Still on hiatus btw. Just wanted to post this little doodle comic I had planned for that update. In general these comics are pretty fun to draw, and only take a few hours to draw. Wonder how long I can keep up with them though.

So last month's weather got pretty weird

Everything's been falling from the sky last month, even lightning during a snowstorm. Mother nature is really bipolar this year. Wonder if this'll continue this month, or if we're finally going to have a proper beginning to spring this month. Anything can happen at this point.

I'M GOING ON HIATUS!!!

Apologies to my loyal fans, but I just can't take the deafening silence anymore. I've been performing my heart out on what seemed to be an empty audience for 3 years with no improvement no matter how hard I ruin myself to reach these goals and keep a routine going.

I have to take a break and focus on more important things in my life (like making money with my skills) instead of killing myself for freaking peanuts every month. This whole thing was getting to an unhealthy degree, and I need to clean-up after myself instead of letting everything pile-up.

~~>What to expect going forward

• No more "Artist of the Month"
• No more "Old Art Showcase"
• No more plan for the current month

• Monthly updates will still happen (writing to the void just comes naturally)
• Monthly comics are going to continue (Liked making them)
• Special events I have planned are still happening (like the Christmas events)
• I post whatever, whenever

No more trying to please an audience that cares very little, or trying to keep-up with an invisible quota. I'm not one of the lucky ones, so why even bother trying. Being popular is for the lucky, not the skilled, and I learned that the hard way.

I should have known better, I guess.

See you next post...

~•Threads•~

WIP/Abandoned Stuff • Tips & Tricks

Man, February went by blazing fast. Hardly felt like I had enough time for anything. Was barely able to squeeze-out that last drawing! Though, in this chaos I did make a few new discoveries with my art, and lots of progress on my new setup.

But first, on with the update!

~~Artist of the Month~~

@creepincrawl

What can I say, I love my Y2K art. I already follow a few of these kinds of artists, but CreepinCrawl was like love at first sight. The colours are perfect, the style is on point, and the characters are cute as heck. Definitely one of those artists I need to study more. Check-em out!

~~Old Art Showcase~~

Since I made a rayman themed drawing, I might as well throw in the first Rayman drawing I made on paper way back in 2021 (along with a few other drawings I made)

[Can't believe it's been this long since I did a proper Rayman drawing]

~~>Last Month

The weather has been a little screwy last month, still is from the looks of things. Almost started looking like spring in the middle of February until later that month where more snow just got piled-on out of nowhere

At least Holrad melted out of that big snow pile.

Good thing Rathrie is always there to take care of her idiot brother.

Apart from that, my new setup has been going great! Just need to fix a few little potential snags and I'll be finally able to transfer this setup to my current rig

[Just thought I'd show-off the Rayman wallpaper I made being used as a wallpaper :3]

[Also yes, this is running off of my old ass Core2Duo machine, and it runs quite well too!]

Art wise, since I created the little vector tool, I've been putting it through its paces big time. I'm basically turning Krita into my Inkscape bitch at this point. The only thing I use Krita for nowadays (apart from doodling) is sketch, lineart, make colour masks, and export everything to my vector tool so I can then use Inkscape for everything else. It's crazy!

~~>Next Month's Plans

This year is a lot rougher than I had planned art wise. I had plans to practice animations and play around with 3D some more, but no Glaxnimate just had to ruin everything and make me build my own tools instead. All because no one seems to know how to create a vector animation program that's as solid as Inkscape (which was made for graphic design)

But enough of my vector related rants, let's talk about what I'll do this month...

...which unfortunately, is more of the same as last month, maybe even less since things are looking a whole lot busier this month. More focus on the drawing part, less on the technical part.

It's not exactly what I wanted to do this month. Kinda want to focus more on the technical side just to improve my workflow for making drawings, but I can't control that, and rushing-out the tech stuff is too risky.

In the end I'm still doing things I like. I just feel like I'm a kid who got his new toy taken away for the month.

That's all for this update. Not the longest update, but then again, everything I type is too long for zoomers nowadays (and I'm technically one of them), so what am I saying.

