...Might as well celebrate my 1st Amendment Rights (free speech) as a US-based artist while I still can, I suppose.

So I participated in a forum thread recently out of boredom and responded maybe, 5 times--a bit excessive in retrospect, I agree. Understandably, the mods deleted two out of the 5 posts from me that they felt wasn't really adding to the conversation. One was one I'm super-glad they decided to hide from the public since it was what the young sprouts call "schizo-posting" about my current political anxieties due to the nature of the forum topic being somewhat political in nature. But the other was basically a 3-word joke comment referencing Oney Plays (and I think it was from Chris O'Neill impersonating Angry Video Game Nerd or The Nostalgia Critic like he so often does). This goes to show to me that, at least on NG's forum, they don't want unhelpful, rant-y essays and manifestos that contribute nothing to the conversation, but at the same time they don't have patience for quick (and equally-unhelpful) jokes targeted at those that don't have the attention span of reading anything on the Internet that is longer than three words. Thus, I should probably ignore my critics saying I should be less wordy if, in old-school forums, I'm actively encouraged to write literal essays and mods will probably delete my funny-but-unhelpful short jokes anyway, so long as the long essays are more helpful than quick YouTube-comment-esque jokes or even-longer rants about unrelated anxieties.

In short, it's not like you HAVE to read my walls of texts in forums properly explaining my point of view, no one's pointing a gun at your head forcing you to. Including this wall of text. We have comment sections in literally every social media site (including the Reviews section under NG Art Portal section) if you're more interested in quick Dad jokes instead of scrolling through wordy, nerdy discussions on, say, the current state of the SpongeBob SquarePants franchise. In my own art and animation submissions, I do take full advantage of the idea that "a picture is worth 1,000 words" and make things more visual than verbal.

Anyway, that's my experience on learning forum etiquette the hard way, again you don't have to read all this if you don't want to. Being social is hard, even online...

Say what you will about the series from the 2000s onwards, those SEGA Genesis games (plus Sonic CD and Sonic Mania) are fast-paced gaming in its finest and purest form! Take it from a 29-year-old that can't get enough of a 33-year-old SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive masterpiece!

So my Mom and sister, who are therapists or whatever, just made me see Inside Out 2. As much as I ADORED Pixar growing up and still find them the only half-decent thing about modern Disney, I was not super excited about watching it and probably would have never watched it myself because I'm frankly disappointed that Disney seems to be forcing Pixar to make pointless sequels again. The only Pixar sequels I felt were genuinely better than the original were Toy Story 2 (that was the first theater experience I remember when I was only 4, so I might be biased) and Toy Story 3 (Coincidentally, I was Andy's exact age in that movie and about to head off to college when it came out, so again, might be biased).

Let's get the bad out of the way first, then focus on the good: I was 100% correct in assuming this sequel would not impact me emotionally (heh heh) nearly as much as the first movie. Despite taking place in a slightly-older Riley's mind, the overall vibe kind of felt more childish and basic, with some particularly on-the-nose metaphors compared to the already-blunt original. To be fair, the movie establishes early on that Riley experiences extremely heightened emotions due to puberty (no references to periods like with Turning Red this time, ya prudes, just general SFW puberty stuff), and like most teenagers (no offense, 95% of my Newgrounds audience), they tend to blow everything WAY out of proportion, but that unfortunately means the story felt extremely low-stakes when you think about it for 2 seconds. In the first movie, Riley literally runs away from home due to her inability to adapt to all the changes in her life and surroundings. In the sequel, she just kind of tries too hard to impress the "cool" girls at the expense of her real friends, even though her real friends are going to move far away anyway and she's actually kind of in the right attempting to make new friends.

