I’ve been in a slump as of late, that happens from time to time. And I’m hard on myself for it every time, because I expect myself to do better the following day (which almost never happens). It’s a continuous cycle that strengthens the harder I work. I keep telling myself that there’s some step that I’m missing or that I just need to be in a more productive mindset. Maybe I should just follow my body and just… be. I’m always struggling against myself “all along it’s just me vs myself”. A new approach I’ve been taking to periods like these is to “be my best boss” and maybe I should combine that with the concept that “all frustrations in life comes from the weight of expectation”. Many people would say that they shouldn’t set such high expectations for themselves. Maybe I should take that to the extreme and set no expectations for myself, just do what I feel in the moment; not worrying about what that thing is or how it fits into my day. This is my experimental month after all, not just with social media, but with how I conduct myself as well. Let’s see what happens when I give my id a little more wiggle room. This could mean my output becomes more inconsistent, or that I don’t meet deadlines, or that I’m just wasting my days away, but for now it’s no thinking, just doing.

I feel like doing a lot as of now, but I don’t know, the consciousness just isn’t behind it. I’m setting out and doing what I planned, but it’s just going through the motions. Not sad about it or anything like that, just whatever you know. Like I’m completely disconnected from the outer world. No idea why I’m feeling this way, could just be an imbalance in chemicals or a subconscious change in mindset, maybe both. I’ll just continue picking at the tasks I want to complete and see if this feeling, or lack of it, fades. This likely is just some mood swing. What-to-the-ever. I wonder how I’ll look back on this, but as of now, social consequences be damned.

In April I posted 4 YouTube videos. In May I posted 8. I need an end goal for June to keep me motivated, so I’m thinking that I want my goal to be to post at least 12 videos for this month. So far, I’ve posted 1 video, so I have 11 videos left to work on. This wouldn’t be a problem and actually would be super easy if I didn’t want to work on higher quality videos. I need to experiment more with my videos and not just stick to low quality human slop. This is the month where I experiment with youtube to find out what niche I want to fit into. If nothing works out I’ll just stick to my human slop commentary. I have posted a higher quality video on my channel before, it was kinda shitty and was a dud in terms of viewership, but it had the best retention, and I got the most subscribers out of it so I think it’s worth experimenting with. So yeah, 11 more videos to go, be experimental with it, let’s get to it.

I have this timer that tracks how much time I spend drawing and I’ve been making an effort to tally up all the time spent every month. Over the course of May, I’ve drawn 2 hours every day on average. That’s pretty damn good. However, I don’t expect to see better or similar results for June because I want to focus more on making videos while I plan out my scripts. Maybe I will see similar results in June, that would be surprising, but I seriously don’t expect that to happen. Though I should make more of a habit working on art studies to keep my mental in shape and my technical skills sharp. Something I’m thinking of doing is setting a time tracker for video editing, that might not be a bad idea, and it could make me more motivated to work on videos. Right now, I’m in a motivational rut, but good work isn’t built from motivation; it’s built from consistency.

I’ve been reading this book on medieval culture from time to time. Mostly talking about what it’s like to be a person from the 14th century. This book has made me more appreciative of the life I’m living right now, even if everything is deteriorating around me. One of the punishments that were commonplace, was the ripping out of intestines and forcing the victim watch their own guts burn in a fire, the victim was still kept alive because the executioner is careful to tie their organs back together to let them live long enough to experience this horrific act. I can’t wrap my head around why one would go through all this effort to cause someone more unnecessary suffering. There were more forms of punishment I read that are arguably more gruesome, but this one was more intricate than the others. Because of behavior like this, spending so much unnecessary time and thought to cause another more suffering, I could never imagine humans as being naturally good.

There are some high-quality videos I’m in the middle of working on, but its hard to know where to start. I suppose I’ll work on recording scripts tonight. I also want to get some stuff done for either this somewhat shitty comic I’m nearly done with or planning for my webtoon series. I’ll figure something out. I can’t stay in this in-between phase forever.

I’m actually looking forward to working on and editing videos today. My two most recent videos haven’t been doing as well as I hoped, but I’m not frustrated about it. I just want to keep moving forward and work on making faster and also higher quality videos. These low-quality videos will help improve my efficiency and understanding of what works best for the algorithm and for viewers, so in the future when I’m swamped with work, I’ll still be able to produce videos consistently. The higher-quality videos will help me learn how to improve my editing skills and build that skill for future projects.

