Video game fanart is my comfort thing ;D

These compilations are my own picks ;D

This one was from my instagram

I generally don’t have huge number of likes so I’ve hidden up the metrics from myself for my mental health!

I had 2.4k likes in 2019 and 3.6k in 2020 so it is definitely is doing much worse with metrics now that reels is a thing. And because I quit in 2021. And I stopped doing stories this year. And I don’t do much reels. I don’t know if I can recover :’)

I’m a small account with terrible reach, people keep unfollowing because I don’t engage online, don’t do much reels and don’t always draw popular things (eg see the metrics of my Laura Parton fanart, my last post) but this many likes is not a small number either!

Thank you if you follow me there!!

I am very happy with this ;D

I’m not bothered showing the other reddit recap pages because they’re not interesting facts to me.

Art Summary 2022: all the mixed feelings

Gosh this year has been fluctuating between emotionally tired, anxious, stressed, depressed, existential and neutral for me :’)

Life remains hard and about facing things on a day to day basis. Probably not the wise and “deliberate” long term way to do things :’)

The majority of my personal work is fanart since I do it out of comfort, enjoyment and then I share it, not because I want anything beyond that. Stuff I do because I wanted to.

Now I need to figure out what I should work towards and clarify things with myself. Feeling existential, sad and stressed because I don’t go back to the negative, hopeless, depressing spiral that is “I don’t have any societal value to give in the world” and admittedly fearing change given how much of an autistic hermit I am.

Plus how illustration, art and creative work are increasingly devalued, as much as I don’t want this to be the case.

I’m finding myself zoning out more often as I ponder what I’m doing with my art learning journey this year. Especially how AI art generator companies (+ people who commercially thrive on using it and companies supporting/facilitating it) are changing the art community in bad, unethical, illegal ways (why AI art is harmful for artists and you) and feeling like I need something more to work towards.

Then again it’s not like art commissions is a stable way of living in the first place. And not that content creation is stable either. Indeed this is increasingly hard when you have to juggle many sources for income in the creative industry and I’m not really stable nor juggling in that way. I don’t know if I can juggle all those things and do it well. I’m not good at being an entrepreneur.

Is anything ever stable forever? Many have to keep adapting and I guess I’m just not confident in myself, given how much I tunnel vision and specialise in few things. I’m just winging it anyway without a concrete plan since strict plans stresses me out and paralyses me. Business minded people insist on having visions and plans. I don’t want to stress myself out about the future too much right now 🙁

I do have an a vague idea of a vision and I hope to keep trying things to figure that out in a more concrete sense. I need to stop getting too influenced by what other artists are doing (fearing that I’m missing much needed knowledge) and focus on my own slow, stumbling learning path :’)

I’m being vague here on purpose because I want to allow myself room to actually experiment, iterate, fail and see what sticks before I can confidently say what I am committing to. Planning myself into a box doesn’t really cut it for me – I need to actually do and test stuff! And allow myself to just study more because I’ve been stuck in the “always post finished illustrations” loop.

Reflecting on video making and consumption

I’ve also been learning about video making and did a bunch of short video tests. I don’t want to put too much effort into short videos because people are seeking and scrolling past for fast food entertainment/content. And a handful of them seem to enjoy giving me dislikes to humble me and my sensitive, silly, hurt butt without telling me why ;P

I’m now trying different ways to be super clear that it’s just a clip from my main video but it seems like there’s always a handful of people who will dislike my shorts anyway. Meanwhile my main youtube videos don’t reach as much people.

Ugh, it’s hard everywhere 🙁

I need to not take it too seriously. Live and learn I suppose!

I hear that people have done 153 reels and only then they finally got a viral reel? I don’t think I’ll do 2-3 reels a day like they did though. Do I have to build an art community at instagram when I don’t enjoy using those platforms and all its features (stories, comments, art challenges, etc)??

Twitter is also exhausting and terrible to use. Before the takeover, I was on twitter because it’s where I have my largest audience and I can tweet, keep at an emotional distance and be done with it. Now I’m slowly not caring as much as people splinter off into their mini communities, many have moved on from twitter and it’s terribly hard getting people to sign up to blog newsletters as it is (no I’m not inclined to give freebies when most won’t subscribe otherwise).

I don’t think I will have “an audience” on twitter nor instagram and sometimes I’m at peace with that. A lot of the times I struggle to come to terms with that so I keep trying and compromise when I suddenly have the courage to. Since I’m stuck in the “growth” mindset and knowing that I’m not growing on these platforms because I’m unwilling to bend my boundaries to their whims makes me feel stagnant at these platforms (and my blog newsletter too since it’s not everyone’s cup of tea).

