In this little LeonieUpdate:

• Art process for the redraw challenge illustration!
• LeonieUpdate, on NFT/Crypto Art, on letting go of perfectionism, modes & hyperfocus, tolerating boredom in a world of algorithms & more!

Original sketches!

Trying to learn how to draw her character and what to take further. I did these during December.

Sketch pass!

Testing this more cute direction?

Rough lineart!

I didn’t like this in the end :’)

Rough sketch in January!

With fresh eyes, I started again!

Rough lineart!

I like this a little better! And my first redraw challenge where it’s a full body!

Decided to give her a goth, undergarment kind of bodysuit instead :0

Close up!

I like how this turned out! I wasn’t sure because I was struggling with it earlier :’)

My entry to magecandor’s demon girl Draw This In Your Style Challenge! [original piece] 👿🔮🤘🔥

Thank you magecandor for treating me for hot chocolate catch up many years ago (before the pandemic)! I wanted to try out her demon girl challenge from last year so I did early sketches in December! (:

I wonder what’s under the face mask :0 Menacing teeth? Pincers? Some scars? A sad face? Who knows!

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Little LeonieUpdate!

Got depressed, jaded and overwhelmed by the NFT and crypto art discourse. It’s a terribly complex and sensitive topic with many sides to it so please look into it yourself from lots of different and factual sources.

It’s been a super disheartening, exhausting and disappointing time seeing a lot of well known and smaller artists jumping on the NFT and crypto bandwagon, blatantly glossing over and disregarding the tremendous carbon emissions among many other systemic issues. Either they’re already established & want to make even more money and/or they’re understandably desperate to get into it to make money before the (stock) market of digital tokens goes down and the pyramid scheme bubble bursts. As a whole artists really need to work towards better pay and working conditions, which is definitely easier said than done in a capitalistic world 🙁

All the same I do not want to be part of it and have muted a bunch of industry artists and have blocked a lot of dodgy crypto twitter accounts and those minimising and bashing people for their concerns and “moral high horse”. I am not posting new pieces to my ArtStation either and will let my trial subscription expire anyway; apparently they intend to try NFT again when they won’t get a huge backslash for it. And I’m not ready and can’t afford to delete my account completely :’)

Ultimately it doesn’t sit right with me to earn a living at the expense of the environment and the art industry in such a problematic, wasteful, risky, horrifying, unregulated and damaging way.

• Thomas Frank’s Perfectionism is destroying your productivity.
  • To counter:
    • set realistic expectations (it’s subjective anyway)
    • see things as possibilities and guesses
    • ask for feedback for other’s expectations
  • perfect how you spend your efforts and time
    • focus on the 20% that actually matters
    • less is more
  • exposure therapy and be imperfect on purpose
    • keep doing things badly
    • daily challenge and based on the feedback, see what works and pick out the good ones out
    • do 4 attempts and pick the best one and go along with it.
• Thomas Frank’s How to Focus on Your Work – 3 Lessons from “Hyperfocus”
  • 1) mindfulness of your attention
    • check in how your mind is at the moment each hour: is it on autopilot, unfocused, stressed, wandering or you’re acting with intention?
  • notice when mind wanders and gets distracted & redirect attention back to task
  • 2) focus and diffuse mode
    • intentionally allow your mind to wander with new connections (scatterfocus) so creativity can happen
      • capture mode
        • let mind wander and write down thoughts down
      • problem crunching mode
        • let mind wander around a problem along with a physical activity (in a relaxed state) to gain new insights
      • habitual mode
        • mind wandering while doing chores, exercise, etc
    • find a balance where you push yourself but not too hard; decide how long to focus
  • 3) specify exactly what the next thing you’re going to do
    • intentionality – make things obvious “make first rough draft of a section” with a plan
    • interest and care; you need to get self discipline down even if you get obsessed with something else
  • I feel like I dance around focus and not focus and don’t really stress about planning for it; I usually end up not following the plan (unless there are external factors)
• Aspergers from the Inside’s Improving Executive Function with Exercise and Sleep
  • this validates how I need power naps sometimes during exhausting times to regain energy
  • or I exercise and get that out of the way first thing (and another in the afternoons)
• HealthyGamerGG’s How I Focus in a World of Algorithms
  • learn how to be bored, tolerate boredom and then you will be successful!
  • there are people who couldn’t even focus on the video uh oh :’)
  • I know how but I know I need to do better
  • this video has finally reached into me, shook me up at how I’ve allowed the internet control my attention too much still, namely twitch, youtube, email and twitter the most (for others it’s twitter, instagram, podcasts, streams, reddit and so on)
  • clearing the mind of distractions (and low value activities) is so important to process things; it’s just difficult to put it in action :’)
  • how the act of opening up the website alone means you’re handing over your attention, time and control over to the internet’s engineered ways of keeping your attention on their platform
  • thanks to this video, I’ve blocked email, youtube, twitter lists and twitch from my mornings!
  • also removing and logging out of instagram and deleting facebook helped
• Oki’s Weird Stories: Hiroo Onoda: Japanese WW2 Holdout (who refused to surrender for 30 years) — Part One & Hiroo Onoda: Part Two documentaries
  • the patriotism, paranoia and brutality of war; eye opening and thought provoking
• DidYouKnowGaming’s Breath of the Wild’s Behind the Scenes Secrets
  • so cool and incredible way of development and testing!!
  • gosh so much stuff got cut out :0
  • interested for Breath of the Wild 2
• Cupcake Quarantine short by 4 disney animators
• Oki’s Weird Stories: John MaAfee documentary [part 2] [part 3] [part 4]
  • disturbing villain and paranoid predator to say the least; man with many lives

Thank you so much for reading!

I’ve been getting by, busy juggling and have been sleep deprived in recent months :’) Going to be an intense week for me too!

Anyhoo take care, stay safe and enjoy your day!

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