See you next post!

~•Threads•~

WIP/Abandoned Stuff • Tips & Tricks

First month down, and I'm already at a good pace drawing-wise. Surprised I did so well, as I was all over the place with my projects. Wonder if I'll be able to keep up this month.

~~Artist of the Month~~

@Kriskull

Here's an artist that I was following that drastically changed their art-style overnight. I like both of their styles they had. The old style was very clean, and shiny.

Their new style is grungy, and full of details.

I love them both, but I like their new style just a little more. It almost feels like it's a true reflection of their personality, and it stands-out way more.

Almost makes me want to experiment with my style some more since it feels a little too clean at times

~~Old Art Showcase~~

Probably showed this one before, but with all the retro cartoon fan-art I've been making, I might as well showcase an old favourite of mine.

~~>Last Month

Man, never thought I'd see both a green Christmas and a green New Year in Canada of all places. so weird. Though, all that snow that was supposed to go down in December arrived all at once this month, so I guess everything is back to normal.

I'm a bit annoyed that I always seem to post at the same time as an important event. Like, just recently I ended-up posting something on the exact day that Pizza Tower was released. How the hell do I keep doing this accidentally?!

Also, recently got some more news about my living condition. I'm gonna go to court against this idiot landlord in late April! Which is still quite a ways away, but at least I have a date. All I'll say is this dude's gonna regret the day he bought this property.

While I was working on last month's drawings, I was also tinkering with a few technical things behind the scenes, so tape your eyelids open for this one.

[Or just skip the rest of this if you don't care]

Firstly, I'm slowly tinkering with Linux to upgrade my rig (software wise this time). Mostly switching the UI to a snappy tile-based one instead of the kinda slow traditional Windows look. Haven't switched to it now, but it's still being tinkered on when I have spare time. I also experimented with another Linux Distro (NixOS), but as usual Arch is always better in the end for some reason. [Just the way it is I guess]

Secondly, I tinkered with another vector animation program. This one being Glaxnimate...don't use Glaxnimate. It sucks, really bad, don't use it. It's to the point where it makes OpenToonz look like the easiest thing to use. Even then pretty much every vector animation software on Linux is just unfinished garbage (glares at Glaxnimate, Pencil2D, Envee, Synfig Studios, and TupiTube...OpenToonz is OK)

You know it's really sad how so far the best program for anything vector related, be it graphic design, art, and animations is Inkscape. A vector art program that's good for graphic design, isn't good for drawing, and wasn't even designed for animation. It's like saying MS Paint is the best animation software out there, it's that freaking bad! I want this to change one of these days on Linux because I'd love for something like an open-source version of Flash, but I don't think it'll happen in the next 10 years or something, if ever really, seeing as most of these projects that do vector animations aren't even 5 years old yet.

In the mean time I've took matters into my own hands and I'm writing a script that'll finally let me do what I want with these vectors. It can only do drawings at the moment, but soon I'm gonna tweak it to do animations as well. Shouldn't be too hard, I already did most of the heavy lifting already.

[famous last words]

Still, it frustrates me how the only good vector animation program is one I have to cobble-up myself using programs that weren't designed to do that in the first place, and using a bunch text manipulation tools. Ugh...the advantages of being a coder I guess. All the power to do whatever you want, but with the motivation of a sloth.

[I swear, I feel like I'm designing some sort of art Rube Goldberg machine just to do some extremely niche thing that no one will ever understand]

~~>This Month's Plans

More of the same really. Fanart, tinkering with animations some more, and upgrading my rig slowly but surely. Might be a whole lot slower since I'm doing a lot of software changes, as well as creating a vector animation script for my next animations.

I think I'll be doing a bit of Rayman fanart this month. Always wanted to do some sort of cover-piece for that Rayman 4 leak that happened last year. Or just expect something Rayman related if that ends-up being too ambitious.

That's all for now! These early months tend to be the slowest because of all the changes that happen.

Hope that tape you put on your eyelids earlier is still sticking. It probably is if you're reading this. Either that or you drank 5 cups of coffee while reading this, in which case you've probably got a coffee addiction, please seek help.

