#I actually make a ton of art daily I just decide to not post it bc I don't like you /j | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

buriedsecretspodcast · 2 years ago

Text

Embarking on a quest to write more

I'll start with the tl;dr: I want to try to write more often. Specifically, I'd like to aim for "near-daily" blog posts, with a goal of publishing something approximately five days per week and accompanying it with a piece of art. I almost certainly won't hit that goal, but it feels like a good number to aim for.

Why?

I recently dropped an episode about a book that I really liked called Consorting with Spirits by Jason Miller. In the book, Miller talks about how when interacting with the paranormal, it's important to prepare less and risk more. In the episode, I talk about how I recognize that I need to take that advice to heart. When interacting with the paranormal, I often doubt myself and try to talk myself out of what I actually experienced.

And I do that even in the moment, while the strange thing is happening, which Miller explains is the exact moment when you should not be doubting yourself. (He basically says you can doubt yourself anytime afterwards, when you're analyzing what you've been told her what you've encountered. But if you do it in the moment, it shuts down that part of your brain that helps to process the unusual and paranormal and psychical.)

As I was working on editing the episode, I realized that the maxim prepare less, risk more applies to me more than I would like it to, and more than in just my paranormal experiences. I have very strong perfectionist tendencies, and I'm the sort of person who creates large amounts of art and then just never shares it with anybody.

Here are a couple examples:

Starting last May, I decided that I was going to do a drawing every single day. A YouTuber I like, struthless, talked about a challenge that he undertook where he drew the same thing every day for a year because that sort of repetition forces you to be more creative in your artistic approach. I chose ravens and crows as my subject matter. And while, of course, I missed a few days, I did, for about eight months, draw a raven pretty much every day. I didn't quite make it to a year, because while I love birds and love ravens and crows in particular, I did get to a point where there were tons of other things I wanted to draw and I felt like the creativity challenge was stifling me rather than helping me. (Though it did help built a daily drawing habit!) However, despite having drawn hundreds of ravens, I've shared maybe five of them? Probably fewer. Why? It's not like ravens are particularly off topic or outside of my niche, because ravens have a creepy vibe and one literally appears on the podcast logo. But I just usually choose not to share them just... because.

I create episode art for every episode, and yet I very rarely share that art on social media. The drawings appear on my website and on the specific podcast episodes—for podcatchers that support episode specific art—but I could be using them as social media assets and I just . . . don't.

I could go on, talking about how many first drafts of novels I've written but not edited to publishable form, or how many episode scripts and notes for episodes that I have not recorded yet, either because I felt like they weren't quite good enough, or I needed to do a little bit more research and put some finishing touches on them before I could let them go out into the world. But I think you get the point. I don't think that all art needs to be shared, but I also know I'm holding myself back by sharing so little of what I do.

Things that have helped

Often, when being less charitable about my own shortcomings, I feel that I am too flighty and get bored with new projects. (I think that's a feeling that many neurodivergent people grapple with.) I'm proud of the fact that this podcast has been running for almost three years now. It has become a data point that I use to convince myself that I can focus on things, I can create finished products and share them with the world, and I don't lose interest in projects.

The podcast has helped me fight some of my more perfectionist qualities. My audio quality can only be so good; I live in a noisy area and I have to deal with noisy radiators that like to kick up anytime I happen to be recording an episode during the chilly months. Because I am on a consistent schedule, I have to keep putting out podcasts, whether or not the script feels completely good to me (and by good, of course I mean perfect, and nothing can clear that bar).

But I'm able to tell myself that a podcast is not an indelible object that is expected to be perfect or close to perfect. It's casual and conversational. As a medium, it's not known for being particularly polished. That allows me to let go of some of my perfectionism around podcasting.

(Of course, that doesn't stop me from fixating on moments when I misspeak or on those pauses when my brain clearly buffers in the recording--I trim those down, but I can still hear them. Also, there are definitely episodes that make me cringe, but so far I've managed to keep myself from going back into the file and recording updates and qualifications.)

Show your work

Austin Kleon, an artist and writer who focuses on creativity, has a book called Show Your Work. The book is exactly what it sounds like, and it's geared toward artists who hate self-promotion. If you want to be an artist or a creative of some kind, there's no point in creating art in isolation. You have to show people the work that you're creating.

In the book, he talks about how his own blog has been so important to his development as an artist and has led to so many connections, opportunities, and friendships. He talks about how it's important to have a body of work online, even if it isn't 100% polished. It's okay to put out things that are in progress and rough. People are interested in the creative process and the thoughts that people have while they are creating things, not just the finished product.

Despite having read this book multiple times, I still have trouble showing my work. I have my podcast, but I tend to just... not promote it, at times. The same goes for my artwork. Even though I finish a drawing almost every day, I rarely share that artwork with others except maybe—sometimes—my wife. When I started the podcast, I decided to do episode-specific art to literally force myself to share some of my work publicly.

Digital commonplace books

One of my favorite thinkers, science fiction author Cory Doctorow, is someone who, like Kleon, blogs frequently. Doctorow writes a blog post pretty much every weekday. I recently read an essay that he wrote, where he compared his tendency to write daily blog posts with old commonplace books, which people would use to record their thoughts and information that they wanted to remember.

He said his blog was a sort of digital commonplace book, which contains his thoughts on different topics as they were evolving and as he was developing them. Over time, it becomes a source of inspiration and research for him to dive back in and find tidbits that he might need in the future.

To quote from his essay:

Peter “peterme” Merholz coined the term “blog” as a playful contraction of “web-log” — like a ship’s log in which hardy adventurers upon the chaotic virtual seas could record their journeys. Though “blogs” have always been a broad church, there’s a kind of platonic ideal of a blog that’s right there in the term’s etymology: the blog as an annotated browser-history, like the traveler’s diaries my family kept on vacations, recording which hotels we stayed in and what they were like, where we dined and what we ate, which local attractions we visited and how we felt about them. Like those family trip-logs, a web-log serves as more than an aide-memoire, a record that can be consulted at a later date. The very act of recording your actions and impressions is itself powerfully mnemonic, fixing the moment more durably in your memory so that it’s easier to recall in future, even if you never consult your notes. The genius of the blog was not in the note-taking, it was in the publishing. The act of making your log-file public requires a rigor that keeping personal notes does not. Writing for a notional audience — particularly an audience of strangers — demands a comprehensive account that I rarely muster when I’m taking notes for myself. I am much better at kidding myself my ability to interpret my notes at a later date than I am at convincing myself that anyone else will be able to make heads or tails of them.

Zettlekasten

The essay is excellent, and you should just read that, but I love this idea of thinking about daily blogging as a sort of repository of ideas or digital commonplace book. I am a enthusiastic user of the zettelkasten method of taking notes, which has a fairly similar vibe.

I'll have to write about zettlekasten another time, because it's something I am passionate about. In the six months that I've been using it, the method has helped me so much with my research and with synthesizing and developing my own ideas. I'm a real PKM (personal knowledge management) nerd, no surprise there.

But to be brief: The zettlekasten method involves taking in information from books and articles and other sources, and then putting it into your own words and synthesizing your own ideas around them—and putting all of that into an atomized, interconnected notetaking system. That aspect of a zettelkasten system has a lot in common with the idea of blogging daily, and I think that these two ideas mesh nicely.

Sharing

I'm also very inspired by the artist Todd Purse, who posts a daily drawing and accompanying podcast episode. His work is so lovely and always puts a smile on my face, and I admire his talent, dedication, and positivity.

I know that sharing more and would be helpful for me in my paranormal research. I also have plenty of things to say about some subjects that aren't ready for their own episode, and I can only assume that spreading information within the community would be helpful.

It's not that I think my ideas are so groundbreaking, but I consume a lot of information. I don't like my tendency to hoard what I've learned just because I think my presentation of the knowledge isn't good enough. Kleon includes an Annie Dillon quote in his book that really stuck with me: "The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."

Also, hopefully, by putting these things in blog posts, I will allow myself to be a little bit less strict about how good—or perfect—something needs to be.

Just like the necessity of publishing my podcast helps me be less of a perfectionist, I hope that this will help me put my thoughts into writing and share my art, which I plan to post alongside my blog posts, and not hold back so much.

I really want to try to embody the idea of preparing less and risking more. And I think this is a great way for me to do that. I almost certainly won't be blogging everyday, or even five days a week, but even aiming for the goal of blogging five days a week should help me create a lot of new and interesting stuff. So this is the beginning of my quest to try to prepare less, risk more, and share more with my community. And if you recognize any of these tendencies in yourself, I can only encourage you to find a way to share your work, as well.

Note: I'll be cross posting these essays on Medium and in my newsletter, so you can read them or sign up to receive them either place, if that's easier for ya. This post originally went live on 03/13/23.

#paranormal #zettlekasten #writing #creativity #imagination #paranormalinvestigator #cryptidacademia #cryptidcore

0 notes

lostinchowkit · 2 years ago

Text

What turned out as expected?

My current job.

I remember walking with a friend from junior high school about what I wanted to do in the future. Many professions crossed my mind upon trying to answer her questions. Ranging from being a psychologist to a criminologist. Mind you I was so obsessed with Sherlock Holmes back then. But eventually, I told her I wanted to do something relating to human rights. Honestly, I couldn't recall what led me to include human right activist as an option there. I think it was because I was reading a collection of speeches from influential people who fought for the sovereignty of society. Thus, sparking the 'calling' to partake in humanitarian work.

