Working on a new animation on the ol’ iPad.

I’ve noticed on Newgrounds that I see a lot of fanart of franchises that I absolutely adored as a kid (and now), but are not super relevant to the younger generations, such as Klonoa or Um Jammer Lammy. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that there is still a “safe space” of sorts on the Internet for people that are ancient by TikTok/Twitter standards, but how am I supposed to understand the FLOSSing and the drips and the “red is sus” and the Cancel Culture if I spend most of my time on this surprisingly pleasant site?

I know I’ve said that I would use YouTube a lot less, but I did upload my latest video, Pupper de Poppers, in an attempt to see if it’s still worth the trouble uploading to that site (as opposed to my occasional gameplay videos and low-effort memes that seem to get thousands more views there). It did not—even on my Ko-fi, which I am still gradually building my audience on, I’ve gotten a handful more views on Puppers (in GIF form) than on my 10-year-old YouTube channel. Of course, not only is Newgrounds more animator-friendly, I’m more likely to get feedback (constructive or otherwise) that will help me do better next time.

Therefore, I will narrow down my list of social media sites to consistently upload to include Newgrounds, Ko-fi, and Twitter (as much as I hate Twitter, people seem to appreciate my stuff that actually takes time and effort to publish there). I’ll just use YouTube strictly for fun and occasionally upload videos of obscure games I like or something, but otherwise it doesn’t seem worth it to dedicate any significant amount of time to it that would be better spent on improving my animations.

Popping up tomorrow!

Still chipping away at that 3D character I’m working on for my portfolio. Patience, young Padawan.

I am quite proud of infecting the “BBW” tag with my drawing, “Bye Bye Birdbrain.” Oh, you wanted to ONLY see lovely women who made no attempt whatsoever to exercise indoors during quarantine? Too bad! Look at this freaky bird instead of freaky fetish art!

Wait what? You have a fetish for ugly fat red robins being shot at, too?! You might want to talk to your therapist about that, bub.

I’ve made it no secret that I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Twitter—its mere petty existence tests my sanity on a daily basis, but I still use it to find artists to help me on projects and test if my art has “mainstream” appeal (it doesn’t just appeal to other artists or people who understand the process).

However, I am increasingly starting to believe skeptics (cynics?) that are convinced that social media platforms are actively starting flame wars so they can get that sweet, sweet ad revenue that apparently comes when a post gets a lot of comments, knowing fully well they are damaging their user’s mental health, making the world a meaner place, and even possibly paving the way for the next Donald Trump—don’t let their attempts to slap political trolls on the wrist long after the damage has been done fool you.

Whether or not that’s how platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube work, I have noticed that I can’t remember a single time that Twitter’s “Trending” tab has shown anything positive that doesn’t make me absolutely furious at a celebrity, a politician, a country, a state, a TV show I had no plans on following, anyway, etc. I have also given up on Facebook and Instagram entirely after being told my political rants and memes there are more likely to get noticed than my art and I should focus on that instead, at which point I wisely decided that getting a few more followers on Facebook was not worth saying controversial stuff all the time that will cost me a higher-paying job, particularly in animation.

All in all, this is just a long way of saying that I will post more often on Newgrounds, Ko-fi and ArtStation and let my Twitter and YouTube accounts shrivel up, as 1) Clearly their algorithms are now massive risk/reward systems that incentivize you for being an asshole online, even if you risk being “cancelled” or even starting actual real-life fights when the rudeness of the Internet inevitably gets to you, and I no longer want to be a party to that, and 2) It seems incredibly difficult and naïve at this point to think I can succeed on mainstream platforms with innocuous or even uplifting content, and the pressure to keep up with their algorithms for meaningless likes and comments is resulting in me rushing my art and potentially hurting my chances of getting a paid job in animation—I know now that succeeding in social media and succeeding in getting paid to draw (so that I can leave my lousy job working at a grocery store) are mutually exclusive goals in my unique case. If I become a famous artist, I could just return to Twitter or YouTube anyway and get far more attention with almost no effort simply by being well-known (though I promise to not become a Butch Hartman)—the days of getting famous on the Internet without already being famous elsewhere are long gone.

With Newgrounds, Ko-fi, ArtStation, and any other art-only sites (I’m going to pretend Newgrounds’ freakish Forum section doesn’t exist) I don’t feel as pressured to produce a huge quantity of art at the expense of quality, and in fact it seems like my art is more likely to be noticed and even promoted to potential employers if I spend the extra months polishing my art to professional levels. So while I can’t give up entirely on YouTube and Twitter (both are still great sources for tutorials and artist help), I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago and simply make quality art that will get me a better job without trying in vain to compete with people who can easily post quality content on a daily basis, all for likes and comments that won’t pay for the roof over my head.

Just to show you I’m not dead in the corner of a rotting GameStop in Massachusetts or something, here’s what I’ve been working on. It’s for a portfolio that I hope will get me an animation job, so it’s going to take a while...

And yes, I really am crazy enough to model, texture, and rig entire 3D characters (at least with strict medium-poly count budgets) on my iPad. I use a combination of SuperD, Sketch 3D, Forger, iArtPro (for 2D texture stuff) and Clara.io to make this feasible, and no, the tutorials are not nearly as plentiful as they are for Blender, so you need a strong fundamental understanding of multiple mainstream 3D programs before you can bang your head on your iPad until you make something at least N64-quality during an already anxiety-inducing year like 2020 like I did.

I have come to the painfully obvious realization recently that I am much more productive in my art when I am spending more time creating art than looking for “inspiration” for hours on end (it’s generally better to get inspired by real life than to make an inferior homage to another artist, anyway). I am going to spend less time on social media as a result, which is of course easy on Twitter since it is a hive-mind of sadness and despair, but harder with Newgrounds because there are too many awesome people here. Thank goodness for my phone’s airplane mode!

Play around with my latest project here!

https://clara.io/view/b9f35d5c-7e15-4e4f-a3c6-7cd87173b8b8