enjoying this look as of late hi everyone it's  King Kogi aka Martina aka King Kogi which one  

comes first no one's sure in 2021 i shared a  video about how i was going to start creating  

a cookbook since then i've been puttering away  at it and as i promised in that video i didn't  

want to show you just like an end product  i wanted to show you these steps in between  

about how it takes me to actually get there my  reason still being i think in this current day  

and age we're kind of like flooded with tons  of amazing artists and amazing creations and  

it can make you feel really low confident like  you don't even want to start a project because  

you're like how can i do anything this good  how can i create anything like this and it can  

feel quite intimidating but i can assure you if  you were to see the behind the scenes of people  

learning fumbling their rough drawings their  stressed out moments their moments of being like  

why i'm a horrible artist i think you'd feel a lot  more confident enter Martina allow me to be the  

person that you watch fumble however this video is  not about how i fumble and fail it's about how i  

plan for a long term project i've got around six  Martina Methods that i'd like to share with you  

and i'm not some kind of professional planner i  hope you can get something out of them and you can  

get started on doing something new it's a fresh  year everything ahead of us is fresh depending  

on when you're watching this video you're watching  it in like December 2022 it's almost a fresh year  

know your unhelpful environments when you first  get started at tackling a new idea or a project  

you really need to be in a good  mindset you need to know themselves  

some things can put you in a really short mood and  cause you to lose focus or even the goal that you  

want to do and you just just give up here's what  i mean roll the footage other me so on some days  

i can happily go onto instagram in the morning  and i can browse i love to browse people cooking  

i find it really inspiring it gets me hyped  and then i want to cook something new i want to  

grocery shopping the same thing for youtube videos  and cookbooks if i watch other people cooking  

i get really excited and i'm like i want to cook  something too but if it's a day that i plan on  

drawing instagram is not the ideal environment  for me i'm actually pretty low confident about  

my drawing skills when i see all the other  amazing illustrators and drawers out there  

i really just feel crap and i completely like lose  my mojo and it is not a helpful environment for me  

hence the whole no thine self now i can watch  something like bullet journaling or people  

drawing live i really enjoy i think seeing  the process of beginning to end it doesn't  

make me feel so i don't know like hopeless and  stupid for some reason but for me personally  

i understand that instagram can be a helpful  environment depending on what i need it to be  

and it can be a super unhelpful environment if i  need to do something like get hyped up for drawing  

another helpful environment for me is being  in a cafe i love editing or drawing or doing  

other things like that that are creative  in cafes but i have to have headphones  

if i don't have headphones i can find it a lot  more distracting like i can't get into the focus  

so being in a cafe can be helpful but i need  to make sure that i have my headphones with  

me in order to have the correct music on some  music is really distracting for me i can't focus  

other music is really really good for me to get  into the groove helpful so i know that itself  

a cafe with headphones and the correct music  is great for me to get going while my sister  

has said if she tries to read a book in a cafe  she finds herself really interested in people  

watching which i also love to do and she can't  actually read her book so that's an unhelpful  

environment for her to try to finish that goal  when we were in university i would go to cafes  

to study with certain music on it would help me  focus well going to like a quiet place like a  

library would make me feel super sleepy and  bored it's like i needed people around me  

to get me inspired to do things but not so much  that i can hear them and listen in knowing thine  

self and understanding yourself what is a helpful  and unhelpful environment is super important

and now here is a word of warning it is very  easy to get influenced by other people's opinions  

as to what is helpful and unhelpful i have had  many discussions with people about things like  

the morning there are some people who just get up  early and they go for a jog and clear their mind  

and they feel like i'm so focused and they can get  tons of work done and it's disgusting and i hate  

you just joking well for me i tend to be a kind of  night owl it can be very confusing to some people  

that i get energy in the evening it's like i'm  mopey and sluggish throughout the day but then  

in the evening i sometimes get a lot of energy  i'm ready to like write or be creative or film  

that's just the way that i am and i had to accept  that about myself instead of trying to force  

myself to work at a particular time of course i'm  not talking about your job i'm talking about a  

creative project that you want to take on that's  something that you're doing on your free time so  

whether it be working on the weekends and you've  got midweek free or you've got to work during  

the midweek and you've got the weekend free you  need to figure out what environment what time  

of day is helpful for you and if you're a filthy  early morning riser please don't judge my night  

owl routine thank you so much part of my method  to getting my project finished is taking notes  

some people will purchase a notebook and they will  kind of fill it out beginning to end not the case  

for me i don't know what it is i just know things  self i will have a notebook i will fill out maybe  

three pages maybe eight pages maybe maybe half  of it and then if i have a new idea for something  

like i want to work on a cookbook i can't put  it in the same notebook i don't know why i don't  

understand it i have to go get a new notebook and  that's why i usually buy things from the dollar  

shop because i'm not gonna spend sixty dollars on  some beautiful leather cover book which i'm never  

gonna fully fill out and then sometimes i go back  to the other notebook because i feel like oh that  

notebook is my notebook for writing recipes but  that notebook is my notebook for like taking notes  

on things currently i have like five notebooks on  the go i think ideas and creativity it's kind of  

like a flowing river right it's like constantly  moving and every once in a while something will  

bubble up like a fish farting in the water and if  you don't capture that it will wash away down the  

river never for you to think of again it's like  a really good fortune cookie analogy isn't it but  

for real i'm sure there are tons of ideas you've  had or goals or like something you wanted to do  

but if you don't like write it down somehow it's  going to be gone i'm a pen and paper kind of gal  