I recorded so videos today, so now I have a backlog of 3-5 voice recordings I can use for upcoming youtube videos. I would like to record even more because just talking to my computer and seeing how people respond to my thoughts feels nice. I was good weather out today as well, though, a bit on the hot side, I found this new smooth strip of asphalt I can ride my skateboard on. I’d like to post a video and my new comic today so I’m looking forward to that as well, gotta get my numbers up.

School is almost out for most kids so this is a prime opportunity to gain more traction to my youtube channel. I want to spend most of this month scripting out my next comic, so I should fill in any extra time with something supplemental. I’m thinking of making more of the same that I’ve already been doing just with slightly more quality, along with more higher quality videos and comic reviews. This won’t only get more eyes on me, but it will also help me gain more proficiency and efficiency in video production/editing. I’m pumping out videos like there’s no tomorrow!

Yesterday I was out cold it seems. I mean, that’s to be expected. I also didn’t realize until now that I didn’t submit the blog for Webweek (6/7) I wrote it up, but I guess I didn’t confirm submission. Oh well, I didn’t say much for that day anyway besides: “I didn’t get all that much done today, but I have completed my all of my drawings, and I am starting work on shading.” That’s pretty much it. I don’t know if I should keep posting in general, well, I’m doing all of this for my own sake anyways, so if it’s starting to feel like a chore I can just stop if I feel like it. But writing stuff down has helped out from time to time. Maybe it was just the webweek blogs that were boring me out of my mind. Whatever, if I miss a day every so often so be it. Also, I’d like to attach more doodles to my blogs. There just haven’t been many blogs that I’ve made recently that warrant a drawing. I’ll try to do that more in the future.

WOOHOO I’m finally done! It doesn’t look as pretty as I wanted, but I am more than satisfied with the results. Not bad for one week. On this final day I worked on the coloring and touches, continuously scanning for slight improvements. One of the fatal missteps in this process was my incompetence with how I handled the coloring. The colors I wanted clashed against the shading style I was using so I had to completely throw out my color schemes and go for a more minimal color selection. If I had just one more day I wouldn’t have this problem, but I also wouldn’t have this problem if I slacked a little less and/or put a little more thought into the color pallet and rendering, I’ll be more careful about that in the future. But ye! I’ll try and get it posted tomorrow (or the next day) along with a quick video for it. And this also means that I can follow my dreams in a timely manner, horary! Can’t wait!

Got a shit ton done yesterday; 8 WHOLE HOURS OF WORK, awesome sauce! Though, I am still a day behind (womp womp). Like I said before, the last two days are the easiest, so I’ll be able to catch up no problem. I have trust in past my past self that I gave enough leeway to keep my stress at bay (bars). I am nearly done with the drawing phase. I have only 2 segments left and the final segment is by far the easiest part (only 2 drawings worth!) so I’ll be able to get that phase out of the way right out of the gate! Next its some quick shading work, then the coloring, then some touches and Voula, I’m home free! It’s all within reach.

I actually made a good amount of progress yesterday. I may be a day behind, but the last 2 days are the least laborious so I should be able to make up on my missing tasks. I gained a good amount of confidence in my drawing speed through the previous day of work. The biggest problem in my way is how much time I delegate to actually working on the damn thing “I am my own worst enemy” – Lit. It may be grueling, but if I meet my disc quota (which is around10 hours of listening) while working on my project, then I’d have no need to worry. Do I think I’ll be able to work for 10 hours today? Absolutely not, but the closer I get to that ideal, the closer I am to completing this project in a satisfactory manner.

I’m falling behind a bit on my comic but that was to be expected because I was celebrating my birthday. Though, I can’t put all the blame on that. I was often getting sidetracked and also working on a different comic (that was completely unnecessary I just really want to get that one over with (- -;)). I’ve got a metric shit ton of drawing to do today, but it isn’t an unrealistic amount of work. So, the two biggest things I want to complete today are my nearly completing my sketching phase and listening to eleven audiobook CDs (maybe not eleven, but at least more than six).

