Just got the news that the general forum was taken down.

This means Phun Photography, and the Technobabblery Corner will be no more :(

Although these forums never had the time to blossom (especially the tech forum), their memories will live on in our hearts.

~•Threads•~

Photography (DOWN) • WIP/Abandoned Stuff • Tips & Tricks • Technobabblery (DOWN)

Today is a bit of a special day for me, as this day 2 years ago was when I first started drawing full time!

It wasn't that long of a journey, but that journey was still a bit difficult to overcome. Mostly because I started said journey by drawing every day for one year straight, and succeeding somehow even though it demolished my sleep schedule and tore me to pieces by the end of it.

Even if my art has greatly improved since then, completing that first year was the first time I ever felt like I've accomplished something in my life (and I went to college...twice!)

Since the very beginning of this Newgrounds account I've organized playlists for all my art for my first year.

Part 1 (Day 1-174):

https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/6af6151ccfe12f4fe2b42f6c3c9645f5

Part 2 (Day 175-268):

https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/fa8c86277fe0850ad3d173efab2704d4

Part 3 (Day 269-356):

https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/407c7412551d4be3ab1154bf029323e6

Part 4 (Day 357-365):

https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/a2c38bacfb7afe8f8ca3f6dc1fb56862

What makes that year different from the rest is I wrote extensive notes, and journaled all my thoughts throughout the entire year. Some of these notes can really help motivate new artists too.

Give it a look at the very least.

~•Threads•~

Photography • WIP/Abandoned Stuff • Tips & Tricks • Technobabblery

Wow! Finally made it to the triple digits, and I thought getting to 50 fans was exciting. almost in a flash I've doubled my fan count.

And really thank you for following. Even though I would have continued making art, having that little number there is what lets me know that I'm at least spreading some joy with my stuff.

And at the end of the day that's what makes art fun right? At least to me it does.

The Big Reboot~

Lots of big changes this year. I've upgraded my rig, got a new camera, explored Blender for the first time, got back into animation, and even met new people through events here on Newgrounds. So here's some of the bigger changes I want to do:

Abandon Twitter

Been really enjoying my time on Newgrounds, so much so that I'm willing to more or less abandon my Twitter account. Not completely, but like...90%. Wasn't really a big fan of Twitter to begin with anyways, so it was easy to quit.

I mostly used it as a way to make small talk with a few people, but even then I couldn't do more than that. On top of that organizing my art on Twitter was a nightmare, plus with all the other stuff happening with Elon Musk, and how some animators I followed more or less quit animating shortly after trying to teach them didn't help matters either

Newgrounds all the way babey!!!

Organize Stuff using threads

Second order of business is making more threads. The News thread is nice, but it's not good when I want to talk about so many different things that not everyone is into. Good thing Newgrounds has a bunch of forum threads, so I can sprinkle my shit everywhere instead of just in one spot [...that didn't sound right]

I'll be making four threads:

>Phun Photography [a thread where I and many others can post pictures for fun, as well as a few camera tricks]

>Nothany's WIP/Abandoned Stuff [a thread all about upcoming projects, and projects that needed to be taken to the back of the shed]

>Nothany's Behind the Scenes Tips & Tricks [a thread all about shit I've learned, and other shit]

>The Technobabblery Corner [a thread where I spout computery nonsense all day]

In order to find these threads easily, I'll include them at the bottom of each news post. I'll even add little markers on top of that so you can even see if I've added a new post in that thread!

Hope you like these new changes, it'll at least make thing a heck of a lot cleaner on both sides that's for sure.

See you next update!

~•Threads•~

Photography (NEW!) • WIP/Abandoned Stuff (NEW!) • Tips & Tricks (NEW!) • Technobabblery (COMING SOON!)

Bit of quick news today. More coming soon-ish, but I've finally found a worthy candidate to scout!

Check @epicwinnzer out, They're a really cool traditional artist!

Total finished drawings: 39

(Not counting alts or the year-long challenge)

With alts: 44

With doodle: 51

With year-long challenge: 99

Fan-art of other characters/artists: 7

Unique Styles used: 20

Completed Animations: 1

(Sketch Collab Animation)

Unfinished/Abandoned Projects: 11

Hard-Drive Failures: 1

Projects with Lost Progress: 2

Lost Raw Files: 2

(Feeling Festive, and Passing a Moment)

Lost Full-res PNGs: 1

(Passing a Moment)

RANKING: B

Great first "real" year, but the output could have been a little better.

Speed and procrastination were my biggest weakness this year. Partially because I was fresh off of drawing for a year straight, and partially because time management isn't my strong suit yet.

Missed deadlines were common this year, which is something that aggravated me a lot because I was spot-on perfect with my deadlines last year with only a few close calls.

On the bright side I blew-up pretty quickly here. Went from a few fans to nearly 100 in a year. Really appreciate the love I've been getting here on Newgrounds. Thanks everyone!

~~Plans for the New Year~~

Comics, Animations, Drawings, and Upgrades!

I want to start sketching one of my comics this year after slowly writing for it on the side for 2 years.

