This is official Hipster Whale marketing art so I put handwritten credits at the corner!

Original Hipster Whale tweet here!

I’m grateful that I get to do some marketing illustrations with Sara in between HW projects! Thank youuuu HW!!

Hey I actually got to do some marketing illustrations so I got carried away making 5 of them while the opportunity still lasted ;D

Mallard & Chicken comfy on macarons [timelapse] 🥳👑

Can you tell what I was hungry for ;P

Chicken and Mallard become birthday themed macarons [timelapse] 🍒

They might as well become birthday themed macarons 😆

Chicken gets abducted by birthday balloons 😱🎈 [timelapse]

I should have made it 8 balloons but ah well.

Cupcake time [timelapse][Official Crossy tweet on the free Hipster Chicken] 🎊

Happy 8th birthday Crossy Chicken!! 🎊

Finally it’s time for Crossy Road Cake!! 🎂🎉 Happy Crossy Road 8th birfday celebrations! ✨ [timelapse]

Yeah I pretty much just did what I wanted; thanks Hipster Whale ;D

To think that I started working on/off on Crossy stuff almost 7 years ago :0

Crossy Road Castle Sticker Book Update!

The Crossy Castle team had fun with this! ✨

The art team did an incredible, inspiring job! 💪 They did most of the heavy lifting :0

I helped with the Candy Cafe & Great Treehouse stickers and book doodles for Space Station 115, Treehouse, Candy Cafe and Snowpeak Palace 🍰🌳✍️

Doodling concepts beforehand helped me get going from my rut!

Leonie rambles about the past week

Edit: stuff whoever who unfollowed me right after I tweeted out my marketing illustrations (fine I understand but it still hurts and feels discouraging). It ruined my sensitive mood for a while. It felt like I was going back to not “growing” and stuck at the same follower number on twitter. The extension that blocks twitter vanity metrics failed on me so I saw my follower count go down; I had to use another one that works 🙁

At least I no longer see likes or follower counts at all – actually I can’t even see followers or likes now with this new extension! I can’t even see who’s following or who’s liking! Not that I have much but I super appreciate the small handful of people who do! When I do obsessively check it is nice to see familiar names, if I’m lucky! Apologies that from now on, I can only see replies (most of them).

This is for the better so that I’m not sadly obsessing and upset over likes or followers and feeling tired, insecure, hurt, ignored, discouraged from all the effort I put into doing all this. I understand that most people scroll past posts and don’t care. That is how the internet works.

I need to re-train myself to hide/block myself away from my own metrics, emotionally distance myself and let it go into the void. Often I live too much in my head over things that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. What’s most important is that I am reaching at least a small handful of kind people. The artist struggle I suppose. I’m doing what I can with my finite low amounts of emotional/mental energy and interest :’)

Once again I stress that I am super grateful for those who do like, comment, share and support my work! Thank you so much!!

Youtube shorts and video far

I’m getting some dislikes on my shorts and it gets me down whenever it happens. Stressing that the majority is a small handful of likes (so thank you for the encouraging support, internet strangers/peeps!) Thank youuu ;___;

There’s still room for improvement since I haven’t been editing and repurposing them for short form content since the Youtube app’s remix/editing/trimming capabilities are so limited!! I couldn’t edit it the way I wanted it but I still wanted the short to link back to the original video. I might have to try some way around it.

I’m testing and iterating things and I get that this method of doing shorts shouldn’t be the only approach – most people aren’t clicking to the main, original video anyway. IG and social media platforms aren’t great for getting people off those platforms and it’s exhausting, speaking as someone who writes a quiet blog on her own website :'(

People want dedicated, standalone shorts/reel (turn brain off / fast food / mindless ) content and it’s not something that’s well compensated anyway (even if you do get “viral” it doesn’t mean much, you have to keep it going and you need business/merch to supplement you financially). Being viral isn’t even a good, sustainable goal either. And even then, most people aren’t following you when they consume media/posts too fast to care. Tiktok for example isn’t even about who you follow, it’s about personalised/manipulated “for you” feeds, dependent on fast paced, short lived content so people stay stuck and addicted to the platform, especially with younger generations.

I’m glad I don’t use nor have tiktok because I don’t want to go into another timesink of escapism, slippery rabbit holes, misinformation, constant fast paced content and existential emptiness. I have a lot of distractions in my life already ;P

Should I make dedicated shorts/reels and edited differently from my main videos?? It doesn’t feel worth fully dedicating time to.

I don’t feel inclined to make forgettable, throwaway content that take ages to make properly – I’m not finding joy in making terribly fast and edited speedpaint reels. How does one even process what happened.

I’d rather focus on actually repurposing and editing from my main youtube videos in the future (which are already short at the moment). Let’s see what I can actually manage. I’ll probably stick to making throwaway clips for shorts and reels, mostly to reach people who don’t follow me (since those who do kindly follow would go to my art, Youtube and/or blog instead). It depends because I might not bother eventually – I have a reel that’s now stuck at 0 views just because I mentioned Youtube in the caption and I didn’t want the reel in my home feed. This is exhausting :/

Well…I’ll just keep testing things when it’s convenient and I feel like it. And then stop doing things that don’t work for me.

