Text commentary & speedpaint!

I did this video before my video editing template file got deleted :’)

But yes! It’s Penny! :0

🌺Penny Crygor / ペニー is taking on a big world with her inventions!

Her hair ornaments are fire missiles!? She’s too smart compared to me haha

I did this Warioware piece last year and finally I post it! :’)

This is her pop singer outfit and is not 100% based off from Warioware: Get it Together due to the absence of her hydropack (as pointed out by reddit), it’s more her pop singer side of her here!

I finally watched The Super Mario Bros Movie

and I felt super mixed and empty after the movie.

Analysis and review “The Mario Movie is a Beautiful Mess” from someone who enjoyed it more than I did and they go into it deeper. Spoilers ahead:

• agreed that I super admired the great art, cinematography and animation,
• lots of goodies for the fans – I do want to play actual Mario Kart a bit more but I’m waiting for more DLC stuff to play the new things
• lovely and wholesome Mario & Luigi bromance/bonding moments (and Mario & Luigi RPG stuff),
• incredible Jack Black as Bowser – we need a more fleshed out song for Jack Black
  • I get repeating “Peaches” emphasises his obsession & insanity but it feels lacking as a full song 🙁
• we need more Luigi
• Toad was annoying as a character for me when the friendship is not established but he’s just there acting like it was established and is super patriotic
• Toadsworth isn’t there I guess and instead it’s General Toad
• why did DK and Mario get more of a longer bonding, conversational moment than the others on the journey??
• I do agree that Peach and Mario got their emotional bonding moments cut short :/
• it became “spot the fan reference” experience for me more than about the predictable, simple story
• Peach is fine but is not shown to be vulnerable/relatable and needs better dialogue
  • I really like her design and the movie’s take on her dresses
• why did Peach have time to train and bring Mario along when she needs to go urgently to the Kong Kingdom haha
• “Take on Me” didn’t make sense here the most when we get to the Kong Kingdom
• why is Cranky Kong a king
• super cool seeing a bunch of DK characters in the audience
• I did not find the short Mario jokes, the dog slapstick shenanigans nor the Seth Rogan laugh funny
• lots of moments where they could have gone further/fleshed it out and give moments to breathe as it was too fast paced in the middle and rushing to the next cool action scene
  • felt super rushed in pacing and agreed that it didn’t let moments breathe
• I kept wondering who this extended Mario family are and what is this fantasy Brooklyn where you don’t have to pay for bathroom or town wide damages…
• definitely a movie for the kids and thinking about plot holes and missed opportunities won’t change nor help anything

And Peaches and the DK rap were stuck in my head after the movie.

Also I died a bit inside about the rumors – I don’t want Illumination tackle a Legend of Zelda film when an entirely different, emotional/nuanced, atmospheric, slower paced storytelling approach is needed. And the art style would be highly debated by fans – I think some fans want a Ghibli animation for a potential Zelda film.

Windows 11 not having the “are you sure you want to delete this folder?” dialog ended up with me permanently deleting my personal working art folder 😱😭

My heart rose up my chest!! I was horrified!!!

This was last week and I originally tweeted about it but took it down since I changed my mind and I don’t want to vent about my troubles there to the void where people can’t help me anyway…

Recovered most(??) of it with a recovery tool…and it was time consuming.

All the game jam projects gone, some SuperLeonie/ListenMode work & a lot of original art sketches, most giftart for Lauren and some random files are all gone :’) For some I’m recovering them via the blog or youtube but I won’t have their working files anymore. I don’t know about recovering some art files – I’ve accepted that I’ve lost them…

I learned to turn on the “are you sure” confirmation dialog box at least – why was it off by default on windows??