Completed everything I set out to do yesterday. Well, except for writing down the text for all the pages, but that’s light work. Yesterday didn’t feel very productive even though I pretty much completed all my tasks. Makes me feel kinda disappointed in myself, but I shouldn’t expect to see much progress while working on the planning phase. After completing my thumbnails, I’m pretty pumped to get to actually drawing them today. I have a few trick poses that I still gotta deal with, but I know I’ll figure it out. Today is going to be a busy day. I hope I complete everything I set out to do. I didn’t get through all of my designated CDs of the day yesterday, because my radio was malfunctioning, so today I have to listen to 7 discs instead of 5, which I’m not complaining about, this story is pretty damn interesting. Sketching 8 pages today! Let’s do this!

I technically got everything done that I wanted to get done character designs, color scheming, thumbnails. But I didn’t complete it to a point where I was entirely satisfied with my output. I’ll polish up on them today so no need for me to worry…yet. I’ve made it a daily goal for this challenge to always be working on my challenge while reading my audiobook. and I have 35 discs total so 5 discs per day (how convenient!). Which means I have to be continually making progress for a bit over 5 hours a day minimum. I’d like to keep it that way in the foreseeable future. My sleep schedule has been skewed way off its cycle, but I won’t go over the 25th. Once I fall asleep on the 25th that’s it. I’m done.

I forgot that my time is way offset from the website’s time, so I’ll actually be writing reflections tomorrow not today. Whoops.

I’m a bit anxious, I don’t know if I’ll meet the expectations I set for myself, but I’ll try my best! Starting tomorrow, I’ll write reflections on the progress I have made on my challenge every day for the next 7 days. I want to keep this one short and to the point so I’ll leave it at this: if I accomplish what I set out to do these next few days, then I can make my dreams a reality. Good luck future me.

As of now, I have a video that’s basically entirely complete that I will be posting on Monday. And I have a video that I would like to post as soon as possible. Hopefully I’ll be done with it today, but I have a lot I need to get done in general, but it should still be fine. I’m basically done with it all I need to do is create a little animation, add some background music, and make a thumbnail. The more I think about it, if I really wanted to, I could make a video everyday with similar quality to the videos I’m making right now. Of course that would leave very little room for making comics, but it’s something I could totally do. I’m certainly thinking about it. I would also like to have a streak of days without 0 views, that would be nice. And as of now that’s my short-term goal for the channel: to never have a day with zero likes from here on out.

I went to the library today to return and check out some books. I’ve been wanting some long-form audio-based content to listen to while working on this huge upcoming project. At the library there was this huge absolutely meaty collection of CDs of a book written by a renowned author (he’s actually a relative of mine), with a total runtime of 43 hours. I actually don’t know if that will be enough time lol, but I’ll try to make the most of it and listen all the way through while working on this huge project. I have this radio with a CD reader and a headphone jack, so I’m all prepped. The only problem is finding a place to set up my radio (^^;). My desk is absolutely packed, so I’ll need to do a bit of rearranging.

It’s close, but Wall inches out Cicada as my favorite song from Good Kid‘s newest album. I really like how strong and punctuative the first line of the song is, exclaiming “it’s coming to a close” as a statement rather than a feeling. The core instrumentals of the song are quite simple in structure yet steadfast, rarely changing rhythm with only the drums having a slight switch-up in the chorus. The song often fluctuates between only two chords, occasionally adding in another chord or two for a little spice. This structure puts a lot of emphasis on the vocal aspect, all reflecting the themes of this in between phase of the protagonist’s life “it’s coming to a close”. The song has a very similar vibe and structure to The Middle by Jimmy Eat World, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was this song’s biggest inspiration. I also like the parallels I can draw from my present life, though not exactly one to one. I feel like a chapter in my life is coming to a close and that theme of letting go someone is something I feel as well, though it’s not as dramatic as the song makes it out to be, at least not for me. In the song, the physical has been left behind, and the protagonist has to deal with letting go of the emotional. While for me, the emotional is left behind, and I had to let go of the physical. I have felt both before but having the emotional be left behind before the physical is a much easier transition.

Need to complete the line art for the next few pages, add some screen tones, possibly a splash of color and it’s off to exporting. This one has been 4 months in the making, which is way more than it deserves. Honestly, I’m a bit hesitant on publicizing this one. Looking back on it, it makes me look like some crazed soon-to-be serial killer or school shooter. But whatever, I don’t care about anything anymore. I don’t care how it makes me look. The story is iffy, but it does fall in line with the tone that I want to exude in my future comics. I have absolutely no clue how the public will respond to this comic, but it will be a good gauge for what to expect from my future projects, both for the readers and myself. Huh, now I feel less uneasy about posting this thing. Journaling really does help. Coolio.

