february 2026 updates
Happy March! February’s main milestones were…
New Year illustration
Convention Portfolio
Phrase 3 Progress
Batch-creating social media posts
Happy New Year!
View on Instagram. Happy Year of the Fire Horse!
Full illustration!
Close-up of NIN in their favorite outfits ❤️
Convention Portfolio
Check it out for yourself :) I’d been working on this on and off for the past weeks, so it feels great to finally have it up. The motivation to complete it was the fact that conventions are starting to open their Artist Alley applications! I applied to one this month, and my fingers are now crossed 🤞🏼
In this page, I’ve also listed out some upcoming merch designs and fan art. I’ll list them here, as I’ll definitely discuss their progress in future blog posts.
Fandoms that I intend to make merch for: Cowboy Bebop, Smiski, Peach Riot, and Jujutsu Kaisen.
And future pin, keychain, and bookmark designs…
Phrase 3 Progress
Here is one sneak peek :)
It had been nearly a month since I touched any comic work, so I’m extremely happy to return to it. My next non-comic artwork won’t be til around the May-June timeframe, just so I can focus on panels and new merch. In other words, it’s gonna be preeetty gray in my next blog and social media posts! 🩶
Batch-creating social media posts
I’m all “tell” and no “show” in this post, sorry :) You’ll see these posts over the next few weeks! I’ve already started to publish them.
Some context: Shortly after completing my New Year illustration and before diving back into comic work, I took a week to just draft social media posts for Instagram and YouTube. I prefer solely dedicating a block of time to batch-create content every few weeks/months, over continuously creating it in parallel to my art. It’s just a workflow that suits my schedule these days.
I can’t imagine most folks notice, but my social media posts tend to alternate between weeks of new art and weeks of content/conversations about that art. This is typically my approach, and it’s really helped me to avoid creative burnout over the past year.
Systems that equip me to avoid burnout have become increasingly more important, as aspects of my personal and professional life continue to evolve; as I continue to scale my creative projects; and as social media platforms become less reliable for audience growth.
On that last point, while I don’t always talk about it, I am definitely in the boat of smaller artists that have gotten frustrated at how much harder it’s become to grow on social media. But hell, I think even more so, when my art is not seen by own audience. And I get frustrated at not seeing the art of my own friends too because of how Instagram’s algorithm has changed (getting into the habit of always switching to the “Following” tab, I highly recommend it).
For the past year, I have not prioritized marketing or growing my audience. I’ve posted more to “nurture” my existing one, than I have to “recruit” more folks into it. My approach to social media has largely been based on asking myself this question:
If someone were to come across my art, what would I want them to see?
And I’d want them to see my art. I’d want them to see me talking about it, I’d want them to know I care about it, that I care about my friends’ art too. I’d want them to see my characters’ stories. I’d want them to see my story as it unfolds. I’d want them to see me packaging all these things in a way that speaks to me creatively.
It's why I generally don’t hop on every meme template. They can be great for audience reach, but they do not always fulfill the above for me. But no shade to meme templates and the artists who use them! Sometimes they speak to me too, and who am I to say how often they should for another person. I don’t mean to imply anything in admitting the above.
Sometimes, using them is just fun and we don’t need to overthink it either :) I’m getting a bit long winded here, but part of why I moved to YouTube and started posting Shorts was actually to make myself chill out a bit on my usual mentality. It’s not something I’d impose on someone else (i.e. when I see someone’s art packaged with a meme, I genuinely like it for what it is), so why hold myself prisoner in that way.
I’m all over the place right now, but I think it’s all worth saying. I guess my overarching point is that regardless of how social media landscapes change, regardless of how my own skill level changes, I always want to look back at my art and how I share it, and know that I was doing what spoke to me at the time.
In a world where AI slop runs rampant, where people look at art as products and not experiences and stories, where storytelling platforms prioritize their investors over the creators who uplifted them in the first place, when I at least see my own art, that’s what I want to see.
Looking ahead…
March’s goals include:
First YouTube video!
Phrase 3 work
Posting the plethora of reels that I made this month (including the shop ones that I keep pushing back LOL)
See you in the next update!