I want to learn how to use Blender for my animations. Even though Pencil2D is a great program, I can't keep animating with rasters at 1080p. It's too much of a blurry mess at that size, and my laptop becomes a laggy mess when I use a higher resolution, or have too many details in one frame when I use rasters. Since Blender is all vector based it could be easier animate at higher resolutions, and since it also has 3D tools you might see a few of my characters in 3D if I learn it fast enough.

I want to still do a few drawings sprinkled throughout the year. Output for my drawings will probably be even slower this coming year, but I still want to put-out a few things for fun. Can't be animating all year round that'll drive me insane!

And I want to upgrade my setup again...for like the fourth time. Nothing much though, just upgrading the hard-drives so that they aren't ones I found in the dump, and playing around with a few network settings to see if I can stream my laptop's audio to my side PC or even this junk Linux phone I have.

That's all my plans for next year, let's see how long it takes for me completely change my mind and ruin my own plans.

Happy New Year Everyone!

To the person who gave me the 1 year Supporter status: HOW DARE YOU!!! I wanted to pay for it myself!

HOWEVER, your generosity ended-up being a lot better in the end, as I decided to give a bit of that money to a few friends I met recently.

So thank-you. In a way you made me feel a lot more like Santa this Christmas.

See! What did I tell ya! I'm building-up so many fans that it's hard to keep-up with these milestones.

Yes, I am the one who created this masterpiece in animation history today.

So smooth! So clean! So...wet? (maybe not that one...) And it only took me 45 days to complete...for a 2 second loop

What's funny about this animation was that I haven't done any serious animation since 2010...2012? Honestly can't remember, and even then it wasn't all that good. Just a bunch of simple sprite loops on Flipnotes and PowerPoint animations for school projects.

I am planning to polish this up one day using vectors, but this little animation is going to be the deciding point if I want to continue animating with Pencil2D, or switch-over to Blender with its grease pencil.

Pencil2D may be simple, but its simplicity is making it difficult to do anything that Krita can do in a flash (too bad Krita can't animate using its own vector tools). Meanwhile Blender is so massive and complicated that it could take a month of solid practicing and looking at tutorials to make it work the way I want it. So it's going to be a while.

~~~

[BORING HOW IT'S MADE PART. PLEASE SKIP IF YOU WANT]

So, for the 5 of you out there that's interested in how I made this, here's a little behind the scenes with how I made this project. Though, unfortunately I lost the original files in the SSD crash so it won't be as in-depth as I'd like it to be

~~The Movement Phase~~

Funny how this whole thing started out with stick figures. Although not perfect, I found that using a stick figure is a great base for starting an animation with cartoony characters. It lets you focus in on the movements you want to do instead of focusing on the details you may not need. And it helps that the anatomy of Looney-Tunes and Mickey Mouse characters are so similar to the likes of a stick figure.

The one thing I regret doing is not putting feet on the stick figure, as there's a lot of feet swivelling in this animation, and a foot doesn't stay in the same spot when it swivels

~~The Construction Phase~~

This is where I take this vague skeleton I've made and add my character on top. Usually I start with detailing the keyframes, and work my way from there. Sometimes, like with the feet, I need to reconstruct a new skeleton on top of it just so I get a better idea what to animate, or with the mop I add another layer so that it's easier to keep track of things without it getting too messy when I'd tweak it.

~~The Detailing Phase~~

Now that everything is "molded" the way I want, I can start adding details to this thing, tweak the animation a bunch, add little touches that barely anyone can see, and even draw a proper face

Hope you've enjoyed my quick little tour of this, and since you've stayed so long. Why not a sneak peak from my latest drawing:

It's gonna be a fun one. Though, I might miss my Christmas deadline.

Expect this to come out sometime this month, or at the very least on New year's day

[R.I.P Buttface Bunny 2022-2022]

Gone with the wind, but leaving a smell you can never forget

My Sketch Collab entry is finally done. I sleep.

Also not too long after my last post I reached 50 fans. I probably won't have time to do a proper milestone drawing before I reach the next one (since I'll be pretty occupied these coming months), but I thank you all regardless!

Couldn't think of a good Halloween costume for my OC...so I just shoved a pumpkin on his head

I think he likes it.

~~~

Might be a little more prepared next year, but there's a lot of things I need to take care of this year. Some of it is personal, some of it is technical, some of it is for a few Newgrounds events, and some of it is part of a surprise.

Also Holy crap, I've already more than doubled my fan count in about a month! Thank you so much for following everyone! I do want to make so sort of special quick drawing to celebrate the upcoming 50 fan milestone. Though, it might take a bit to do since there's still so much on my plate at the moment.

That's all for now. See you next update, and happy Halloween!

LOL, Really hitting it big aren't I!

Thanks for following everyone! I may only have like less than 2 years experience drawing full time, but it brings me joy knowing that I'm not the only one who enjoys my art.

Here's a quick sketch to commemorate this occasion.

It also shows-off my "realistic" pencil and eraser brushes I made in Krita.

There's some changes I'm planning at the moment so I don't overwork myself on accident. They aren't quite finished yet though...because I've accidentally caught myself overworking on something again (I swear I'm not trying to do it on purpose), but small scale drawings and sketches are going to be the norm for a while until I catch-up with all my unfinished projects.

I'm also going to try and take advantage of the forums to post other topics like little art tips and trick, and maybe even some tech stuff I've learned to optimize drawings, or just me geeking-out over tech in general.

See you next update!