I didn’t realise I was deleting important files until it was permanently deleted that night…
I had to sort the many recovered files and figure out to put them back :'(

Don’t mind me, I just needed to vent a bit and part of it is my fault too – I was doing computer backups manually and didn’t have the dialog box to save me from my sleepy human mistakes. I was just trying to do backups and I stuffed up…

When I did look into it more, a lot of recent stuff working files are gone/corrupted, recent speedpaints are gone, my most used moodboard is gone (noooooo), my video editing projects are gone…figuring out what’s art and files are missing is saddening and discouraging. A lot of original sketches are gone and corrupted too when I thought they were “recovered”! Oof 🙁

Stressful. I did do backups for what I did recover at least…

I started over with Davinci Resolve set up my template again as well as many other files and that moodboard I’ll have to sort when I get to it – all of which took me ages to do. I have yet to sort my CSP materials since it’s so much!! I didn’t get much learning/personal work done two weekends ago because of this too…

Well I’ll have to pick myself up again from my mistakes. I’m disappointed, sad and exhausted.

The Horror of Girlhood | Explored Through Valerie and her Week of Wonders video (CW on beauty, body image, womanhood & predatory entertainment industry)

I don’t think I’ve reached/live out “womanhood” properly (whatever that vague umbrella means). But hey being wary of creepy men/people and having trust issues is a thing (unwanted attention, objectification, judged only for looks/sexual attraction and seen like a piece of dessert and not a human being) and how people don’t really care and see me as old, obsolete and ugly at my age??

Strangers won’t rate me according to sexual attractiveness, life situation and with my career right??? What about me as a human being??

I’m wasting away either way in this light? It’s over ;P

I guess I’m a “crone” now because I don’t want to be an insecure, discardable/replaceable object of sexual, visual desire and the male gaze/fantasy and obsessing over how fleeting youth is, chasing unattainable beauty standards (Our Culture’s Fatal Obsession with Beauty | Explored Through Helter Skelter (2012)) and conforming, pretending to be “perfect, good and beautiful” where there is no dark side, “ugliness”, nuance or anger (The Obsession with [white] Female Rage in Media).

There have been times in the past where I tried to invest into presentation and looks but it doesn’t last long or it’s just for a one off event since it’s so much work, time and expense for me (gosh how do people do this regularly). Eventually I did the bare minimum because cosmetics and fancy clothes are too expensive – I’ve got pretty/fancy clothes I haven’t worn and I gave up. It feels nice to look good for yourself though! Even some self care things being sold out there are expensive.

It seems exhausting; there are many diverse and subjective forms of beauty. It’s difficult to turn off the conditioning/programming though…

And feeling self conscious about body image things like arm pit hair :< As a hermit, I want to minimise laundry (especially winter layers) and if I ever do go out I wear the same things that works for me and is comfortable.

Agreed I feel lost and not sure about how womanhood/femmehood = sexuality / desirability as a “madonna or mistress/seductress” when I want connection, need to get used to processing my initial impressions/judgements and don’t care as much for the superficial things in the long run as/if I get to know a person.

Good video essay and the Valerie movie clips shown creeped me out in how blatant the dream/trippy sequences of the predators and how uncomfortable/creepy it is for the child actor. How predatory it is for the industry to target minors and upon when they become of legal age…

It’s reassuring that when you’re in your 30’s and onwards, some care less about dressing up like a doll and become more like yourself as Jane Birkin ditches feminine beauty at 40 and goes for androgynous looks. As you age, you just mourn and accept and embrace that mainstream youthful beauty is gone (How Jane Birkin Became the “It-Girl” of 60’s Paris | It-Girls Uncovered). Just dress and present as you like indeed!

There are people who do have initial impressions/judgements, eventually see beyond the shell and don’t project expectations on you of course. Probably takes a lot of time and working through the tough times which is a rare thing :’)

Just rambly thoughts as I think about these things and my looks and mortality ;P

Anxiety with the growth mindset & whether my art has value (venting feelings here)

Yeah I don’t know if people are watching my videos; I shall wallow and sit with my reality check. Thank you for those who do watch & encourage my little videos :0!!

I will just focus on documenting my art & learning rather than whether I’m growing my Youtube channel – it’s too early when I’m just figuring things out. And a lot of work for me to handle right now as much as I feel terrible that I’m stagnating across my platforms.

