💕Art Summary 2025 🥹

2025 overview of Crossy Road art I helped with

Lunar New Year of the Wood Snake character & environment update
Valentine’s Day Match maker and Heart Breaker characters
Subway Surfers update 11 characters & character animation
Easter Sneezer character & environment update
Wimbledon Tennis Player characters & environment update
UK + Ireland World Shakespeare + Secret Agent + Highland Cow characters, CR+ UK overworld art, marketing feature art
Airport update 15 characters & marketing feature art
Halloween update Goth Girl character, character animation & pickup
Crashy Cart Mode character art/anim and marketing social anims
Some art & UI art for a mode being tested

Crossy Road ♡ Crashy Cart mode animated shorts compilation (no sound) 🛒🐔🦆🦄

These are 3 of the 4 animated shorts I did to promote Crashy Cart mode in Crossy Road (preedited versions)! Much thanks to the team!
It’s not super high quality animation and since they’re meant to be short, time was limited and not sure what needs improving at this stage though oof :’)
Fourth short didn’t work out but I wanted to try the ideas because I wanted some learning/practice!
There’s much room for improvement but I never got the feedback for it to know :’)

Well I’m happy with what I did but I wish I knew what to work further on for the above 🙁

I strove to do what I could to make silly, short, slice of life moments but not sure if this is “Crossy” kind of humour.

Ah well as insecure as I feel, I need more practice…

2025 picks from my studies, designs and illustrations!

Unfortunately I couldn’t do a monthly thing because I spaced posting things out a lot.

Ah there’s also my first low poly piece in many years!!

Oh I forgot Pipo snake whoops

Leonie rambles about…

On the game Dispatch (spoiler talk) I Did Not Like Invisigal | Dispatch (Khanlusa)
- I did not like her either!!
- It felt icky with the sexual harrassment/HR violations, her stalking, her getting lots of screentime and her romance pushed onto you as the default
- should have stuck with mentor/friendship/employee as the main part of the story and not romance her at all
- We Deserved Better Than Dispatch (Knightly)
On Game Award 2025 games I’m interested in maybe watching (at my thread in my tiny discord server)
On what indie game even means anymore
- I wish the indie category meant something and was chosen based on budget and not just team size (and many/hundreds contractors don’t seem to get included) because so many good indie games without AAA/AA/enormous money backing gets buried and it’s not fair for smaller good games who aren’t as well known and don’t have any/much awards :’) – from my thread

As an artist I do disagree with using (biased/discrimatory, regugitated, corporate, environmentally toxic, resource heavy) genAi (from stolen creative work and public and private data) for concepting and prototyping and placeholders because it’s taking over early important stages of concept art for cost cutting reasons and not about creativity. And why make placeholders that can be easily forgotten that they’re not final?? STOP
don’t use genAIfor creative work as the norm!! It’s trash!! I’m not talking about uses for medical fields and other non genAI tech and I’m not talking about exclusively using your own data for training since the majority are NOT doing that and are trained from stolen/unauthorised/private data and all these genAI data centres and corporations pushing genAI in everything making tech, economy and employment/work in the industry and the environment, resources worse.
I don’t want this to be a common thing for creative work on a moral and ethical standpoint :<
Everyone has their own line/battle to pick and it’s super exhausting.