Frankly, that once-blooming desire didn't last long. It was then overcome by the ambition to become a criminologist. Although, the chance of me ever having a future ever back then was slim to none. I was in complete shamble. I only showed up to school so they didn't mark me absent and flunk me. I was too absorbed in my emotions. It felt like tons of unpleasant memories coalesced into one giant ball and hit me right in the head. I went on with life relying on the tiny will to keep afloat. I was running in circles with zero idea where I'm heading - or even the knowledge of will ever make it at all. Lord, even I would have numerous mental breakdowns that I had to go home and several hospitalizations as well from stress-induced severe asthma attacks.

This continued into senior high school. I was basically a hopeless case. I would skip school on a daily basis. Even my friends were hesitant to work in the same group as me because they weren't sure I'd show up the following day. Things were looking slightly better upon entering 11th grade. I actually made effort to never skip school even though I could barely process most of the materials the teachers were teaching us. What mattered back then, I tried. I think I even surpassed the minimum of my target. I joined a debate club and became the president of the club. Though I was sure I did a poor job at it.

Twelfth grade was probably the moment when I thought "Eh, this is okay. I'll make it."

During this period, I was so grateful that I didn't have a hard time fitting in and connecting with people. I think it was because I've grown comfortable in my own skin and being alone in general. I was no longer part of the club because I had to focus on the final exams. But I was appointed to lead our class' final art project. I still wonder how they could trust me regardless of my poor track record. And with my academic performance, I still never made it to the top ten. But long story short, I graduated.

Sadly, this bubble was kind of shattered when my parents nearly got a divorce. But they didn't and I had to bounce back.

Then came my university years. Those were a complete blast. A moment of true self-growth and self-discovery. I studied Journalism and though it was TIRING AS HELL, I had fun doing all the coverages. I too made so many friends along the way - a few I'm still in contact with. I tried to put myself out there as much as I could. Joined an organization, saw a psychologist, won a competition, went abroad for the first time for free from winning the competition, did an internship, and finished my study with distinction.

Post-graduating, I decided I didn't want to be a journalist anymore. I put that as my last resort if none of my job applications went through. Luckily, after grueling months of job seeking, the universe decided to land me a job at a local NGO. That led me to recall the conversation with a now-distant friend about the future - and the question about whether we'll make it at all.

Now, I'm working at a different NGO. I get to work with many activists fighting for a just society. Thus, indirectly pulling me into their circle, where I can firsthand experience what was my ambition years ago.

I am still unsure about the possibility of seeing the future as somehow, I no longer feel elated to welcome it. I don't know, perhaps it's because I'm now on meds that kind of nullify my emotions.

The point is, I may never see the ultimate silver lining of it all unless I'm dead. Because the only ultimate silver lining is death. All the silver linings I have experienced and will experience belong to moments. As long as I get to live the many moments to come, then I get to witness and reach the silver linings that promise me better days.

Anyway, sorry for turning it into everything BUT about my job. All in all, hang in there, bubs.

1 note · View note

maniculum · 2 years ago

Text

The College of Grotesque Arts -- Introduction

So, I’m going to tackle this Dungeon23 idea. (This is Mac speaking, incidentally — I talked over the project with Zoe, but the analog element makes it a bit hard to collaborate from a distance, and she has other projects to focus on, so this one’s just me.) The idea, if you didn’t feel like clicking on that link, is to create a TTRPG “megadungeon” by doing one dungeon room per day, one level of the dungeon each month, so that you have a 12-level, 365-room dungeon at the end of the year.

I’m going to start off by saying that this is something I’m mostly doing for fun, so it’s going to be much less polished than something I might do as an Actual Project. (I say this because we do have some Actual Projects bubbling along in the background, and I don’t want anyone to assume they’ll be as slapdash as this is likely to be.) You’re looking at a first draft with minimal planning, which I think is appropriately in the spirit of things.

(If you're wondering about the title, that's what I'm calling the dungeon; to be explained in the next post.)

One of the things we really enjoy here at the Maniculum is medieval marginalia; of course, a podcast is an audio medium, and we’re not art historians so we can’t do a properly-informed discussion of it, so that doesn’t come up much on the show itself. So what I’m going to do is use the marginalia of the Luttrell Psalter for inspiration. Each day, I’ll look at a different page of the manuscript (in order, from the beginning), and try to base the contents of that day’s dungeon room around what I see. We’ll have to skip some pages, because they don’t always have anything besides geometric & floral decorations, but I just looked through it, and I’m pretty sure there’s enough pages left to get through the whole year.

(Text continues below image; I can't figure out how to make the image smaller.)

(You can find the digitized manuscript here, by the way)

I’ll also be using Appendix A of the AD&D Dungeon Masters[sic] Guide to get a starting point for each room, though I won’t consider myself strictly beholden to the results.

I considered doing a hexcrawl instead, since a lot of this marginalia doesn’t really fit with a subterranean dungeon, but it’s been years since I’ve done a proper dungeon, and I’m excited to give it another go. So we’ll just have to try and make it work.

Between now and the end of December, I’ll try and come up with a basic concept for the dungeon — I’ll post that when it’s ready. Come January, I’ll do a new blog post on the website once a week with my progress. (I may or may not post smaller amounts on our social media in between those weekly posts; we’ll see how I’m feeling.) It’s going to be once a week instead of daily because (1) I don’t want to clutter things up on the website and (2) I’m probably not going to stick to doing exactly one room each day. My work habits are disorganized, unpredictable, and possibly a function of undiagnosed ADHD — I expect, based on what I know of my own tendencies, that I’ll regularly pull ahead or fall behind on the project, and it’ll be easier to compensate for that if I’m doing weekly releases.

Now, the material-culture angle of this project: the notebook.

I could not justify buying a special notebook for this project, because I have too many blank notebooks sitting around already. My preferred brand is Field Notes, and I have a ton of those because I was a subscriber for a couple of years before I decided I couldn’t justify the expense, considering that the notebooks were coming in way more quickly than I was filling them. However, unfortunately, my box of empty Field Notes books cannot help me here: they’re pocket-sized and 48 pages long. There’s simply no way to fit this project into one of them. Even if I somehow managed to cram a week’s worth of rooms and descriptions on each page — not possible if I want it to be legible to anyone but me — it would still overflow. I’d spend the whole time stressing about space.

So, reluctantly, I turned to my other miscellaneous blank notebooks. I have a bunch — I’ve gotten a number as gifts over the years that I haven’t used, but unfortunately the reason I never used them also makes them ineligible for this project: inexplicably, most notebooks use ruled paper or blank paper. (Graph paper can be used for any purpose you can use ruled paper before, plus purposes you can’t use ruled paper for. Why would anyone ever use ruled paper when it’s obviously the less useful option?) And, of course, this project requires graph paper.

Turns out I have exactly one notebook that can be used for this project: a battered Moleskine Cahier that must have been in my Empty Notebooks Pile through at least four moves. No idea why I even have this one — I haven’t bought Moleskine in about a decade. Also I think these things come in packs of three and I have no memory of using the other two. Regardless, though, I have very professionally scrawled a title on it in Sharpie. It’s official now — I am doing this project.

#dungeon23 #d&d #dnd #ttrpg #college of grotesque arts

3 notes · View notes

morimallow · 4 years ago

Note

Kurōo with a male reader but reader actually animated and draws really well, can do realism easily literally any art style. And has worked fir anime studios & even made their own anime animation b4?

And he finds it out because he and Kenmawere snooping around?

WAIT, THIS IS SO CUTE. LET ME.. CHERISH THIS. I will entitle this..

Strokes

〖 This is fluff and crack (but I'm not funny?) despite the title, believe me. 〗

You were at your university studying a course totally unrelated to arts, same old poorly made up excuses for you not to go and enroll for Fine Arts running through your mind on a daily basis.

If you think about it, it's fine. Your parents decided to let you go and do artsy stuff after you graduated from whatever that course is.

But then again, this is you and you know you'll get rusty if you won't draw and just focus your mind on lengthy equations and pain-in-the-ass Language lessons and field practices you're sure you won't even use it in real life. Not with your chosen real career choice.

So, you decided to give it a go. You will be immediately offered a job if people can already see your potential.

You'd draw in your free time and also in not your free time and send those samples to animation studios. You use digital and paper and pen alternately... just because.

You would say you're popular. You have an art account, not using your real name because who the hell knows what your parents might do?

You would post there your WIPs, some original characters you made, an character you saw in a manga you read a long time ago that you forgot the title, your commissions with a large DO NOT REPOST or SAMPLE in the background, rough sketches of your boyfriend who doesn't know he was drawn, not that he would mind if he did know.

But the thing is, he really doesn't know. Nope, not a clue. None.

Not until you asked him to use your laptop, which was full of your drafts and placed helplessly on your study table, to send an email to your professor.

You have 4 accounts all in all: a personal one, your art account which you use for digital art stuff and to communicate with other artists, your account for the university and a formal one for.. formal stuff, I presume.

The things is, the account that was currently logged in was your art account and the animation studio you work at sent you your schedule the moment he opened your laptop.

Which means he accidentally opened it.

Kenma was sitting on your swivel chair, doing something on his phone. He was Kuroo's ride because they had somewhere to go after your boyfriend's done with what you made him do.

Kuroo briefly scanned the content of the mail before switching accounts so he could send the file you wanted to pass to your prof.

After telling you it's already sent.. he went back to your art account and whispered to Kenma who was too bored he joined Kuroo in his shenanigans.