Not that it bothers me too much, especially after I left the Twitter hive mind, but you can sort of tell that Disney execs probably felt the first movie was too "white" and made Pixar writers try really hard to make everyone around Riley more "diverse." Of course there's nothing inherently wrong with that and I can assure you Pixar, as usual, isn't nearly as "in-your-face" about its DEI regulations as the entire rest of the Disney Corporation, nor does it seem to be used as a crutch for poor storytelling, but it did make me giggle a tad seeing Riley and her friends (old and new) and being reminded of DeeDee and her friends in Dexter's Lab, and how it's glaringly obvious that DeeDee's token black and Asian friends (who look and dress exactly like her, other than being Black and Asian) only exist because some editors were concerned important people might complain. On the flipside, without spoiling anything, there were moments where I was genuinely convinced this would become the North American equivalent of a yuri with some of the obvious sexual tension between Riley and the other girls, but of course being a multimillion dollar Hollywood movie that has to do well in places like China, Saudi Arabia and the American South, the movie still goes to great pains to assure right wing audience members that Riley is still very much into boys (while still dropping vague hints that she MIGHT be bi-curious for LGBTQIA+ movie audiences, hm?). If a certain Cartoon Brew interview with the Turning Red animators is true, we might have to blame Disney leadership for being too-wishy-washy, neither pleasing conservative viewers that feel abandoned by Disney's new direction, while drastically limiting their "progressive" values to basic morals of "women can do things, too!" because anything beyond that could get them banned from many lucrative markets like China.

The bad stuff may seem like a lot, but the good stuff pleasantly surprised me and utlimately over-powered the bad stuff. The designs of the new emotions, Anxiety, Ennui, Envy, and Embarrassment, are all inspired and easy to read visually, probably even more so than the original movie's emotions. Fear kind of looks like a Smiling Friends character in a post-Smiling Friends world, and of course I just want to hug Sadness and tell her to let it out. Anger, Disgust, and even Joy seem to get some much-needed character development to ensure this sequel is at least a necessary continuation of the first movie, although I can already tell Joy is going to have to go through the exact same character arc in every future sequel similar to Woody in Toy Story now that Disney knows Inside Out is worth milking past death.

Speaking of Disney, without spoiling ANYTHING at all, it had some brilliant scenes that must have been cathartic for Pixar animators constantly sitting under the Swinging Sword of Damocles, even though Pixar is perhaps the only part of modern Disney that is providing passable forms of entertainment. What are you trying to say, Pixar? That I shouldn't be trying to turn my hobbies and interests into a career because Disney in particular will squeeze out every last bit of passion I still have for animation? In particular, I noticed jabs at the overseas sweatshops that Hollywood studios rely on instead of paying their actual employees at home; the obnoxious popularity of Bluey; possibly even a reference to how, when I was closer to Riley's age (13), I thought Zelda, Kingdom Hearts even Subspace Emissary in Super Smash Bros. Brawl were the deepest, most impactful game stories ever made, but as an adult I think KH in particular is melodramatic cringe and nonsensical (though Square Enix still can't seem to recreate the satisfying action-RPG combat from Kingdom Hearts II in Final Fantasy XVI and FInal Fantasy VII Rebirth, so there's that). All I'll say is that Bob Iger should consider himself the luckiest man in the world that Pixar is still keeping me remotely interested in anything "Disney" and he should reward Pixar's top talent accordingly...

Riley herself was ironically less annoying and more believable to me than in the first movie. I normally can't stand giggling schoolgirls in media (I tried to give Sailor Moon a chance recently, only lasted 3 minutes through a badly-English-dubbed episode before the "girlish giggling" made me reach for the kitchen knives), but somehow, probably because of her quest to impress the "cool girls," I heavily related to the constant tug and pull of just being a teenager in general (When do I laugh with the guys? When do I act cool, calm and collected? SOCIAL LIFE HARD!!).

