I thought I'd write some thoughts on the DayKnight 30-day Project Challenge (DK30). After 30 days, I made 5 illustrations (which exceeds my minimum goal of 4).

This was my first DK30, and I think it was a success. Overall, I was able to predict that I will produce somewhere between 4 and 6 illustrations based on the target days I planned to spend each week. But I dramatically underestimated how many hours I would spend PER TARGET DAY. I probably spent 2x-3x as much time to complete an illustration because I would deviate from the initial draft so much. In weeks 3 and 4 my attention was split between two projects (I got invited into helping out on a different DK30 project) so that was an additional challenge.

Most importantly though, the illustrations did seem to bring back memories for the DayKnights who watched the source videos and/or streams, and did pique interest of the DayKnights who haven't watched Day[9]'s musings. And last but not least... Day[9] himself saw my illustrations WOOHOOOOO!!! (huge fan moment haha)

(Originally posted on the DK30 project page)

The final illustration for the Winter 2020 Day Knight 30-Project Challenge is from "Emotions as Kittens and Ninja-stars."

​How many "kittens" and "ninja-stars" do you encounter every day? I think I'm probably a half-and-half person, but I used to feel like I had way more ninja-stars because I wasn't acknowledging the kittens enough. So these days, while attempting to dodge the ninja-stars, I am making a point of REALLY petting the kittens when they do appear. And I think it is working.

(Originally posted on the DK30 project page)

"Anxiety" was a topic that hit very close to home so I decided to draw it as a tribute.

Making this turned out to be more challenging than expected - after finishing my initial draft, my final design ended up deviating quite a lot from it so it took an extra day for me to complete. It took a while for me to settle on how to visualize the ruminating thoughts (in the form of thought bubbles that look like dark clouds). I am satisfied with how it turned out - especially when the thoughts turn into more vicious ones and become spiky and explode-y.​

(Originally posted on the DK30 project page)

Second drawing for week 2, featuring a clip from "Being Relentlessly Positive." Ruminating negative thoughts is a bad habit of mine, and most of the time... simply turning my attention to someone else and focusing on helping them out is all I need to get out of my own head.

(Originally posted on the DK30 project page)

The Day[9] Daily #100 is one of the videos I keep coming back to when I feel down/angry at myself. I decided to draw one very valuable lesson I learned from there which also coincided with a big chunk of my undergraduate studies (biopsychology). I had forgotten how much I loved drawing neurons, synapses and other brain-y things!! Brings back happy memories from university.