Were they thinking you're living a double life? Yes. Did they scan your files? Yes. Did Kenma accidentally stumble upon an open box filled with tons of sketch books and old tablets you used for digital art? Yes. Did they start their search for whatever they're searching there? Absolutely.

For Kenma, he grabbed the sketch book with a label with the same name as the game he's addicted to at the moment. They were drafts then the final designs for the characters.

Kuroo didn't really feel angry or irritated you didn't tell him this. He knows you'd answer him honestly if he just asked but he can't.. stop.. looking at your works.

He was mesmerized. He has a lover so good in arts? HELL, YEAH. He's now convincing Kenma to join him to commission you because you deserve it.

You knew Kuroo would know about your work the moment you entered your dorm with their shoes still by the door. You leaned on the door frame, looking at them still smiling fondly at your works and you were thinking how to approach the situation because.. you weren't really angry? Your works have been out in the public for so many times. Why would you have an issue with Kuroo and Kenma looking at the original ones?

“What do you think?” you asked.

“You didn't tell me you were this amazing! I didn't even know you draw,” Kuroo said pouting but still feeling proud and happy if that's possible.

“I thought you already knew when I asked if I could practice on you?”

“What? When— I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO BE BETTER AT KISSING SO I SAID YES.”

“I was on my phone.. drawing you..”

“You weren't scrolling through videos on how to kiss?”

“What made you think I was scrolling through kissing shit when I was holding my phone at a weird angle because that was the first time I used my phone for digital art?”

“Well, did it turn out good?”

“Absolutely, I caught your ugliness and enhanced it to make you uglier.”

Bickering, teasing, and Kenma not minding you two.

Kuroo then asked what your plans were after college and told you about the schedule he accidentally saw earlier. He knew then about your work, about when you made your own anime that was one of Kuroo and Kenma's top 10 faves. It was a short one but definitely caught their hearts.

Kenma had been planning to develop his own game and wanted you to design the characters, get your own crew to develop the graphics and all that artsy stuff (because I don't know anything).

“Kenma, you're my best friend but you can't just steal my boyfriend from me!”

“Kuroo, stealing and hiring are two different and obviously unrelated things.”

After a few more hours of planning and telling stories, Kenma decided to go home and Kuroo stayed for a sleepover.

He asked you where the hoodie he lent you a few weeks ago was because he didn't bring any change of clothes and you said it was in the top drawer.

Just as he was about to close it, his eyes caught a glimpse of a picture.

No, it wasn't a picture. It was a digital portrait of someone..? Maybe a late relative or your close cousin? The person (?) in the frame had some of your features. It was too realistic it didn't cross his mind that it was one of your works.

“Hey, babe? Who's this?”

The moment you realized what he was holding, you stopped breathing. He wasn't supposed to find that but then again, maybe you shouldn't have hid it in one of your drawers.

You mumbled your answer.

“What? Come again?”

“W-What our c-child would look like,” you looked away, blushing.

I realized the title had nothing to do with the content. Maybe this is why I never win in essay writing contests. LMAO. 💀

#kuroo x reader #haikyuu x reader #male reader insert #kuroo x male reader #haikyuu x male reader #haikyuu x you #kuroo tetsuro #kuroo x y/n #could also be #gn reader #kuroo x gn reader

166 notes · View notes

icanandwillcry · 3 years ago

Text

Me; The Yuki You Know

This is my first post on Tumblr so I decided to introduce myself with this 20 facts about me.

BTW if you know me from IRL, you'll know like, who's writing this(?) idk how to phrase it. But chances are, you came from my insta bio.

My name is Yuki (if you didn't know) and the kanji I was "assigned" is 幸.

I'm fluent in English, Korean, and semi fluent in Japanese.

I'm an ISFJ-T 4w3

I'm a huge MBTI enthusiast and can and will ask you your MBTI and memorize it all.

I like all sorts of art! (digital, traditional, writing, photography, acting, voice acting, etc.) Speaking of which, I'm currently writing a psychological thriller book, and I also auditioned for a voice acting company in Japan, but I didn't pass the first screening TvT so I'll probably try again next year.

I'm super into anime and games, so feel free to talk to me abt those! My current fandoms are: A3!, Criminal Minds, Viral Hit, Teenage Mercenary, Spy X Family, and more.

My favourite voice actors are: Seiya Konishi (also stage actor), Junta Terashima, Yuuki Sakakihara, Soma Saito, Yuusuke Shirai, Gakuto Kajiwara, Kana Hanazawa, Saori Hayami, Ayane Sakura, and Ayana Taketatsu.

My favourite stage actor is Keisuke Ueda.

My favourite A3! Song (they got so much and they're spoiling us help) is probably Double Solitaire.

My favourite overall song is Pomegranate by Soma Saito.

I'll either be super active for long periods of time or inactive for who knows how long jnsfknkvnsdj

I'm really into fashion and makeup too, which were one of my childhood dreams (fashion designer and makeup artist) but my first dream was to become an actress. Now, my dream job is to be a voice actor in Japan while taking on psychiatry on the side.

If you give me a book to read with an interesting bond with two characters, I'll look up for fanart and fanfics of them, and if I don't find jack shit, I'll do it. I'll fuckin' do it and nobody can stop me.

I'm really salty about this one but I used to be 164.5cm, and like, a week after my AP finals I checked it again and I FUCKING SHRUNK. I SHRUNK 1.3 CM. HOW.

I love to cook. Mainly simple dishes but I can make something fancy if I had to. If I had the time to, I'd cook for our family daily but High School likes to fuck over our schedules so I can't.

I clean when I get stressed, but the thing is, I get stressed so much that sometimes there isn't much to clean so I'd like, hold back my tears, mess up my room, and re-clean it. That was like, up until two months ago. After that, now I just... empty my closet and fold everything back in. Everything but the stockings.

I had like, a bunch of sheer tights, right? Like, a crap ton before I started attending my current HS. The reason for that's because we have a uniform (button up, tie, cardigan, hoodie, blazer, skirt, the works) and I always wear stockings. Otherwise I feel naked, and that applies with any skirt I wear. But anyways, I had a shit ton of stockings right? And now that sophomore year's practically over, I kinda realized how many stockings I've ripped. For you creeps wondering why, I didn't do anything kinky. I don't even fall or anything. I actually don't know why my stockings rip so much, and I'm underweight so it's not light my leg fat would just PSSHHT it open? And it's always the knees. Are my knees that sharp? That's just a question for another time tho.

I play 5.5 instruments. I'm saying 5.5 because I haven't gotten the full hang of viola yet and it's just something I've kinda messed around with in my free time. The rest are (in order of comfortability): Violin, Bass guitar, Electric/acoustic guitar, Drums, Piano.

My actual voice is on the lower side. I'm a bit self conscious abt it tho so I kinda tone up? or like, speak in a naturally higher pitch and people don't know that it's not my real voice. I can hit some low notes too, I think I can go down to a D3? Idk how high I can go up to but I can cover the full alto range and probably mezzo or soprano... My other ranges for voice acting is like, typical lolita voices (yk, the cutesy stuff), a bit of shouta voices, yandere laughs (is that even a thing), snobby asshole person voices, and guys.

I'm dyslexic (it's not that bad compared to others) but I've practiced reading lots and now people think I'm lying when I tell them I'm dyslexic xD

3 notes · View notes

mack3030 · 4 years ago

Text

I find it really telling that even after their “apology” (which was really weak and seemed more like barely admitting to their problems and sweeping it all under the rug), Anto still has the evidence up on his tumblr.

He can’t say “I don’t accept your apology because it sounds weak and fake and barely takes any real responsibility...” without sounding like a jerk to certain people. (Even if it’s true.)

There’s a difference between saying:

* Okay I finally admit I might have made a mesh that looks almost identical to yours and it might come across as copyright infringement oops sorry about that...and that it took so long to admit...

* I am deeply sorry to the communities I hurt. Not just those who play the sims, but the creators on secondlife whose work I directly stole and edited and claimed as my own. I was not right to deny the claims against me when I knew they were true. From now on I am going to hold myself to a higher standard and apologize to those who I have hurt.

See the thing that rings false about Sonya’s apology is the claim that they didn’t “steal” the mesh but copied it side by side. This rings hollow because of all of the evidence posted by Anto and others that literally shows how IDENTICAL the “Sonyasims” meshes are to the original meshes. Yes, there are some minor differences, but they are few and the similarities are way too uncanny for it to be copied.

In my profession I deal a lot with kids who “trace” artwork and pass it off as their own. One of the biggest red flags is the artwork being too similar to the original. Why? Because if you’re “eyeballing” the work and drawing (aka copying from a reference image) there will be enough noticeable differences for it to not look exactly like the original. Lines might not be as smooth or straight, proportions might be slightly off, details missed. A traced image, however, looks 95% or more like the original with only a few details missed most of the time.

And sonyasims work, based on the screenshots and video evidence compiled, looks like a traced work I’d get from one of my kiddos.

See, there IS a difference between taking someone’s work directly and tracing and using it as a reference for a new work (particularly if you are in the process of learning how to do an art form). Usually if you are not making serious money (I.E you only sell your eyeballed work to a few friends/family members that want one vs trying to make a “brand” and sell it professionally) you can (normally) get away with eyeballing work and not changing it too much. (While it might not be 100% in line with copyright, this is commonly done at the beginners/student level — ex: a student selling a work they did in class at an art show that was heavily derived from a reference image to a friend/teacher.)