Finally, even if I feel the message and metaphors are more ham-fisted compared to the first movie, I think, as someone who continually struggles with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), the movie's message of learning to live with constant anxiety and self-doubt *while recognizing you cannot be completely free from it is extremely important and something more people outside of the mental health industry need to hear for their own sakes. I highly recommend watching this movie just so you can recognize that your negative feelings are valid and shouldn't be bottled up, and there are ways to keep them under control without it completely ruining your life and depriving you of true joy and fulfillment. Yeah, basically the same exact message as the first movie, but still.

The American entertainment industry is going through some rough times right now--some self-inflicted by "design by committee" decision-making from uncreative suits and self-described "auteurs" with inflated egos like whoever's destroying the rest of Disney (especially Marvel and Star Wars) right now, some just unfortunate inevitabilities like how there's just not much being made at the moment while the industry still recovers from the work stoppages caused by last year's dual-strikes and the constant "anxiety" (see what I did there?) of AI's impact on the arts--so it's not exactly high praise to say that Inside Out 2 is the best movie in a long time and the first time where driving all the way to my overpriced theater and watching like an hour of ads of inferior Disney movies (I can already tell Mufasa is going to be a worse remake of Lion King 2019, itself a worse remake of Lion King 1994) before the actual movie starts, actually seemed worth it. Still, I was beginning to believe that the "theater experience" was actually dying like most aspiring animators and even possibly non-interactive entertainment was becoming passe to a generation of kids who would rather play Roblox all day instead of sit through even my 1-minute animations, but no, turns out the only problem is that there aren't a lot of good big-budget movies out right now and Inside Out 2 is a reminder that not all things made by Hollywood has to simultaneously preachy AF and devoid of any actual meaning and purpose to exist besides "money."

Whew! If you made through my essay of a review, NOW I'm going to talk about my NG-related plans for the future. I'm working on assets for future cartoons, but because my laptop makes my room extremely hot when plugged in at full power, I'm not really going to do any hardcore animation and rendering until maybe late October, so for now I'm just making storyboards, models, textures and rigs for next year's potential animations and hopefully once I DO get to animating, I can get them out a bit quicker since all the pre-production stuff is out of the way. So don't think of it as a "summer hiatus," think of it as "ANIMATION'S HARD, I'VE GOT A FULL-TIME JOB, ANIMATION'S HARD, ANIMATION'S HAAAARRRD..."

Finally, because I take great joy (heh) in making you feel disgust (double-heh), I would just like to say that if Inside Out 2 took place in a boy's mind during puberty instead of a girl's, then Embarrassment in particular would have an unpredictable boner (since boys can't seem to control their sexual organs until at least later in high school), and the major conflict of the movie would be that the boy would constantly find himself in the awkward situation of needing to get up from his desk and go to the next class, but having to wait until his boner gets flaccid again, even when he's not aroused by anything or surrounded by anyone he would find remotely attractive. Then again, that's just Studio Gainax's FLCL, isn't it?

"I'm not a 'people' person! I'm barely a 'person'!!" - Mr. Crocker

Himblarp Spoonbliss's legally-distinct male firstborn, Balthasar "Balt" Spoonbliss. DO NOT STEAL

Himblarp Spoonbliss, not to be confused with the copyright-protected character, Homer Simpson.

Wow! The Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Team has made the monsters more disgusting and terrifying than in the original! Wait, those are the character models for James, Maria and Angela?! Hoo boy...

Adobe Illustrator-style vector art on a tiny phone screen with no pressure sensitivity is simply not recommended. AND somehow these 2D vector apps drain my phone's battery much faster than my 3D sculpting apps! Nonetheless, here are some character concepts recommended by @Skhaiwhaelz that I will most certainly do on a proper computer+graphic tablet with Inkscape next time.

@Skhaiwhaelz inspired me to do this, make a proper, public turnaround of the characters I made for my "Keister Bunny" animation. I started with Gunk, and used a phone app called VectorMotion to make this in an Adobe-Illustrator-esque vector drawing way.