I have this personal calendar app that I run straight off of my browser created with the assistance of AI (I swear I’m not an AI bro, it’s just really helpful for making basic code). I created it back on April 30th and at the time it looked super basic, it did the bare bones minimum to create a productivity heat-map calendar. It felt really unengaging to use and I skipped some days because of it. So today, I went into the code and added some simple styling. I made a more appealing color scheme, added a glowing effect to the most productive days, and added some more stats to better gauge my progress (I love charts and statistics <3). Looking at the calendar now makes my monkey brain want to fill the entire calendar. Goes to show how small aesthetic improvements can affect your psyche. So yeah, I feel much more invigorated now, can’t wait to see my entire calendar glow!

It’s just a matter of exporting some small animations and placing them in the timeline. Otherwise, I’m done. To be honest I’m not all that happy with how this video has turned out. The editing is quite amateur (which is to be expected) and I’m iffy on the voiceover quality and overall presentation. But despite it all, I am proud of myself for stepping outside of my comfort zone and trying to advance my skills, but because of how the experience and results turned out I likely won’t be making anything similar to it for a while. So yeah, I guess that’s that.

Dammit. It’s going to look like I double posted tomorrow, but its still the 9th in my time. Guess I lose my streak, but I’m not all that distraught. I went outside twice today. Once when it was foggy in the morning and second during noon when it became sunnier and things started to heat up. I don’t know how to explain how I feel today other than free. Free from what? I don’t know. I just feel my soul is lighter than before. Maybe I’m experiencing some form of detachment. Reading this psychology book has really put some things into perspective for me. I don’t think the book is all that great, I actually find it quite pretentious and masturbatory, but nuggets of truth can be found in-between the pages. There is merit behind the words (I’d sure hope so if it’s from a renowned psychologist) and it helps me see humans in a new light. In short, humans are still animals and as such, they still hold some common instincts and patterns for the sake of survival. We still do not know where instinct ends and original thought begins. In many aspects, religion is a manifestation of the blurred line between instinct and introspection. “Man of god” is a common trope amongst many religions and is rooted somewhere within the psyche of the collective used to invoke the power of this “Übermensch” within the individual. At least that’s what I took away from today’s reading. Very fascinating. Had nothing to do with this lifted weight I was just going off on a tangent cuz I thought that was really interesting. :p Oh yeah, and I drew something from imagination for the first time in my sketchbook today yippee,

Yesterday was a slog and today is looking like the same. The thing is, I’ve been doing a lot more doing than procrastinating, but progress is still slow. Maybe I need to work even harder? Maybe its because this is my first time actually trying to edit a video, I don’t know. I have also heard advice that you should take the amount of time you imagine it will take to complete something, then double it. Shit man, I need to complete this quicker, I think the biggest time sink is just cobbling together all of the elements I need for the video, but on the bright side I could reuse some of the elements for future videos, upping the overall speed and quality. I guess all I can do is hunker down and get to it. :/

Might turn this concept/mental tip into a video. I feel like I’ve been slacking hard on my tasks. There is a video and comic I want to be done with already and my mind is split. On one side its telling me “GO GO GO! WORK WORK WORK!”. And on the other side it’s saying, “It’s alright go at your own pace :)”. I would really like a compromise of the two, but I have no idea where to place that like. At times like these it is important to ask yourself: what would my ideal boss tell me? I think what my ideal boss is telling me right now is: “You have plenty of time today, just focus on one task at a time. Either start with the easiest task or the hardest task and work it out from there”. Thank you inner boss, I’ll try my best! On some schizoid type shit.

I have this file that I use to calculate how often I draw, with the goal being to draw a total of 5,000 hours. But I would also like to see improvement in how often I draw last time I updated it was back in February; I would draw on average 0.73 hours per week. I’ve plugged in the numbers for today, and I’ve been drawing on average 1.54 hours per week! And that’s not even including the drawings I do for YouTube or in my sketchbook! I know compared to people who draw for a living that’s not a lot, but that’s much greater improvement than what I expected of myself! Good job me!

