Steven's Journal #2

I don't say it enough because you all seem very chill, but thank you for your continued support! I'm truly fortunate to have such lovely folk by my side.

I rarely share life updates or candid thoughts, so they're here for the few who care too much or like to squander time poorly. Beware! This journal's a bit of a venty one.

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No Car to Get Empanadas

I was invited to a comic convention as a guest artist earlier this year but decided not to go — I'm just a nobody! I also didn't own a car, wasn't sure people liked my work enough for merch, and found I'm agoraphobic (after much reflection). I want to co-host a table for experience someday, but with me and my friends being so normal? Not too soon. :D

Tangentially: instead of a car, I recently built a PC by hand! My previous laptop diminished my capabilities for nearly six years, and it took drawing in 4K for a project I'm on to realize the discrepancy. It used up my frugal savings, so while I won't get to treat myself for a long time (I still need a color-accurate monitor :'o), here's to productivity and portfolio overhauling!

An Age of Indie Content Creation

I lament the growing disparities in quality and effort nowadays. Seasoned creatives can confer about having talent, luck, or dedication to the craft, but expectations from both industries and audiences have shifted. It tends to be the superficial and hedonistic that outperforms merited hobbyists and freelancers alike.

Perhaps my standards are too high? Eclectic versatility also renders my perception insipid by deconstructing everything constantly. I'm impelled to keep learning things or go absolutely bonkers — the latter more convenient!

Given my peculiar wallflower temperament online, I'm doing okay — I just loathe being so attuned to it all. I'll fight to stay true to my work, and I hope creatives continue supporting each other beyond the contending to be feed fodder.

2023–2024: A Personal Review

This year has been the aftermath of spending 2023 in a hospital: ineligibility for fresh grad-only opportunities, sub-optimal output, wavering passion from apathy... the list of shortcomings goes on. A history of depression, low self-esteem, and an overbearingly strong work ethic leaves me the most dissociative and invalidated I've ever felt as a human being.

Alongside fluctuating energy, I fear to deface anything I make in this state of disrepair. Though I'm not in peril, I've developed habits like multitasking exhaustively, watching media at 2.5x speed, and isolating to avoid being a burden. It took one brush with fragility to feel like I'm always running out of time.

I'm stubbornly self-reliant and stoical, but I'm willing to seek help eventually as options become obtainable. Until then, and without exaggerating, these have been the worst two years of my life. -11 out of 10: I desire a refund!

Barks and Recreation

Looking back, I’m proud that I managed to keep making things somehow. I hope future me remembers what to rebuild from and to start thinking deeply about the kind of life we want to lead.

To end on a positive note, I've adopted stimulating pastimes to help me enjoy creating again as I recuperate.

• I haven't drawn on paper in years out of redundancy, but I'd like to build confidence in my abilities again — maybe even finish a sketchbook for once! If I can find materials that aren't too dry or brittle, we can amuse ourselves with how rusty I've become.
• Coding as a foundation for game/3D projects! Tech-savvy since youth, I'm off to a good start and now hunkering through JS. There's so much reading! :'o
• Learning Japanese, with Chinese, Italian, and maybe French to follow! Despite not having pertinent use for languages, I'd love to discover more about the world and have real conversations with my mother one day.

Read this far? Oddball. :D Thanks for sticking around, and see you next year!