I think, for a little while, I’m just going to focus more on posting art, and perhaps limit the time I spend just browsing here and the Internet in general—basically spread more good stuff (art) while making sure the toxic stuff doesn’t get to me as much.

Part of the reason is happily because I am actually on a bit of a creative streak at the moment, but the…”discussion”…surrounding Sonic Frontiers’s IGN trailers thus far is a serious wake-up call about the Internet’s tendency for manufacturing drama for clout and the importance of spending way more time “touching grass” than I do now. You’d think after judging the ultimately-decent Halo Infinite based on its lousy first trailer, or more recently the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard Trial where Mr. Depp was falsely accused of being the abuser before the public trial made it all too clear that it was actually Ms. Heard who was in the wrong, that people would learn not to jump to conclusions and make themselves SO unnecessarily angry over nothing. Without going into too much detail, Internet personalities that otherwise don’t seem to care about Sonic either way (i.e. they don’t seem to have watched either of the movies or reviewed them, and in some cases even admit to not even caring for the classic Genesis games or Mania let alone any of the more-divisive recent games) are already declaring this game to be more awful and rushed than Sonic 06 or Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric.

This is absolutely baffling to me, because 1) IGN has specifically stated that we’ll be getting more and more information throughout this month, so people are clearly already judging the final game based on incomplete information—we don’t even know the story context of why, for instance, the robots look the way they do or what Sonic’s doing in this glorified UE4 map in the first place; 2) the trailers seemed to be EXTREMELY compartmentalized thus far to focus on one aspect, without showing how all the parts work together—for example, it seems the player is deliberating avoiding combat in the exploration trailer and vice-versa in the combat trailer, and it looks like a lot of things are supposed to be turned off to make things even more focused (like the UI—where did Sonic get the rings he loses in the combat trailer, and how do we know how many rings we have at any moment?) but of course inevitably makes the open world feel empty as a result.

Finally 3) A lot of the more valid criticisms, like the weak-looking combat and minor performance hiccups, also apply to Breath of the Wild and the PC version of Elden Ring, but while those two games obviously don’t appeal to every single type of person in existence, they are considered the absolute gold-standards of open-world design right now and Elden Ring in particular was basically given 10/10 reviews right before release. I don’t see why Sonic Frontiers deserves to be declared a negative-twenty out of ten in comparison when we aren’t even done seeing IGN’s month-long coverage of it. If I MUST offer my knee-jerk reaction based on incomplete info, I actually saw some interesting potential in the combat trailer specifically and it looks to at least be a 7/10 Breath of the Wild clone that will definitely keep me occupied until I see the end credits. It’s also clearly the opposite of Sonic Forces simply by virtue of being an open world game instead of being a glorified on-rails linear rollercoaster (but somehow more boring) like Forces was, which to me is a VERY good sign.

So yeah, I genuinely cannot understand the strong emotions in either direction about Sonic Frontiers when we clearly still don’t know much more about it yet than we did before, although I suppose SEGA’s marketing team (not the developers) deserve some constructive criticism for failing to get us truly excited so far and leaving us with more questions than answers.

Point is, either Twitter’s gone mad with power after convincing Paramount to fix “Ugly Sonic” or people have gone mad in general post-lockdowns, proving that spending hours on the Internet in front of our phones is the worst possible way to take care of our stress levels while being stuck inside. Thus I’ll try to just use the Internet in general this month to post more funny art and watch more IGN Sonic Frontiers videos without letting game “journalists” or the comment section kill my optimism. Starting now:

My eyes hurt from too much screen time today, so I decided to finally open up my paper (gasp!) sketchbook, grab a cheap ballpoint pen and go to town with it! Be aware that I immediately decided to be as offensive as possible after warming up with the first couple of drawings, which is why I rated this post as “M” for “Mature.” Thank goodness Newgrounds added ratings for blog posts, now…

I warned ya.

Apparently I have 200 fans here now. Apparently giving permission to use my little slime character for Michaelsoft Binbows '97 was the smartest decision I made my life. Huh. Neat. Wow. Neat. Neat! Neat. Neat! Wow. Neat. Neat! Huh! Neat! Neat. Neat. Neat! Wow. Neat. Neat! Huh. Neat. Huh. Neat!

I'm still working on that long-term project, by the way. Hopefully I can squeeze in some other stuff, too. Huh. Neat!

I just want you all to know that I have FINALLY taken the time to watch FLCL (Fooly-Cooly, as it's commonly called) and my brain has been thoroughly smoothed out. Have a nice day, fellow smooth-brainers!