As usual, see you next post!

~•Threads•~

WIP/Abandoned Stuff (NEW!) • Tips & Tricks

How's everyone's holiday's been going? Mine was a whole mix of different emotions ranging from gleeful to "what the fuck is my life!".

The Sketch Collab recently got released, and here's my submission:

Had no choice but to leave it unfinished that time. Though, if you want to see more of my unfinished project check-out my WIP & Abandoned Projects thread. Just made a new post there.

In other news, I still have no idea what my living conditions will look like for 2024, but I know for certain it ain't starting on the right foot. Though, it should get better overtime. Don't really know for sure since everything is pie in the sky at the moment!

But enough of that. That's not what people are here for right? The update can wait, you want to see the pretty pictures and a bunch of numbers do ya?

Firstly, I'm gonna add a new thing to these monthly updates:

~~Artist of the Month~~

That's right boys, I'm gonna start promoting other smaller artists I like! Starting with @PITBULLMUTAFUCKA!

Do you like chaos? PITBULL'S GOT YOUR CHAOS!!! NON-STOP, ALL CAPS, 90S LEVEL CHAOS THAT NEVER KNOWS WHEN TO STOP!!! Ocasionally stopping to smell the roses, BUT IMMEDIATELY GOING BACK TO MAXIMUM CHAOS!!!

THIS YOUNG ARTIST HAS A SURPRISING TALENT FOR THEIR AGE, AND WILL BECOME STRONGER IF YOU GIVE THEM YOUR ATTENTION GRUAAHHHH!!!

~~Old Art Showcase~~

A simple little doodle I did in a couple hours on New Year's day. Nothing much to it, just fitting for the occasion

~~Fanart Highlights~~

Although technically not fanart since it was part of the Secret Santa, @ucantbeme did a wonderful job drawing Ryjer. Give them some love while you're at it!

Next, @Twoeliz did some fantastic fanart of Holrad taking a nice snooze. They were so heartfelt with the gift I gave them that they had to repay the favour. Thanks again, and go check 'em out if you haven't.

I've also made a playlist of all the fanart that I've received so far if you'd like to see more

Now it's time for the highlights!

[Almost makes me want to create a calendar with all these pics. Let me know if you're interested]

And here's the stats for this year:

Unique Art Posted: 32

All Art & Alts Posted: 44

Animations Posted: 2

Comics Posted: 2

Events Participated: 5 *NEW RECORD*

(List Jam, 3DS Collab, NG Toronto Meetup, Sketch Collab, and the NG Secret Santa)

Front-paged: 2 *NEW RECORD*

Missed Deadlines: 1 *SO CLOSE*

(The Christmas Special)

Abandoned Projects: 5 *BRUTAL*

(Most of them animation related)

New Back-Burner Projects: 2 *NEW LOWEST*

Total Back-Burner Projects: 7 *NEW LOWEST*

Stress: 7/10 *YIKES*

Variety: D *TOO MANY BUNNIES!*

Overall Ranking:

A

[Could have been an S if I had more variety, and didn't miss the last deadline]

Compared to 2022, I didn't put out as much art, and I was mostly bunny-posting (unintentionally following the year of the rabbit). However, behind the scenes I was learning a bunch of programs (Blender, Inkscape, and Opentoonz to name a few), learned 3D, Built a new PC that isn't made entirely from parts I found in the dump (just the case for it), found a really good workflow, got my priorities in check, and I started writing these news posts on my phone in advance so I don't forget things like...

...How my projects got front-paged twice this year! (the collabs don't count) I'm so thankful that my work is finally getting a bit more recognition, and I hate myself that I forgot to talk about it whenever it happened

Unfortunately, even though I was able to make the deadline of every time-sensitive project compared to 2022, I had to delay the Christmas Special for next year. Ain't no way I could crunch to get that one done on time with the 5 other drawings I had in the pipeline, and it wouldn't make any sense to post a Christmas drawing in January. It would have been a mess if I rushed it out, so delaying it was the better option.

