Sorry if I haven't been all that active on Newgrounds lately, but I have FINALLY wrapped a large solo project I have been working on for the past 5 or 6 months--it is called "The Keister Bunny Featuring Punk n' Gunk," and will star this handsome fella here, the Easter Bunny's free-loading cousin, The Keister Bunny! Thanks to Newgrounds not letting me schedule an upload more than a month in advance, it will actually arrive in the Movie Portal early, on March 9th! March 31st is when Easter is this year, btw. The same goes for the YouTube version, even though YT does allow me to schedule the video premiere closer to Easter Sunday.

It was a lot of work making all the assets from scratch, even if they are mostly low-poly, and I hope you will enjoy the final result on March 9th! After all, he won't go away...

https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2018/01/01

First of all, Pearls Before Swine is a fantastic comic strip, I particularly enjoyed it during my cynical teenage years. Heavily influenced the more pessimistic side of my sense of humor.

Secondly, as the comic demonstrates, I'm not a huge fan of publicly reflecting back on the past year. Thankfully, 2023 seems to be one of my better years, especially for art (I'm shocked at just the sheer amount of art I submitted into the Art Portal and even Movie Portal animations I've managed to cram into this one year!). This was also an unusually great year for video game releases for whatever reason, at least for my tastes. But I really don't want to become demotivated going into 2024 by dredging up all the bad stuff that happened in 2023, especially stuff that I had zero control over like climate-change-exacerbated natural disasters or politicians being petty and sucking at their job in general, just like any other year. Or the woes of everyone I follow here and elsewhere.

We're all very exhausted after the holidays and I'd rather be mentally prepared for the year ahead instead of essentially "crying over spilled milk" of the past. That's why I tend to be less active on here, particularly avoiding Blog Posts about all the trials and tribulations the artist had to deal with or will have to deal with. Well anyway, see you next year, I am at least looking to the future and considering prioritizing quality animations over the sheer quantity of "content" I've posted in the past few years--like, I may only have one notable submission this year, but hopefully it's so polished compared to what I usually post that P-Bot takes notice.

Uploaded a small thing on my YouTube channel for the first time in a while:

It does genuinely help to test out rigs to the beat of whatever music you work to. And yes, I had to unironically listen to Miku do the Ievan Polkka song after AfroNinja360's gloriously-autistic recent parody:

The character is called "Keister Bunny," The Easter Bunny's free-loading bum of a brother, and it is for a personal animation project that is (hopefully) on-track to be released this Easter (March 31st). Because I don't have a ton of time each week to chip away at the project due to my main job, a side-gig helping out another animator and other adult responsibilities, I have opted for a lower-poly, hand-painted art style similar to Rayman 2 or Tonic Trouble:

Hopefully it will be more interesting to look at than if I went with the standard PBR Pixar look, even if it's not even remotely pushing my laptop's rendering capabilities to its limits. Stay tuned!

Seeing WaPeach fanart all over NG was cool the first 5,000 or so times I saw it, but I'm sorry, it doesn't matter if your WaPeach submission is the greatest one yet, I've already reached the point where I'll just scroll past WaPeach art without clicking the "Favorite" Heart button or even leaving a 4-5 Star Review for more original stuff.

Personally, if this was an actual design Nintendo was considering at some point, I'm disappointed they didn't have the guts to make WaPeach uglier and more misshapen than Wario and Waluigi combined.

But anyway, this is sort of why I've shifted back to long-term animation projects these days. I don't really feel like I have anything to add to art memes like "WaPeach" or "Moushley" or "Arrow to the Knee," and I want to make more of the kind of stuff that people will hopefully watch and re-watch a decade from now--sort of like how I understand exactly zero of the pop culture references found in 1940s Looney Tunes shorts or the 1992 Disney version of Aladdin, yet that doesn't stop me at all from enjoying either classic, despite technically being "before my time."

