The Comeback

So… it’s been almost a full 2 years since I started this website with the goal of trying to create art and blog regularly but there’s been some setbacks and it’s been slow going trying to get everything up.

For one, the “Engage” wordpress layouts and themes I had have been pretty confusing to work with and I took such a long break from working on the site that all of the layout stuff changed and I was very confused. I’m struggling through making it work now but I’ve decided to go ahead and publish the site just so it can be up and running rather than indefinitely in draft mode…

Some life updates since I first relaunched this site in 2017 is that I am now an Art Director running the Creative Department at the small company I work at. They actually have ME???… ME!!! in charge of other people… what? Hahaha… It still blows me away some mornings thinking that I am in charge of people and I have to lead… and that people actually want to hear my opinion on things. If you know me, I’m actually quite introverted and I’ve never really sought to lead but occasionally life seems to throw me into the opportunity. I only hope I am doing it well and that I am able to take good care of the needs of those who work under me. I want to be the kind of team leader that creates a fun and creative environment that my artists want to actually come into work for.

Another major thing I’ve been pursuing is attending local arts and crafts shows, comic festivals, and art walks to sell not just my arts and crafts but prints of my actual artwork that I’ve started actively creating since May 2019. It’s been a lot of work with honestly little monetary reward but its great for meeting lots of fun people and getting the drive to be more active in the local art scene.

A major motivator that I’ve been pursuing these past few months is streaming on Twitch. Check me out @ https://www.twitch.tv/kawaiistarz! My current stream schedule is :

  • Sundays – 2:30pm – 6:30pm –
    Traditional Art / Digital Art
  • Thursdays – 7:00pm – 11:00pm –
    Digital Drawing/Toy Photography

I used to stream Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays for a couple of hours after work or in between other activities but I have decided to do less stream days in favor of pursuing more art related projects off camera… including working on this website.

Although my following is very small and I’m no where near affiliate status despite 5 months of streaming… having a Twitch schedule continues to motivate me to keep drawing and creating art weekly, whether or not I’m in the mood. Without it, I’d probably find other things to do that were not art related. In the past 5 months, I’ve created more art than I have done so in almost 10 years which is CRAZY! While the majority of it is still not to the level I would like, I can see improvements with each art piece I complete and ultimately that is all I want for myself.

Another benefit I hope to gain from streaming is to get more practice at conversing with new people and getting out of my introverted comfort zone. I still find it hard to have an ongoing conversation with myself during stream since I only have a few regular viewers but it’s been getting better with practice.

I’d like to give a shoutout to my favorite Twitch viewers and frequent raiders in no particular order who help keep me company during my many hours of streaming 🙂 Click on their names below to check out their streams as well!

I’d also like to give a special shoutout to the amazing Domostanton who is an amazing comic artist who streams his work for the House of Whispers DC Comic and is always fun to watch and is always so kind to give a nobody like me a shoutout on his stream <3

As I get more in the habit of drawing… my final major project I’ve started this year is creating my first webcomic! More on that to come later but please look forward to it.

Anyways… it’s past midnight and I have work in the morning so I’ll leave this off for now… but I hope to continue updating atleast once a week on the site! Thanks for hanging out with me!