In general 2023's highs were really high, but the lows were equally really low. Honestly don't know if 2023 or 2021 was the worst year stress-wise. Like, good god, I got emotionally wrecked at times. But also, I've got to meet a whole group of new friends in 2023, I even met Tom Fulp himself. It was such a emotional roller-coaster!

~~>Last Month

Oh my god, the stress was unbearable with all these projects, but I was able to finally take a decent break after that. It was worth-it though, got to learn a few more little styles from all that, and got lots of nice kind messages from everyone.

Even though the Secret Santa was a fun (and stressful) challenge, this will probably be my last Secret Santa I participate in. Mostly because I wouldn't be able to keep-up with the Supporter gift drawings I'm doing every year now, and because I find the supporter gift drawing more fun and rewarding compared to the randomness of the Secret Santa stuff.

~~>Next Year's Plans

NO! MORE! BUNNY! POSTING!

[At least, not as much]

Last year was full of Holrad drawings, and as much as I liked doodling that little bunny bitch, it ain't drivin'-up the views no matter how much effort I put into these drawings.

To compensate, this year will be almost nothing but fan-art. Starting with a recent public domain character and his relatives, and if that takes too long expect a quirky drawing with a certain cat I drew before.

This year I'll also focus on doing more animations. I'm good at them, but I hate being so freaking slow at animating things

Depending on how things go, you might also see the debut of a few comic series, and maybe even my own personal website. These aren't guarantees, but they're going to be really nice treats if they end-up happening.

2024 feels like it'll be a really good year for me if everything goes well. Just the beginning of the year will be rough as hell because of life getting in the way

But that's enough blabbering for one post. Don't even think most people read this far anyways, and this was a pretty jam packed news update as well. Hey, that's the holidays for ya.

Have a happy new year everyone, and see you next post!

I've been feeling a little generous this holiday season, and I've decided to give four lucky users on Newgrounds the one year Supporter status! It's my way of giving my personal thank-you to these users, while also supporting @TomFulp's website. It's a win-win for everyone!

I've also done this last year, as a last minute decision after someone gifted me the one year Supporter status. It wasn't meant to be a yearly tradition, but that gift more or less kick-started this tradition.

Thank you again mystery user!

So unlike last year, I've had the chance to really prepare these gifts and truly make them special for the users receiving them.

These users aren't chosen at random, and need to have at least met one of these criterias:

a) Be an artist that left an impact on me (either online or IRL)

b) Be an artist that I follow with a low fan count (around sub 500 fans), and posts frequently enough to not be seen as "dead"

c) Be an artist that inspired my work in some way

[Though I use that one sparingly in order to highlight the smaller artists]

The user must also not have a Supporter status when I'm seeking for candidates. However, if the user somehow receives a supporter status before I'm able to give them one, then I'll try to make arrangements to gift them the status at a later date.

One last thing, in the words of Spider-man:

Meaning, I won't give the Supporter status to the same user twice. Gotta give everyone a chance right?

Now with that out of the way, here are the four lucky users I've given gifts to!

@Mock2

@Twoeliz

@Onziware

@PhonographClock

These users will not only receive the Supporter status, but also a personal drawing, and letter from yours truly.

Truly a special gift in my eyes, and I hope these users enjoy it just as much as I did making it.

That's all for now. Next update will be sometime in January where I tally-up what I did this year, and see how much I've improved since last year.

See ya's then!

~•Threads•~

WIP/Abandoned Stuff • Tips & Tricks

Honestly been so busy with these projects that I was constantly forgetting to post my usual monthly update. Don't worry everyone, I'm not dead...just slowly dying on the inside...

~~Old Art Showcase~~

Didn't really have any decent holiday drawings I did in the past since all of them make me cringe. This one I always have a soft spot for, as it's the first time I really discovered my style. Technically the BunnyKill fanart was first, but this one was when it actually clicked. I also really loved making this one too. The bed was a pain to get the perspective just right, but colouring everything was super fun. Plus I loved writing the description on that one.

