#if i had the spoons i would make an animatic

[wickedcityy]

crying thinking about my blorbo while listening to sweet pompeii

[k00299539]

Animation Brief 02 - Re-Invention in Storytelling

Above: Honse

So I can't really lie about this one, I was in some kind of fugue state this whole brief. I was struggling a lot with insomnia and found it hard to engage with school at all. I actually didn't even show up for like two weeks and learned third hand I was in a group with Summer and Zu, a group for what? I took to Moodle to find out...

Okay I didn't really take to Moodle, I kinda glanced through the brief and surmised we had to make a three minute animation of a classic nursery rhyme. Sounds simple enough.

I'd been in contact with Zu and Summer over Instagram so I wasn't totally lost but I skipped the day where we were supposed to script our animation. This meant I turned up the next day for storyboarding with a script ... but no Summer or Zu. Did I mention our group was literally assembled from the people who didn't turn up the day they put the groups together?

So basically I sat down with pad and pencil and went through the script. My goal was to abstain from editing or embellishing the script and just draw each scene as I read it, keeping track of how many scenes, shots and backgrounds we would need for an animation. I figured once I had the script made visual, the editing and alteration would come naturally.

Above: Boarystoard

Now, what you might be wondering is; "Why are you showing the storyboard before telling us the nursery rhyme?" and I have a good reason for that. I didn't know either. Actually that's not entirely true, I could surmise from the name "Spoon" in the script that the rhyme was probably "Hey Diddle Diddle" but I was beyond confused as to how that became such a sobering tale of war and grief.

At about this time, Zu showed up and I had the answers to most of my questions. As it turned out, it wasn't just a nursery rhyme we were given for the brief but a time period and a genre. So being the lucky number (group) seven we were, we got 19th Century and War Movie in this lottery.

Hey Diddle Diddle is such a fun little rhyme, unlike the all the other groups rhymes, it's a genuine nonsense poem with no accepted origin. To me there's something liberating and anarchistic about that, the reader simply has to accept the mental image of partying animals and bipedal cutlery. I think had I scripted the animatic without knowledge of the genre or period, I would've focused on the fiddling cat and the cow leaving orbit. It writes itself in my opinion; a violin soundtrack to the sublime image of the cow achieving the impossible. But it wasn't to be.

Anyway, in my absence Zu and Summer had collaborated on the story with Summer writing the final script I had received over Instagram with zero context. And honestly, they did a better job than I would've thought possible. Highlighting the line "And the Dish ran away with the Spoon" and turning that into a refugee escape attempt as the impetus for a story was genius. I like to tinker with everything but other than streamlining the story for screen, I couldn't find anything I wanted to change.

Above: Nonsense

Above is the nursery rhyme itself, the initial story treatment by Zu and Summer and the final script by Summer. To briefly explain the beats of the story:

Three competing empires (Dog, Cat and Bull) encroach on a peaceful land.

As the land becomes a battlefield, it's citizens flee.

Among them is our protagonist; Dish and his son; Spoon.

Spoon is tragically killed during their attempted escape as Dish watches helplessly.

Dish is overcome with grief, he formulates a crazy plan to bring down the three empires.

Dish travels to each empire, impersonating a messenger of another. He plays the three factions against each other through false alliances, culminating in mutual destruction.

Dish returns to the site of his son's death and lays down a bouquet of flowers.

If you compare my abbreviated story to the scripts above you can see how I edited them a little bit. I was mostly trying to simplify the story to it's essential elements, half because I think that makes for a better story and half because I wanted to cut our number of shots down to the minimum.

Anyway with both myself and Zu in school for once, we went through both our storyboards and combined them into one, having hashed out exactly how we wanted the story to flow on screen. Summer also did a pass on the storyboard but it wasn't til a couple of days later I got my hands on that version.

Above: Combo Storyboard

Although we still had yet to meet up all three in person, we were communicating the whole time through Instagram. Paul let us know the next step after the initial rough storyboard was make it into an animatic to figure out the timing and begin research for the final storyboard.