I’d rather stick to Youtube and try out streaming in the future. I am fully aware that Youtube and streaming has it’s own share of problems and how I can’t really depend on one site. But what can you do; we’re all just making the most with what we have.

Hearing how people who are heavy consumers of instagram/tiktok/twitter/social media platforms only have 2 seconds of attention span, losing their sense of short term memory (feeling this), can’t get out of dissociating and escaping into more mindless consumption, self numbing, out of control addiction with checking sites and getting manipulated into suffering and doomscrolling their time and energy away is concerning.

It reinforces how intentionally and mindfully managing my social media boundaries, entertainment and blocking myself from metrics where possible is important! I often slip up and get too hyperfocused about them unfortunately when checking for validation and reassurance.

Stats/metrics give me the most grief when they change unfavourably and continue to stagnate. I’m just trying to manage my mixed, hurt, sensitive feelings as always :’)

Digressing. I’m pretty torn trying to combine and juggling between wanting to improve versus drawing what I enjoy.

Studying for the sake of it doesn’t stick with me as a habit for long because I lose interest after a session or two :S

And marketing/blogging/”content creation” takes considerable time too!

The Future: 2023 (scary dun dun dun)

I will be posting (at least) 2 times a month next year and not almost every Monday!

At times I might do weekly during busy periods.

It’s probably going to be around 2-3 posts a month on average? Let’s say a minimum of 2 to be safe? I don’t want to burn out too much!

As usual, patrons won’t be charged at the first week of February as I take an extended January break! Thank you so much to my patrons for their reassuring, generous support that goes towards a small, helpful part of my living expenses and art courses! Thank you!!  

It’s not just the learning and art. These blog posts (plus the cross posting on platforms) take hours of reflection, writing, editing and countless proofreading so I’m trying to slow down with that.

I’m going to reign myself in and prioritise studying and learning over making content for the sake of keeping up with my content posting schedule. Twice a month is still on a hamster wheel art/content posting schedule but it’s less taxing on me! When I slowed down to every fortnight last time, I actually felt miserable, anxious, restless and doubtful when I didn’t have a post to share during an off week so I’ll try to cope haha…….

I might combine learning with streaming but I feel like that’s too many objectives for my “proper” art stream – I need something to start that’s Level 0 and not as daunting. Probably a small, focused task or challenge? Hmm.

Hopefully this allows me to get through more learning and studies at my own pace. I’ve tried to make it work with a break every 4-6 weeks this year but it’s just not happening. It’s still super intense when I don’t really schedule myself time to recover from work fatigue, monthly horrible cramps, learning, video making, other life things and to actually decompress, feel bored and do nothing “productive”. I keep feeling disappointed with myself and stressed out because I haven’t been realistic and flexible with my planning and with myself.

I haven’t been able to schedule any actual “off days” at all. They’re unplanned at best because I’m so tired 🙁

I shall focus on studying and learning much more next year and mix it up with the fanart! I don’t know for sure!

Striving to take things in stride, keep things fun for me plus I need to be more strict with my terrible levels of sleep :<

Let’s get to the point for 2023:

• schedule will be 2 or more posts a month next year
• if I can’t make posts happen I will take a month off or so when Tears of the Kingdom comes out ;D
• study more with my learning resources (ahhh feeling behind!!) & share the journey when I apply it to things
• learn & evolve my youtube videos bit by bit
  • mix of higher effort and lower effort because I’m juggling
• try streaming to see if streaming is my thing at Youtube
  • if I can do streaming beyond my performance anxiety
  • I might test twitch as well but I am anxious streaming on it and I’ll probably have 0 viewers on both platforms :S
  • Yeah I’d rather not right now, I don’t have an audience and I’m super anxious 🙁
• figure out how to sleep, relax and destress more
  • watching my heart beat skipping/palpitations and making sure I’m not tensed up 🙁
  • force myself to do one off day a week from art altogether since off weeks is not happening :S
• trying to fix my iron deficiency slowly :’)

This will be the last post for the year! I’m not doing anything special as a hermit but I hope I can make yummy food happen. Gosh time is going fast and I feel like there’s always more to do :S

Yesterday I just watched the movie Nope and I’m still processing what I just watched + looked at video essays :0

Anyhoo I hope you have a wonderful, low stress and safe end of 2022 and start of 2023!

Take care, have fun and catch you around in super late January! Have a good rest too! (:

---