you may not be know thine self perhaps you enjoy  taking your thoughts and writing them digitally  

some people prefer the feeling  of typing things out onto notes  

i can do that in my like second stage but in  my initial stage i need to kind of write and  

flow maybe draw doodles in the borders this is  how i kind of remember or form what i'm doing  

i think the creative stage is a very delicate  stage maybe i'm just like a delicate fragile  

already person but it needs to be really  like whatever's coming out just take it  

put it out there's no danger right there's no  danger in writing out creative ideas you just do  

it don't smush them out by logic or confine them  i consider the pen and paper stage of planning  

something that you should be planning kind of like  big and not narrowing it down creativity can be  

really killed super fast by being like oh this  won't work and then you kind of feel hopeless  

and you're like well then forget it you can trim  it down later so if you have an idea like you're  

like i want to make a video game for a phone  let's say you've never made a video game you  

don't have a code you're not a graphic designer  whatever don't think about those steps yet your  

book or on your computer or on your phone wherever  it is that you're enjoying your flow you write it  

out i want to make a video game i want this video  game to be about pigs and like the pigs can fly  

but like only when they have enough candy in their  hearts does it help them i just made that up you  

write that down then either on the same day or on  a totally different day you look at it critically  

that's the time period for you to go okay well  what do i need to do to achieve this not when  

you're coming up with the idea so now you want  to look at the stuff that you've thought out that  

you want to do that's when you can start applying  your kind of logical stage to it and you're moving  

out of like the method stage and into like more  planning you might need to take a course to learn  

how to do it you might need to read a book you  might need to hire somebody so it is excellent  

timing that i get to say thank you to skillshare  for sponsoring this video i am currently taking  

a bunch of courses on skillshare for the goal  of completing my cookbook so last year i took  

a lettering course on skillshare because my  lettering skills suck and they are definitely  

better after this course so if you don't know  already skillshare is an online learning community  

and it has thousands of inspiring classes so  basically skillshare combines video lessons  

then there's class projects hands-on feedback and  you have these little short lessons that can fit  

any schedule the topics are like illustration  design photography video editing freelancing  

music production and more and the first 1 000  subscribers to click my link in the info box  

will get one free trial month of skillshare so the  class i'm taking is called the style class work  

out your illustration style in a daily project and  it's extremely helpful because it's basically like  

having a lecture from an art professor i didn't  go to art school so i'm really lacking kind of the  

foundations and understandings of how to organize  my brain and thoughts to create something like a  

cookbook because there's a lot of moving parts so  i'm really finding this extremely helpful i hope  

you guys get a chance to take a course if you can  i mean give it it's one month so hopefully you'll  

be one of the 1000 to click on this link but yes  taking courses and and changing your skill level  

is really important and part of the long project  plan you can instantly get good at something

interestingly tom frost he is a canadian  illustrator i didn't know that he's in vancouver  

bc and what's really crazy about this is that when  i was back in canada i went to canadian tire with  

my mom and we bought like christmas crackers and  they were canadian designs like they were really  

cool and on the outside of them there was like  these little um canadian people like a canadian  

santa and like a hockey player and stuff and i  love them so much that i kept the cutout this year  

so it's literally tom frost's design i had no  idea so it was so crazy because as i'm taking  

this course i'm like this is so familiar and i'm  like wait a second on the back of his wall he has  

designs and i like rushed over i took this off the  christmas cracker to bring it with me i like this  

design so much organizing your likes and your  dislikes so i've talked a little bit about my  

methods i've talked about my courses and now i'm  moving on to some of my favorite apps and tools  

that i'm using i find pinterest to be a very  good tool to use for distinguishing things that  

you like and you dislike understanding what you  really dislike and what you like will help quicken  

up that's not a phrase is it will help quicken up  the process make the process faster will help make  

your thinking and design plan process faster than  the sentence that i just said so for example i  

have a particular color palette that i  use the aquas the blues and the purples  

of the whole king kogi world help to limit me  and also speed up my decision making process  

so i like pinterest because you can kind of  organize your likes and dislikes really easily  

it's upgraded a lot since the last time i used it  which was like i think in university and i'm like  

i'm done with pinterest but now you can make  these little like pinned boards on your phone  

or on your computer so for example let's say i'm  working on a cookbook i need to think of different  

border designs i need to think of different  examples of a comic book page i just wildly  

go through and go like oh i like this i like  this i like this and when i don't like something  

that's equally as important and this will come  up later on when i look it over whether you're  

making a book or drawing or planning to make  a new website or to start a blog or to design  

a shirt or to make a new beer label or to sew  whatever it is you're gonna find it on pinterest

organizing grand scales with digital whiteboards  so miro is a really helpful app that i use it is  

a digital whiteboard and the reason why that's  fantastic is because you can put it on your  

phone on your ipad on your computer it can come  with you anywhere you go and it's good for a  

collaboration so if you've got friends that  you're working with or colleagues that live  

in a different part of the world or in a different  time zone they can log on and use the same  

whiteboard as you like they can add to it while  you're sleeping so i use it to organize a lot  

of things on my projects um when it comes to the  likes and dislikes this is a good time for this so  

you kind of put all your stuff together  you take all the things that you like  

and you lay them down and then you go well  why do i like this well i like this because  

the color is really smooth looking or oh  i really like because i like polka dots or  

i really like this because it's quite crispy  and clear you have to think about why you like  

something and equally take a couple things that  you don't like and explain why you don't like it  

you know like i don't like this shade of orange or  this feels really crowded or i don't like the way  

this is too realistic like whatever it is you have  to kind of figure out why you don't like something