This is not the usual type of thing I post, but admittedly, at the risk of looking like Calvin in that one Calvin and Hobbes comic where he essentially complains about people complaining all the time until he blows a gasket himself, I'm personally getting sick of people who declare whatever year it is (2022 in this case) shot because something bad and out of our control happens in some other part of the world and rather than make a donation to a relevant charity or just focus on more personal problems, they BOMBARD me with pessimism and a constant reminder that I can't do things until my day is ruined, too.

I am, of course sympathetic to people who are genuinely depressed and I can't avoid "bad vibes" all the time. I am, however, losing my patience with edgelords who still feel the need to remind of us all the doom and gloom in the news like we're not already stressed (particularly in a workplace where we need to at least need to be a LITTLE bit relaxed to be productive and avoid burnout/quitting) or like we're avoiding the news because we're willfully-ignorant morons, and not just because the news is often ALL bad and biased and again, while it is important to be informed and not completely deny bad things are happening, at the same time it seems since 2014 or so people have felt the inappropriate need to "wake us up" to problems of the world even when we're trying to rest and recover or when we're already stressed out from our current workload, but need to work through it so we can earn the money to at least attempt to solve larger societal problems. Basically, people that, on one hand, are good people for being SO personally affected by, say, the War in Ukraine or when celebrities like Will Smith do something that could potentially badly influence the younger generations, but on the other hand ironically do more harm than good to their efforts to convince people to care by focusing on the negative all the time (in Ukraine's case, focusing on how evil Putin is and how he could still possibly win and not on how charitable people have become for the people of Ukraine despite the stress of gas prices and inflation, plus how surprisingly incompetent Putin has proven in trying to conquer this seemingly-less-powerful country so far) by enveloping us in bad vibes to the point where we feel too powerless to solve problems that are hard, but not impossible to tackle, and too sad to be productive and at least make enough dough to throw money at a charity or something.

My day job as a grocery clerk definitely gives me plenty of examples from the past week alone of just how DARK everyone seems to act now and how it's getting harder and harder to just "ignore the noise, bro." Twitter, Reddit and Tumblr are also infamous for actively encouraging negativity and politics because it somehow gives them more ad revenue than fun art, funny memes or inspirational Tweets could ever give them, but it especially catches me off-guard to see people act like this in Newgrounds from time to time, since for the most part I actually find this site more fun-loving and uplifting than most so long as I obviously avoid the forums. For instance, I am lucky to literally drive an EV and should feel smug that concerns about sky-rocketing gas prices don't even affect me these days, yet I feel anxious about it at work because people both on the floor and in the break room complain about it NON-STOP during my 9-hour shifts and the lack of positivity ensures I come home from work drained and even a little bit resentful of the entire human race every night when I should be motivated and energetic enough to still do some "fun" work, providing fun art and animations for you lovely fans.

Perhaps that is the point I'm getting at: rest from the world and its problems is important if I want to be more productive as an artist on Newgrounds (and especially have the energy to work my way up to a higher-paying job filled with less unhappy burn-outs bringing me down and leaving me more mental energy to do what I truly love, animation). But it seems like the avenues of rest and healthy escapism are getting less and less common (can't escape in Kirby and the Forgotten Land forever as a working adult) as American society and the news seem more intent on making us hate everyone and everything and just give up rather than address our challenges in a healthy manner. I would probably have MUCH more to show you this year AND give you a temporary escape from the madness of 2022 if I wasn't forced to listen to every problem in existence at work to the point where I'm always like "You know, maybe I'll just sleep and wait until my next day off to work on this..."

All I ask is that those of you that are not genuinely suffering from depression or have a therapist to turn to try to spread some more good vibes on the Internet, like in the earlier days where looking at Newgrounds and YouTube mostly just filled me with joy and laughter after a long day of school, rather than adding to the stress I was already experiencing by everyone slipping in their political rants and doomsday predictions in a video or article that should be about a fun video game I should try or a new comic series I should check out. I will admit that I should drop my addictions to fan sites that clearly suck the joy out of my favorite hobbies, like PC Gamer and Cartoon Brew, but at the same time I should not have to be nearly as careful reading funny reviews under Newgrounds art, fearing there will be one "party pooper" comment that will ruin my day and make me increasingly feel like there is no escape at all from this "2020's malaise." Everyone here will be more motivated to just make increasingly-awesome art if they feel Newgrounds here is more of an escape from all the bickering and sadness, and who knows, maybe our collective optimism will give us the energy and passion we need to solve climate change? It's when we all decide that the problem is insurmountable, give up, and spend the rest of our dreary existence being advertised to non-stop in Facebook's Metaverse that we should start to worry. Hope is crucial for being prolific in art and solving problems that many say can't be solve.

