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Sova Fanart Competition
Byjack
A few weeks ago I started the Sova Art Competition listed here.
While I was really excited initially about this art competition because I get to combine two of my passions (art and Valorant), I started to feel really overwhelmed because I don’t feel that I have enough experience with digital art and drawing from my imagination to get to the type of painting that I want to submit.
I think I will need to embrace failure and discover what kind of art is coming out for me, but also, I want to break down this challenge into lessons or milestones, just like with the Valorant challenge. The mindset I want to take is to create a syllabus in such a way that it is impossible for me not to win.
Today’s date: March 10th 2023
Submission deadline: March 27th 2023
Number of days remaining: 16
UNIT ONE: Sova Model Studies
- Day 1 – Portrait
- Day 2 – Half Body
- Day 3 – Full Body
UNIT TWO: Dynamic Figure Drawing
- Day 1 – Explore figure sketching techniques/simplification
- Day 2 – Copy a pose from memory, trace, and correct original
- Day 3 – Animate
UNIT THREE: Inspired Starts
- Day 1 – Random Line Start
- Day 2 – Famous Painting Start
- Day 3 – Disliked Painting Start
*All exercises have the potential to be a final submission.
Days remaining after sova fan art drawing class: 7
Core Beliefs 1
Byjack
Today I got into an argument with someone who is very close to my heart. Thinking about the argument later makes me think about what is painful about the relationship in general and the core wounds that it brings up.
Core wounds are damaging beliefs that we have about ourselves that we repeatedly look for evidence for (and traumatize ourselves constantly with).
Cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches us that core wounds can be reprogrammed by finding evidence to the contrary. Thais Gibson recommends doing this for at least 21 days for the new beliefs to set in.
This is day one for me.
Core Wound 1: I’m not good enough (attractive physically and personality-wise)
Evidence to the contrary (I am good enough):
- A girl in college who was very beautiful who I liked blushed every time I talked to her and liked me back. She was mean to other guys who showed interest.
- When I was being myself and feeling confident recently, lots of women from girls on the plane, on the trail, at rental properties all seemed really eager to talk to me and help me. I’ve been told I have really good energy.
- A girl that I love told me she likes the way I look, likes my thin frame and my hands.
- A girl in high school once had a crush on me after flirting with her once. I might have made an impression on her.
- A girl who I met playing a mobile game with, added me on her Snapchat and would talk to me for hours, there must have been a reason.
This is a really strong core wound for me. I often compare myself to others and feel like I’m less attractive. I feel that no one really likes me.
Core Wound 2: My emotions are not good and push people away
Evidence to the contrary (My emotions are good and bring people closer):
- A lot of my art tends to come from my emotions and feelings and lots of people like them
- Because of my emotions, I tend to be more honest, open and empathetic in support groups
- I tend to connect with a lot of women by emotions. It’s why I like to have girls as friends and a lot of girls like me.
- Emotions make me experience things more deeply, like when I cry watching Moana.
- My emotions help me read other people much better because I can feel what they are feeling.
I always feel, especially with some people, that my emotions are too much and push people away. I worry people like hard and cold unemotional guys since they are stronger and don’t need anything. I also sometimes want to be strong and dominant and I don’t know how to reconcile that with emotions.
Valorant 6: Feeling Out Aiming
Byjack
I realized something today. While deathmatch and the practice range are a time to focus on hand-mouse-crosshair connection (basically pure aim), that doesn’t work in competitive game practice.
When I practice Valorant in a comp game, I should be feeling out everything including game sense, movement, and ability usage. See, aim in a real game only matters if the other aspects are set up correctly. It matters which agent you play. It matters how your enter, what your ability usage and game sense tell you. I was able to get so many more headshots when I was starting feeling out the entire game not just my aim.
The one area I realized I need the most practice with is game sense – feeling out where the enemies are hiding and being ready for multiple to peak out at once. I either don’t check corners, keep my crosshair super low or lower my guard after killing just one enemy.
I was able to ace with just game sense, ability usage and a little aim.
In the clutch clip, the one area I can clearly see room for improvement is the use of my ult. It was good for the first shot, but the next two shots should have been very intentionally trying to clear out the enemy hiding spots.
Also, in the clip below for the last round, I can see my decision-making skills need work.
- I need to do something with phoenix and reyna inevitably who were going to rush me. I also had my ult.
- I could have jiggled the wall, then try to make my way to long.
- I could have dodged the phoenix flash by hiding in the corner and facing the left.
- Or I could have peeked hard and try to make my way to long.
Here are the full game clips.
Bedtime Challenge 1: 44 Days In
Byjack
I started this challenge on October 8th. Now it is November 21st. And I can say with honesty that I really followed the challenge very very well.
A couple of notes:
- I was forced to go to bed later on two separate occasions, once for work, when I finished a production deployment at 11:30 and went to bed at maybe 12:30
- Another time when I was helping my girlfriend with her project and I was up until 12, I cheated by “sleeping” on the coach by the computer at 11 but since I didn’t actually go to bed until much later, it wasn’t that good
After these cheat days it got really hard to stick to my schedule for a few days, but now it is easy again. There were a few times that I went to bed at 1 or 3 am because I didn’t go to sleep and I often go to sleep at 12 or 1, but I get to my bedroom by 11:30 usually and almost always start washing up by 11:10.
Overall this is a smashing success. I have genuinely changed for the better and I think this time the change might actually last.
I do want to still apply some of my earlier ideas and focus on different needs and try to meet them better every day.
I can also work on turning off screens earlier and stopping eating so close to bedtime. But the eating has definitely gotten better and the screens are just hard since I like to play Valorant with my friends at night.
Overall I am very happy with the progress.
Core Wounds 9
Byjack
I kind of dropped the ball on these because I don’t know if I feel like challenging my core wounds, but I think I need to keep going for the 21 days at least. It is interesting because you are supposed to focus on one core wound. I don’t know which one I would focus on, but maybe if I just keep going there is one that I will want to focus on.
I was talking to a friend about how it is hard to work on yourself sometimes. What I told her is that it is sometimes scary to think about who you might change into, but I think there is another reason. Sometimes it is hard to work on yourself because in order to work on yourself you first need to look at yourself in the mirror and face who you are, and that isn’t easy to do.
I think a big core wound or belief is that there is something wrong with me, that no one will actually like me if they know who I really am, that I’m weak and creepy and unattractive.
She Said I Made Her Day
Walking up to her out of the blue
On the streets of new york city
On the college campus
They both told me
I made their day
The next girl
Will think you are the one
She told me
And when I asked the girl
Lost in her own world
In a song she just found
Whether or not she thought I was attractive
She said yes
I felt she wanted to say more
But was too shy
Valorant 39: Mind Training (PreGame)
Byjack
Today we are going back to the Valorant Challenge but from a different perspective.
I strongly felt that the one time when I didn’t feel stressed at all, but instead felt the timings of the enemy and where they could be, and how I could systematically take them apart, I was playing Valorant at a significantly higher level.
Some thoughts for today:
- Closing eyes to mental reset
- Playing music to hype up
- Breathing and letting the energy carry the action
Most of all, I will endeavor to feel out the enemy’s position and figure out how I can take the map piece by piece with util, teamwork and aim diff.
I will create another post after the game to review how that went.