I’ve made some raw recordings for Youtube and I have a comic I really want to complete already. I’m feeling reinvigorated with a want to do more. I have a lot planned for May and I hope to follow through with all of it. What is vital is setting proper deadlines for all of my projects, which is something I was gravely lacking in these past few months (not so much with my higher priority projects, but more so the medium and small projects/posts which have been slowly accumulating). I’ll get all of that set up once I wake up. Through better deadline management, I’ll be able to get more done, at least I hope so (I am a grade A procrastinator after all).

I’m working on this video of Youtube with a lot of editing and effort put into it, but the more I work on it, the more I dislike it. The video itself isn’t bad, but more so because making it feels disingenuous. The video is scripted with some IRL footage and has a decent structure with a sappy heart felt message at the end. I wouldn’t be surprised if it got the largest number of views on my channel, but the more I edit it, the less it feels like me. Adding little edits into my crappy videos felt fun, but this feels so much like a slog, so I think I’ll just scrap the entire thing in favor of a lower quality video. I would’ve liked to prove to myself that I can make good videos, but I don’t want to sacrifice my enjoyment of the process for this. Besides, I’ve told myself in the past that I don’t want my time spent making videos to cut into time I could spend making comics. It’s important for me to learn when I should set boundaries for myself, it’s something that I struggle with and the biggest contributor to wasting my time, no matter if the task is “productive” or unproductive. I still plan on making a video for Altoo, but I’m starting from scratch and doing it in a style that I actually enjoy. Video production is a form of art, and if I’m not having fun making art then I’m not making art; that’s merely a product.

(I’m still going to use a bit of IRL footage in my new video so not all of my effort was in vain.)

Been slacking more than I’d like to today, and I think it’s because I subconsciously find this next video I’m working on to be too daunting. I’ve already done all the voiceovers and cleaned them up, but I still gotta record the live stuff, record some music, draw character sprites, create a stimulating background, find sound effects, DRAW A WHOLEASS ANIMATIC, and compile aaaall of that into a video. Not to mention the high-quality thumbnail I have to draw. Listing all of this out loud, now it makes sense why my subconscious is fighting against me. I really need to break things down into more manageable chunks.

Been slow on working on videos and comics. I promised that I would post a video every week bare minimum and that’s what I’ll do. Sorry this daily blog is so short. There isn’t really anything interesting that I’ve done today, so I’m going to make the effort to do at least one unique or interesting thing done every day so that I can give my blogs and videos more pep. Gotta use my free will to its fullest potential! Let’s get to it!

I have this old CASIO keyboard that a friend gave me. I’ve had it for around 2 or 3 years by now and I’ve barely used it until recently. I have never taken any piano lessons ever, but I do know a lot of music theory and a bit of piano fingering from observation so I’m able to play some actually decent voicings, but it basically boils down to me key mashing with style. I only really know how to play spicy C major and spicy A minor, but it still sounds nice. Through experimentation and pattern recognition, I should become slightly better at playing the piano. I’m looking forward to that version of myself.

I’ve recorded some low effort videos yesterday, should be posting at least one this week. I would like to post my higher quality video about my Altoo comic strip (the video thumbnail will be outlined in pink instead of yellow it’s going to look so good!) hopefully completed before May, but I have a bad habit of submitting projects past my deadlines. Let’s see if that habit holds up this time around. Oh yeah, I was thinking of having my low effort videos be me talking while working on comics in the background and maybe create some background music for my videos. The music part might be doing too much, but I think that talking while drawing would double my productivity as well as make for better promotion rather than just saying it.

“Ruminate” is a word I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. Ruminating in thoughts, what a lack of rumination does for you, how much should I ruminate? I suppose it’s my new linguistic fixation, and I feel like I’ve been ruminating for long enough as I am ruminating on this post. Although I have posted two YouTube videos, posting videos shouldn’t be my main objective right now. I should be making strides towards working on the comics I’ve been wanting to make. There’s no better time to do so, so let’s get to it!

By the way sometimes it might look like I posted an entry every other day or twice a day, that’s because my clock and the site’s clock aren’t in sync so that might happen sometimes. But ye, hello world. I’ll do my best to keep you guys updated on the progress of my comics and some of the little things in life that make it worth living even during these shitty times. ^*

Alright lets test this out. how does this look?