Bit of a short update this month...mostly because I technically only had half a month to pull things from.

Still working hard on that PC. There isn't anything new to show (mostly because it looks identical to what I showed last time), but I think it's almost done at this point, all the necessary stuff is practically complete with the only big snag I have is my drawing tablet not working. Although, at a certain point I need to stop tinkering with it, and start using it for real. I'll give myself the end of this month to finish the bare minimum (basically getting my drawing tablet to work), so that way I can finally focus on my true passion project: the Vectorizer. If I can't make it, then it'll have to be put on hold until the Vectorizer is done.

Though, I'm hoping I'll be organized enough in these next few months. I kinda need to get back into a drawing routine for a few yearly traditions, and I'm not in the best of position. I have almost nothing planned in advance like last year, and my setup might be in shambles for a bit. I might as well give it my best shot regardless! After-all, I did draw every day for a year straight that one time...*PTSD flashbacks*

I think Holrad is hiding something...hmm

One last thing before I end this post. I was doing another little practice animation on the side as a distraction when tinkering on my PC got a little boring. I was hoping I'd have it done by the end of the month, but I only finished like a third of it (maybe more? Hard to tell when you don't animate often). Guess it'll have to be finished this month instead, had a pretty nice monthly streak going too. Anyways, even though it's unfinished I wanted to show a little sneak-peak of it here for now:

This isn't what I've animated so far, I'd say it was when I was a quarter done. These are Holrad's construction lines I used while planning my animation in Flipnotes. Not sure how common this is, but I like planning how my characters flow before I animate the real deal. Holrad & Rathrie's construction lines are super simple. It's basically just a stick figure with antennas and balls glued to their heads. Neat eh!

Well, that's all I have for this month. Time for me to chuck everyone back to their normal routine of doomscrolling on their social media of choice, while they complain how it just keeps getting worse every update, with harmful AI features ruining it, and being infested with AI bros and bot accounts...

...I-I mean nothing...

...see you next post!

Did ya miss me?

Don't worry, I'm not dead. It's just this month has been quite the busy one.

I practically spend half the month tinkering with my Linux setup, and the other half on vacation in Quebec (which I just got back from).

I didn't really doodle while I was away, but I did take a ton of photos!

So tough to pick a few pics out of all my 350 pictures I took throughout my vacation around Gaspé.

Had so much fun seeing the ocean for the first time, and learning about a part of Canada I never really knew about! So much so that I almost forgot I still need to continue building my new Linux setup when I got back home.

Which reminds me, here's how my setup looks like right now

[Showing-off a bunch of apps that may or may not look cool. So hard to show-off on such a tiny resolution]

[The app searcher. Basically my version of the start menu. I've been tinkering a bunch with File Managers, so those ended-up on the top]

[Logout screen. Need to make custom icons for these options]

Pretty much everything from the wallpaper, to the toolbar up-top, to the search menu, and the logout menu were customized by yours truly. The only things that aren't are basically the terminal applications, but those are all pretty barebones with customization anyways.

Is the flair really necessary? No, but I'm going to look at this for days on end, so I might as well make it as pretty as possible.

I still need to do more tweaking to get it in a usable state. Stuff like shortcut scripts for commonly used actions (mounting USBs, networking, and multi-monitor stuff), as well as making custom drawings and animations for the wallpapers and even a screensaver, but those can wait.

Some of you might have noticed I moved away from Arch Linux as well. That's because Arch broke one time too many, so I moved to Debian which doesn't break as easily but doesn't have as many "fun" packages.

Afterwards when all this testing is done, I'll be transferring everything to my main PCs, and then I can start the main event: The Vectorizer!

[That's right! My hiatus still isn't over! It only just the beginning!]

Now before this gets too buried, here the comic of the month

Oh these two...anyways, that's all for this month news update. Does anyone like my tech stuff? Feels like I'm making people's brains explode the moment I say "Linux"-oh, there goes another one.

Well without further ado, I bid you farewell and hope you'll come back to another technobabblery update next month if your brains can take it!

See you next post!

It's been one of these slow months...well more boring than slow. Just been chipping-away at the video editing my mom wants done. It's been a drag since I've practically ran-out of passion juice. At least I know now that I won't be editing some random YouTuber's videos for money anytime soon.

On the bright side, I've bought a used New 3DS XL [what a mouthful] to tinker around with. Hacking it was easy, but configuring everything to work how I wanted was kinda tough since some homebrew apps don't cooperate sometimes [ftpd], are kinda jank to work with [Notepad3DS, 3DShell], or are just plain slow [Anything DS related that isn't official].

Honestly, my biggest gripe of the 3DS in general is that it's slow as balls [worse boot times than the Wii U], and the SD card location on the New 3DS is awful. Apart from that, it the perfect on the go system for me! Not only can I play a vast variety of games (from as old as Atari games, all the way to PS1 games), but it's also a pretty decent way to doodle or animate on the go.

[Funnily enough, the custom theme I chose was practically random, and was only meant for testing purposes, but I loved how it looked so I kept it. I'm thinking of doing my own custom theme someday]

And because the listing conveniently came with a DS Flashcart, I also decided to repair my old DS lite, by Frankensteining two broken DS lites together. A black & red one (which was my brother's), and a silver one (which was mine). The result looks just like some of my old 2000s era PC cases, and I love it.

Lastly, my mom celebrated her birthday recently, and I decided to give her a print version of her favourite drawing I made as a gift. She loves it.

But that's enough of my ramblings. Here's this month's funnies

Holrad needs to learn how to be patient sometimes. All he wants to do is run around everywhere he goes, and picks fights with everyone.

All and all, kind-of a boring month. Sure it had its highs, and it got better by the end, but like 90% of it was still a slog to get through.

Basically what I'm saying is I really want to go back to how it was back in February where I was tinkering all day. It's just fatiguing to keep doing things that you're good at, but aren't passionate about. Ya feel?

But anyways, that's it for this update. Thank-you for reading if you have, and if you didn't then...I dunno, you be you I guess. At least read the funnies.

See you next post!

Before I start this month's update, I've got to mention how I was awarded User of the Day on April 28th!

Firstly, of course I got awarded something during a busy day again.

[Second time in a row too!]

Secondly, welcome new users!

+~~------------------~~+

~~I'm on hiatus!~~

+~~------------------~~+

Please enjoy my past content, and my occasional doodles.

Not really much else to say because I'm busy putting my life back together at the moment.

Or at least that's what should have happened. Here's basically my April in a nutshell:

Great start! Been stuck helping my family members all month instead of working on my own things.

And the best part is I'm still not done helping my family members.

[never say you're available if you're the IT guy of the family, the work never ends!]

Another thing that happened in April is I finally went to court against my landlord, and I won, by a landslide. Like, I didn't even have to try, the landlord fell apart in the hands of the judge because he was lying the whole time. It was hilarious!

Lastly, over here the weather is looking a lot more spring-like recently. I mean it only took almost the entire spring season, and summer is only a month away, but hey. Better late than never right?

Looks like it's Holrad's turn to take care of his sister. The hijinks never end with these two.

Well, that's pretty much all that happened in april.

I'll probably be seeing you next month for another update

[Wait, this is a text post, how can I see them?]

See you next post!

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!