the wheel turns again (it's march 🌿🪻💐)

It's nearly spring! 

And with that comes me continuing to think about my recent goals, how they're getting on and how I can make them work. 

Art improvement was the main one. Despite doing art reasonably often these days, I've felt a bit shaky in my art ability, especially in my job, which feels competitive all the time, at least in my head (saying more about myself here, although in general the wider games industry is competitive especially in art and design disciplines).

To be honest that's more of a mindset thing but making my art practice more consistent isn't going to hurt!

O is asleep so I just did some planning, mapping out my free time and then seeing where would be good to have art focus time. There's a little gap after work 3x a week and another block of time on a Monday morning I can use. This focus time only equates to about 2.5 hr a week but that's because I have left a lot of 'flexible' time in since life admin, chores, illness etc. often appear and get in the way.

I don't want to be too strict and then just fail. 

Next step is probably to plan out a project to work on as I think that will help me have some art focus. I was planning to make some prototypes in a game engine with art involved too so that might be the plan. Plus some sketching to warm up each time would be good.

actual goals for 2026? 🤔

I had dreams of writing this blog post about my 2026 goals while O fell asleep but eczema itching has scuppered that plan. Perhaps a reminder to not place too much expectation around goals!

A little while later:

Ok, I do still want to make a sort of loose goal system for 2026 which centres around me figuring out what I want from life and my job...

My primary goal:

Improve in drawing/painting

A simple goal, probably a little broad, but to elaborate, I want to get more comfortable with drawing and painting again; I plan to do so through continuing with a regular art practice (somewhat of a fail lately because of illness in the family and big deadlines at work). I want to draw more from reference, the usual thing. No pressure to define any conceptual (like own IPs/universes/stories) or stylistic things, just focus on getting back into the swing of things and importantly having fun. 

Secondary goal:

General learning in game development

This is even less pressure. Just maybe do some designing of little games to exercise that muscle again, maybe even try to make some tiny tiny projects in game engines (very simple ones). Maybe watch some more game dev documentaries (no clip documentaries), read a game dev book, keep up with industry news. Just rounding out my skills if I can.

Casual goals:

No pressure at all to do these, but they're fun ones so I think they'll be easy to find momentum for. 

Play more games

This helps to inform my game dev and general industry knowledge. We refer to a lot of different games in our research when making our own stuff at work so having good background knowledge certainly helps. I'm also including board games/physical games/TTRPGs here!

Make more pots

- and hopefully get better just from continuing. Not much to say here, I just want to keep going and make gradual improvements without any sort of time pressure. 

Stuff that I want to keep ticking away but without any pressure or expectation

1. Japanese lessons

2. Using up my yarn and fibre stash in textile projects

autumn check in and goals for the end of 2025 🎀

 Hello, hope all is well 🍂

It's time for my semi regular check in where I make goals to finish projects and try to avoid over-buying!

Thoughts on spending from now 'til the new year

• I suppose it's nothing revolutionary, but I have enough yarn to work on several projects; therefore I don't want to buy any more!
• I even have some sock yarn (some handspun, some bought) which I can use for gifts if I feel I need to make some for the coming festive period
• I'm not going to get more art supplies; to be fair I haven't gotten new art supplies in a while; my art practice at the moment is just sketching here and there at night; I do want to change this though, more about that later!
• I have a few household expenses that I will allow myself:
• A small amount of paint (ideally reclaimed/recycled) for the bedroom, 1 wall
• A duvet cover, 2nd hand or new if I can't find something suitable ✅

Goals for the rest of 2025

• Finish some pots for gifts
• This is well underway, I need to stop myself from giving away pots before festivities though!
• Finish my linus shawl
• I did it last week while visiting family, woohoo
• Finish Emily's hat (gift)
• I have almost finished the hat, I need to make a bobble and attach it though. I'm putting it off because it's been ages since I've done one and I'm not sure how good it'll be
• Mittens for Steph
• All I've done so far is roll up a ball of yarn. Patterns scoped out but haven't started.
• Start Japanese classes again
• I fell off the wagon and I don't want to lose my Japanese!

Stretch Goals

• Work on Charlie's jumper project (about 30% done at the moment)
• It's big, but it is worsted weight yarn so maybe it won't be too bad?
• Start a poncho for myself
• This is definitely a stretch goal, as I have other stuff to work on that's higher priority 😌
• Sell a few bits on eBay before postal service gets hectic
• Just decluttering a bit; I had a wedding I went to and I wore a dress I'd bought for a previous wedding to be a bridesmaid. It's a wrap dress and it's beautiful but I hate wearing it! So I will pass it on to someone else, hopefully 😌 and then maybe someday I can invest in something that I feel much more comfortable in, or make something, or simply abstain from getting anything...