Everything's Changing

Being a working artist on the internet sure is????

I made a qrt on Twitter a couple days ago in response to Elon Musk’s aggressive push to make Twitter pay-to-play and salvage his $44 billion investment. I post my other social media accounts, and then responded to the tweet with this:

The other night in bed I started thinking, ‘Why wait?’

So, welcome to my first newsletter! Thank you to everyone who’s subscribed so far. I tried to do something like this on Tumblr (I actually did a post like this up on my Tumblr if you’d like to check it out) but then kinda forgot about it. But this is different!

Social media ain’t doing so hot right now, so I’m trying this email newsletter thing out. I’m not totally sure how I want to format things, so the letters might vary between each other. Think of it as a fun surprise instead of me not know what I’m doing. 😊

Now that I think about it, it fits with the season, too. Spring, new beginnings, and all that jazz…

Now allow me to clue you in on what I’ve been up recently.

What I’ve been up to…

I just launched pre-orders for my deer girl sticker sheet on Ko-Fi!

Big thank you to everyone who has pre-ordered so far! The pre-order period is from April 3rd to April 21st. After that I except to have everything mailed out by mid to late May. And I just received a proof of the final stickers!

We had to change some elements, so it’s a little different from what I posted on social media but I’m so excited to received them in the mail soon!

I got inspired to do this from how popular my deer girl illustration was online (I posted it back in late 2019/earlier 2020, I think?). Ever since then I’ve wanted to do something with the character. At first I was planning to do some kind of story, and that’s where the idea for the other 3 deer girls came from. Then one day these chibi designs popped into my head and boom, here we are. Here’s some of the initial design work:

This is my first time selling physical goods online and I’m super nervous. But I’ve always wanted to try it, so why not now? New beginnings…

If you would like to get yourself some deer girl stickers you can pick them up here.

I’m also currently cooking up a storyboarding guide to go up on my Ko-fi shop as a digital download. I hope to have that finished by end of April. It’s more of an introductory guide for someone who’s curious about storyboarding and visual storytelling, and I give an overview on own process! I just finished writing the first draft and now I’m about to go back and start adding images. Then it’s editing, editing, and more editing.

Then there’s my second collection of sketches that I’m tentatively naming Hodge-Podge Volume 2 (you can check out Hodge-Podge here), and it’s going to span from 2019 to 2022. Surprisingly, I have a lot more drawings then I thought I did! I just finished going through everything on my computer for 2019, and haven’t even scratched the surface on 2020-2022 (I have a lot of drawings on my ipad that I need to go through). I’m debating printing it as a book/zine or just letting it be a digital download like the first Hodge-Podge (I’m not even sure if I wanna call it Hodge-Podge volume 2). Lots of decisions to make…

On the animation side of things, work has been very, very slow and the many sectors of the tv and film industry haven’t been doing so well lately. I don’t want to scare anyone, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried. But this is why I’m picking up on so many projects now! Partly just to keep my mind busy, and partly to figure out if there’s something else I can do in the meantime.

It’s definitely an uncertain time at the moment, but I’m hopefully that things will turn around. This just happens to be one of those times where the industry is in a decline right now. I think the most anyone can do is what they can and make decisions that are right for them.

BUT! A new trailer for My Adventures with Superman was just released! I worked on the show from late 2021 to summer of 2022 doing character design and storyboards (which I hope I’ll get to show publically someday soon). It was a great crew to work with full of kind, talented and passionate people that I wouldn’t hesitate to work with again (and I mean that). Please keep your eyes peeled when the show drop this summer (this summer!??)!!

Cutest looking Superman you ever did see!

What I’ve been watching…

A lot of Youtube lol. Here are some things I watched recently that I really liked:

Rowena Tsai’s Youtube channel (youtube has been recommending me a lot of like…productivity/girl boss/organization videos lately) and these two videos couldn’t have come at a better time. I desperately needed to get my scheduling in order if I’m going to be taking on all these personal projects (I am a deeply unorganized person who procrastinates), and these two videos have really helped me out.

I’m doing the calendar blocking technique right now and I’m like 2 days. It was a little overwhelming to set up, not gonna lie. But after I got through everything, it’s been going pretty okay so far…kinda. (update 4/5/23: I have fallen off the calendar, but all the big things like my work and projects are still going well!)

With my projects, I am actually getting a lot more done than I usually would (like launching preorders and doing this newsletter). I’m also trying to turn myself into an early bird and my body and mind are resisting me hard. Any former night owls out there who’ve successfully converted to being an early bird?

This is a really cool Japanese commercial by Sotetsu, a private railway company. It’s a heartwarming story of a father and daughter taking the train together that spans the daughter’s childhood into adulthood. The commercial is to commemorate construction of the Sotetsu Line that will run all the way into Tokyo (in the comments there are people explaining that the line stops at Yokohama, which you then need to transfer trains to go to Tokyo).