But when you decide you want to be a “professional” artist, you have to be able to take a reference image and remix and change it enough that it is a new work in its own right. Copying a reference alone won’t cut it. You have to make it different enough that people can’t come after you for it thinking you lifted a good portion of it from another work in any form. Lots of professional artists have had issues with this, a recent case being Jake Parker, the founder of Inktober, who was accused of plagiarizing from another artist’s how to draw book.

Sonyasims cannot claim ignorance about where the inspiration for their mesh came from. They can’t claim they were only copying the meshes of Anto and others for practice or as cc for their own game. They blatantly put it on their patreon, and claimed that the edited mesh was their own. They tried to be a “professional” cc maker by taking the work of others, editing it a slight bit, and selling it as their own under their own “brand”.

When called out on it, they denied it until they were blue in the face, even throwing out wild suggestions on how they’d “prove” their innocence. All this did was make people more upset, because in light of all the evidence shared....sonyasims’ denials rang hollow.

So what can we ask ourselves and learn from this?:

1) How are we as a community going to deal with “creators” who are blatantly stealing meshes from other sites and creators? I’m not just talking secondlife, I’m also talking turbosquid, imvu, sketchfab, and other 3D sites and places where people take and/or buy meshes and then resell them as their own sims 4 content. As I’ve detailed in one of my past posts, many of these sites don’t actually allow you to sell their meshes for 3D worlds like the Sims 4. And many sims 4 creators don’t inform the original mesh creators about how their mesh is being resold.

How are we going to deal with this? Because this is a bigger problem than just Sonyasims. Many high profile CC creators are VERY guilty of fully converting entire sets from 3D modeling sites to “sell” as their cc content and the community turns a blind eye to it because we want pretty things for our game and don’t think about where they come from. It’s easier to just assume that person made them....even if they are amazingly able to “crank out” tons of surprisingly high quality content on the daily...(almost as if they didn’t have to mesh much at all...🤭).

2) What actions should be required of those who have violated the community’s trust? At what point will they be “forgiven”?

If Sonyasims wants to rebuild trust in the community they will have to show that they deserve it. They have two options. Either try to find more obscure meshes to steal that people won’t recognize, or actually mesh stuff themselves and show they are sorry for their actions. I hope they choose the second, but at what point does the community have to forgive someone who’s wronged it? I think of Savvysweet, who although a majority of the community loves and still supports even with the incident earlier this year, still gets hateful asks and comments from others. What should a simblr do when they’ve been proven to have wronged the Sims 4 CC community? What steps should they take to show true remorse?

3) What do we, as a community value? Do we value having “pretty stuff” in our games, regardless of how it got there and what creative individual’s rights are stepped on? Do we value having a system of paywalls and exclusives where only those who have more can access the creations of the creative community? Do we desire an open source and sharing community where creatives come together and learn and share resources freely while respecting each other? These are all important questions for us to ask as we continue to move forward from this. While this is not the first time a creator has been called out for stealing meshes, this is one that has gained a lot of attention. And while I agree that they deserve the negative attention and consequences that come with their actions, I also feel that if we as a community are going to publicly hold them accountable for it, we need to examine others who are doing the same thing. Because it’s up to us to decide what we want our creative space to look like, and feel like. So chew on these questions, ponder them. If you have an opinion on them, I’d love to know. They’re just questions to consider, because I sure don’t have an answer.

#sonyasims #paywalls suck #theft #copyright violations #oof #sims 4 cc #sims 4 maxis match #sims 4 alpha

22 notes · View notes

dreamerboo · 4 years ago

Text

Dream SMP headcannons|| 🍃

before i start i just wanna say these headcannons WILL follow the storyline, meaning stuff like family SBI are not going to be in here.

(seriously guys stop saying Tommy is Philza’s kid. Its been stated multiple times that Phil is not Tommy’s dad. It is lore, cannon. Found family can work for Wilbur and Tommy, BUT THEY ARE NOT RELATED.)

- While Kristin (Phil’s wife) is not stated to be canon in the DSMP lore, i think she is the Angel of Life. For death shall never consume her, and she shall always bring life and happiness wherever she goes.

- Opposite to Kristin, Phil is the Angel of Death. For life is always on his side, and he shall never succumb to that fate. Although he is a loving and kind man, he will, without hesitation take your life if he see’s fit.

- Both of they’re jobs include:

Phil:

He’s in charge of leading people to they’re ultimate fate (and also transporting they’re souls to the afterlife). If your a kind; loving person with a heart of gold, your death shall be peaceful and serene.

On the other side, if you were... lets say someone like Dream. A manipulative tyrant, trying to get everything you want, even if that means manipulating his own son Phil shall make sure your death will be one for the history books.

Kristin:

She’s in charge of leading people to a new start (transporting them to they’re new dimension to start a life). She always asks questions that would best suite you, and tells you about the different dimensions and all the creatures you can be.

If you end up with a bad life; and do not deserve it, she will absolutely try her best to make things right. Take Ranboo; he deserves none of what he’s getting, so she set up opportunities such as Micheal or the Antarctic Commune for him!!

Although if she does not like you; her angel will come after you, and beware, death is quick.

- Techno has 3 forms, Full Piglin, Hybrid, and Human! His favorite is his Piglin form, as he thinks it suits him the best. Although, he uses his Human form the most as its more easy to do things in. Although there have been a couple occasions where Phil steps into Tech’s house, only to see a giant Piglin cuddling with a polar bear

- I can never decide if i like Tanuki (Raccoon)! Tommy more, or Winged! Tommy more, so have headcannons about both:

Tanuki Tommy:

- Tanuki’s can shapeshift! He likes to use his powers on a daily basis, whether its trolling some of his friends, or getting into fights

- He has a natural connection with leaves, since they resemble transformation! Because of this he has a small collection of leaves; as well as a bracelet with a cute little leaf charm!

- He loves Sam Nook because Sam Nook, like Tommy, is also Tanuki! They get along quite well!

- Tommy’s tail is super fluffy, and quite big. You can often find Tommy walking down Prime Path with his huge tail swinging back and forth, as he hums a tune he likes to call “The Able Sisters”

- His ears are also surprisingly fluffy as well, although currently the only one allowed to touch them are Tubbo. As well as this, like most Tanukis he has a little pattern on his face that looks like a mask!

- Whenever Tommy is upset he goes into his full tanuki form; he basically looks like this:

and whenever this happens, he always scurries off to Tubbo, and proceeds to be clingy. Days like this often end up with Tommy asleep (PLATONICALLY) cuddling with Tubbo. How cute :]

Winged Tommy:

- Tommy’s wings have never fully developed. This is because when he learned that Wilbur had wings, but were cut off, he binded his own out of respect for Wilbur

- Whenever he’s happy, his wings involuntarily will flap!! This is always a tell tale sign that Tommy’s excited, happy, ect!

- His wings are white! They have no symbols, just pure white, semi-fluffy wings

- Even if he never binded his wings, he would still never know how to fly or properly take care of them. As his parents abandoned him at the young age of 4.

<—————>

- Speaking of which, Tubbo was abandoned at 5. The reason Tubbo and Tommy are so close is because while adventuring, they stumbled upon eachother and have been inseparable ever since

- Wilbur, did in fact, have wings. But as payment for L’manburg, Dream cut them off and kept them. This is one of the first events that caused Wilbur to go insane

- Eret hosts pride parades for the server! They always like to look stylish and gaudy; so if you see him in a ball gown with tons of jewelry; know its that time of year!

- George is actually a witch! Although he’s a baby witch, he wants to learn the art of potion brewing. This has also led to many cottage explosions, much to his dismay

- Whenever Sapnap gets angry, he flames up, completely engulfed in flames. He basically looks like the shape of a human but... well... fire. Because of this, its been advised people carry a small spray bottle with water, just in case.

- Skeppy taught Sapnap how to swear, much to Bad’s dismay.

- Antfrost was the first person to know Sapnap liked Quackity and Karl. The only reason Sapnap told him first is because he knew Ant wouldn’t judge him

- Puffy is called ‘Mother Puffy’ by the rest of the badlanders. ‘Grandmother Puffy’ by Sapnap.

- Quackity had pastel yellow wings! He loves to fly around at dawn and sing while the sun comes up

- No one knows exactly what dream is, nor does anyone really want to...

- Tubbo is a goat, like Shclatt! (Dad!Shclatt anyone?)

- Whenever Tubbo gets excited, others often have to grip the base of his horns to calm him down.

- Ranboo has a tail and horns as well! Whenever upset, Ranboo swishes his tail around, similar to a cat.

- Sometimes Ranboo sleep talks, with often coming out as garbled endermen noises

- Fundy will never tell anyone, but his favorite food are berries

- Niki dyes her hair everymonth, nobody knows why but they cant say its not lovely!

- Sam has green freckles. Thats its thats the po-

- Everyone really likes Jack’s eyes, because they’re two different colors

- Phantommy has two different eye colors. One green, and the other purple and white, to resemble his discs.

- Phantommy also a heart stitched into his shirt/jacket. Its a green heart, with a smiley fave over it. To resemble the fact Dream took all of his (canon) lives.

- Ghostbur likes laying in fields with sheep, liking that they’re fluffy and good cuddle buddies.

- Whenever Eret is gone, Ghostbur and Friend are in charge of the castle. They have they’re own crowns and everything!

