One Month After Upgrading Codex, I Started Making Small Things

Tomorrow, September 14, my Pro20X subscription enters its second month.

Another weekend has passed. It feels as though I did not do much, but looking back, perhaps I did quite a lot. I talked with a friend about jewelry design, tried making product detail pages, and completed a small paid session sharing my experience with AI video. Many of the changes happened in my ideas and judgments. There was not necessarily an obvious finished work every day.

I thought it was time to review the month. Then, looking through my records, I discovered I could barely remember why I had upgraded in the first place.

Checking back reminded me: I subscribed to LibTV on August 6, then upgraded to Pro20X on August 14. I had already begun experimenting with videos, mini programs, and websites before the upgrade.

I was using Plus then. The most frustrating thing was waiting for my allowance to reset. Just when a project became interesting and I wanted to keep adjusting it, I had to stop. The ideas in my head did not stop along with the allowance. They kept accumulating.

I considered 5X as well, but worried it would still not be enough and I would regret not choosing 20X straight away. Since it was a monthly subscription, I decided to try it for a month. I could get a few things I wanted to make and some basic workflows running, then decide whether to downgrade once they reached the maintenance stage. That was my thinking at the time.

I do like getting everything I need in one go. When the tools are sufficient, I can sit at the computer and focus on the work itself, without thinking about how much allowance remains as I talk.

But just after upgrading, another thought appeared: with so much allowance, should I find something bigger to make?

On August 20, I even wrote an article called “When My Allowance Was About to Reset, I Started Giving Myself More Work.” More than seventy percent remained just before the reset. Seeing it go unused felt a little painful, so I wanted to push the website, research, and material organization further along.

A month later, my thinking has changed a little.

The website is one of the more visible results from this period. My watercolors, photography, articles, videos, and the services I can currently offer gradually have a place where they can sit together. The watercolor mini program has also moved forward, from early ideas and a demo toward a collection of questions, answers, and judgments.

They all need maintenance and adjustment. When a new model appeared, I asked it to check the older projects again.

Take the website. I already thought it looked pretty good, but the model still suggested quite a few improvements. The inquiry entry point appeared too far down on mobile. Some navigation and content were repetitive. There were also issues involving search and images.

Honestly, I do not completely understand some of the technical details, or why they had been problems. But seeing them handled one by one still gives me a sense of achievement and satisfaction.

Some suggestions are easy to understand. If someone already wants to know about my services but has to scroll for ages on their phone to find where to inquire, moving the button forward is clearly more convenient. Once a website exists, you can keep refining it in rounds like this.

Another thing that took quite a lot of time this month was organizing and distilling methods from people I learn from.

I give Codex public talks, articles, and interviews by teachers I respect, asking it to organize their ways of observing and making judgments, then gradually work these into my own creative process. When writing, looking at paintings, communicating, or considering services, I can refer to them. This does not mean inviting a crowd of “teachers” to speak every time. In the end, it has to come back to my own work.

Then there are all the materials I saved in the past.

Several terabytes have accumulated on my computer. When saving things, I used to think I would look at them when I had time. Now, when I encounter a long video or a series of materials, I am more willing to let Codex help break it down and organize it, leaving searchable text that goes into my knowledge base. This does not mean it is all processed, but at least I have started opening it up again.

Whether those materials really connect with me after they are stored, or get used in my next creation, is another matter. Between saving and using something, there is still my own understanding and practice.

I feel as if, over the years, there have always been quite a few seeds of ideas in my mind. Some I could not make yet. Some I did not know how to begin. So I left them there.

Codex is a little like someone helping water and fertilize them. We sit down for an hour or two to talk about a project and break a vague thought into smaller parts: what to do first, what comes next, what can be done now, and where I still need to gain experience myself.

“Some seeds have finally sprouted. What they might grow into is something I will have to keep watching.”

It does not go smoothly every time. Making a Live2D character for Sanmu, for example, took a whole day of fiddling, and neither the eyes nor the mouth reached the effect I wanted. I then narrowed the goal to a simple character that could change with sound.

I have made similar adjustments in my recent video work.

At first, I saw humorous videos attracting traffic and wanted to try making some myself. There was some encouraging feedback along the way, but the videos received little response when actually published. So I changed direction and kept trying. Gradually I began making TEVIA’s character and videos, and commercial advertising demos to prepare for specific client needs.

I do not consider the earlier attempts detours. I was interested at the time, so I tried. After making and publishing them, I could decide where to go next.

The AI video sharing session I recently completed brought in only a few dozen yuan, but it still felt good to me. Running a small session and encountering the other person’s actual questions makes it easier to see how far I can help than continually imagining a huge future course.

The jewelry product detail page was another small experiment. Make that part first, then see what needs adjusting. I do not have to figure out the entire business from the beginning. The advertising demos, product detail pages, and completed paid session are at different stages. I am still trying things little by little.

This afternoon, I saw a video on WeChat Channels about “how to build something small.” I have not finished watching it, but I agree with the idea of making some small things first.

Looking back, that phrase helps explain the change in me this month.

Just after upgrading, I wanted to make something big, feeling that was how to make use of the abundant allowance. Now I am more likely to ask: Who is this for? What immediate problem does it solve? How far do I need to take it before I can put it out for someone to try?

“Make a small version first, and finish that small piece properly. This is how I now prefer to begin.”

Of course, I do not want to turn every creation into a business. When I painted before, large or small often depended on my mood. Having fun or wanting to express something was enough reason to paint. Now that I make videos and other things, those reasons still hold. It is only when I want to turn a capability into a service that I think a little more about actual situations and needs.

So, with more allowance, might I start finding work just to use it up? I have thought about that.

My principle is that extra experiments are fine, but they have to connect to me. I can return to ideas I put aside, do a small experiment out of curiosity, or keep improving old projects. I do not want to pile up things I am neither interested in nor willing to maintain simply to empty the allowance.

I still check usage each week and adjust according to the work at hand. This month was unusual, too. I remember several resets. Sometimes I had just been reminded that a reset was coming and wanted to hurry and do a little more, yet I still did not use everything. I did not count each reset, and cannot guarantee every future month will be the same.

But at those moments I really did think: wow, this feels great. I can keep working.

From September 10, new Pro20X subscriptions and upgrades were temporarily suspended, while existing subscriptions could renew as usual. Seeing the news, I was glad I had already upgraded. If a cancellation or downgrade now took effect, I would not be able to subscribe again during the suspension. That is different from the conditions under which I considered the subscription a month ago.

I have not painted much during this period. But I do not regret it.

As a content creator, painting has always been one of my ways of expressing myself. Lately I have been expressing myself more through articles, videos, and other visual forms. Spending time talking and experimenting, and reconsidering what I can and want to do, is interesting to me too.

Of course, the apartment still needs tidying, the plants need care, and my daily routine is still not very good. None of these things fixes itself just because a few more website problems have been solved.

As I enter the second month tomorrow, I am still willing to continue. A few things have only just begun to sprout, and I want to see what happens next. I do not need to find another enormous project. Finishing the few small things in front of me already leaves plenty to do.

The views, experiences, and final judgments in this article are the author’s. AI assisted with organizing the text.