Zu did a quick pass on the first animatic in Adobe Animate, although I never actually saw it cause he sent it as an animate file and I couldn't open it lol. I knew from talking to him though that it was the storyboard with each frame lasting for about six seconds on screen to reach the three minute runtime. This gave me a helpful reference for later when I was timing the final storyboard.

Based on Paul's feedback we broke the research down into six(ish) categories:

Landscapes/Background Design

Apparel/Costume Design

Visual Aesthetic/Style

Character Design

Mise-en-scène/Prop Design

Miscellaneous

There was talk of us dividing up the categories between the three of us ... but honestly we mostly just did whatever and pooled our research together in the end. In fairness to Zu and Summer they handled a lot more of this stuff than I did. Summer came up with great costume designs and decided on the cartoon Over the Garden Wall as our main Visual Design inspiration. Zu did lots of research on backgrounds and the 19th Century in general, and handled a lot of the boring work like pinning our stuff up on the wall.

During this I was mostly refining the story, creating the character designs and finalizing the storyboard.

Above: Summer's Storyboard ... Summerboard

Having Summer's board on hand was a great help when putting together the final version. One of the most fun parts of this project was synthesizing our ideas together, and in that sense Zu and Summer were great to work with. We each had our own distinct perspective but we were all willing to collaborate. We were truly a film making democracy...

Anyway before getting into the final storyboard I first have to go over the character designs. This was an area me and Summer collaborated on, although somewhat indirectly. We both designed the characters and their costumes separately and then I tried to mix and match the two in the final storyboard. Most of the conceptual work belongs to Summer and the actual drawings were me.

Above: Some of Summer's costume designs

Another interesting bit of this project was how often I found that the three us came to similar conclusions completely separately. Like in the above there's a lot of small details in Summer's designs which also appeared in mine, despite us working independently.

Above: A man named Dish

I actually just remembered the above designs which were drawn at the same time me and Zu worked on the storyboards. This was before Summer suggested the Over the Garden Wall aesthetic. At the time I was going for a semi-realistic Naoki Urasawa type design. I love Urasawa's work but honestly Summer had the right idea, simple designs made for quicker drawing which allowed to prototype more freely and really polish our ideas in a way we simply wouldn't have had time for with more complicated designs.

That's also not even mentioning the fact that I think the cartoony designs contrast the sombre tone of the story. If you make the characters too realistic, you run the risk of becoming melodramatic. Animation has a great disarming power and oftentimes stories like ours hit hardest when the audience isn't expecting them to. With this all in mind I set about creating the final character designs.

Above: Honse and friends :)

From left to right we have:

A four high stack of Dish heads for measuring proportions.

Dish from behind sans body.

Dish from the side.

Dish from the front.

Dish from the front after the death of Spoon.

Spoon from the front.

The Cat Emperor.

The Dog Emperor.

The Bull Emperor.

A generic soldier.

The Horse.

The Owl.

I think the design sheet mostly speaks for itself. There are definitely a couple of things I'd like to have done given I had more time, like obviously drawing full turnarounds for the whole cast or settling on a colour design.

A couple of details I'd like to mention specifically; As seen in the older semi-realistic sketch, I really liked the idea of Dish having a distinct, separate design after the death of Spoon, as though he became a different person with the loss of his son. I tried to reinforce this with the gaunter appearance, stubbly facial hair, and the way his hair-swirl reversed direction (probably my favourite thing from the whole project). Spoon's shirt is oversized as it's a hand-me-down from his father. The Emperors have a full-beard split between them, as we decided to kind of code facial hair as evil in this project. The Emperor's designs are anachronistic in general, looking more similar to the 20th century Nazi Uniforms than contemporary 19th Century fashion. This was intended to be a bit of commentary on the nature of evil and how the progress of technology (or modernity) facilitates the horrors of war.

I'm running out of space here, so I'll finish this update in another post.

[memekeymouse]

nobodys making mickey mouse animatics with these song bc they cowards

I WOULD if I had the TIME and the SPOONS and the ARTISTIC SKILL and the ATTENTION SPAN and

[instantartific]

Making a separate post to go insane over it so I don't derail OP but now I wish I had the spoons to make a Therefore You and Me animatic for Ano and Moya. Just to further explore their relationship and how they've lived together over the years for so long.

