Speedpaint process & text commentary “Ways to manage Loneliness & Isolation as a low energy hermit“

So watch my video if you want to read me rambling about “touching grass” and other ways to deal with loneliness.

I tried Glazing (against AI training) and it keeps failing at low intensities so I have to set it to long hours…and when it’s high it looks too much like melted holographic lava got over my art…ughhhh 🙁

I don’t think Glaze works well on my art so I’m not posting my full art on Twitter I’ll put up a glazed crusty version there as well then pfft and maybe I’ll put up a roughly glazed version on Instagram or not? It looks off though. I kept testing for lower intensities but longer render times. I don’t know where it’s safe from art scraping and at the same time I don’t want to make my art unintentionally worse/wonkier. What to do.

I hope AI regulations get worked out soon and in favour for humanity and creative peeps! But I know it’s going to take years of uncertainty and struggle 🙁

Redesigning my character design here from 2018!

Yep it’s pretty different with art style.

Adding onto what I asked in the above video: Will streaming with text chat help with auditory/sensory overstimulation, accountability & making art less isolating & lonely? :'(

Just for virtual/online company as I do solitary, low sensory things? Is this the wrong reason to stream?? I guess I should try to see if it works for me? I don’t think anyone can answer this for me.

It’s probably not too entertaining as a viewer though…so I’ll definitely get 0 viewers.

I’m thinking of youtube streaming for art? Or twitch for games? Do I test both?

I remember the youtube poll voted for youtube. Yes I’ve asked before but now it’s not a poll and it’s a question!! I sense that it’ll probably be youtube since it will all be at one place.

I know twitch requires lots of time and consistency and I don’t think I can do that often :S It’s super demanding when you’re live and I am not good at improv :’)

It would make discord alerts clearer if it’s twitch alerts for streams and youtube alerts for videos/recordings though.

Youtube favours edited videos too. But the streaming experience is easier on twitch than youtube.

And I don’t want to deal with the bad/creepy side of parasocial things – my discord is already risky in the grey area.

Wait I should probably not stream?

If I’m stressing about it this much, rather than being excited about it then I probably shouldn’t? I know it won’t really solve my void of loneliness but it’ll just add more overstimulating commitments in my life. Plus it’s too much on my plate and I will be overwhelmed. But then I can force myself to study and not have to edit a video all the time!! Ahhhh :’)

Hmm. I’ve been flipflopping for ages because of weighing the pros and cons – so help!! :’)

Towards the end of this year or next year who knows – I hope to test streaming so I’m asking for some advice, reassurance and encouragement. If anyone’s interested in watching live/recordings even? Would anyone respond to me talking to my own void anyway?? Who cares what people think – I need to do what’s best for me.

I won’t fully commit though – I did quit because I got too anxious and stressed with dread and expectations in the past! I probably need to practice streaming to no viewers anyway and just stick with once a month, no mic and basic setup on Youtube! I’ll stick to mic off as well – I am not a talkative person if I am hyperfocused on something.

Edit: I think I do agree with a comment I got that I should only stream if I’m excited about it. And currently I’m an anxious ball of dread instead so…probably not right now :’) I’m essentially dragging my feet so that’s not a good sign haha

If I do stream I do plan to do dedicated short blog posts here for them in advance. If it happens!

And I need to stop overthinking like have throughout this year – I’ll just do it when I feel like streaming and go with the flow instead. And if I don’t do it, that’s okay too.

🥮 Moon Goddess Chang’e! 🌙

For this redesign I originally wanted the crescent moon instead of a moon cake but it was too tricky!

I made sure to add a bunny, lots of flowers, tea (goes well with moon cake) and a similar hairstyle to my original design!

I’m happy how this came out for the most part! Character redesign of something I did in 2018 is done! 😀

I hope to be more loose next time…and/or figure out what I’ll do with character design :S

Also she lives on her own, trapped on the moon with rabbits. I can relate on the isolation side of things :’)

What’s your favourite type of moon cake?

Mine is taro/pandan – I made sure to stock up on a wider range too! ;D

I hate any moon cake that has yolk in the centre. No thanks.

Leonie rambly update!

Oh overthinking with social media so I share links! And curating what I consume/managing my distractions and focus

Originally this was for Twitter because both bird site (and Instagram) have been getting me down. Connecting and reaching people is a struggle and it’s rigged (they want people to pay premium after all). Then I decided to share it at some other places. I was actually considering just quitting twitter altogether when putting these posts out.

