Studies from Proko’s anatomy chart

Study from an anatomical plate from images

Spooky Scary Skeleton Studies

Practice and trying to do my own thing turned into this so I don’t know :’)

I don’t think I like this but hey it’s progress??

‘Til Death 💐

After much frustration I attempted drawing and posing skeletons this way. This is the second attempt of this piece.

I realise where I did wrong and how it’s not looking how I’d like it to be :’)

I feel like I need to start all over again but I’ll move on. It was meant to be practice and I don’t want to overwork and stress over it.

Ah the ups and downs of the learning journey :’)

Figure studies over the same reference to finish this post up!

Feeling gloomy again, taking a step away from tracking my metrics again

Currently feeling another one of the waves of sadness from my life and my art.

One art reason is how I continue to plateau in terms of metrics (yes here I go again; I shall vent at my personal blog thanks). My twitter following hovers around the same for many years and other platforms are at a snail’s pace – I don’t think I should track my metrics anymore. I have been doing so since the end of last year and it’s definitely a mix of highs and lows and a lot of neutrals.

It was half useful to know what was reaching more people, what pleased the algorithm for that day and what people “liked”. I was okay with it for a while since it was reaching some people and feeling more aware of my small percentage reach but after recording metrics for 3-4 months it got me second guessing a lot. And probably focusing on the wrong, external things.

And then I found myself checking metrics *too much* to update my records, even if it’s a little change. It’s another form of seeking and getting addicted to validation. I did consider going back to instagram for bit because I recently learned that you can post via desktop for once since October(?) but that problematic platform also requires you to be super active, frequent and engaged with its countless features. Otherwise you get little reach and exposure to your own followers as usual.

And I’m the post and run away kind of person. I’m too drained and not interested in doing community building things. I’m happy just liking people’s work, lurking at a distance or just simply staying away from social media :/

This all reminds me how I’m fighting against the social media algorithm and it has gotten me tired and fed up with everything. I have a love/hate thing with social media since I depend on it to document, share and express myself but I don’t want it to consume me. The line is blurred for me. Time for me to put back some boundaries.

I just want to post and for my stuff to reach people as intended. But that is not how platforms, people and life work. Many fight for attention on the internet and I’m not special :’)

Sometimes it gets me down, gloomy/depressed, stressed and existential about my art and life. Though that generally happens in general. Seeing how I’ve been doing this art thing for so long, I feel hopeless about it when I compare myself with other artist’s different paths. How other artists with more followings than me are super great at what they do, branding, business and marketing and yet I can’t really make my own way work.

This all doesn’t help with my already poor self esteem.

For my mental health I shouldn’t track things immediately, get some emotional distance and just stop tracking altogether indefinitely.

Yeah. Let’s do that. While writing this reflection, I have blocked myself from my blog and twitter analytics pages.

Maybe I will check metrics frequently if my career requires me to do so but right now I need to step away and care about more important things. I want to focus on my own learning and creative journey and to keep social media as a bonus thing. Ultimately I want to have fun creating, learning and sharing my art :’)

Rambling at this blog does help clarify some of my own thoughts and feelings. Thanks for witnessing at my internal art and life struggles haha :’)

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