Because I love characters with incredibly complex feelings and relationships with each other and my two little OCs are a perfect manifestation of this.

Moya as a person cannot exist without Ano, because he can't function without Ano, but Ano can. Moya loves Ano more than he can ever reasonably define or begin to express or even understand. And Ano is simply unable to perceive it as any different than how a fan would love him. (Partially why he's so skittish when it comes to repairs as far as I recall: in his eyes, it's a fan he knows a lot of stuff about trying to repair him.)

Moya does everything he can to look after and take care of Ano and Ano does things to help him out, too; he's tried cooking before. It turns out that someone that has never eaten trying to make food wouldn't end up so well, but Moya ate it nonetheless. (Ano meant it as a surprise but it was spoiled due to the fire alarm going off, unfortunately.)

And the thought of the animatic going through all of these little domestic things between them as they've both changed over the years and ending with the end of their vs. B2J battle, with Moya holding onto a deactivated and broken down Ano.

What they have isn't romantic but it isn't inherently platonic and it isn't one-sided and I have no idea what it is but it kills me every time I think about them.

[penname-artist]

Newewews

Sum shit been happenin’, so in case there was a noticed lack of me, I’ve had company over this week, and we’ve been going and going and going and I am mentally pooped. I have no more spoons, my body turned into noodles on me yesterday (although maybe that was more the fault of the CBD...more on that in a sec)

But I’ll be back to doing my stuff again towards the end of this week, after a recovery day and such. But while I’m on the train of next week:

I did not quit my job last week. Believe me, I was gonna, I planned it, and then right ON the day I was set to leave, something interesting happened. The [new] manager had me start teaching how to do planograms and label changes and all my regular job to two new hires. All was going swimmingly. And then he pulled me aside and went “PLEASE I need you, I need your brain, can you work supplemental?”

So, I said I would, and we talked it over with the district manager as well and my title, officially, has been moved to part-time. This way I have the same set time to come into work, but I can work more hours in the week if need be. And what time do I work you might ask?

Three hours a week. T’ursday, nine to noon. I’m working, while not working, and making something to cover smaller expenses while I focus on my other goals. AND I can keep the shirts. And not need to go through the rehire process later on. Thank you Lord!

And with that set aside now, I can really really focus on my art finally. I have plans to start up some [ugh I actually don’t like them but whatever pays] commission work online through sites like Fiverr and Upwork. I’m also going to invest time into learning a new animation program and uploading videos to my channel a little bit more regularly. I have big goals for 2023 on that front.

And something I’m very deeply debating, in the ways of making content, is doing personal stories. I debated making all those possible stories into animated ones like every other YouTube creator has, but I kinda want to take the content that I’ve made with speedart and combine the two. You can watch me draw a thing and listen to me rattle on about a story at the same time. I may add small animatic elements too, to keep it interesting.

As far as what those stories entail, well I have some lighthearted funny ones I can go over, like my pet history, art camp, actual camping experiences, lots of mental health stories, and maybe down the line some brushing over of my trauma experiences with sudden and unexpected friend losses and grief. That, and/or the repercussions I’ve gone through as a result of that, when I get stressed and my body goes “aw HEEEELLLLL NAW” and shuts itself down.

Fun stuff.

But that’s all on the roadmap, might not get any traction til after the beginning of 2023. But I will be able to get back to writing and drawing and such, I’ve got several projects I’m still trying to get made and finished and posted and they’re being very slow.

But I shall keep y’all posted!

[mi4016tomberry]

Ouseburn Project 13

Finally I started planning out the backgrounds I needed for the project because I needed to make sure my backgrounds weren't blank as it is an exploration of place. I used the frames from the storyboard to figure out the layout of the room in relation to where the people stand and where the objects they interact with a located. I positioned little cameras inside these rooms to figure out where the shot is coming from so that I know which parts of the room are important.

Once I had figured out the general positioning of it all I moved onto planning out what is going inside each of these rooms. I had to redo some of them a few times when deciding what went where but managed to get a blueprint of each room.

I fleshed out some of the details of the bedroom primarily focusing on how I could place the fan in a position that made sense so that its not just on a shelf purely as an object to drive the narrative forwards. I only need to do 3 drawings for this room because I can do scaled up drawings of entire segments of the room and then pick the framing within the drawing for shots with different heights and distances.

