Valorant 38: Back To Structure

Byjack

Today I am back to following the structure I set about in Valorant 30 but with some edits.

UNIT 1: VOD Review

  • Day 1 – Apas – 6/3/23
  • Day 2 – Klaus – 6/4/23
  • Day 3 – Yay – 6/5/23

UNIT 2: Map Understanding

  • Day 1 – Lotus – 6/7/23
  • Day 2 – Split – 6/8/23
  • Day 3 – Bind – 6/9/23

UNIT 3: Mechanical Breakdown

  • Day 1 – Crosshair Placement – 3/15/23
  • Day 2 – Flicking – 3/16/23
  • Day 3 – Spray Control – 3/17/23

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A Taoist Approach to Productivity

Byjack

I’ve been meditating on productivity and I was curious as to a more taoist approach. I’ve come up with a couple of ideas:

  • Make things more empty
    • Pursue each task with the goal of emptiness
      • Focus on one thing at a time and do work to make everything feel empty
    • Look to make your to do list more empty
      • Delete things off the to do list
      • Schedule time sensitive things
      • Clear off small tasks immediately
      • Moving it to tomorrow
  • Reduce the size of mountains
    • Create simple steps to kick off each task
  • Seek balance
    • Seek out more risk when things are stale
    • Seek out more structure when things are too risky

The Go For It Mentality

Byjack

There are many different mentalities that can offer deeper insight, faster learning and a deeper connection to the present moment. 

My favorite mentalities are:

  • Meditative/Let It Come Mentality
    • Be patient
    • Don’t do anything
    • The right answer will be clear if you keep feeling and noticing what comes up
    • Good for staying in the moment and being yourself
  • Self Reflection/Feedback Loop (learning) Mentality
    • Look for ways to observe yourself by recording yourself somehow
    • Use the objective, nonjudemental self observation to get clarity on where to improve
    • Good for rapid learning
  • Process Emotions Mentality
    • The action you focus on is feeling
    • Use breathing and physical activity to feel as strongly as possible
    • Very good for emotional growth

However, I recently found a new mentality that actually helps with areas of life that I had trouble with recently. I noticed in rapid active situations like social situations (parties), or sports, or dance or singing overthinking can be a major issue. Using the meditative mentality and or the processing emotions mentality is helpful but ultimately keeps you in your head. Staying in your head isn’t always a good thing because it can actually make it very hard for you to focus on the present moment (even though those exercises usually help you reconnect with the moment). 

I’m not entirely sure where this idea came from, but I think it came from daygaming (approaching girls irl). I started using it in gaming then dance and singing practice (all things where being in the present moment is part of the experience).

I call it the “Go For It” Mentality. Basically, you imagine what you want to do (the perfect action) and then just try going for it.

A couple of major points:

  • Everything is seen as practice (and is very useful when practicing in the moment type skills like language, singing, dance, sports etc where thinking is going to get in your way and you want to focus your instincts).
  • Repetition is the goal since it is practice, nothing is seen as the final end all be all.
  • As you keep repeating, you adjust every single time until it feels more and more right. This is one way that you can start bringing in the other tools and mindsets in order to have a really beautiful time.
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League Challenge Rough Cut

Byjack
Like
  • Love the energy throughout
  • Love the beginning
  • Love the day title cards
Work On?
  • Maybe more music that is different
  • Try to make it more clear that it was the first game
  • Maybe make it more clear what is happened? (I’m the guy with the green highlight, screen turns dark, I’m dead)
  • Maybe explain my strategies in improving in league more? (Practice tool)
  • Maybe explain how league works more? (Explain mini games)
  • Break up the footage or shorten it more, might be slow at times.
  • Maybe explain that it was a two day challenge earlier?
Specifics
  1. 0:05 better grade
  2. 0:19 better grade, harder cutting
  3. 0:32 harder cutting, feels slow
  4. 0:53 timing feels off, out of sync with music
  5. 1:41 great energy but need something to transition better
  6. 8:30 more kinetic editing on final words
  7. 2:48 need to fade sound out from voice to cut off extra words
Thoughts
  • Need to draw inspiration from other league youtubers who post highlights (maybe Professor Akali?)
  • Take a step back, and work on something else for a bit, maybe my business idea. Need some time away to see what I want to do next clearly.
  • Get specific feedback from multiple people.
Gameplan

Overall, I feel like this is an excellent rough cut, great pacing and energy but it lacks polish.

To work on the polish I will:

  • Break down portions I need to work on and split them out to perfect them
  • Work with my brother or someone else by my side in order to make it easier
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Valorant Challenge 1: Spike Rush Cypher

Byjack

Today I didn’t have the time or the pc to play competitively. I played a couple of spike rush games as cypher.

