September stickers (part 1) + life update

At long last, here's finally the first part of the recordings of me working on the September sticker rewards that have been sent out to the subscribers of the Caught on Camera tier! I got to work on lots of fun prompts again this time around as you can see here. A couple of season appropriate things too to get me in that cozy autumn mood!

Speaking of mood, I know my schedule has been sluggish lately and I truly want to apologize for it here. The reason lies behind many things, which consists of working on many bigger projects simultaneously (I LOVE working on those client projects btw), one of which is a graphic design project I can't share here - I'm thinking of making a separate Instagram account for those things but we'll see when it becomes a reality. I can't lie, it has felt good to be able to put my degree (which is graphic designer!) into use as it still involves creating but in a different way which is something I dream of getting more into in the future, but it does create a challenge when it comes to juggling with schedule. Which I'm apparently not good at at ALL, which I sincerely apologize for and try to get the backlog out of my folders for you to see as soon as I can.

I'm sincerely so grateful for your patience, and I don't want to sugarcoat things here too much as it's what ultimately led to my mental health to take a toll during the past couple of months. I'm tired, but not because of Patreon and not because of ANY of the client work - I want to underline that with the brightest metaphorical highlighter - but my own standards I hold up to myself. Instead of using those as a motivator I've let those grow into this huge mountain of looming doom, which ultimately is a deliberating impostor syndrome and it's been... well, a lot to deal with. I'm doing better now (my favorite season being upon us helps a lot!) but this is after the repressed fears of not being enough had exploded out - multiple times. 😅

Maybe it's my 30th birthday approaching this month, which has been unexpectedly accompanied with a feeling that I should be achieving more. What this "more" is, I just don't know but try telling that to my overthinker brain! While at the same time I recognize how privileged I am to say that my life is almost exactly what I always dreamt of, the expectations I was raised with are still not easy to shake off.

I have taken the steps to overcome that feeling, and that involves focusing on the fact that even during these rough times I'm lucky enough to have my dream job (that I have YOU all to thank for) and the best partner and friends anyone could ever ask for. That is my way of being rich and it's more than enough.

Another thing that will be more relevant when it comes to my Patreon is that I'll take some more time to work on my personal passion projects. I mentioned graphic design before and while these will be heavy on illustration, I would like them to touch a bit more on that subject as well. I hope that will be interesting to you as well as I'm surely excited for them! I can't believe one of them has been in my draft ever since I graduated which was... several years ago. 🙈

So yeah that was it for my random life update this time! Have you ever dealt with impostor syndrome and what kind of things have helped you to overcome it?

Lastly, here's a sketch of Skwovet holding a pumpkin for those who made it this far in my ramblings. I have enjoyed watching my girlfriend play Pokemon Scarlet lately and she loves this little thing.

I hope every one of you has a lovely autumn! I sure am excited for my favorite holiday (even though it's very unrecognized as one here in Finland) 👻