With the bar, I had to figure out what to place in the background to make it feel like a bar and opted with a similar layout to the barroom in the Cumberland Arms aside from the positioning of the doors. I also decided that I would put a painting of a figure on the wall above the ectoplasm so that I could have it's eyes move around and watch them as they are beside themselves with the discovery of "ectoplasm" whilst completely missing the paranormal activity right in front of them. In total I need to draw 3-5 backgrounds depending on the way in which I angle the first shot of the room with the motion sensor in frame and depending on how I frame the shots with the ectoplasm on the spoon. Since they're next to tables and chairs I can also have him pick up a spoon from the table next to him so that it makes sense where he got it from or instead I could have him pull out his own special ghost hunting spoon in spite of the ones available.

The basement was a little awkward to decide upon because I knew it would have to be messy for the big crash at the end and I also needed something for the ghost hunter to bang his head on.

I wanted to keep most of the room simple because I knew the messy part in the corner would could be a pain to draw so I opted for these barrels lining the walls in cubbies and this also worked for the head collision at the end as I could add an overhead storage row which he runs into, maybe into a sign saying mind your head but I'm not sure yet. In total there will be 5 background I need to draw for this room 3 of which should be really easy.

I want to keep the style fairly rough and loose because I know I'm not making everything hsveba polished look so I want the backgrounds to mirror this otherwise it might make the characters seem off, or maybe I'm wrong and it would make them stand out more, we'll see.

I also have these two sketches which I'll use for the opening sequence and drawing these two will give me an impression of the style of the animatic.

[lettuce-gremlin]

"Look everyone... I can fly." Wow I didn't expect Stirfry from Rude Tales of Magic of all characters from all dnd podcasts to make me cry but here we are

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (May 15/2021) - Gated Communities

Foolish builds an obsidian wall around the wall of L’Sandburg to impose a restriction on their territory and adds a toll of 50 diamonds to enter L’Sandburg.

Tommy comes up with a new plan to create a gated community out of the Holy Land and walls it off as well, instating a 1 diamond fee to enter the Holy Land and a 30 diamond fee to join the religion.

Meanwhile, Tubbo and Ranboo celebrate Tubbo’s three-year streaming anniversary!

---

VOD LINKS:

Foolish

Tommyinnit

Tubbo

Ranboo

Captain Puffy

---

- Foolish notices the signs that Tubbo left claiming ownership and sees Phil’s “solution,” but says that getting around the wall is not the problem, but the fact that L’Sandburg is trying to make him pay in the first place

- Foolish makes plans for war. All he would need is to gather some men, blow it up, and then they win -- but there’s a lot more of Foolish’s that they could blow up, and he doesn’t want to mess up his path

- He wonders what would happen if Tubbo actually picks a side and wants ownership, what Ranboo would do in that situation

- He considers setting some sort of redstone trap. Then he comes up with the idea to put an obsidian wall around their wall to stop their wall with his wall

- Foolish builds an obsidian wall a few blocks high encircling L’Sandburg. The best case scenario is if L’Sandburg just surrenders. Then no one would have to die

- He puts a sign and chest saying the toll to enter L’Sandburg is 50 diamonds

- Tommy comes online and Foolish tells him about L’Sandburg in chat

- As the only remaining founder of Church Prime and its religion (as Quackity is off in Las Nevadas and Dream is in prison), Tommy says he has the claim to the Holy Land

- Tommy doesn’t know when Wilbur will next be back, but in the meantime he wants to acquire land and power, so he wants to make the Holy Land his own and do “for-profit religion”

- He calls in Ranboo and Tubbo. Tubbo points out that his house is on the Holy Land, and Tommy says he’s been living on Tommy’s property, and that while the religion was founded by Tommy, Dream, Quackity and Tubbo, the land was built by Tommy and therefore it is his

- Tubbo is welcome to keep living there, but things are going to change around the place

- He tells Ranboo that his plan is going to keep expanding, and he offers him land at the center of the Dream SMP