also a lot of genAi discourse in games
- but I did share about in my tiny discord & how Larian’s a bad, toxic place to work at
- can’t stop corporations from using genAI and making it the “norm”
  - I don’t want it to be normalised but I can’t control them
  - I know I can’t avoid everything using/engaging in things/products/tech that have genAi in them – it’s everywhere!! It’s conflicting!! And a lot of people don’t know how it works!!
  - I don’t want more generic stuff / genAi stuff as the moodboard or reference point
  - I’m exhausted
all I can do is refuse to use the plagiarism/stolen generative slop machine myself with my own work
- we need regulations for these genAI data centres to stop damaging the environment and for the commercial/corporate genAI models to stop scraping work/data without permission/consent/compensation and getting away with it
  - it’s not ethical at all unless they actually own and got permission and compensate for all the data they trained on >_>
  - governments don’t seem to do anything fast enough nor substantial enough…they won’t really do anything while corporations/commercially/people abuse genAI..
so when people say genAI is just a tool, I can’t agree nor stand by it on an ethical and moral standpoint but I respect that it’s their choice to “get with the times” and I can’t control what other people do
- I just don’t want to support their product if they’re referencing from slop that’s trained from stolen creative work and private data :/
- I’m not keen nor impressed with genAI image placeholders as that’s can be easily missed, forgotten and left in the final project :/
  - why can’t you just MSPaint something silly so it’s obvious it’s placeholder ;P
  - I would rather NOT use genAI images as placeholders at all
  - seeing people defend it is disappointing but we agree to disagree because our perspectives differ and they have resigned/accepted that it won’t go away…
- my interest in game/media/entertainment is gone if there’s too many problems with how they are made or the company itself
  - just got to focus on other great games and media instead who don’t use genAI
  - boycotting doesn’t work but we choose where to spend our time and money
- I don’t want genAI to communicate and concept ideas, research and assets when it’s inherently biased, averaged out and generic…
  - stop using it as an excuse that “it’s just the concept, not final product” YIKES
  - can’t you trust the artist, writer, designer and creative to research, explore, experiment and express it???
  - research is a fun part of being creative, getting inspired and learning!!
  - why get an image generated image for an artist to draw??? It’s making the creative decisions!! It’s not creative anymore if artists are to “fix” or “redo” the image ick
  - artists enjoy creating and learning and exploring, STOP
  - it’s just cost cutting research, learning new things and concepting…
- some mention LLM npcs are not great
- there are many kinds of AI that is not genAI too
- everyone’s boundary line is different and no one is “pure” morally and ethically
- average people don’t care about how slop and media is made
  - I feel sad when I come across genAi things because it reminds me how most people just don’t care enough
- we’re just picking our battles
A BREAKDOWN of the Clues, Symbols, and Social Commentary in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (vague spoiler talk)
- I did manage to watch this movie in the cinemas!! Sweet lighting and composition
- lots of food for thought on the religious themes, compassion, grace
- it’s good as movie but not as a whodunnit due to the subversion
- not all of the cast of characters were fully fleshed out as I would have liked though
- Father Judd is the star of the show while Blanc is the support/complement
- a lot of feeling so real with the current issues with the world and internet versus the truth :’)
added voice channels to other categories to my tiny discord channel instead!
- one no mic and another is not – not sure if I’ll ever use it
Bits and Bops game is super charming and art style is sweet – I watched someone play it 😀
- makes me miss Rhythm Heaven tunes/beats
- they’re going to add more mini rhythm games apparently and in-game editor for levels in the future?
oh I finally deactivated my twitter account so I’m not over there!!
- I wanted to keep my username for so long but I don’t want to keep any of my old stuff there
- hopefully no one takes my username but ah well :<

Okay let’s reflect on the art journey in 2025

What I’m most of proud of / what I learned this year

I’m happy with some of the studies I did
the Trolley Chicken feature art is a particular favourite and getting that angle and warps happening
happy with what I did with the characters for Subway Surfers and Airport and Goth Girl, etc
practiced more in blender and unity
I’m also happy with something I haven’t posted yet

What challenges to overcome? What disappointed with?

I am neutral with my journey so far since I didn’t have a strong hyperfocus
- it’s just trying to do my best with work and blender rather than 2D things in my spare time oof
- survival mode so to speak, managing stress and anxiety and limited energy with work and life
challenges was practicing using unity and blender more
animation I don’t feel strong with still
disappointed in how some things and people turned out (keeping it vague)
- I was upset and not happy with people
- all I can do is do what I can control and not expect things of others
I don’t feel like I have ongoing art buddies for accountability because everyone is busy and I don’t have anyone like that…
disappointed and feeling sad that because I’m working hybrid this year and a bit, I don’t have the energy to do as much personal art, projects and learning and have not yet figured out a sustainable way to do it…
how do I come up with some original stuff?? I’m not practiced in storytelling/writing

What I want to do with next year and how to achieve it

I want to do more regular studies somehow
- but trying to squeeze things in stresses out my body and I don’t have much energy to work with I find…
I would like to make time for playing games, art/illustration making and learning 2D art things next year
shall tone down with my rambling in my blog so I can focus on art making more and documenting/sharing along the way?
- I keep saying this but I get carried away at times
hope to keep on learning with art and do more original stuff
hope to get to know peeps in my life more as a low energy hermit :’)
hope to learn and create more fun things at work without drama, stress, etc
I still have some fanart sketches to do but I’ll do them when I feel able or else I’ll burn out
I feel like I need to focus on a project per month…
- I keep saying it but I have a backlog of things I want to finish first WAH
maybe I should go back to patron only blog posts…

I also need to sew more pant hems so they actually fit me, window films to install and other chores. And things to watch, things to learn because I don’t get much time at work oof and games to get through!! Wahhh

How do I actually rest during these holidays??

I end up being unproductive anyway and/or stay up late as I zone out distracting myself doing other things than planned :’)

I’m feeling behind right now again because I’m doing this post and something else took a lot of my day today oof.

Anyhoo I hope you have a wonderful rest of the 2025 and hope next year is a better one!