I might make more posts like this but hOLY COW THIS IS LONG IM CUTTING IT OFF HERE

#Dream SMP #dream smp #dsmp #DSMP #dream smp headcannons #dsmp headcannons #dreamer posts ♠️

32 notes · View notes

jidai · 4 years ago

Text

jidai’s budget mutuals/friends appreciation

Hi, all! I’m quite late with this but I decided to put a small friends and mutual appreciations post in hopes of brightening up the end of this year a little bit. ❤️ If you were tagged, please make sure to check below for a small little message from me. However, I want to make it very clear that I truly appreciate all of my mutuals. You guys brighten up my dash and always reblog or create so many funny and creative posts. I just wanted to give a few special shout outs to those that have taken out the time to reach out and interacted with me past my ask box or we just see each other often.

The messages are ordered by your URL, so you might have to scroll for awhile before you see your messages. I’m so sorry lmao.

Happy New Years, everyone!

@25th, Nonnie, the Young Genius. bro, remind me how old you are 🧍‍♀️ Like my brain CANNOT fathom the thought that you’re so skilled at SO many things and you’re not even in your twenties??? PLEASE SPARE THE TALENT. i will even accept crumbs. But I’m writing to tell you that you are such a wonderful presence on my dash. I always look forward to your gfx. They’re so SO good and you’re improving from one post to another. Like WOW. Now, you’re even starting an art blog, too? You’re so dedicated to the arts. I respect that a lot. Your hard work and commitment will bring you very far in life, whatever you decide to do.

I love interacting with you. You’re such a big sweetheart and full of positivity and energy. I look forward to seeing more of your art and gfx ❤️

@biscuitwalk, Dann, the AK Wiz. Dann, I know you’re not as active on here so idk when or if you will ever read this but I want to say that I miss you and your creations so, so much. I will say it a hundred times over and OVER but you inspire me so goddamn much. You have no fucking idea. Your works are absolutely gorgeous and unique. I can look at it once and I can instantly recognize your style (and your cute lil’ pufferfish <3). The way you utilize colors and implement various techniques, shapes, textures into your work. Goddamn, you’re so good. I always look to your work if I ever need inspiration and they help me brainstorm. God, I wish I could put it into words how much I adore your works.

We didn’t really talk for long but you seemed like such a kind and fun person to be around. I wish you the best in your future endeavors, wherever you are. Stay safe <3

@elriccs, Mirai, the Short King. 🧍‍♀️ ok look I know, I know I’m TERRIBLE at replying to you and I’m so fucking sorry. I absolutely love to talk to you but my dumbass cannot seem to reply in a timely manner LASELKSAL. That’s on me and I gotta do better. Anyways!!! Thank you SO fucking much for always leaving such kind messages on my work. I swear to god you’re one of my biggest hype man and I ALWAYS look forward to reading your tags. They’re so funny and it makes me all tingly and happy inside. Bro, like, you just radiate big fun vibes, bro. I really hope that I can get to know you better so I can just insult you until it’s too late to walk away </3

And of course, let me also remind you that I love your works so much. They way that you utilize your textures and those muted colors... OOMPH *chefs kiss* I will always love--

@lockhvrts, Em the Soulsborne GOD. hi em 🥺 it’s been awhile since I’ve had a proper conversation with you and I hope you’re doing okay! I miss you and our conversations where we do nothing but geek out and complain about the game industry lmao. if you manage to read this, I just wanted to let you know I miss your presence here. It’s been kinda dull not seeing your beautiful soulsborne gifs and your game rants. Let’s catch up soon. <3 stay safe and well!

@nathanprescutt, Benn, the Man. BENNNNNNNN. I love you a lot bro. I know we haven’t had long conversations for some time and I hope I can change that! You were my first friend on this blog and I will always appreciate it. I remember us just geeking out over your works and how I would always send you a gfx request like once a week LMAO. The one thing that I have always appreciated about you was the fact that you’re very opinionated (if not, very vocal on your stance on things) and you hold your ground. There were a few time where you encouraged me to speak on topics that I think I shouldn’t and that stuck with me for quite awhile. I’m still a nervous rambling mess when it comes to debates but just know that the one time you supported me to voice my opinion--I hold it very dear to my heart.

While I don’t spend much time together, I will always remember our animal crossing session. It was so much fun just trashing and chilling on your island. Especially the bar :( that bar was fucking AMAZING. Maybe once FFXVI comes out, we can geek out hehe

Also, thank you so much for sending in photos of all your doggos, omg. I miss seeing them so much I hope they’re doing well. Stay hot, my German bro lol. Ich bin sehr dankbar, so eine tolle Freundin zu haben. ❤️❤️❤️

@noxdivina, Lin the Big Dick Daddy Kind. The church is open for business bitch and I’m here to preach the GOSPEL.

Okay, jokes aside, I’m really happy that we became mutuals. You’ve always give off this like, mysterious cosmic vibe (????? huh). And your selfies just further proves that you are wtf. But you’re always so kind to those that you interact with. You’re an absolutely sweetheart and like I just want to give you a giant hug every time we interact. You’re such a soft human being. It’s so nice being around you. It’s like being tossed in the oven and baked at 250 degrees F for 25 minutes. And to boot you’re really talented, hello? God really said let there be a perfect human being and yeeted you into the universe. Thank you for always leaving such kind messages and words in my DM/askbox/works. I cherish them so much. I hope I can get to know you better in the future bc you’re rad, bro <3

anyways, updated drawing of u and maya:

i always assume you’re in a black fur parka 24/7 and maya is coatless neck down. also deck me with those jacked arms of yours thanks 🧍‍♀️

(edit: fuck i forgot to draw a PARTY HAT ON MAYA IM SORRY)

@rokuseis, Sei, the Dumber.

i have nothing to say to you go away you banana hater ASELKSAEKL

BITCH, you doo bee getting on my nerve 24/7/365 🧍‍♀️ you were an unexpected but a very welcomed addition to my life. I can’t believe we really went 1 fuckin’ year without speaking to each other and then suddenly our friendship blew up because over a stupid BANANA. Now you gotta deal with me and my stupid, random, crude ass messages daily. I cannot. Clown to clown communication. But thank you so much bitch for being there for me and telling all of these funny ass stories and life experiences.

I know I don’t say it a lot because when we talk it’s literally just dogs barking at each other but I want to make it clear now: I love your humor and vibe so much. You never fail to make me laugh anytime I talk to you and I appreciate it so much. I can’t tell you how many times I felt better after talking to you. Even though sometimes your fucking jab hits hard and I end up actually inSULTED BY IT. But thank you for becoming my friend and I look forward to all of our stupid moments together. Looking forward to shitting in your sink when I finally fly to your home <3

@wolfamongthem, Anna, the Grinch. Please don’t hurt me for that title. I'm just saying if someone needs a live casting, it’ll be u. Anyways, did you know that I was so fucking intimidated by you for a long ass time, even before we became mutuals aseljas LMAO. I always see your gifs around on explore and they’re so gorgeous and then I look at your text posts and it’s u roasting people like there’s no tomorrow- 🧍‍♀️ bitch I was SCARED OF U KSKS. Now that I’ve talked to you a few times, you’re really funny like where do you find those reaction memes????? Like bro you and your shitposts is my morning cup of coffee.

Anyways, in 2021 I expect a full-fledge review of all AAA games from you-- no more shit talking in the tags let it all out BITCH. Thank you for being such a great mutual! I look forward to see what weird shit you will send me the next time we talk lmao

@zenien, Selm, the I’m-gay-for-Lady-Maria-or-anything-that-moves-in-BB-Bitch™. ok bitch if I’m being honest I wrote yours last so my brain is FRIED. so everything i say from here is raw from the HEARt cause that’s all I got left. But anyhow, we savin’ the best for last! honestly, i didn’t expect you to barge into my life like that. i really didn’t. i was just gonna keep admiring with my 7 feet (2.1336 meters) pole. I’m glad you made the first move because look where we are wtf 🧍‍♀️ friends??? I wouldn’t believe you if you told me that in 2014 when I first followed you lmao.

You’re such a kind soul. I know you may disagree but I’m determined to convince you. I can’t tell you how much I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me during my rough bits. It’s like sitting on a wooden bench in a park during sunset and you sit next to me, just enjoying the vast sky. You radiate such peaceful energy. It’s very calming. Or you know, 2 seconds later i’m suddenly suplexed by your 40 tons of insults like what--

Thank you for everything, so far. Truly. It’s been so fun listening to you talk about your Bloodborne journey and see your reactions live. It’s been so fun to see you post your graphics and it continues to blow me away. It’s been so fun hearing about your life and the stories of your adulthood. Every words that we have exchanged, I hold dearly to my heart--more than you ever know. Love u bitch.

#for mutuals #mutuals don't ask about your titles i was being quirky LMAO #this took so long so i hope it works properly sksks #it hasn't been proofread so enjoy the mess

17 notes · View notes

bythebigcoolingtower · 4 years ago

Photo

Eye on Springfield - An Interview with Raymie Muzquiz

Since working on eighteen episodes of seasons two and three of the Simpsons, Raymie Muzquiz has enjoyed a strong, thirty plus years career in the animation industry, including directing eight episodes of Futurama’s second run. Here, Raymie talks about his spell on both shows, his other projects and the industry itself.

Let’s start at the start, how did you get into animation and end up at Klasky-Csupo?

