Little timelapse!

Hello this is the family friendly raccoon dog from Crossy Road 🦝✨

I liked what I made for the Japan update so I did this piece for my silly tanuki Crossy Road design for (:

Who is your favourite character from the latest Japan update? We think the Sumo Wrestler is pretty fun! 🤩#crossyroad #sumowrestler #IndieGameDev #mobilegaming pic.twitter.com/CDWW5jIAzn

— Crossy Road (@CrossyRoad) August 3, 2021

Also I am super happy that the Sumo Wrestler character made it into the game! Whoa just learning about the noises he makes in game haha

I enjoyed making this character as I’ve already started watching live (and watching about) Sumo tournaments (around life shenanigans so I do miss out on matches) since March’s tournament this year. They happen every two months. Although there are lots of internal and systemic politics and rules, matches are so great to watch! It gets so intense, brutal and there’s lots of mind games :0 I’m glad they have somewhat better injury handling procedures since one sumo wrestler’s preventable death a handful of months ago (they need more prompt medical staff at hand!)

Anyhoo I made sure I got some of their ritual exercises and movements in game. Thanks Crossy team for putting them in!! ;D

Reflecting about my art and mixed feelings on “progress”

If I look at the big picture, it turns out I’m in the pattern of putting out finished art + little timelapse on youtube. Whoa.

I’m writing less as I focus on creating rather than long form blogging. Understandably, people just want to look at art and I’m not striving to be a teacher/writer, at least not at this stage of my life. I do feel like I need to continue a manageable ongoing personal challenge/project so I can apply what I’m learning (I still plan to!!).

Perhaps I’m sad that I’m writing less, priorities had to change and my brain is more empty and tired. I’m neutral most of the time and I get gloomy about life in waves.

I’m probably checking my blog stats too much and feeling let down at how few people view them. This blog is my online home after all, not reddit, discord, twitter, pixiv, webtoon, youtube and so on. Consequently I’ve blocked myself once again to make it harder to check and am reminding myself that my art is the main focus, not my rambles :’)

I do appreciate and am encouraged by the few new peeps following at those external places though!! Whoa!

The main part of me wants to keep the hamster wheel going at my own stubborn weekly-ish pace and a smaller, petty part of me wants to ditch posting to places outside of my blog because I’m tired (which is why I have scheduled posting breaks so I can hide away longer).

Turns out that I’m driven by making polished pieces to post so I’m more reluctant to do studies and things most people aren’t interested in looking at. And that’s not great if I want to expand my comfort zone in art so I need to get used to it again! I do not want my art journey to be completely directed by what I perceive/believe people want without juggling my own learning journey too :<

I’ve started autotweeting my blog to my secondary twitter account again which will hopefully include future rough studies and study posts so I can do so without caring whether I’m boring or spammy. I’ll stick with mostly finished work and studies I’m proud of at my main twitter.

Again I just don’t know what my “vision” and “brand”/”niche” is. If I define it in detail, my standards will frequently stress me out from creating. On the other hand it definitely becomes absolutely confusing and frustrating when I feel lost in my artistic journey. So maybe I do need a vague one?

Ultimately right now I hope:

• to keep growing and practicing in my character illustration skills and keep experimenting with stylisation/design, techniques and prompts
  • as a way of measurement, I hope that people would want to follow, display, buy, share my work on a reliable, engaged basis?
  • if some people are engaging and commenting on my work, I’m happy with that too
  • or whether I feel great with what I’ve learned and applied as I keep creating things; it feels satisfying and fulfilling when I’m mostly happy with my work even with the room for improvement
• to express myself through my art whenever I have the intention to
• to be able to get by financially with what I do
  • + juggle with life & human shenanigans
• to protect the joy in the process and saying no to most things that don’t make me feel excited
  • since I feel indifferent, empty and burnt out at times

And as much as “progress” and “done is better than perfect” are good sayings to live by sometimes, it does stress me out with guilt, shame, irrelevancy, self doubt, overthinking and frustration when I don’t feel like I’ve progressed or feel productive. I strive to minimise all this by generally focusing on the action and on doing the thing before I end up dwelling and over analysing. I don’t often look back at old work aside from reposting/tweeting old work again on Fridays.

If I have the interest and headspace to figure out how I can do better next time, I will. If not, I’ll just accept staying in the comfort zone, manage in autopilot survival mode and not worry about it for however long it may take to heal from my burn outs.

I’m probably progressing at my super slow turtle pace and I do feel like I’m not pushing myself (art challenge wise) as much as I would like. Still in an effort to not kill my joy in creating and minimise burn outs, I have been trying to enjoy making and learning art with whatever interests me in the moment, instead of being results focused all the time. It’s a difficult balance!

I don’t know if this “live/create in the moment” and my tunnel vision are good things or not as I end up not looking at the big picture (unless I’m reflecting to myself at my blog like this). Hmm.

What am I doing with my art? With my life? Do I still enjoy making art?

I do feel a gloomy and existential kind of resignation in some ways. This might be one of my doubtful and depressing art periods that comes and goes. Does it have to be this way? It seems to be the norm with creative people :’)

I don’t have answers. It is what it is. I don’t think having answers will make my internal creative struggles go away anyway as my mind may resist, doubt and test for alternative ways in spite of “answers”.

I’m doing what I can with what I have at this moment and that’s good enough for me usually :’)

Anyhoo thank you so much for being the rare ones who are here, thanks for reading my mundane ramblings and have a good rest of your week!

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