Little timelapse!

I did this piece around the time I did the other Strikers Daisy piece ;D

Edit: It was a glaring issue that I didn’t bother and got lazy with fixing but some critique I got about her arms I shall document what I typed here too:

How the arms were too straight/simple looking and how glaringly obvious it was; whoops!

I didn’t stylise the arms consistently (I went and pushed too cartoonish and straight there compared to the rest of her body). I couldn’t decide how I was stylising/simplifying her and then this oversight and more obvious mistake happened so I’ll keep that in mind for future pieces. I can’t say that I won’t ever make mistakes again but I’ll keep learning and working to improve! :’)

In that light I like my other Daisy piece better that I did around the same time – less obvious mistakes ;D

Yeah my stylisation and anatomy needs work :0

Hold on! Daisy’s taking a break!

She’ll be back in action soon! ;D

…well I parked my name at another thing (Hive Social) 🙃

I won’t be using Hive Social for art until there’s a web app – I can’t even add images! It’s too early to use it properly for me.

I’ll wait for a desktop/web version if this platform does well. Thanks to the 5 people who follow me there :0

I’m not sure if I’m posting to Mastodon anymore until something changes my mind. Or perhaps I just don’t like the “Advanced interface” because I’m not really seeing things I’m interested in on my feed. It’s probably too early to judge. I’ll hold on longer – I mean I’m spread across so many places already ;’0

Tumblr is still pretty dead for me. Using it to see big name artist posts is great but not for my own work it seems (as much as I try many times to reach people, I can’t force these things and I don’t know if it’s for me). Fandoms thrive and it also relies heavily on tags like Mastodon but I can’t seem to break through after so many years :<

Digressing! Thank you if you’re following me on Cohost, which I still enjoy using! And on Youtube!!

And thank you especially if you’re following this blog directly and/or through the email updates! Thank you so much!!

Leonie rambles and on making videos

I feel tired from all the Black Friday/Cyber weekend spam emails and figuring out what’s worth it and what’s actually unwanted stock being cleared :S Also bummed that the expensive tablet I got recently was much cheaper around this time, nooooo!!!

I waited for over a year before finally deciding to get it for the sake of my poor back and posture! I can’t afford nor have the space nor weight capacity for the big display tablets but it’s still expensive. Yes I finally upgraded from my 8 year old tablet :’)

Took a long while to set it up and figure it out though.

Reminder to self: I have to be frugal with my finances and not get carried away by these apparent deals. I had to keep mindful of food/art marketing emails for instance :’)

Thankfully I have less back pain now but I still need to strengthen my weak body and arms somehow :<

Reflecting on a comment and reframing youtube dislikes (again)

This is pretty subjective but being told that my art is simple “but it’s cute” makes me doubt my work especially with the “but”.

Is this a back handed compliment? What’s wrong with simple? I get that it’s not out of malice and perhaps it’s worded poorly. All the same it made me think :<

Simple was the intention and it took a long time for me to simplify to this point. I used to do too much detailed rendering at places! There’s always the push and pull of trying to balance the artistic complexity and contrast well. Also it reminds me on how cute art styles tend to not be taken “seriously” or as low skill :<

Note that the majority of comments I get (if I’m lucky to even have them that is) have been super encouraging and nice. This is the usual Leonie parsing and figuring out what message/lesson/change/etc I can understand from a sudden vague/negative comment.

Gah I’m also trying to reframe the small handful of youtube dislikes and to not take them seriously (I got new ones on my Youtube shorts!) Especially since I can’t hide them from myself like some other platforms. My titles probably play a part – a recent one was too sneaky with the clickbait (it worked getting more people to view though), one mentioned “dead” about a fish companion (just a guess) but I don’t know why the rest had dislikes.

Why did Luigi get dislikes at all 🙁

I’ll try to make it more fair with my terrible attempts at clickbait titles and figuring out shorts. I don’t know what I’m doing :<

I’m definitely overthinking as I test out ways how I can do better. Most of it is out of my control so letting that go is best for me.

Gosh I’ve been posting my work on the internet for so long and I’m still a sensitive, hurt snowflake of feelings ;’)

Hey I need to vent it out here (my personal blog) for my mental health and then let it pass, move on so I don’t feel sorry for being repetitive here as it happens ;P And I feel better after writing this all out!

I guess it means I still care as a chronically online person :0

What am I doing with videos and reels ahhhh

Spent a lot of time getting my head around short video and video making, what I am actually willing to do within my boundaries, time, effort and interest and how I need to change and test things out more. I can’t keep being indecisive – I’ll just have to trial and error things with video and streaming(??) next year. I’m on the fence whether I would do instagram and reels in the long run when reels and short videos are shallow, short, used to reach new people and just for “turn brain off” entertainment purposes which is fine. But I’m not sure if I want to spend too much time doing that kind of fast food content (though the internet generally values entertainment/brand/personality/fast consumption > art).

I’m reluctant to quit instagram again when I still don’t mind just posting and hiding. It’s just the posting/processing takes longer now because I have to edit a reel just for this platform :0 At the moment, I can’t tell if it’s really worth it yet.

Apparently to make it actually work, you need to make reels daily. And I’m not able to commit to that level.

I’ve started to repurpose/edit my speedpaints into a few reels and I don’t know if it’s doing any better. It’s reels or nothing will change on instagram. I get that you’re supposed to post reels daily, put out stories with questions and maybe image carousels to mix it up but I’m not doing all that work for a platform that doesn’t care about me, my time and my mental health! I don’t want to use instagram too much, especially when I want to work from a desktop and not a mobile device :<

But yes I’ve been testing ways to make reels and shorts like a newbie and there’s been failures/lack of engagement. Trying to make it fast and painless where possible. At best I got eighty something reel views which is probably not as much value as Youtube views, given that people scroll past their feed :S

Still I get more “likes” with my image posts on average while my reels is the “scroll past it fast” kind of content.

As of now I’ve decided to stick to image carousels and do reels when I feel like it.
I’ll probably mix it up depending on things; I’d rather post the art over there though :<
If you want my actual speedpaints (I’m figuring those out) please go to my youtube and/or it’s embedded here instead!

Reels is a lot of work and I have great respect for people who make them regularly and do them so well!

I’m not taking it too seriously. I’m just testing things out :0

Well I got stabbed twice on my arm and hand veins because my blood test was full of difficulties and anxiety. It was painful even though I didn’t express it on my deadpan face; I was frozen and tense 🙁

I have a doctor visit soon to follow it up. I want to stop this cycle of blood tests please. Can I just live with the iron deficiency, I don’t want to dread getting stabbed up into my veins by pointy things every time :’)

I’ve been cleaning my workspace and sorting some things out some more, struggling to get through some learning (failing in recent weeks), loosely planning for the year, trying to get some exercise weights and I’m on intense mode for work during the last stretch for this year. Ahhhhhh!

Yeah life, art, work, learning juggling continues for us all. Take care this week :’)

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