In 1988-89, I was working for a movie trailer company. I was a production assistant and then a post coordinator for about 2 years. I learned a lot about film post production and worked on a flatbed editor, dubbing machines, etc. (all pre-digital). However, it was nonetheless a miserable, unartistic, poorly-paying job that laid bare all those awful “Swimming With Sharks”, fear-and-loathing tropes of the movie business. My boss was a horror. He’d yell at me about the dressing in his salad, or the variety of bread on the sandwich. I was his presumed personal assistant to deride. Yet he would shamelessly “lick the boots” of celebs and execs higher up the food chain. To this day, I cannot watch movie trailers. On the rare trip to a theater, I sit in the lobby and have my wife text me when the feature starts.

During this awful period I would look daily through the trades for another job. One day in the Hollywood Reporter there was an ad that included a picture of Marge (I think). Klasky-Csupo (just blocks from my apartment!) was looking to staff for Season 2 of The Simpsons. Since I storyboarded all my student films and some action sequences in live-action low-budget features at Roger Corman’s Concorde/New Horizons in the late 80’s. I applied for a storyboard position. What happened next gave me whiplash. I was given a test. Hours after turning the in the test I hired as a staff storyboard artist to start two weeks hence and immediately given a freelance assignment.

How did I get this plum position with zero experience? This requires some context. The Simpsons was an unexpected TV-animation phoenix rising from the ashes of a poverty-row industry. It is little exaggeration to say that the TV animation talent pool (as opposed to feature animation) consisted largely of old, alcoholic and broken-spirited artists doing Saturday-morning hack-work, subsuming their talent to low budgets and low cel counts. The necessary talent were simply nonexistent for this new, hip renaissance. The doors opened to the young, the students and the inexperienced like me; someone who didn’t go to art school nor drew for a living. It was a singular event for me. I was ignorant that there was even a difference between animation and live action storyboards. I was even naive about my drawing ability. Imagine my reaction when I saw trained artists draw in a professional environment. It blew my mind! My only saving grace was that as a live-action film graduate, I knew film language. I could stage without “crossing the line”. Scenes “cut” together and “hooked up” and I was staging in depth rather than in the traditional “proscenium” cartoon style. My acting was restrained, not broad or cartoony.

I did my first storyboard freelance while still at the trailer company. It was for Jim Reardon; his first directing assignment: Itchy & Scratchy & Marge in 1989.

Can you explain the work you did on the Simpsons?

Everybody probably knows what storyboarding is, so I’ll keep it short. It’s the visualisation of the script/story. It’s TV animation’s biggest step from script to screen. You are staging the characters in space and acting them out and breaking it up into separate scenes that informs the entire rest of the process. Design, layout, key posing, action and timing build off the storyboard.

When you were assigned to work on the show what were your thoughts? It was a phenomenon by that point.

The first season’s episodes of the Simpsons were being re-runned to death. I remember doubting if they’d successfully make more before the buzz died off. When I was hired I couldn’t believe my luck. The Simpsons was THE hip show of the moment. To actually be a creative team member on something fresh and original AND get paid more than beggar’s wages was like winning the lottery.

How closely did you work with the directors and writers, what kind of notes and feedback did you receive?

When I arrived for my first meeting, Mark Kirkland and Jim Reardon were crowded in a small room with folding tables, right off of reception. I believe they were both directing for the first time. Although I was already hired to work in-house, I had to give two weeks to my current, satanic employer, so I was assigned work as a freelancer. It was to board an act of Itchy & Scratchy & Marge by its director, Jim Reardon. Little did I know what I was getting into.

I never had to draw so much in my life! My drawing hand (left) was killing me in those early months. I had to develop a callous on the middle finger. They gave me the “radio-play;” an audio cassette of the recorded dialog to draw to and tons of model sheets.

I remember being overwhelmed by the volume. And you had to draw in these tiny boxes of the formatted storyboard page. I didn’t have that kind of discipline (I never did: I eventually developed a style of drawing on blank pages, then fielding and formatting them onto a page. Sometimes I scaled my drawings down on the xerox machine. I also drew on post-its (the greatest invention in animation after cels) and taped them onto the formatted sheet.

As this was freelance, I actually only met with Jim twice: Once for the hand-out and then again to show him my roughs. I vaguely remember him asking for changes that I thought were off-show (I’d seen all extant episodes multiple times on TV by then). Plus this was my first time and really had no expectations of what the process was.

But--he was the director--I addressed his notes and turned in the storyboard to the receptionist without further feedback. This almost became my undoing. In future, I would know the director should go over the storyboard and decide if it was ready, needed further revision or even just check the “bookkeeping”; the placement of dialog, notes and scene and page numbering before releasing it to the producers (all the Executives at Gracie Films across town). However--for whatever reason--this didn’t happen. It went directly from reception to Gracie. And evidently the executives didn’t react well. I was ignorant of all of this for years; until Mark Kirkland told me what happened...

The Executives were displeased with the storyboard and demanded to know what happened. Someone blamed it on the new guy (me!). So it was decided I had to be fired (before I even started my first day on staff)!

Did I get thrown under the bus? I can’t say. I wasn’t there. I am only relating events second hand.

Anyway, Mark Kirkland, who shared the room with Jim Reardon and was present during my meetings came to my rescue (again, completely unbeknownst to me). He vouched for my character and said I was worthy of rescue and rather than firing me, I could work with him.

So I have Mark to thank for my career. If I was fired, it would have been crushing and I think it’s safe to say I would never have become the artist I’ve become in the thirty plus years of my career.

What was the pressure like working on the show and at the studios during that time?

Because of my lack of experience, I found it difficult judging deadlines and the necessary labor (and just pencil mileage) to succeed. Plus I was traumatised by my previous job; I was conditioned to fear punishment and humiliation at anytime for something I did or didn’t do.

The climate at Klasky/Csupo couldn’t be more starkly different; so egalitarian! Everyone was socialising and goofing around. Gabor Csupo couldn’t be a more laid-back boss! Long lunches with side-trips for comic books and toys! Nerf guns in the hall. I shared a tiny room with two other board artists, Peter Avanzino and Steve Moore. They would both have to vacate the room for me to reach my desk in the far corner. We bantered and laughed more than worked. Celebrities would drop by (Most memorable was meeting Frank Zappa). There were events always going on; bowling, screenings and parties. And yet, a ton of thought and drawing was necessary; especially for me. I worried I couldn’t work as fast as other artists. I often had to work nights and weekends to meet my deadlines. However, there always were other artists doing the same thing; they may have been more experienced than me, but they were young and not so disciplined; so I was never alone. Plus, you never knew how off the mark your roughs could be and after a meeting with the director and Brad Bird, you might suddenly be looking at a ton of revision work. I also remember that Brad was busy weekdays and meetings could sometimes only be done on Saturdays. I simply had a lot to learn and time to put in to build my proficiency. And Brad Bird was very important influence in those days: I could be nervous and exhausted preparing for a meeting with him, but he’d so infect you with his enthusiasm and creative vision that you’d end up re-doing the whole thing but be excited about doing it. He emphasized the cinematic aspects and empowered us to be bold and push the limits of traditional animation staging.

You worked on some of the show’s early classics, could you tell from your position how the episodes would come out?

My next episode for Jim Reardon was “When Flanders Failed”. Because of the kerfuffle of the first episode I did for him, I was anxious to be as professional and impressive as possible. I thought the act I did showed improvement. However, the episode seemed to languish at some point (after animation?) and word got around that it was a bust and wouldn’t reach air. My memory is hazy about this, but I was bummed at the time; thinking my working relationship with Jim was snake-bit.

A season later, it eventually did air. I’m not giving a very good account of this, sorry.

“Flaming Moe’s” was an episode I was excited about. I remember Brad Bird suggesting some very exciting staging that turned my head around. Especially the part where Homer ends up--“Phantom of the Opera-ish”--in the rafters. I think that was a turning point for me; I was going to be a Brad disciple and determined to push the staging from then on.

“Stark Raving Dad”, is memorable to me, but not for a good reason. It was one of the last episodes I worked on; only doing an act. I remember being scandalized that Michael Jackson was the subject of the episode. Being a Simpsons purist, I believed that the show existed in a parallel universe and celebrities were parodied for laughs; it was too hip to be a shill for celebrity. There was no Arnold Swarzenegger, there was McBain. There was no Hal Fishman (our local channel 5 anchor), there was Kent Brockman. Dr. Hibbert was a parody of Bill Cosby. Mayor Quimby was a parody of Ted Kennedy. Even Nick Riviera was supposed to be Gabor Csupo! Having Michael Jackson exist in this universe and embodied in a sympathetic character (rather than a target of ridicule) was seriously “jumping the shark” in my opinion. I believed the show had done the unthinkable and it would prove fatal to the series.

Of course I was wrong. The Simpsons goes on like a perpetual motion machine. But I couldn’t abide watching this wise and subversive show trample over its principles to star-fuck. Now of course, which celebrity HASN’T been on the Simpsons. As you may well know, “Stark Raving Dad” has been pulled from the series since the premiere of the HBO documentary “Leaving Neverland”, giving some credence to my long ago objection: sometimes it bites you on the ass.

“Black Widower” was my swan song. I remember meeting Kelsey Grammer at the table read and being mesmerized by his voice. He sounded just like Orson Welles. The act I boarded included Bob and Selma’s honeymoon. I wanted to give the staging a Hitchcockian influence with deep-focus, Z-axis compositions (like looking out of the fireplace, across the gas burner to Selma and Bob) and my first-ever use of DX (double exposed) shadows to provide menace. I thought that was my best work of the series.