~~>Last Month

Just been super hard at work on a bunch of these projects. Recently found an app that allows me to keep track of how many hours I work on these drawings just to keep the pressure on, and keep me focused at all time.

Wish I could tell you more about these projects, but that would just ruin the surprise for most of them.

~~>This Month's Plans

Just a ton of work. So much work, but it'll all pay off by the holidays. At least I sure as hell hope so.

There might be one project I'll need to delay it if it gets too tight with the scheduling. Heck, I practically suspended that one already just to focus on these more important projects.

Still somewhat worried about my potential living conditions I'm about to face at the end of the month, and even though that's still important I have to try to ignore that and focus on putting smiles on other people's faces. It's the least I can do right now, and it still brings me some joy.

Just gonna say it right now. Probably won't have anything for January. I'll still try, but I have no clue what's about to happen next year. Who knows, I could be stuck in a spot without my tablet and/or without internet. It's happened before, wouldn't surprise me if it happened again.

Well that's enough doom and gloom for one post. Don't want to bring everyone's morale down over something that isn't even their fault.

As always, see you next update. I know the next one will be special

~•Threads•~

WIP/Abandoned Stuff • Tips & Tricks

Boy, just when I thought things couldn't get any worse life has a way of kicking me in the shins. To briefly explain what's going on, I've got about 7 projects I need to get done before Christmas (some obviously quicker than others), I've partially given-up on the Sketch Collab (couldn't finish my animation, but I still posted what was finished at the time), and there a chance I might lose my apartment by the end of the year all because the new landlord hates me even more than the old one which I didn't think that would even be possible.

Ain't life just grand?

More info on that last one here

All I'll say is that I ain't going down without a fight, I'll keep this apartment for as long as I can because the new landlord definitely doesn't deserve it.

So yeah, things are about to get rough. Probably rougher than what I was doing in 2021 but in different ways.

~~Old Artwork Showcase~~

This is another one of my old drawings that aged surprisingly well. Even at the time I was surprised that this one only took me a day to fully complete, and I think I remember this one went super well too. No crunching like some of my other detailed drawings.

On occasions I like to revisit this one because it has such a vibe that's both calming and gloomy at the same time. Was in a special mood when I made this one that's for sure.

~~>Last month

Tried participating in the Sketch Collab, but I realized my speed is god-awful when animating. Had to scrap an animation halfway through because I realized it was way too complicated for the amount of time I had, so I tried to downscale it to a simpler animation...only to realize that it was almost as complicated as the last one but in completely different ways.

So not wanting to rush-out every single project I have planned for next month I decided to axe it all together, and just give what I had completed at the time to the Sketch Collab.

I'm also going to announce this right now: This'll be the last time I participate in the Sketch Collab. Not because they're all big meanies, but because I'm just not prepared enough to participate. This is also the reason why I've been avoiding animation collabs like the plague. I don't want to be that awkward kid that always hands-in their assignments last and makes the entire class wait. I don't do nearly enough animations to comfortably understand my limits, and last year's Sketch Collab felt like a fluke.

Will I finish these Sketch Collab animations? Probably not. What I really need to do is just practice animating simple things first so that way I can build-up my speed and get it out the door sooner. Right now how I animate is I smash shit together until I magically make something super smooth. There's no pattern or efficiency to my madness, and yet it gives me perfect results every time. It just takes me close to 2 months to make it which to me is kinda bad. Ideally I'd like to complete a full proper 3-5 second sketch comfortably in a day, and not in 2-3 month while crunching in the final week.

Also can't quite figure-out if I want to focus on drawing my comic, animations, or 3D modelling next year. It's gonna be a messy toss-up that's for sure.

~~>This Month's Plans

The only thing I'll even be releasing this month is a little holiday profile pic. Everything else I'm doing will be released in December.

Originally thought about doing a small drawing to practice drawing trees, but just looking at the amount of projects that need to be done made me change my mind. Might do it in January instead, but at the same time with what's going on right now...really unsure if that'll ever happen either.

We'll see when we get there.

That's all the news for this month. Let's hope I survive until the end of the year with everything going-on right now.

