Nuki News #59 - The Year so Far...Part 2

Part 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/49764911

Quite a bit has happened in the last 3 months since the last progress update. I’m fully vaccinated now, and just got through a historically awful heat wave hitting the northwest. I’ve been playing Ring Fit, and got past 110 days of workouts since late February! I’ve commissioned a 3D model of Artie and it’s in the final stages of rigging for use in VR chat and face rig. As well, I’ve gotten to do art for a living for 7 months now! In large part thanks to you folks supporting me along the way, thank you so much.

So let’s talk about my progress with my 2021 goals! Last weekend I just held my 50th stream this year- I reached the 50-stream mark in mid August last year, so I’m 45 days roughly ahead of that this time around. My goal is to stream at least 100 times this year. My streams tend to be 2.5 to 5 hours long and have become some of the most rewarding parts of doing art full time.

Another goal is posted pieces of art; now, quantity of art done doesn’t state the quality of the art and the impact it has on folks. But I have this metric to just be a number to shoot for- the most amount of pictures I’ve made in a year! As well, the fast pace of social media makes it so having more shots at having my work seen and shared benefits me in the long run. It’s not all just for beating an algorithm though, getting to make more pieces for people to enjoy is my primary motivating factor. That in mind, 231 is my goal, and as of right now I’ve posted 117 of them! I have a hearty backlog of art to post too, so I think I’m well on my way to hitting that mark.

Next is the financials, which I’m still fortunately averaging out as much as my take-home pay from my day job. Technically making quite a bit less though considering I’m not doing art part time for extra income(which would bring in 20% extra when I had a dayjob) and I also have to consider taxes myself. But it’s been enough for me to get by and save a little. I’m planning on raising my prices a little bit as I go to make up the difference over time. It’s doubly hard to predict the future these days so being prepared for anything financially is important.

I also have a goal to write down heartfelt comments I receive from different people. For those days I may feel doubt or discouraged, or useless, I have a document containing the very kind words from people like you reading this and those who follow my work on FA/Twitter. It’s encouraging for me and a much more healthy metric than something like follower count. So far I have 30 comments. They also need to be from different people- that way I don’t get bad ideas in my head that only ‘a few’ people like me or what I do, and risk seeing it as a fluke somehow(depression can be like that!).

And that’s it! Things are looking manageable still, I’m relieved to say. I just finished my commission queue for the month, so I’m looking forward for some time off to do what I’d like before I open them again on July 10th! I’ll catch yall next week where I’ll share some of the sketches from my previous commission batch. Thanks for supporting me on this road to independent work!