-compulsive
- goodness that’s why I’m often on guard, double checking things, seeking reassurance and wrestling with anxiety, tension, self doubt, perfectionism, inadequacy, unworthiness and lack of self confidence 🙁
- it’s mentally, emotionally and physically draining dealing with this on a day to day basis :<
- Dr. Ramani’s story of authenticity
- it’s reassuring! I’m not too much of a “looking at myself in the mirror” person either and I don’t worry about how attractive I look nowadays (:
- Louie Zong’s the funk guitar dojo
- jeffthatnoise’s I converted One Winged Angel into Kirby Superstar music
- Super Nintendo World Direct 12.18.2020
- ahhh so wholesome watching Mr. Miyamoto say “Dad’s busy!” “I’m Mario’s dad!” and showing us around this 6 year project :’)
- yeah it’s very simple with the activities but I’m keen for the rides, taking photos and getting some merch :0
- I can imagine it being not fun if it’s too crowded and if there’s grimy activity areas :<
- one day I hope to visit this world :<
- Ana Isabel’s The Death Of The “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” Trope
- Super Eyepatch Wolf’s What The Internet did To Undertale
- “Despite everything, it’s still you.”
- Accented Cinema’s Jesus x Buddha: The Bromantic Anime | Video Essay
Thank you so much for reading and take care of yourself and stay safe during the seasonal holidays and new year!(:
Wow December is nearing its end! Again this will be my 2nd last blog post for the year! I’ll be taking a longer break from posting, starting next week and taking the month of January off too. I might do random January art posts though.
Yes I need a longer break from the usual one week break every 2 months ;P Note I took January off last time and the longer break was tremendously helpful, energising and healthy for me, so I’m doing it again! (:
I’ll pause my patreon for January when the time comes. I need some considerable time to change gears, recover, focus and create a buffer and not always push myself to keep moving and posting. I will keep away from twitter and instagram too, if not indefinitely. I’ll hibernate away and will be back properly in February. I want to feel fresh, ready and well rested from the usual posting schedule grind.
In turn I hope you get some rest and have some good quality fun times with loved ones and with doing your own thing! Best wishes for this month and January of the new year! (:
Anyhoo, thank you and catch you in my next blog post and/or on the other side! ❦
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Thanks so much for your support & for reading! You help me keep going! ʕ ✿˵•ᴥ•˵ ʔ ♡
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