I am turning 30 today. I would say today is my "Birthday," but unfortunately SOMEONE (Cough hack cough cough @TheMiamiDeSantos hack cough wheeze oh there goes a lung) finds the concept of birthdays somewhat problematic, so I'll just say I'm the special 30th anniversary edition of myself that costs $700 and no longer comes with a disc drive or stand.

I think this classic Simpsons clip explains the situation here perfectly:

Technically, I'm pretty sure Homer's canonical age in The Simpsons is 34, so I'm still a baby! I'm still with it! Gen Z and Gen Alpha totally aren't getting sick of me constantly quoting classic SpongeBob and Simpsons while bragging my generation of TV cartoons was a million times better than what they get today! Heh heh heh...(sobs)

Work at my day job has been picking up pretty drastically this past year, yet I still I want to find time to do art on my days off (or lunch breaks in the case of the art I do or start on my portable phone), so I've been kind of reviewing the reactions to the variety of Art Portal submissions I've uploaded over the years to see if I can narrow my focus a bit to one art or rendering style, instead of trying to be good at EVERYTHING (and therefore a master at nothing). It seems, at least in the last couple of years, my 3D renders in Blender or Nomad fare a bit better on average in terms of higher views over time plus much better reviews (above 4.5 Stars on average) compared to my 2D illustrations and concept art, especially once I got better and moved away from low-poly N64-like art towards medium-poly, Pixar or Dreamworks-like sculpted models.

There are, of course, exceptions where I put a ton of effort into one single illustration and get rewarded accordingly, but otherwise I've been putting a ton more effort every single day in practicing at least an hour a day on improving my 3D modeling and sculpting skills (especially with apps on my phone like Valence 3D, Nomad and Plastic ensuring I can do that even on days where I have no access to my laptop and Blender), plus all the art that has actually earned me Front-Page status for the day (whether it is for a group collab or even my own personal solo projects) was 3D art rendered in either Blender or Nomad, so I think it would be best with my increasingly-limited free time to focus on perfecting my 3D modeling skills rather than, again, trying to be a Jack-of-All-Trades, getting passable at a massive variety of disparate skills, but not becoming truly great and polished at any one of them.

I'll still try to make full-blown 3D animations for the Movie Portal, because while the crowd for that side of Newgrounds seems much harder to please, it is immensely more satisfying for me to make my 3D models come to life with 3D animation. Also, if I'm being honest, once all the assets are modeled, textured and rigged, 3D animation is FAR less time-consuming than 2D frame-by-frame animation, while allowing more flexible and lifelike rigs and movements than 2D puppet rig animation much of the time, so that's another reason I may shift my focus strictly towards 3D art these days.

I imagine this might be a bit disappointing for those of you that actually prefer my 2D stuff, but I can still upload WIP 2D sketches of my eventual 3D models and sculpts as Blog Posts--my ideas do start off as pencil sketches in my sketchbook before I touch a computer and start transferring the 2D sketches into polished 3D models. Obviously it's not a good idea for me to upload mere sketches to the Art Portal, but let's be honest, you might prefer my livelier, loosey-goosey gestural pencil sketches over my sterilized final 2D illustrations.

On a related note, if you want me to make a 3D model or sculpt of your OC and I have the time to honor that request, feel free to send me a character sheet of your OC. There are only a couple things to keep in mind when creating such a character sheet:

• Only use flat colors, no shading, highlights or textures. It makes it easier for me to choose colors when I texture the model.
• Show a front, side and back view of your entire character in a generic T-Pose or A-Pose. At the very least, draw your character at a 3/4 front view and a 3/4 back view. The point of this is that it makes it easier for me (and 3D modelers in general) to notice details on the character at all angles and more accurately recreate the thickness and proportions the character is supposed to have in 3D space.
• I can do "sexier" OCs if you want, just be aware it will take longer since I don't feel comfortable working on anything remotely NSFW (Not Safe For Work) during my breaks at, well, work on my phone--work on sexy models will have to wait until the weekend when I can work on it in private in Blender + the rest of my family is out of the house for the day. I will also automatically rate my Art Portal submission of the final 3D render M for Mature to discourage minors and normies (or at least people who are not in the mood for fetishized art that day), even if it technically only deserves a T for Teen rating.