At the very least, it's times like these that counting one's blessings is crucial not just for mental health, but being prepared to solve problems as they come. For instance, I still can't believe the Omicron variant is the absolute least of my concerns at the moment considering how dire the pandemic situation seemed to be at the start of this year (being fully vaccinated/boostered helps, of course). Having grown up during a very apathetic 2000's, too, it is encouraging to see people so affected by problems in the world these days and want to do everything about it when, in the past, they would over-do it with the escapism and pretend any problem they can't easily solve doesn't even exist. Maybe those that bombard us with constant negativity are simply a bit behind-the-times, thinking that most still only think for themselves and avoid anything that makes them feel uncomfortable when that is actually becoming less true. A lot of ink has been spilled about how "Shit Happens," but nobody ever talks about how sometimes, Shit DOESN'T Happen.

I am currently working on perhaps the largest animated project of my life so far—plus some day job to pay the inflated bills, I guess. With 2 jobs, though, it is becoming increasingly apparent that I can’t overwhelm myself with all these extra personal projects and I should give my undivided attention to my main project so that I can get it done faster, rather than juggle several at once and end up taking longer than I should with all of them.

Thus it is with great dismay, sadness, madness, indigestion and ingrown toenails that I have to be the bad guy and say I won’t upload here or anywhere else until my project is done, and because it is so ambitious I can’t tell you when it will be done and I will be free to upload that project plus upload more frequently in general until I myself know for sure it will be done. It might not be a big deal for the patient among you, but I think I have kind of set an expectation on Newgrounds that I will upload frequently in the last couple of years and I need to make people aware that, if I want to do more high-quality animations as opposed to just sketches and quick illustrations, I need to prioritize quality over quantity (posting one or two polished animations a year fit for the Movie Portal as opposed to a ton of doodles of varying quality) and focusing on only one project and medium/software so that I specialize in something.

I don’t know, maybe I’m over-thinking it. Naturally my more polished and “good” stuff tends to be more popular even if people have to wait longer, but at the same time I don’t want people to think I’m “dead” just because my current project requires me to focus and go quiet on the Internet for up to a year at a time. I guess the important thing is to temper my audience’s expectations and do a better job setting my priorities so that I can actually get big projects done. I’ll upload some of the smaller stuff I did recently before I came to this realization that I should focus more to tide you over. And it’s not like I’m not going to stop visiting here on my breaks and liking everyone else’s stuff, it’s just that I won’t upload anything myself until I finish this one big project. And of course, I can’t tell you what exactly it is I’m working on until I’m completely done, but I can easily promise that it will be more entertaining and creative than anything I’ve ever posted since I started my Newgrounds account!

See you when I see you…

WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD. GRAB A SANDWICH FIRST.

Maybe it's because I've been a shut-in long before the pandemic and will likely still be one in some (increasingly-hard-to-believe) future where I no longer have to think about masks, but my 2021 wasn't the worst year of my life and was certainly better than my 2020. That's not to say there weren't personal disappointments and even tragedies for me this year, as well as concerns about the state of US politics and democracy, but none of them directly had anything to do with COVID-19 and would have still happened in any given year prior to the pandemic. In fact, if it weren't for the new Omicron variant suddenly re-activating my "worry-wart" nature, I would say I actually finished off 2021 strong with getting a new day job, plus a long-term freelance animation project and wrapping up the year with this lovely 3D sculpt commission I got from FlikkiShassArt:

Deactivating my Twitter account back in April and my Facebook/Instagram account in August or September also helped improve my mood quite a bit. I do want to make my art as easy to find online as possible, but the constant "culture war" bickering on more those two more-mainstream sites really demotivated me from making art to the point where even just quickly uploading my art and leaving took nerves of steel, so I bit the bullet and "cancelled" myself from those sites before anybody else could. Facebook was kind of dying with the younger generation, anyway, and I'm pretty sure you can't use either site uninhibited without getting an account, not like how you can browse Newgrounds, Deviant, Ko-fi, YouTube, ArtStation or any other sites without an account, so I don't think getting rid of those accounts made much of a dent on my discoverability anyway.