Still, gotta appreciate the work ethic and talent required to make an amusing contribution to an Internet trend while it's at its most relevant. Probably wouldn't have looked into "WaPeach" in the first place if not for some cool earlier drawings I saw of her. I'm just saying I don't want to risk burnout myself trying to keep up with social media's latest barely-disguised fetish...

Isss because, in addition to my day job, I now have a side gig animating for a promising-looking project on the weekends. Good news is that you'll still see Art Portal submissions from me made on my phone's 3D Modeling App, since mobile games are all microtransaction/ad-heavy crap that requires a constant Wi-Fi connection that I unfortunately can't access in the company break room, meaning I can only really use that 3D Modeling app to keep myself entertained and keep the negative thoughts away during my breaks at work.

So be sure to thank unchecked venture capitalism in the mobile gaming space, combined with my inability to initiate and hold a conversation with my co-workers, for the fact that I can still provide you mobile 3D art even though I'm technically swamped for the next year or two with a day job AND a side-gig animating for others. Nonetheless, I am DEFINITELY employed and working now, so don't expect a consistent upload schedule from me until my schedule starts clearing up again.

Oh hey, I'm user of the day in the Community tab!

Neat.

I did not work on this or have anything to do with this (sadly), but I thought I'd share it anyway because I thought it was cool!

It was totally worth the wait. Independent animation is the future!

Good things that happened around the time I was born: Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Donkey Kong Country. Disney's The Lion King. Macross Plus. Jennifer Aniston making adorable high-pitched noises on "Friends" (drools blissfully). And, of course, I was first brought into this world. You're welcome.

Bad things that happened around the time I was born: The "Rodney King" incident...Michael Jackson's infamous "Neverland Ranch"...also, apparently I am around the same exact age and generation as Justin Bieber.

I got to finally see "Super Nintendo World" at Universal Studios in Hollywood as my birthday gift from my family, plus a cool strategy guide for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, so I can finally at least see the end credits of that damn game without cheating and just watching a playthrough on YouTube. I even had a Mario-themed Strawberry Cream Soda while I was there, and yes, it is exactly as sugary and "'Murican" as you think it is. My digestive system is still paying for it a day later.

No new art or even WIPs this week because my Birthday seems as good a day as any to take a much-needed break before I move on to my next act. I'm definitely thinking of finally working a pilot for an original short cartoon idea I've had for a very long time, but at the same time, I'm starting to get some potential paid offers to help work on pilots for other directors, and of course I may take those if it means I'll make a little extra dough and work with other people (meaning the final result will look more professional and detailed than I could possibly do by my lonesome). We shall see.

You can BET I will try to convince Zeurel to have me as one of his animators on Monkey Wrench, I absolutely love and believe in that indie show more than anything else right now and even support it a bit each month on the Monkey Wrench Patreon! Clearly indie animation is the future for our industry while Hollywood struggles to even make the streaming model profitable and seems to have no interest in putting a swift end to the strikes, paying their disgruntled employees to live in expensive LA or Vancouver, or even getting back to work in a timely manner.

My day job has inevitably gotten to the point where I may have to be a bit less active here (I'll only be available on weekends), plus I want to get to the point where I contribute more art and full-on animations here than I receive, so don't go thinking something horrible has happened to me every time I go a bit quiet on the week days. If anything, it means I'm being more productive than ever. Pretty impressive, though, that NG has become my most addictive site without relying on soul-destroying algorithms, to the point where I could stand to better balance my time here.

See you on the weekend!

You read that right!

I actually took the time to learn basic game development in RPG Maker 2003 in order to make a small game proving I can make pre-rendered sprites that to indie game deve teams looking for a dedicated artist who specializes in that sort of thing! I can't say I'm the next Shigeru Miyamoto when it comes to custom game design, but hopefully this short, easy game will entertain you for a bit and, if you like the pre-rendered art style and want it in your own indie projects, hit me up, I'm willing to contribute as a dedicated artist!

Download Squeakamo: The Quest for Cheese right now on itch.io!