~•Threads•~

WIP/Abandoned Stuff • Tips & Tricks

[Gonna put this up here instead out of curiosity. Let me know if this is better or worse]

It's that time of year again, and unfortunately just like last year I might not be able to participate in the festivities because I'm participating in the Sketch Collab this year again. I'll try giving it a shot at the very least because this year's animation is a lot simpler to animate compared to the one I made last year which was a cruel joke at my own expense.

[the animation in question]

At least it got front paged, so it was still worth something in the end.

~~Old Artwork Showcase~~

Very old drawing I did while I was still challenging myself to do a drawing every day for a year straight. It's not my proudest work, but it's the only Halloween drawing I've made so far.

~~>Last month

Lots of computery nonsense. Though, not as much as I had planned. But before I get into that, here's the only non-computery thing I did last month: I did this little drawing where I went nuts with Inkscape

Only problem is that the day I posted it (which were these character's birthday) was on Madness Day. What a terrible coincidence, so here it is if you missed it.

To keep the techno-jargon brief because I know everyone here aren't as big of a nerd as I am. Last month I:

>Tried making a simple calendar app on my junk Linux phone, only to stop halfway when I realized how much work needed to be done with the graphics

>Played around with NixOS as a way to prepare for my rig update next year

>Studied how to set up a Windows server for some family member's business, and Windows kept fighting back over the stupidest things

>Tried modding my headphones to have a removable cable because the old one was on its last legs, but that only made things worse so I bought new headphones that included a removable cable instead. (gonna have to go to someone with better soldering skills than me to mod these old ones)

>I hacked a brand new Wii because the old one I had as a kid no longer wanted to play Wii games (both through a disk and through hacking it which is very strange).

Still did a lot, but the few things I haven't gotten to will have to be pushed to January.

~~>This Month's Plans

So...many...projects... ( ._.)

Granted most of these will probably happen around November/December instead, but still, the pressure is on to the max in these last few months.

For this month I'll mostly focus on the Sketch Collab animation, but in general there's like 6 really important projects that need to be done before the end of the year. Most of them Christmas themed, and I'll hop to them as soon as I'm done with the Sketch Collab which I'm partially hoping I don't finish late November like last year. No promises though.

That's all I have for this month. Hope I make it out alive next year.

See you next month...I think

So tired...been working my ass off for too long, so I'm just gonna take a good chunk of September off to focus on more computery things and relaxing.

Also had this idea to spotlight some old art that I kinda like, so here's a fitting one to start with

[One of the few early drawings I did that aged really well]

What did I do last month?

Short answer: Tons!

Long answer:

>Helped my parents fix-up part of their cottage

>Studied how to draw water

[it's a start. Not perfect, but I started getting the basics overtime]

[Had my tablet, but it was more convenient to take a bunch of paper with me and draw by the shore. It also feels better learn that way for some reason]

>Finished my little Birthday drawing

>I'm learning how to set-up a Windows server and VPN (no not the sponsored ones, a proper one) for another family member

[Yes, I'm a certified geek. Surprisingly more than the ones who graduated college according to them]

[Also, Windows is just plain bad for servers and it's the most insecure and convoluted piece of crap I had to set-up...I use Arch BTW!]

[Still not done setting it up btw]

>Helped my mom do some promotions for her little grocery business

[Forgot to take some screenshots of it sorry]

>Helped my mom with video editing to help train for her photography business, as well as teach her how to use a camera

[Don't you hate it when you're the only one in the family that's good with computers]

>Tried working on another drawing

[started work on it like 2 months ago I think, but I just been pushing it because of other more important things]

>And finally I was commissioned by my aunt to do this...kinda

All and all, I just felt like I was constantly running-out of time last month, and constantly doing favours for family members which only made things worse

Plans for September

Nothing!

Apart from the unfinished drawing (which I'll finish slowly), and a few little favour I made for family members, I just don't want to be bothered this month AT ALL!

September is probably the only "ber" month where I can actually catch a break, and I want to embrase as much of it as I can before I dive into the chaos that is the last three months of the year.

See you next update!

...Now time to play catch-up with my feed