The coolest thing is that it was all done in one take! 50 different people played the father and daughter and you don’t even notice with the father. You can check out the behind the scenes video below:

Next, is a Japanese short animated film called The Gift of Winter, about a young girl who puts a snowman in her freezer and it turns into this ugly cute monster.

There’s currently only automated English subs on the video, but I saw plenty of comments below in English explaining the story. The story is also pretty easy to follow which I think benefits it a lot. It’s very cute and touching, with lots of emotional depth. Definitely had me tearing up at the end.

Lastly, I watched The Banshees of Inisherin, and I really enjoyed it. It’s like a dark comedy set on a small island in 1920s Ireland that goes from 0 to 100 really quickly, with a lot of drama and beautifully haunting coastal shots in the mix. It reminds me almost of a fairytale. I definitely recommend going into it blind (though I will say it’s not for people who aren’t good with blood and body parts).

What I’ve been listening to

I actually haven’t been listening to much because my headphones died recently, lol! I’ve been using earbuds with a headphone jack for a veeery long time. Even when I got my iPhone 11, I also picked up the stupid dongle that you need to connect your headphones to. It’s very annoying but I can also be annoying and stubborn, sometimes. But even I get tired of that, eventually.

I’ve been thinking about get a nice pair of blue-tooth earbuds like the Airpod pros? I’m on the fence because that’s such a big investment on something that WILL die one day. And there’s so many to choose from now!

…I might just go out and get another pair of sony earbuds like I usually do.

Anyways, I do listen to music in the car so here are some songs I’ve been into lately:

Honestly this whole album is pretty fire. Definitely recommend giving Fujii Kaze a listen if you haven’t already yet.

Kenshi Yonezu just came out with a new song. He’s also sang, Kick Back, the OP for Chainsaw Man season 1. I like how upbeat, smooth and jazzy this song is.

I can’t not recommend a Brasstracks song. I’ve gone to see this group live, which is a lot for me. This song, Monica, captures all the jazz-r&b goodness I enjoy from their music. I was probably listening to this song most of March. It’s a bop, trust me.

Lastly, is a podcast I’ve been listening to for quite a few years called Comic Lab. It’s basically two middle age dads who’ve been in the webcomics game since the beginning and are still going at it. Each week on Thursday they put out an episode giving comics advice and how to make a living from comics. I like that their advice is practical and honest, they don’t mince words when it comes to getting into the comics game. They’ll also touch on news happening in the comics world and give their take on it, along with recommending resources to help others. Overall, I highly recommend checking this podcast out if you’re interested in getting into comics!

I chose this episode in particular where they talk about the life cycle of these social media sites, which is dubbed enshittification by blogger and journalist Cory Doctorow. Do take a listen, because they point out the pattern of how all these sites start out being great, but eventually succumb to the woes of money and capitalism. In the long run, it’s not a safe bet to put your all into these sites, because any one of them fall apart one day (as we’re seeing right now with Twitter). Brad and Dave have been pushing for people to get their own website set up, and I really think they might be right…

What I’ve been reading

I just got done listening to the audio book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier (yes, that’s the whole title). And honestly, it was pretty fire.

A lot of points are things we’ve heard again and again like the fearmongering on social media, manipulation of elections, and data security. But Lanier even goes into talking about things like AI and how it’s all just a big marketing ploy (AI is science fiction only, according to him). Like, he goes hard.

Something he brings up is that if there were a social media service that costs money, he would pay for it because then the company would be serving the user instead of advertisers, thus the motivation to make the site better for users. I’m not so sure about that. This book was published in 2018, I believe and the past couple of years have kinda proven that to not exactly be true (Netflix is desperately trying to figure out a way to implement ads because money).

At the end of the day, for these companies, line must go up. But I definitely recommend giving it a read if you’re thinking about deleting your accounts and are able to.

What I plan to do next

Okay, so what are my goals for this month of April? You didn’t ask, but I will tell you:

Mostly, I’ll be pushing the sticker pre-orders and continuing to work on my own projects behind the scenes. I have a short stint at Titmouse this month, so it’s a little busy but I’m enjoying it.

But honestly, a lot of things are just up in the air. Things are changing. It really does feel like we’re all being moved—shoved—in a new direction. Whether it’s good or bad remains to be seen. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Anyways, if you made it to the end of this long scroll, I thank you for taking some time out of you day to read my words! I hope you enjoyed and I look forward to seeing you again in the next one! Feel free to reply to this or leave a comment on the substack page (I think that’s how this works?).

Take care!

peroroh/kellye