One of my favourite early episodes is ‘Homer at the Bat’ which you storyboarded. What are your recollections on working on it? Did you get any specific notes when it came to the players?

“Homer” was my third “at bat” (pardon the pun) with Jim. He’s a baseball fan as I am, but he also PLAYED Chicago-Style Softball (baseball with a huge, soft ball). I’m a baseball fan too, but I felt I’d be exposed a dilettante due to my terminal lack of athleticism. I was assigned all three acts of the show as well! I really had to be on my game (again, pardon) and not miss any of the references. I reluctantly took him up on his offer playing in one of the Chicago-Style games one Saturday in Burbank. It was a sacrifice as I had to work weekends to keep up with the workload of this episode. I went with a fellow board artist, who’ll remain unnamed (to remain friends).

It went terribly. At bat, I whiffed three pitches in a row, and Jim kept pitching more and more out of pity. I missed them all. He finally had to tell me to just give the bat to the next guy. In the outfield, I stunk just as badly. The piece-de-resistance was when my fellow board artist was at bat and swung hard on a pitch. He missed the ball AND dislocated his knee. I ran to him as he plopped down in agony onto home plate with his knee, shin and foot pointed in the wrong direction. “If my leg stays like this much longer, I think I’m gonna start crying,” he said through the pain. After a terribly long moment, his shin and foot rotated snapped back into place. We hobbled off the field as Jim and his pals resumed the game. Could things have gone any worse? I was certain that Jim had no faith in me by that time. If so, he never said it. He was a laconic guy.

I worked on it a hundred years ago so I don’t feel the pride I objectively should. The episode went against The Cosby Show and beat it in the ratings! There’s even an exhibit in The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, that I wasn’t aware of until I went there. No artist other than Matt is mentioned. It’s all about the writers and the players who voiced the show.

I still have the storyboards of Jose Canseco in the bathtub with Ms. Krabappel that Jose objected to and we had to cut. I’ll post them someday.

How do you reflect on your time working on the show? Do you ever watch those seasons and episodes back?

See below for details; but no. I haven’t watched the episodes I worked on or those seasons for decades. I haven’t watched any episodes after the 3rd season at all. I did see the movie.

The relationship between Klasky-Csupo and Gracie Films finished at the end of the third season, when Gracie decided to move production to Film Roman, what was your view of that situation?

With the handwriting on the wall that Fox might pull The Simpsons from Klasky-Csupo, the in-house producer Sherry Gunther countered by getting all us artists to sign a document tying us exclusively to Klasky-Csupo in an effort to block Fox access to the crew. That gambit didn’t dissuade Fox. They pulled the show anyway and took it to Film Roman. At the time, I wanted desperately to follow the show, but naively thought I couldn’t because I was bound by Sherry’s contract. Virtually everyone left Klasky-Csupo for Film Roman anyways; contract be damned.

The studio became a ghost town. I stayed, distressed that I had to work on Rugrats. However, I eventually concluded that being torn away from The Simpsons was the best thing for my creative growth. Wherein The Simpsons was written so well, closely supervised and finding its stride, The Rugrats scripts were mediocre and the gags not funny. Rugrats was a vacuum to fill and I was empowered to add gags and exercise Gabor’s mandate to really push the staging into warped and low-angled baby POVs that defined the series. It lacked the regimentation of The Simpsons and I exposed to all the other processes in making cartoons. On the Chanukah special I directed, I timed the animation, I even helped direct the voice talent and supervise animatic and final edit.

The Simpsons, like many prime-time animated shows, are dominated by writer/producers who closely control the creative aspects and the artists are more or less staying in their lanes.

After the Simpsons you were assigned to work on ‘Duckman’ where you directed eight episodes, what was the step up to direction like?

I didn’t go directly to Duckman. There was a period of boarding on Rugrats and assistant directing on two Edith-Ann specials for ABC. It was a sad time, something like being in purgatory, but one which I believe was necessary in retrospect.

Speaking of being in purgatory, here’s an anecdote. Klasky-Csupo was a bunch of empty rooms after the Simpsons left. I was working on Edith Ann one day and Gabor was walking a tour of potential clients through. I showed them what I was doing and then Gabor directed them to the next room; opening a door to usher them in, various large and small auto parts suddenly tumbled noisily out onto the floor. A car bumper, pieces of trim, a fender and hub-caps.

You may ask why auto parts were in there? I’ll tell you: When Rich Moore worked there, his office overlooked the corner of Highland and Fountain avenues. Over time, he and his crew witnessed a lot of auto collisions on that corner. They would go and retrieve the parts left behind and hang them on the wall. Rich obviously left without taking his collection and somebody decided to hide them all in this room. Suffice to say, it didn’t look professional and I felt terrible for Gabor at that moment.

When I did become director, there was many moments of panic. I was used to storyboarding to my personal standard and quality that defined my aesthetic. Paradoxically, being a director meant losing close control. I had to depend on clearly communicating to the storyboard artists, quickly learning you can only tell artists so much before they “top-off” and forget what you said. No one took notes! It was all by memory! I always took notes as a board artist. A good board artist makes a director look good. There are far more mediocre storyboard artists than good ones; mainly because the good ones are promoted to directors (I feel the quality has improved over time). And I had to deal with freelancers for the first time. They are the guys that fill-in when there’s not enough staff artists. These people were usually moonlighting for extra money and end up storyboarding your show in the style of the show they were working on during the day. There just wasn’t enough time in the schedule to fix everything without working crazy hours. The Simpsons had layout. So storyboards didn’t have to be so precise and if something wasn’t staged right or acting out in storyboard, you could work with a layout artist in shorthand to correct it. Virtually my entire career has been absent layouts. They are very rare for TV nowadays. This makes the storyboard all the more important. The bar must be high; we call them “layout storyboards”; they need to be closer to model and the acting must be spot on.

Animation timing was also something I had to get control of; At first, Duckman didn’t have a supervising timing director, who could maintain the quality and the timing aesthetics particular to the show. It was up to the director to check timing. I had almost no experience and it was a new show. No one person had the answers. I could review the timer’s work (so often a dreaded freelancer) and I could see it wasn’t at all right and I’d wholesale erase it, but then I panicked that I might have done more damage than good; suddenly in over my head. It took time, but I got it.

I believe that the director who masters his x-sheets is true master of his show. I could add quality and personal aesthetics in a new dimension.

Does you background as a storyboard artist influence the way in which you direct?

Absolutely. In animation history, there were directors who didn’t storyboard or even draw. There were a few of these “dinosaurs” on Rugrats. They sat and read the paper when we boarded their shows. But because of the overseas process of animation and the loss of layouts here at home, if you are going to direct at all, you have to be comfortable drawing a detailed, informed layout storyboard. It is literally the blueprint of your show.

That said, I had to mature as a director who storyboarded. It was insane to try and board all my episodes personally, though directors will put some work aside for themselves, especially if its a sequence that would be too hard to delegate to another artist. If a sequence involves a new character, location or prop integral to the story, it may not be designed yet, so I’ll take it on and “feel it out;” designing as I board.

I had to learn how to be a good delegator and a clear communicator. I pitch sequences to the board artist before they begin and give them roughs of designs, poses or staging I think is important for the sequence. From my boarding experience, I don’t like directors who don’t tell you what they want until after you’ve drawn the storyboard. That wastes time and effort. And morale. I want the artists to know my take and hopefully that will inform the storyboard they do. I also know from my board experience that you should balance criticism with praise. Communicate what you like about how they do this and that before you go through critiquing the parts that aren’t working. Ultimately, you want to help the board artists be successful in storyboarding it their way, not my way. If it works, don’t change it just because it isn’t the way you’d do it. Lean into and support what they’ve done.

‘Duckman’ had a cavalcade of guest stars throughout the shows run, did you ever get to meet any of them, and if so, do you have a favourite encounter?

I was always of two minds regarding using live-action stars for animation. Yeah, it’s fun to meet them and some like Jason Alexander can knock-it-out-of-the-park, but sometimes this kind of “stunt casting” backfires. In my first episode, we used Crispin Glover in a stunt role as a crazed maniac with only one line. He showed up brandishing an eight inch hunting knife acting like a REAL maniac. Maybe it was method acting, but we were scared of him and got him in and out as fast as we could. His delivery didn’t work for the line and it spoiled the joke in my opinion, but it remained in the episode. If we used one of the legion of professional voice actors available, we could have worked with them for the perfect “voice” and delivery and nailed it.

We also used Teri Garr for an episode (not one I was directing) and I attended because I was a huge fan of hers. I got to see her behind the mike as she looked over her pages and said acidly, “This isn’t exactly Tolstoy, is it.” That is the opposite attitude you should have when you’re hired. She was soon pitching underwear afterwards...obviously not Tolstoy either.

So I’ll say it again: using celebrities can bite you on the ass.

Performances aside, I certainly did enjoy meeting legends. Carl Reiner played a priest in Noir Gang. Mind you we recorded in a small studio that was in the back of the Rugrats building that was essentially a cavernous storage room. Ed Asner looked visibly uncomfortable when we huddled around him in there. I’ll never forget the look on Marina Sirtis’ face when she arrived to record an episode. Me and a couple of other guys were laying in wait in this sketchy storage area eating our lunches. She was concerned: “is this the right place?” I felt like a lech and stopped going to records that I didn’t have to be at.