- He tells Tubbo and Ranboo that he wants to make this a gated community

- Tommy starts expanding the borders of the Holy Land with smooth stone and building them up vertically into walls

- He marks down the meeting room to be renovated into a house and tears down the Oogway poster in the church

- Tubbo puts Tommy in a bloody hole

- Tommy puts the UwU Master Oogway poster on the wall in the basement and makes Prime suits that are multi-colored. He creates different “tiers” of the religion

- Then he grabs an Ender Chest from one of the trident outposts and puts it at the entrance along with a barrel and sign saying the entrance fee to the Holy Land is one diamond

- Tommy calls Eret for help. As the king of the Dream SMP, Tommy wants him to endorse the Holy Land. Eret says of course he would, as it’s always been a part of their history. 

Tommy: “So you agree with all the rules of the Holy Land and shit, you know?”

Eret: “Uhh, as far as I know the rules are just no one’s allowed to be killed in the lands?”

Tommy: “Yeah, and all the rules that are made.”

Eret: “Are there other rules?”

Tommy: “Like, starting to be, but it’s just developing better -- so you agree, you know?”

Eret: “Well, I mean, we’ll see what -- the --”

Tommy: “’Yeah?’ Alright!” [Promptly leaves the call]

- The cost is 30 diamonds to enter the religion

- Tommy shows Tubbo and Ranboo the tiers and offers them to become Intro Subbers

- Ranboo asks what happens if he doesn’t pay. Tommy says he wouldn’t be allowed onto the Holy Land anymore. Ranboo agrees to pay for him and Tubbo to become Intro Subbers, and Tommy initiates them

- During the initiation process, Tommy plays an ocarina into the funny mic and Tubbo disappears during the screeching sounds

- Next, Tommy lays down some housing plots for the Holy Land’s gated community to get more people

- Tommy tells Tubbo that he is problematic

- There is still no fighting allowed in the Holy Land. No armor either

- Afterwards, Ranboo leads Tubbo around with a trail of diamonds

- Tubbo and Ranboo take Tommy over to L’Sandburg. Tommy is amazed by Foolish’s summer home and asks if he can claim it. Tommy now owns Foolish’s summer home

- Tubbo suggests they get Foolish in the call, as he is the person they must kill for ownership. Foolish joins and points out L’Sandburg to them, but Tubbo says this isn’t Foolish’s land, as the Pope claimed it and Tommy is the Pope, and Tubbo owns L’Sandburg

- Foolish recaps the L’Sandburg conflict. Tubbo explains that he doesn’t want Foolish to pay a toll, he simply wants Foolish to feel inferior. Ranboo can be Vice President of L’Sandburg, and Tommy can be Secretary

- Foolish comes over to L’Sandburg and Tubbo tells him they might have to have a war if he doesn’t tear down the obsidian wall. This area is the Tubbo SMP

- Tubbo then starts attacking Foolish and they continue to try and get him to tear down the obsidian

- They start negotiating. Tubbo threatens to declare independence and tries to pay Foolish with Nintendo gift cards. Foolish takes the gift card in return for the walls and they send him on his way

- Since they’re hungry, they go to one of the restaurants of the server to eat. When they try to go to Jack Manifold’s, though, it’s been destroyed. Instead, they head back to Tommy’s house and have a picnic

- Meanwhile, Foolish decides not to tear down the wall after all

- Ranboo brings over the food to the picnic blanket and they eat together before turning to the nostalgia clips for Tubbo’s 3-year anniversary

- Captain Puffy reacts to animatics before logging into the server and seeing the new walls around the Holy Land. 

- Puffy meets with Bad in the L’Sandburg tower. Bad says that he has a problem, and as a fellow MCC team member, it is Puffy’s problem as well: he shows her the new walls that have sprouted up around his wall. Puffy starts twerking and Bad leaves

- When Bad comes back, he reads the new books in the chest and sees Tommy and Tubbo’s messages and tells Puffy that they can’t stand for this. Puffy doesn’t want to get L’Puffburg roped into it

- Bad sees the obsidian wall as additional reinforcement for their tollgate. He’s disappointed that no one’s respected the toll, but Puffy points out that’s normal for the server

- Bad’s ultimate long-term goal is to get people used to the toll and Bad gets more and more wealthy. Then, when L’Sandburg’s accumulated wealth, Foolish would come and buy them out once stocks go up

- Bad starts decorating the obsidian wall. Puffy asks where Antfrost’s gone and says this sounds like the Eggpire all over again, but Bad insists that it’s completely different! 