But the fear of missing out and the guilt is real.

The industry/internet peeps still use twitter to connect especially around games week (which is soon) so I can’t just put my head in the sand :’)

One day I’ll quit twitter and instagram but it’s not happening soon since I need to have some presence as a hermit artist. Twitter might disappear before instagram based on what’s happening with it though.

For instagram I am kind of bummed that when I finally reached 500 followers, it goes below again!! Not surprised given how instagram is. Also I won’t do reels or shorts anymore. They feel redundant when my longer videos are also short videos! If you want my videos, go to my Youtube ;D I know reels is how I can reach new people but I’m just not bothered to make short trendy videos.

And gosh when I linked my discord directly this time, a few more kind people joined!! Thank you!! :0

Suddenly I got kind help and managed to make a BlueSky account!

I thought these codes were hard to get so I wasn’t expecting anything. As in I was pleasantly surprised since I rarely get replies at my twitter! I don’t know what I’m doing but I’ll give this a go since I hear good, chill things about it + art communities. Follow me there if you have one (& only if you want to)!

Note that I will cross post, curate my art feed (so I won’t feel overwhelmed), struggle/fail with my social/community skills and slowly see how I like it! But I won’t depend on it like I used to with twitter! I got my own blog site after all ;P

Finding artists/peeps I am interested in – I have to do it slowly since I overthink lots…

Okay notes I’ve taken about BlueSky:

• On making a media feed
• A whole bunch of how to tips for BlueSky
• It really needs 2FA – the first thing I noticed
• And it’s missing DMs, scheduling, editing posts and drafting. And the UI is weird haha
• some people post TMI and/or get too personal/lewd so I’m scared/creeped away – I just want a mostly art feed as I start from scratch here :0
  • I’m probably scaring people away with my personal blog posts ;P Though I do make sure I have art and I keep the actual/majority of my rambles at my blog and not on social media because it’s also TMI (of my headspace) to an extent.
  • what I’m uncomfortable about is when the majority of posts is not art. And if the majority of posts gets too lewd, sexual, triggering, saddening, pushy and/or too much about a person/selfies/private life in nature especially when I don’t know them too well – this side of social media is not for me!
    • It’s okay if there’s some personal, philosophical, creative, game or art discussion stuff though! We’re humans, not perfect brand entities :’)
• you can attach warnings though!
• I need to get used to adding Alt text
• need to change the home feed preferences with showing replies
• There’s no videos or gifs yet – I’m glad and it’s less distracting ;P
• How BlueSky is about finding people who share interests/subjects and not about getting a following/audience notes:
  • making an intro post and then checking follows/followers for people I know
    • this is time consuming so I didn’t really do this yet – may wait until GCAP and see if I actually reconnect with anyone first
  • to post things of interest? To comment on things sincerely? It is more quiet
  • reposting old posts is fine
  • I’m kind of relieved that it’s not heavily leaning towards clout chasing/audience building but interactions still depend on what kind of content/work/posts you put out and if you have an existing engaged audience able and willing to follow over there too (here we go again…)
• not sure about hashtags – there’s terms in posts instead?
• And another guide here
• I’m getting anxious about who I should follow again – should I move on since most accounts/profiles I’m interested in don’t care if I exist. People have moved on. I’m so far removed and a hermit 🙁
  • I’m afraid of following people out of obligation and/or desperation for connection again – I don’t know how to best approach this
  • I don’t want to follow people who make me feel horrible, uncomfortable, insecure, creeped out and anxious so I need to distance myself sometimes and may even mute/block people – the sensitive, silly, sad snowflake that I am :’)
  • can I just make a list of people to check later and not actually follow people? Or do I have to follow people out of obligation/connection and only check images uploaded? There’s no way to make your own private list where you add people yet
  • I’m wary with who I want to check in my actual feed because there’s a lot out there and I’m not interested in everything someone posts either – I think too much over this :’)
  • there’s a lot of artists/industry peeps not on bluesky so it’s definitely small
  • Or they’re not aware and/or not interested in following me there ;P
  • I feel like a fraud and failure again (following from this post) from the perspective of “clout”/audience building and connections when I’ve been doing this for so long – I have envy too perhaps :’)
    • the comparing to other artist’s numbers over again is no fun 🙁
      • how people just want art and don’t want you to talk if you want social media engagement success (if this is true, it probably plays a part why I don’t get much due to my blog dot points when I link blog posts)
      • should I be vague with links to my blog posts because it’s too much talking? I need to lead with the art and then the others are extra?? I don’t want to care at this point.
      • I don’t expect much of a following anymore especially when twitter is dying :’)
    • I know I’m quietly managing things my own way and everyone’s paths are different
    • one must see people beyond their online personas/resume/achievements even though that’s all you have to judge your first impressions from
    • I know that I don’t have the energy/persona to sustainably keep up with socialising online
    • I should start off with making comments more but I’m just a lurker with limited mental energy so in practice I just give likes instead :’)
    • I’m not sure if I should follow people I didn’t follow back on twitter (since I don’t check twitter feeds anyway) ahhh
  • I want to live for myself and not have to worry/stress about all this!! Before I follow anyone I should focus on – “does this person/account give me good, inspired, safe, happy feelings?” And yet I doubt myself.
    • but I should focus on this so that I have a healthy feed that I don’t dread (or mute people)
  • figuring out and overthinking how I want to curate my feed is hard and it’s probably messy because people are complex and fickle
    • this is stressful and I will take it slow and small as I start over
    • I don’t want to feel obligated to follow everyone again when they’ve moved on and probably don’t see my tweets in the first place :’)
    • or maybe I just don’t want to follow too much people because then the feed becomes too much
    • or do I sacrifice my feed just to “collect” people? Or even mute people?? Trying to find a middle ground for me where the feed isn’t too much but I’m still connecting with peeps…