Overall, if the celebrity you’ve cast for a voice roll has theater experience, you are more likely to get a good vocal performance. Especially musical theater experience. They are more aware of their voice and have the tools. This goes for Jason and others like Tim Curry and Bebe Neuwirth; all great voice talent to have behind the mic.

You worked on the second run of Futurama, had you been a fan of the original seasons?

No. I didn’t watch the show before. I had to catch up and learn the “canon” when I was hired.

How did you get involved in working on Futurama?

The animating studio, Rough Draft, was something of a clique. They didn’t just hire “anybody” and unlike most studios, they maintain a staff of lifers who usually have the choice positions. I knew Peter Avanzino from our Simpsons days doing storyboards together, so he vouched for me. I was hired to direct on the 2nd season of Drawn Together. So they had a taste of what they could expect from me. I was no longer an unknown quantity when Futurama came around.

One of the eight episodes you directed was, ‘The Mutants are Revolting’, the shows hundredth episode. How special was it to work on such a landmark episode?

It had the most visibility of my episodes, at least internally. They made T-shirts and some publicity art and even the script had a nicer cover. But it was the episode with the most headaches. The scope of the story was huge with multiple set pieces. The opening newsreel, movie in a movie of the Land-Titanic, the asteroid delivery, the party at Planet Express, the riot in the sewers and the flood and “parting of the red sea” climax all required a ton of designs and characters; plus more hand-drawn and CG effects. That’s a lot to manage and marshall for a TV show. Most episodes don’t require the director to do this kind of heavy lifting. I find that when a show demands this much visually, the story ends up being more superficial, gag driven and episodic feeling. Such is the case for this episode. It was visually pumped up because it was representing the 100th episode; meaning I was saddled with managing lots of logistics rather than the usual character-based comedy and emotion of say, Tip of The Zoidberg, which is a relationship story that--as a director--I feel I give more time to flourish and shine with.

‘The Mutants are Revolting’ features some fantastic animation, most notably a brief sequence of Bender standing perfectly still as the Planet Express ship moves around him. Can you explain the challenges of a sequence like that?

That’s a good, insightful question. A shot like this shows off the resources Rough Draft has that aren’t available at just any other studio doing TV animation. The interior of the Planet Express Ship was built and animated in CG. At it’s gimbal point was a CG version of a stationary Bender; locked to field, but who’s feet move with the CG ship. Once the CG elements were approved, they were printed out as wire frame drawings printed onto pegged paper. My Assistant Director drew key poses of the characters on a separate layer in register with the CG print outs, old school on a light box animation disc. This all was sent to our overseas studio Rough Draft Korea for inbetweening and color of the characters only. That came back as an alpha-channeled digital file and layered over the CG animation in our digital compositing department.

Scott Vanzo runs the department and directs all the CG animation effects. I can’t remember who exactly built the interior of the PE ship and animated it, so I’ll rely on IMDb: Don Kim and Jason Plapp. But all the guys in the digital department do tremendous work and allowed us to fine tune a lot of animation (that doesn’t have CG in it); giving us the ability that raises the quality and takes the curse off of overseas animation limitations.

‘The Tip of the Zoidberg’ was nominated for a Primetime Emmy, how proud were you of that achievement and the episode itself?

The episode was one of my favorites; it was character focused and elaborating on canon so a director couldn’t ask for more. As for the Emmy nomination, it’s one of those show business awards that I realized early I can’t get emotionally vested in. The Futurama guys have a formula for figuring out which episode will be submitted. I think it has something to do with each writer getting a shot at the statue. And then from then on it’s just politics.

You’ve also done work on ‘Disenchantment’, giving you the distinction of having worked on all three of Matt Groening’s shows. What’s your relationship like with him?

I can’t help but laugh at this question. I’ve run into him twice out in public over the years and he didn’t recognize me. Once at the Moscow Cat Circus! But that humbling fact aside, he’s a genuinely nice, funny person devoid of pretence and he’s said some very complementary things about my work. However, it’s all business. Like virtually all primetime shows, he’s with the writers at their separate production office. Animation production takes place in a different geographical location. My face time is limited to usually 2-3 meeting points in a show’s schedule. Anything in between are fielded via emails routed through coordinators and assistants.

As well as short form animation you’ve been involved with several feature length productions, including ‘The Rugrats Movie’ and ‘Despicable Me’, what are the key differences between long from and short form animated projects?

I don’t think I’ve ever had a purely feature production experience. The Rugrats Movie(s) were spin-offs from TV series so some processes were grandfathered in from TV production. Despicable Me was truly off-the-wall in that the storyboard artists were working remotely from literally all over the world. No one met each other. I met with Chris Renaud once. I was not allowed to see the entire script, only pages here and there. It was called “Evil Me” at the time. I was truly working in the dark and ultimately, they didn’t use anything I drew. Which to me seemed par-for-the-course: this was one harebrained, inefficient, right-hand-doesn’t-know-what-the-left-hand-is-doing way to make a show. Again, I predicted it would fail. Again, I was wrong.

At the time I was working on Despicable Me, Gru looked like Snape from Harry Potter and there were no minions yet, just an “Igor” kind of 2nd banana that was a shorter version of the final Gru design.

So my takeaway from those experiences is that I prefer TV production. You don’t have the luxury of a feature schedule, but there is less time for executives to get replaced, sundry monkey-business and creatives pulling the rug out from under you. However, TV is catching up in those regards. See below.

Do you have a scene or episode you’re particularly proud of working on?

I feel fulfilled and proud of directing and being supervising producer on Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie. I was empowered to work in every aspect of the process and benefit from my experience to make it the smoothest running ship and happiest crew ever. Only at the very end did the executives get into overdrive meddling. But it ran well and looked good. It may not be as funny as my prime time stuff, but I think we elevated the material across the board; writing, design, animation quality. And it was a project put in mothballs 15 years before being resurrected. So it completes me in a way.

Ultimately, I believe work is about relationships and quality of life. The shows where you were empowered and respected and not overworked due to inefficiency are the shows I’m proud to work on. As Jim Duffy would always say, “It’s only a cartoon.”

Often sequences are cut or revised before broadcast. Do you have any favourites that didn’t make it in?

If I had, I’ve forgotten them.

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry over your time and what do you think the next big change will be?

The trend seems to be as I get better and more efficient at my job, creators and writers (especially in streaming prime-time) are becoming more entitled, indecisive, mecurial and demanding. As processes have evolved in digital technology, we’ve opened the door for those in power indulging in more rewrites, revisions, reviews, etc. Despite the technical advancements, animation remains expensive and time intensive and good artists (especially in TV) have to work intelligently and diligently on tight schedules to produce funny, inspired, detail-oriented work. Rewrites and revisions burn out artists and make us feel like office machines and though our overlords pay for the last minute re-dos, they are often throwing out higher quality work for patchwork revisions that lower the overall quality of a show.

Who inspired you as a young animator and who do you look to now?

Ironically, I never saw myself becoming an animator. I did do some stop-motion on Super 8 as a kid. But that was because I didn’t have access to peers to act and help. What inspired me were live action directors with strong, individual styles: Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Peter Greenaway and Terry Gilliam. I think of these guys in essence as “live-action-animation directors”. The stylization in their sequence planning, shot selection and composition as well as how production design integrates in their storytelling reminds me of how background design and art direction naturally occur in animation production.

I’m sure there are new visionaries out there, but I’ve become so disenchanted with modern cinema, I rarely see new movies anymore. I find streaming TV much more interesting. Current movies strike me as self-consciously mannered and hyperactive. I find it endlessly fascinating looking back into cinema history before movies had to begin with three or four production company logos whooshing noisily about.

What advice would you give to people looking to break into the animation industry?

I’ve seen an improvement in the college educated animation students over the years. They seem to be of a higher intellectual standard than before. They aren’t as thrown by the rigors of schedule and they ALL can draw circles around me.

Be original in your own work, but also be a craftsman (as opposed to purely an artist) who can take criticism neutrally and have the tools to fit in the grand scheme of a show that might challenge your personal aesthetics.

Denis Sanders, a directing teacher I had in college said the director’s job is to be “an expert at all things”. In animation, that translates into intellegently knowing what to draw. If a character is looking under the hood of a car, know what an internal combustion engine looks like and what reasonable pieces you can have your character toss out of said engine. The distributor, the carburettor. Find and use reference! Go that extra step and inform your work with the texture of reality.

Don’t regurgitate old tropes. A trite example of what I’m talking about: If a character is peeking at another, avoid the obvious keyhole in the door trope. Keyholes aren’t in doors anymore. It’s been a cliche from the beginning of cinema. Rather, crack the door open, slide your cellphone under the door, look through a window or punch a hole in the door and look in. Like I said, this is a trite example, but making non-obvious choices rather than knee-jerk non-choices makes cartoons fresh and funnier.

What animated shows do you currently watch and what’s your opinion on the current state of animation?

It’s a terrible admission, but I’m not watching anything in animation. There’s a lot of animation that seems to be just writer-driven, animated live-action sit-coms. There isn’t a reason for them to be animated. Those are the kind of jobs I get offered a lot. It seems like a more trouble than it’s worth.

Who are some young animators you think we should be looking out for?

Gosh, I don’t know.

What projects are you currently working on?

I’m productively unemployed at the moment.

Where can people follow you on social media?

I only do tumblr: mashymilkiesinc.tumblr.com

#The Simpsons #Futurama #Eye on Springfield #Raymie Muzquiz #Not tall or wide

46 notes · View notes