Impressions:

  • Hot damn it’s hard to play cypher. So much to put down in so little time. The cages are HARD to use as well.
  • I don’t know if playing different agents will help me play. Maybe I should just refine my mains.
  • I think agents like cypher play around their utility (they almost never peek unless they have to). I wonder if I should do that more with all agents (play around flash and grenades, shockdarts and mollys)
    • Makes me think flashes are waay worse at getting info. It’s all or nothing. The timing needs to be right and you need to be able to push with your team to gain ground rather than flashing randomly.
  • To counter a cypher I need to guess where the camera is and shoot it out. Requires knowledge of common cam spots. Dunno how I will get that knowledge without watching tons of videos. Poopers.
  • Cage + wires can be OP since wires reveal and cage block their vision.
  • You need to be f*cking fast on the camera or they will shoot it out.
  • Crouch and shoot wires head level to get wires you cannot jump or crouch over or under.

I feel like my posture was pretty terrible after the practice. My left shoulder blade was hurting and my stomach was clenched.

I need to work on processing the emotions better and feeling my body more (using the sensual feeling technique I will discuss later). I will also need to work on posture exercises way more. After working my body for about 20 minutes with shaking, stretching, and posture exercises, my should mostly doesn’t hurt anymore and my digestion feels much better.

Sova Fanart 5: Class Unit 2 Day 2

Byjack

UNIT TWO: Dynamic Figure Drawing | Day 2 – Copy a pose from memory, trace, and correct original

I am going to interpret this as just using real life references.

Again, since we had so much success last night we are going to break things down again.

Suggested time: 90 minutes (30 minutes per unit, 10 minutes per part)

Unit 1: Gather images

  • Part 1: Look for reference photo sources
  • Part 2: Brainstorm action poses
  • Part 3: Brainstorm perspective poses

Unit 2: From memory

  • Part 1: Pose 1
  • Part 2: Pose 2
  • Part 3: Pose 3

Unit 3: From life

  • Part 1: Pose 1
  • Part 2: Pose 2
  • Part 3: Pose 3

Unit 1: Gather images

Part 1: Look for reference photo sources

Artist Reference – Ultra High Resolution Photo References (artist-reference.com)

10 Best Free Pose Reference Sites For Figure Drawing – Improveyourdrawings.com

Part 2&3: Brainstorm action and perspective poses

Human Anatomy for Artist – ShowSet Photos – Ultra-high resolution human photo references – Human-Anatomy-for-Artist.com

Human Anatomy for Artist – ShowSet Photos – Ultra-high resolution human photo references – Human-Anatomy-for-Artist.com

Human Anatomy for Artist – ShowSet Photos – Ultra-high resolution human photo references – Human-Anatomy-for-Artist.com

Human Anatomy for Artist – ShowSet Photos – Ultra-high resolution human photo references – Human-Anatomy-for-Artist.com

023 Male Action Pose — Characterdesigns.com

011 Gun Action Pose Male Model — Characterdesigns.com

*Not a pose, but a really cool course I might want to check out

(155) The 6 Types of Joints – Human Anatomy for Artists – YouTube

Now I need to decide on the specific poses I want to try:

Pose 1
Pose 4
Pose 7
Pose 2
Pose 5
Pose 8
Pose 3
Pose 6

Unit 2 & 3: From memory & life

So the poses I most want to choose in order of precedence are:

  1. Pose 7
  2. Pose 3
  3. Pose 1
  4. Pose 2
  5. Pose 6
  6. Pose 8
  7. Pose 5

I’m going to try the first four (7, 3, 1, 2).

Part 1: Pose 7

Pose 7

Part 2: Pose 3

Pose 3

Part 3: Pose 1

Pose 1

Part 4: Pose 2

Pose 2

Overall Takeaways

Rough Sketch

  • Recreate the pose as itself instead of memorizing the image
  • Visualize the twist of the torso
  • Try to visualize the space they are holding with their arms (like a beach ball) and space with their feet (like a pyramid)

Refined Sketch

  • Focus on the different sides of body parts, what side is facing where
  • Mark the attachment point of the neck

Workpost 74: Mondays

Byjack

Today is a Monday, the start of the week. I feel tired but pretty good overall. I did not sleep much last night, but constantly going outside has done wonders for my energy levels.

Ok time to go through the questions from yesterday:

  1. How am I going to balance contract work with my businesses tomorrow? Well I just need to solve the first part of the harder coding problem, then I should be good for tomorrow to finish up.
  2. What can I do to make sure I get enough sleep for jiujitsu? I don’t need to go to jiujitsu today, but going outside helped with the exhaustion as well as taking a nap.
  3. What is the plan for getting customers for my businesses? I have some lead magnets planned out for art coaching, just need to find events in which to meet people.
  4. Should I sign up for a consultation with a Fiverr coach for javascript? Should I work first to get an understanding of full stack? I think first I get a primer on the full stack.
  5. Should I start looking for someone to build my coaching website? Nah, but soon.
  6. What can I give away at the fairs? The main this is free planning sessions to plan out dream creative project and business cards.
  7. What is the next step for my woodcut art style? What is the plan for the business cards? The plan is just to work on them as I can while I sign up for speaking engagements and fairs for networking.
  8. When am I going to create my powerpoint for my coaching website outline? ASAP, this is probably more time-sensitive than the business cards.