But anyway, on to the resolutions that will hopefully improve my art career regardless of the world's state by the end of this year:

• I will simplify my art style for the sake of those of you with weaker Internet speeds/"TikTok" attention spans, which includes uploading at smaller, more manageable resolutions and not using noisy, busy textures unless necessary. Like most aspiring 3D artists, I fell into the trap of making "This will be Graphics in 2013"-type pieces and my recent commission from FlikkiShashArt gave me a much-needed reminder that, unless I'm making photo-realistic VFX, simpler color textures are generally better.
• Focusing...focusing...I will try to specialize more this year and hopefully be a "master" at one thing instead of just merely being competent at a lot of things. It's no secret that I want to work in the LA animation industry, so while I want to do my best to preserve 2D frame-by-frame animation I do need to get much, much better at 3D modeling specifically to even stand a chance in Burbank because there are basically ZERO 2D jobs nowadays, thus most of my posts here will likely be 3D models and sculpts from now on. However, the current super-secret freelance animation project that I'm working is 2D frame-by-frame, so those who followed me specifically for 2D stuff will still have at least that to look forward to in...2024 or so...
• Quality over Quantity--maybe this happens to a lot of artists who are also Sonic the Hedgehog fans, but in the past I was more interested in building my social media presence through a large quantity of uploads instead of just making a few quality pieces a year. This of course results in inconsistent quality where one of my pieces may turn out to be as beloved as Sonic 2, OR it turns out to be an insulting mess like Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (I think Sonic '06 is over-hated for the most part), but most of the time it is just aggressively-mediocre noise like Sonic 3D Blast or Sonic & The Black Knight. My super-busy schedule going into 2022 gives me a perfect opportunity to try a more "Super Mario-esque" approach of going quiet for a while, but then uploading a potential modern classic when you least expect it.
• Finally, spread some much-needed positivity and good vibes--obviously I can't promise that our world leaders and their loyal followers will be less petty, that climate change will be solved, or even that the world will be vaccinated to the point where COVID variants will no longer be a society-altering issue, like the cold or the flu, let alone eradicated entirely like smallpox, but I can try to distract you from the news with funny-looking character designs. As I pondered leaving Twitter, I realized how inherently stupid it is to try to have a good-faith discussions on touchy issues on websites that either severely limit your character count or is filled with rude trolls that respond with "TL;DR." When you think about it, the only thing social media is good for is easy-to-digest art and videos and maybe funny jokes if you're more of a writer-type--how Twitter and Facebook in particular became infamous for political bickering when they are not even well-suited for thoughts that take more than 3 words to express is beyond me. But anyway, I'll probably avoid commenting unless I'm super-impressed with a piece to avoid potentially starting another flame war and focus more on uploading characters and liking other's stuff in an attempt to at least make portions of the community less anxiety-inducing. If we're stuck inside waiting for rich people to fix the world, we might as well try to make the Internet more chill in comparison while we wait, right?

I have no idea why I’m getting so many followers this past week, but thank you so much!

I made this “T-Posed” sculpt of Mr. Needle (my OC) during my work’s lunch breaks. Just on my phone via the Nomad app, I have sculpted a high-poly character, textures with basic PBR colors, created the lighting setup, and tested several post-processing effects like Ambient Occlusion and Film Grain to hide the fact (as best as I possibly can) that he’s not rendered realistically through ray tracing—yet.

Now I still have a ton of stuff to do in Blender before I can even begin to animate Mr. Needle, but the fact of the matter is that I can model, texture, light, and in certain cases UV map a character on my phone (in Battery Saver mode, no less), and that is seriously going to help me out whenever I want to make art, but I’m too busy or physically tired to even boot up my laptop and Blender. Nomad Sculpt is objectively the best thing to come out of the year 2020(!).

I am not a big fan of the way Ko-fi overly-compresses my images when I upload them, even when compared to Twitter's infamous compression. I am also concerned that Ko-fi is not equipped to compete with bigger alternatives like Patreon, and some people don't seem to like that it relies solely on PayPal as a payment option (although my own father, who is not very computer-literate outside of basic word processing and email-checking for work, was able to give me money through Ko-fi one time without having his own PayPal account).

It's probably best if I just prioritize uploading on Newgrounds (and maybe also YouTube for the occasional full-blown animated cartoon) and, not absolutely get rid of Ko-fi like I did with Twitter and Facebook, but just use it as a "tip jar" and not bother with uploading there--I'll just upload my art here and provide a link to Ko-fi in the description or something. I am in a good place right now with a "pay the bills" job and some freelance art and animation work, too, so it's not like I need to rely on Ko-fi for income or even use social media in general right now for anything more serious than "I want to upload some of my work when I have the free time and see how people react."

Nonetheless, like my barely-there YouTube account, Ko-fi is still there as a "necessary evil" to make sure my work is easy for employers or clients to find on the Internet, even if I don't outright enjoy the site like I do with Newgrounds, ArtStation or ZBrushCentral (thank you for not being like the crazies on Twitter or the wannabe-conspiracy-theorists on Facebook, btw). If you want to support my work, but I'm not open for commissions at the moment, you can still "buy me a cup of coffee" on Ko-fi.

My Ko-fi