And if BlueSky flops for me – at least I tried! I’ve been doing what I can with twitter and instagram anyway :’)

My main places are always my blog, then youtube and probably discord!

I’m treating my discord as a tiny public forum and I need to set my own boundaries, take my time and get some time away from it too. I’ve been nitpicking my little server often though!

Since I’m juggling another platform and discord I will stop auto cross posting to Mastodon and maybe take a break from Cohost!

Cohost is nice (if you do certain fanart maybe??) but I wish I can schedule posts in advance or autopost from this blog – drafting posts in advance is the next best thing at least!

Bsky thoughts so far:
I want scheduling/drafts/editing, 2FA, DMs & to make my own list of people as a private feed.
It is more chill, quiet & interest focused.

Also it’s hard/stressful trying to curate my feed & overthinking who to follow at a new place – I give up & will take it slow and small 😖😭

Yeah I’ve been doing it wrong all my life 🙁
Should I just keep links to my blog even more vague?
I don’t expect much of a following anymore after twitter :’)

I’ll probably won’t post a blog description/overview along with my blog links at twitter anymore.
Peeps lean towards art and not my ramblings so I’ll see how this goes :0
Otherwise I’ll stop posting links or I post links anyway :’)
Not sure if I should do the same with this place?
Do people care :S

actually stuff it, I’ll ramble if I want

yeah I don’t know what I’m doing so I’ll just test things out 🫠

My posts on bluesky which will probably get tumbleweeds but who cares ;P Shorter Twitter version

Also I’m not going to post about my social links anymore – people aren’t interested, have muted me or can’t see my posts anyway due to the algorithm + I am tired and have to stop venting about social media ;P