Streaming consideration and reflection

Been looking into streaming and I won’t take streaming too seriously either if I ever plan to do it. I’m in thinking/experimenting mode anyway and learning from generous, experienced people in the space. How a huge majority don’t really succeed in making it a living off it – so don’t have too much expectations. And how art streams are one of the most boring compared to other streams that are focused on entertainment (either you’re super high in art skill or you’re super engaging and entertaining if you want to be a big art streamer). Streaming can be a huge time commitment when sticking to a schedule – it will go nowhere if you don’t have a goal, nor a practical plan and if you don’t actually enjoy it.

I don’t think I would enjoy it, I have too much performance anxiety to engage and draw at the same time. I’d rather focus on one thing at a time (art vs talking). I tend to tunnel vision when I’m in the zone. And I’m super quiet and boring as a terrible improv entertainer/performer because I just freeze and tense up with anxiety! I’m not one of those people who thrive from attention! I feel like I’m in the hot seat if I’m live too. I need a vague script/outline to keep myself grounded and calm(er) too.

Can I just stream and sketch without caring about entertainment and just to get mileage with my learning? I’ve seen a few who do that. But why do I have to stream it?? But streaming means I don’t have to edit a video. I’m down to just quietly work and maybe talk during breaks though that’s pretty boring but at least it’s chill for most people.

Hmm this is why I hesitate. I’m not really sure if I actually want to do it or if it’s right for me :S

Eventually I need to give it a go and expect zero viewers (that’s the common demoralising experience for many newbie streamers, for several months or more). Trying to keep my expectations in check. Perhaps I’ll focus on X amount of studies and when I’m done, end the stream if there’s nobody ;P

I’m figuring this out but I don’t want to make my life into the dreaded taxing “content creation” grind so my rambly home is still my blog here. I don’t mind doing my blog at least :’)

Failing, iterating and figuring things and my boundaries out :0

AI generated work and AI Ethics discussion

ClipStudioPaint backed down on doing their AI generator.

Also Niji-Journey is a thing for generating anime character models and they plan to expand it for video games.

Also great discussion on AI Ethics, Artists and What to Do About It by Proko, Karla Ortiz and Steven Zapata.

The generated work that is coming out of these things are good enough quality and most people won’t notice the parts that feel off/weird. Though they only get much better quality results if they use (rip off/steal from) artist names, styles, content and keywords.

People are actively making money, prints and whatnot from AI generated work and are competing with artists in terms of attention. And many taking shortcuts wherever they could, some claiming they did the work themselves. Generally people/companies want to use the tool/toy to their own benefit. Ethically and legally this feels like a horrible mess and I don’t think these big AI companies would be willing to start their AI training datasets over and ethically from scratch.

They’re just blatantly exploiting and profiting from creative work because they can and now it’s “too late” to change it back :/

I’ve seen people say that you have to adapt with the technology or die. But why do we have to bend over backwards while they trample the rights of artists and general privacy, ethical and copyright violations due to the problematic/disturbing/copyrighted data being used for commercial purposes? It really feels dystopian, demoralising, unempathetic, hopeless, frustrating and depressing.

I don’t know if I can ever go anywhere financially with my own 2D art (it has never reached a stable point and I’ve struggled all my life) but I’m going to hold on and hope for the best. I don’t know what else I can do as a slow, sad, autistic, hermit bear who lacks in other skills. I’m just holding on and trying to find ways to “adapt”. I feel like I’m forced into a corner :’)

There’s going to be a lot of change and growing pains and I’m not sure how and if I can even adapt to this. It does feel like it’s over and I guess this is why I’m reflecting, flailing, stressed and figuring out video content and testing things even more. I don’t want to depend on an even more volatile entertainment industry to survive. Gosh things are changing fast!

Figuring out my so called “brand” and boundaries. I was already doing so since I started doing timelapses and I hope to keep evolving, learning and documenting it here at my blog.

What do I want to create? I keep asking that and I hope I find something that clicks with me along this journey!

It feels scary. I’m just stumbling my way and doing what I can. As usual.

What I do know is that this won’t take away the joy I have when I learn, create and express myself through my art :’)

I don’t know if I can afford much time or have the headspace to do art if everything falls apart though :<

I need to learn, experiment and cherish as much as I can before too much of the hopelessness, doom and gloom consumes me ahhhh

Personal health update…wahoo 😐

So I’ll have to do another blood test next year and my iron deficiency didn’t improve much, nooooo :’) It seems like my body refuses to absorb iron as much as I try to change up my diet :< I still refuse to do iron transfusions because I don’t want more needle stabs into my veins. I’m not keen on more needles. I’m not as brave/used to it as some people.

Also cleared up some health concerns. Some other stressful concerns remain at the back of my mind but it can’t be helped. I’ll have to cross that scary bridge when the time comes…

Gosh I feel behind all the time but I can’t force myself :<

It’s December so here we go with a busy week and the Game Awards! Let’s do our best :’)

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