Well, after a week since I posted last, my boss texted me and said “Vacation is over. Back to work.” I stated I missed work, but oops, I miss the free time now! Such a weird situation. Nonetheless, I do feel lucky I can go in, and we have a solid team following the procedures set by our governor. That said, I have had to scale back on my artistic ambitions with work back on my plate.
One of the most difficult things for me to do is to keep solid energy after finishing a day of work. With a long commute, and currently a lot of work on our schedule, getting anything accomplished afterwards isn’t easy. But over the past month, I’ve pushed myself to do a little extra each day. This past week I managed to exercise everyday after work. The first week back at work, I just came home and crashed each day. So, progress!
Earlier this year I got back into watching an anime I started a few years ago. A few friends pushed me to get back into it. It has been a huge inspiration and has triggered a lot of good habits for myself this year. It’s definitely somewhat ridiculous, and I’ll admit, it’s become an obsession, but My Hero Academia has helped me accomplish so much over the past few months.
For those unfamiliar, it’s essentially a superhero anime. It follows a high school aged kid who doesn’t have any powers in a world where everybody does. Yet he still wants to be a hero. Eventually the number one superhero passes on his power to this kid to let him have a chance to enter a superhero high school. Again, ridiculous, plenty of the usual superhero+anime tropes+cliches. But like most Shonen+Superhero entertainment, it inspires you to move mountains.
Specifically, the school the kid goes to has a dorky motto. “Go Beyond: Plus Ultra!” I love it. It’s similar to the “Give 110%” motto I remember hearing growing up. But without a specific number. So keep pushing. The power the kid obtains is something he can’t handle at first. He can either use all or nothing of it. Which, at the beginning of the show, he ends up breaking his arms or legs if he tries to use it. So he learns to use 8% of the power. He essentially learns to do what he can without breaking.
That spoke volumes to me. I’ve been told I can be an all or nothing individual. I often times have periods where I am incredibly ambitious and productive. But I often experience burnout, and over the years, it usually takes a long time for me to get back onto my feet. So watching this fictional high school superhero student try not to break himself, but do what he can, then push himself to do more… was incredibly inspiring for me.
So I started drawing the characters from the show over the past months just to get me to draw. I started to just draw them at work during breaks. With pen, and while looking at an image. After the first two, I decided to draw my own poses. Then I started to pencil+ink them. (Below are the characters I’ve drawn thus far!) Then I started to get into the DnD characters for my friends from the previous post.
Two weeks ago I drew myself if I was a character in the world of My Hero Academia. So that’s the above image. I figured my power would be “Ambition.” The more ambitious I am, and the more I accomplish, the more energy courses through my body. I can use that for speed and super strength. Something like that. It’s been a fun image to keep in my head as I keep striving to do a little more each day.
This week I’m hoping to exercise, work on Japanese, and work on some art each day after work. Instead of giving 100% at work, as I feel like I have been, I intend to tweak it to somewhere between 50-80% so I don’t completely drain myself, and so I have some energy left after work to do those things mentioned. Then the following week: Go Beyond, Plus Ultra!