So yeah, TL;DR I'm specializing in 3D art for my Art Portal and Movie Portal submissions, now, I'll still share WIP 2D sketches in Blog Posts like this one, and don't be afraid to suggest OCs of yours for me to turn into 3D models or sculpts if you happen to catch me during an artist's block, unable to come up with new or sufficiently-appealing character designs on my own.

Also, new cartoon from me on Friday (or Saturday, depending on your time zone). Hide the children...

I know explaining my 3D workflow to 2D artists can be a bit confusing, so let's start with the render engine I use, called Eevee:

As you can see, Blender Eevee has nothing to do with the adorable and popular Pokémon, Eevee, other than being inspired by its name. Well, I suppose it has more to do with Eevee (the Pokémon) if you are rendering a 3D model of Pokémon Eevee using Blender Eevee.

Hope this helps! And ignore the unoriginal "Deez Nuts" reference, not all my jokes are winners...

So lately I've been FINALLY addressing my backlog of random games I got on Steam Sales over the years using my portable Steam Deck. The Steam Deck is an amazing and wonderful device, well worth the money I spent on it, but I have noticed playing games on it that some games are better for the relatively-small, 800p screen than others. Freedom Planet 2 and its sharp, pixellated visual looks and runs absolutely fantastic on the Deck, and even at the insane speeds this Sonic-like indie game reaches, the visual clarity ensures I never accidentally die in the levels just because I struggled to figure out what is the foreground and what is just a background detail. Meanwhile, I re-downloaded Sonic Generations (the original version from 2011, not the upcoming Sonic X Shadow Generations remaster), and even though I've always found that game to be a bit on the easy side, I found that I keep falling off the stage and dying even in the early levels just because the extra amount of detail and textures on everything was distracting me, and the overall visual clarity and contrast was much lower, probably because it was originally made to be played on massive HDTVs or excessively-large monitors. I prefer to stick with the 3DS version of Sonic Generations if I want to play that game on the go, naturally the handheld-only version of that game is easier to make out on small, low-resolution handheld screens.

Which brings me to my main question: How much time do you spend watching Newgrounds or YouTube on a small phone screen, as opposed to a large tablet or computer screen?

I ask because, if it turns out you watch my animations (such as my recent "Whiny Dodo-de-Do" cartoon) mostly on a tiny phone screen, then it means I'm probably wasting too much time manually painting in textures on my characters and props Substance Painter-style (I actually use Nomad on my phone) that you will never even notice or care about. In the VFX industry, this phenomenon of wasting significant amount of energy and time on details no one will even be able to see in the final animation is politely known as, uhh, "pixel-fucking." If it turns out you're NOT watching or looking at my stuff on massive 1080p or 4K monitors, then it would frankly save me a ton of time to just focus on bold colors and strong, easy-to-read silhouettes instead, similar to Freedom Planet 2 or the 3DS version of Sonic Generations, while giving me more time to work on the story, animation, and other stuff that is far more likely to entertain you than 8K photo textures.

Heck, it would mean I can hang on to my current hardware MUCH longer if I don't have to worry about making sure I have the latest GPU for "triple-A" textures and resolutions, and when I do have to upgrade, I don't have to spend as much (barring some war or pandemic causing rampant inflation again on even cheap office laptops, of course). It would ensure I better live up to my pro-environment ideals even when animating in 3D.

Texturing is my favorite part of the 3D process, though, and if I don't spend absurd amounts of my free time optimizing large photo textures, I will probably spend that much time instead hand-painting textures like how textures were made in the PS2 era, especially for Blizzard's World of Warcraft, so if you do, in fact, generally watch Newgrounds or YouTube cartoons on large, hi-res monitors or TV sets, then it's not a problem. But I thought I should ask anyway and tailor my workflow on future animations accordingly.