I have basically zero practice with vector art software prior to this (of course I had to scribble out this design on a piece of paper before even attempting to do this on my phone), and of course working on a phone for ANYTHING is hardly ideal (though I do it because I'm far away from my computer most days), so I decided this wasn't quite polished enough to put in the Art Portal, even as a "Sketch," so I'll just share it here as a news post. I also felt using purely flat shading was good in this case so that when I re-make the 3D model and rig for Gunk, I can quickly sample the colors in Blender's texture painting tools and quickly add the accurate base colors to Gunk before moving on to adding texture detail, fake ambient occlusion, etc.

If any 3D modelers or cut-out 2D animators are interested in using this concept sketch to make your own fan art or takes on Gunk here, then feel free! As for AI data scrapers and art thieves, I say BUZZ OFF, but otherwise what can I do?

I'll work on his perpetually-angry pal, Punk, next, and because I'm kind of taking a much-needed break from serious animation, I'll probably do a concept sheet for the Keister Bunny, too, even though he was only meant to be a one-off holiday-themed character.

Anyone remember a short-lived show called "Kappa Mikey?" It was about a North American cartoon boy trying to fit into the Japanese anime he was somehow cast into as the protagonist. Of course, it was short-lived because, at least in the U.S., it had the misfortune of being on Nickelodeon, and we all know what Nickelodeon does with any show that DARES to co-exist on the same channel as SpongeBob.

Not to say it was a "classic" cartoon, unfortunately. It seemed to miss every single opportunity to make any notable insights about the western industry and its values vs. Japan and its own cultural values, or even make an actual joke about the "fish-out-of-water" nature of its plots. Also, the anime character designs were made by a lot of the infamous people that made "My Life Me" and various poorly-drawn "How to Draw Manga" books that I would always see at Scholastic book fairs in grade school, so of course they never seemed to be designed by anyone that has actually seen a Japanese production outside of maybe watching a snippet of a Pokémon episode with their children on occasion--resulting in the characters being dumbed-down stereotypes (especially Yes Man--seriously, even 15+ years ago it was shocking they got away with Yes Man's character design). Naturally, besides SpongeBob it got overshadowed by a far more genuine attempt at North American "anime," Avatar: The Last Airbender. Talk about a tough act to follow. At the time, though, it was just cool to see a show even attempt to mix the typical western cartoon art style with standard anime designs.

That is the long way of saying that mixing cartoon designs with anime in my own sketches is also fun. Also, the original "fat" Pikachu with a decidedly-more-American diet, because why not?

Unsurprisingly, my default anime design tropes are trapped in the 1990's, just like my western cartoon design tropes.

I was considering doing a Mermay thing this month, uploading different mermaid ideas I've had (whether they are hideous products of human pollution, conventionally-attractive and/or other people's female OCs as mermaids) and even got a bit of a head start on it back in late April, but unfortunately I DRASTICALLY underestimated how much my workload would increase throughout this month due to certain things I need to do for my day job (I won't even have my long-coveted four-day workweek for the next few weeks, have to work 5-6 days on ACTUAL work like the rest of you street urchins!). Still, I'm proud of the 3 sketches I did get done beforehand, particularly the cursed reverse-mermaid for Day 1 and finally giving into my slight preference for...more-huggable women for what would have been Day 3's Mermay sketch.

Nomad Sculpt on my iPad got some great (albeit paid) upgrades that will make the process of creating extremely-detailed character sculpts that I can then rig and pose (or even animate) a bit easier, so I will likely make a sculpt of the cursed reverse-mermaid in the near future. Not now, I'm swamped at work!

"Barttv" on Blenderartists.org has just informed me "Whiny Do-Do-De-Do is one of the featured "Best of Blender Artists" submissions for this weekend on the Blender Nation website! You'll have to scroll down quite a bit to find it (it's next to the fan art illustration of Geralt from The Witcher), but still, what an honor that this silly little cartoon I made impressed the Blender 3D community!

https://www.blendernation.com/2024/04/26/best-of-blender-artists-2024-17/