Other things of note: game trailers, making art I care about, achievements

• Ah I helped make Fluffy Sheep in the Cult of the Lamb costume in this Crossy Road tiktok video here made by Sara!
  • No I don’t have tiktok and again I’m done with short video content for now – I need to redirect my time now that I have to learn a bunch of things, have a discord and might stream one day ;P
• Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy – Release Date Trailer
• Kirby & The Amazing Mirror Trailer – Game Boy Advance – Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack
• don’t watch the 10 minute story trailer for Like A Dragon: Infinite wealth as there’s spoilers!!
• On making art that feels genuine to you and controlling what you consume at this video How I put down my phone and started making art I cared about.
  • I felt bummed after the video since I have done plenty of fanart and have yet to figure out what my joyful outlet looks like (okay it’s clearly fanart but that’s not “original IP” so I feel guilty about that)
  • I’m not confident in myself and my own boring ideas and it gets me down
  • the video’s artist’s outlet is emotional moments through short comics – which is emotionally and mentally intensive and not something I would enjoy doing personally all the time too
  • for me what resonates with me the most are some of my personal comics of the past (when I’m not wallowing in my negative feelings) or character driven illustrations I feel happy with and have learned heaps from
    • though my personal comics in the past – they weren’t enough to catch a substantial audience and I didn’t want to be pigeon holed into that super emotional/personal headspace and art style all the time with my own work
    • if I were to do comics again I’d need a different approach
  • what does Leonie care about??
    • Having fun learning and drawing characters and I hope to expand from there into designing and/or illustrating characters with more story to it? Illustrations, 2.5D or comics? Fanart ;D
    • I need to sit with this, learn and experiment more.
• Shared with me at my discord was You Don‘t Have to be “Type A” to Achieve
  • I definitely resonated with Hank on:
    • being disorganised,
    • not fully focused,
    • not being whatever “Type A” is
    • I don’t really enjoy being “competitive”/world dominating/popular/influential as I end up being horribly negative towards myself and consequently fail at it and at keeping it up,
    • I’m anxious/stressed out often, insecure/envious too as I second guess myself
    • the hyperfocus,
    • not feeling I accomplished much due to the chaos of my fluctuating attention span,
    • motivated by fun/interest/learning rather than being the best (that’s too much pressure and stress!! It’s impossible when the target is always moving so it doesn’t last anyway)
  • how there’s many kinds of success
  • I feel like I need to do a mix of scary and exciting tasks in whatever order or I’d get nothing done because doing all the awful/scary stuff first also makes me too stressed to keep going
  • it’s reassuring to hear that it’s okay to just learn and create things, go with the flow
    • it’s just when you analyse whether you need to keep going to change something up – this become analysis paralysis for me a lot!! My feedback loop so far is myself and this blog
  • on “collaborating with likeminded people” that’s the hard part on finding/maintaining this
    • I need to work on making/maintaining friends that would stick around in my life, be more open to pushing my comfort zone since it seems like text messages are not the way :’)
    • but I’m a hermit and people don’t bond like that :<

Anyhoo my knees still ache at times so I’m kind of worried. Should I go to GCAP?

I’m getting a cane to get some additional support when needed when scary GCAP happens soon and I have to walk about a lot. My knees were heating/burning up, achy all around or tingly at different times and my next physio appointment is over 2 weeks away due to their vacation :’) For now I’ll rest more and see how I go later in the week…

A big part is probably anxiety (GCAP is coming but I’m not fully better yet) and being awkward/tense when trying to walk with less pressure on my knees – psychological pain maybe playing a part here.

I’m super anxious with crowds and no masks ahead…eep.

I need to get my covid booster later this week too – it’s tight!!

I might cancel GCAP, rest up and not go if my knees are really not doing great – I’ll post about it if this is the case 🙁

Also since it’s been years for hermit me – any GCAP survival tips?

Places to sit & zone out? I’m going to be hobbling on my weak/achy knees so I’d like to know.
Alone time from sensory overstimulation & energy recovery?
Ways to keep alert/awake (not coffee)?

Tips for joining/leaving/keeping/being quiet in conversations? 🥺
Has GCAP changed much?

I might post the above questions closer to the time on twitter/bluesky too because I don’t really get responses to my blog home/void ;P

I’m anxious with trying to get out of a social situation for a break or if I feel uncomfortable. I’m also anxious that I’ll be walking around with no one to buddy up back with and feeling left behind/abandoned. Or people greeting and then leaving right after introductions because nothing is left to say oof. People I kind of know are occupied so I don’t bother them. And failing to find familiar people among the crowds. I’ve experienced all of this a lot at past GCAPs so it does get lonely, upsetting and demoralising.

Taking things personally hurts me in the end.

Gotta brave it all because that’s how it is! I’ll just see if I can hang out, then move on quickly and give up on trying to belong to other artist/other groups or trying to find a conference buddy. Conferences are full of people coming and going after all. I’ll just try to go with the flow and not let my flight response take over :’)

Still I’m going to be so rusty, slow, drained and quiet so I don’t know if I’ll connect with anyone :’) Become a lost, uninteresting soul since I don’t talk much anyway in social environments. I hope I don’t forget anything when I go and actually connect with a few people at least…if I’m lucky :<

Phew thank you for reading my anxious rambling and catch you around next time!

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