I guess a good test would be this test render I shared recently in another news post. Can you see the normal map microdetail on the buildings way in the back without zooming in significantly? Or the scratches on the metal pole of the bus sign? I actually can't on my laptop screen, unless I zoom in a ton.

P.S. This news post is only rated "M for Mature" because of that "Pixel-fucking" term. That's it. That's all.

I took a bit of a break here for no other reason than to give myself more free time to watch the Olympics, I love sports, especially the long-distance running and cycling events. But I've finally been broken all the AI-techbro commercials, weirdly-mean-spirited Nike commercials, and of course the schmaltzy fake-inspirational commercials and introduction to athletes that either win drama-free (the US Gymnastic team, specifically Simone Biles) or actually end up losing horribly in their big event, defeating the purpose of the inspirational videos shown before (basically everything else). The Kamala Harris for President ads are cool, though, in my totally biased and partisan opinion. The Summer Olympics have basically become my once-every-four-years reminder as to why "traditional" cable TV is dying and pretty much only watched by Boomers nowadays.

But anyway, I'm ready to get a different and more genuine form of inspiration from the creative and out-there stuff that seems to regularly flood Newground's Movie Portal, even if I still squeeze in some time in the next week for the Olympic events that I actually want to watch and the Closing Ceremony.

I have been still chipping away at some pre-production for 5(!!) short animations I would like to start officially animating once the weather cools down and putting out sometime in 2025, so it's not really even a hiatus so much as a break from time-consuming-but-less-productive stuff like answering questions in the forum or taking the extra time to actually type reviews and praises for artwork and Movie Portal submissions that I especially resonate with.

It's a tricky balancing act, because I do think part of the reason my art does surprisingly well on Newgrounds and no where else is because is because I engage with the community a lot and form online friendships here, something I couldn't do on the website formerly known as Twitter, YouTube or Instagram due to the sheer amount of toxicity and political doomerism those websites seem to encourage--not to say the NG community is perfect, but it sure beats the all-too-common situation on most bigger social media sites now where you'd watch a funny, harmless video of a dog being cute or an especially funny and lowbrow OneyPlays episode, only to then scroll the community comment section see it is poisoned with unrelated vitriol of people calling each other racial slurs over their differing opinions on the Federal Reserve or something. On the other hand, I've gotten a LOT of pre-production work done all by myself by taking a break from being social, though of course I've been rather lonely the last couple of days as a result.

ANYWAY. How about a little test render I did for one of my future animations, titled "Punk n' Gunk Meet Gregorio the Has-Been," to hold you over until I have something more substantial to show? All assets are custom-made by yours truly this time in Valence3D (iOS app), Nomad (also iOS) and B4Artists, no pre-made stock assets this time!

I just love watching the Olympics (and now the Paralympics) too much, particularly the running events since I did Track and Field in high school and peaked as a distance runner in my early 20's, running half-marathons in under 90 minutes (not that any of my accomplishments compare to the dedicated athletes currently competing on the world stage, of course). See ya in a little over 2 weeks, possibly sooner once NBC's frequent and long "inspiring" commercial breaks remind me why cable television is dying and I have to visit my parents just to watch live sports on their TVs...

I CAN draw cute things, I just generally choose not to. Savor my uncharacteristic wholesomeness while you still can, I'll go back to being the stereotypical "Newgrounds artist" soon enough.

Also, completely unrelated, but something I wanted to show you anyway: I was digging through one of my old drawers looking for my passport or something when I came across a lot of my old art projects from high school. This particular one holds up way better than it has any right to hold up, and still cracks me up (I think it was a parody of some Street Fighter X Tekken promotional art I was seeing a lot of at the time):

Digging through my old art projects also was a much-needed reminder for me that whenever I first start something, it looks bad, but if I keep working on it for years and years, eventually I'll get competent, so long as I don't give up. I've been drawing with pencil, pen and paper since I was six years old, so it's no surprise the traditional art I made ten years later at age 16 still seems somewhat competently-drawn. On the other hand, my early Photoshop and Maya illustrations from college look like absolute ass and I genuinely can't believe I was convinced these early attempts at digital-only art would get me a job at the likes of Pixar right out of college (they didn't). Trust me, you do NOT want to see them (and I certainly don't think they're worth the effort on my part of scanning and then uploading them to NG digitally like I did with "Billy Goat X Parakeet" here). I am getting better with each project, but unfortunately I'm still nowhere near where I want to be in translating my traditional art skills to the digital realm, although I'm convinced an animation project I've been working on all summer will be a new high watermark for me, once it finally comes out in 2025 or...2026...