I’m losing 8 followers with twitter so it’s not stagnant now? 🙁 I’ll just stick to putting the blog link as part of the thread & bumping up my thread later *just* once from now on ugh. Perhaps I did one tweet too much to annoy people and/or people just aren’t interested anymore. Leonie overthinks again noooooo

I do believe that I’m growing at a super snail pace in terms of growth with Youtube and Instagram but there’s a lot of trial and error and adjusting direction that needs to take place along the way. And me not being engaged with other accounts plays a part since I’m more of a lurker. I don’t have the social energy and it shouldn’t be a social transaction nor time consuming thing – I can do it in short bursts perhaps to connect with people?

I need to do something “different” with my art but I don’t know what? I’m floundering :<

Also why is there always a Youtube dislike that disappears on you after 16 hours or so?? It’s mysterious…

I keep having to remove recent fake accounts on twitter and instagram too :0

Youtube there’s recently there’s a few kind, encouraging comments at least! And one person on instagram! Trying to stay neutral on the follower count since engagement/views are more important. And failing at adjusting my mindset at times…

I’m glad that I don’t have to handle a discord server and I hear advice that I don’t have to especially when I have nobody helping me moderate – I made one but it’ll just become a ghost town. And cohost…I post there and I might get lucky with a fanart but it’s mostly a ghost town too – I don’t know if I’ll keep posting there anymore.

Also I’ve been depressed and existential about life and my art. My mind keeps circling around how I’m not “hustling” enough and I’m just not mentally there. For the sake of my mental health I haven’t been explicitly looking to freelance on the side at the moment since I need my recovery time. All the same I’ve been feeling anxious about how I’m supposed to survive and make a living as an artist and human being in such a competitive market and where expenses are inflating 🙁

I’m even considering doing a patreon paywall at this blog again for study & sketch posts or more if things get tough. Technically this blog would be behind a paywall if I were to follow what other people are currently doing with their “behind the scenes shenanigans” but I ramble to the void and don’t really have a large, engaged audience anyway. Hmm ninja patrons, let me know what you think! I don’t think it got people interested when I did it in the past so I’m probably not ready…

Just thinking about what’s important right now and for me it’s striving to study and learn art :’)

Other personal things

Overwhelmed with Tears of The Kingdom – it’s such a huge game!! ARGH I have other things to do but it’s consuming my life!! Torn between exploring general areas versus wanting to progress the game and I’d rather take it slow and explore kind of thoroughly – how I like it. So I’ve mostly done with 4 out of 12+ regions…I feel super conflicted due to how time consuming this game is. When will I be done with this game.

I’m not getting much time to do study or personal art so this is why you’re seeing art I did last year but the buffer has run out :’) But for my mental health I want to play this as much as I feel guilty for not being super productive everyday…ughhh

I finally did my first RAT test (for peace of mind and thanks so much Lauren for your kind generosity <3 <3 ) and it was indeed unpleasant to do and felt like a mini science lab testing thing. Turns out I’m currently suffering from head and sinus congestion and it’s been giving me grief with brain ache, brain fog, runny nose at first and congested nose in the past 11 or so days. Also why is the top of my nose bridge feeling internally bruised up 🙁

And how I’m just sleeping in much more sometimes as I don’t feel well enough to get up plus the cold winter weather …

And also worried about some pain but I guess I’m supposed to live with random cramps thanks to my fibroid (I was stressing about it every time my period is over and my dull pain keeps sticking around!! And random stabbing pains could be cysts?? I’m avoiding ultrasound scans for now. Gosh I’m just worried about random pains and aches 🙁

Also keep a lookout for my Youtube – I might schedule my first art stream on youtube but I don’t know if it’s soon, in the coming two weeks or if it’ll happen at late September instead. It depends on how I feel and what I can manage since I don’t want to set it in stone yet – that stresses me out. I’ll let people know on youtube and twitter(?) when the time comes. Yes I’ve decided on Youtube since stimultaneous streaming on platforms is not allowed on twitch even if you’re not even partnered :/

Anyhoo thank you and take care! Protect the joy you have in your life :’0

---