Still, it's a good reminder that I shouldn't pressure myself to already be the best when I am first starting something, and as long as I keep working at it and don't take too long of a break in between and accept valid criticism, I'll eventually get to a point where I'm finally proud of my digital work. Also, I need specialize after spending so long dabbling in all sorts of art software, mediums and styles--as much as I would like to, I don't have enough years in my life to be a skilled master at everything from Photoshop (and its growing list of alternatives), Maya, 3DS Max, Blender, ZBrush, Substance Painter, 2D animation, 3D/CG Animation, cut-out animation, stop-motion animation, SFW, NSFW, etc etc etc. I do seem to like 3D modeling (especially now that I can make base meshes and sculpts with just my phone on days where I'm otherwise too busy for practicing "proper" 3D software) and seem to be improving the fastest at that at the moment, so maybe I'll focus my efforts there for now.

Finally, seeing the crappy stuff I made in Maya + ZBrush in college vs. the increasingly-passable stuff I make in BforArtists (a free Blender fork that I feel emulates the layout of Maya very well) these days should hopefully put to rest the idea that licensing expensive "industry-standard" software like the Adobe Creative Cloud is a requirement. Yeah, you might run into shallow recruiters who will turn you down mid-interview just because they're not convinced your Nomad (sculpting app) skills will transfer to ZBrush and they don't have the budget or time to so much as train you on ZBrush's different (but not too different) UI. But if you want to "git gud" at any aspect of digital art, don't hold out until you can actually afford these subscriptions or find a way to pirate them without corrupting your current hardware in the process--start NOW on whatever FOSS software or phone app will fit your specific needs, find out what you enjoy and don't enjoy drawing or modeling, and focus on what you enjoy the most for the next 10-15 years of your life. You'll get better with time. If your current computer or phone can only handle SNES or N64-type visuals and textures, then that's actually good--it means you will learn to be better at optimization than 99.9% of so-called "triple-A" video game companies such as Activision, Square Enix or any other studio that pooped out a terrible Nintendo Switch port of a game that barely runs at all on a PS5--despite being a "remaster" of an old PS1 game.

Whew! Motivational rant over. I guess the point is, I'm a slow learner and need to be patient with my own art journey--but at least some color pencil drawing I did of an angry goat and a rabid parakeet when I was only 16 still looks kind of funny.

https://youtube.com/shorts/-uo_3AkPAjk?feature=shared

It has an elephant, a rooster, and a velociraptor. It has everything!

In my ongoing quest to learn the fundamentals of computer animation even when I'm away from the computer, I have downloaded and tried an app called Movie Maker 3D on my phone, not to be confused with Windows 3D Movie Maker (though it seems to have the same straightforward, beginner-friendly design philosophy as that legendary '90's Windows software). By using pre-made assets, I can make quick little cartoons whenever I'm bored on my phone during a break.

Naturally, I don't feel this type of content is appropriate for Newground's "quality over quantity" Movie Portal (or at least, the website doesn't have the bandwidth for the type of animation projects that can be finished in less than 6 months per project), but I think it would make for some good filler content on my YouTube channel to assure my audience there that I'm not dead between major animation uploads, as well as maybe get a bit more experimental with ideas in ways I can't really do with months/years-long animation projects.

You can see one of the cartoons I cobbled together in Movie Maker 3D, "Wolf Chase Beaver and Die," here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/S0wx_sgAA2A?feature=shared

Of course, YouTube Shorts is still a screwy alternative to TikTok and I can't embed YT Shorts the same way I can embed literally every other type of YouTube video. Blame Google as usual for making you go through the extra effort of clicking on the link and opening a new tab to YouTube, not me.