- Puffy asks, haven’t Bad and Antfrost done enough to Foolish already? Bad calls him “bamboozled,” to which Puffy replies that he was executed in front of friends and loved ones

- They argue over whether they can actually be sure who killed who, then Antfrost gets brought up

Puffy: “See, the difference was mine was actually justified, whereas yours was -- just ruthless!”

Bad: “What?! Yours was cold-blooded murder!”

Puffy: “Well, I would do it again, and then slower next time actually.”

Bad: “Oh my goodness.”

Puffy: “Maybe next time with like a shovel or a spoon.”

Bad: “No! Don’t say that! Don’t let Ant hear you, he would be very distraught to hear that...”

Puffy: “Whisker by whisker.”

- Bad says they have a lot more in common than different. They’re both friends with Foolish, for one!

- Puffy and Bad argue about Bad scamming Foolish and taking his land. Bad claims that this is his land, and he has squatter’s rights, and if not, he’s taking it by conquest. Puffy accuses him of colonizing

- Bad decides to disband L’Sandburg the government and instead have only the  L’Sandburg Toll Company. He suggests Puffy build her own venture capital tollbooth company nearby

- He changes his mind and wants to keep it simple, keeping it not as L’Sandburg the toll company but simply L’Sandburg. 

- Bad wonders if a government can be a government with only one person, and if he can get Technoblade on his side

- Bad admits that declaring war and building a wall wasn’t a good action, but he built a whole tollbooth for Foolish! He asks Puffy for help building a “FOR SALE” sign

- Puffy goes over to her graveyard and finds the sign Connor left saying that Puffy stole his land, and colonizers are not welcome

- Bad scolds her, and Puffy tries to justify it by saying that Connor’s building had been there for ages. She doesn’t plan on giving Connor’s land back

- They return to L’Sandburg and put up the sign

---

Upcoming events remain the same.

[Two more days remain for the L’Sandburg ultimatum.]

[cupcraft]

I primarily use the “For You” Tumblr page a lot to discover artists, (I am on Mobile and it’s very easy to switch between the Dashboard and For You pages here) the more posts of a specific artist I like, the more likely it is for that artist to show up on my For You page multiple times until I follow them, as well as other people who post for certain fandoms, I actually found you through the For You page (You were talking about the Liking vs Reblog situation)

The posts I tend to see on the For You page usually have more than a hundred notes, and I tend to enjoy going through the For You page more than my Dashboard.

Why?

Well, I have a bad habit of everything and everyone, this is my fourth tumblr blog, on every Tumblr I have had before this, I followed over 3,000 people, most of whom would get lost in my Dash. Most of these people are artists and writers, on YouTube I have been subscribed to so many people that I think I hit the subscription limit on an account I mainly used to follow animators and YouTube would unsubscribe me by oldest subscription.

Why am I saying all of this?

Well, put this into perspective, I am a blog with less than 10 followers, I am following a lot of artists and if I were to reblog every piece of art that came into my eyesight, I’d honestly be off Tumblr within 10 minutes due to how strict I am with tagging stuff, and for some reason tagging things drains me, I get frustrated every time a tag doesn’t show up in the auto options as I’m typing it, and it doesn’t help that I’m constantly exhausted due to various factors, including depression.

I like things so people know I’ve seen it and enjoyed it. Do I reblog art? Yes, I do, but that’s like, a very small percentage of what I see on my dash weekly. And usually when I reblog stuff in bulk, its me documenting something that is going on, a fandom or tumblr’s reaction to something, or a cool concept I may like to play around with in the future or something that I want to comment on (Or an animatic or animation, those are high on my reblog priority list), other I just reblog because I feel I’m able to in that moment.

I understand that a lot of people on tumblr say “Just reblog it! You need to add tags!!” I can’t just not add tags, I view the contents of my blog as a history thing, if I don’t tag things and I want to look back on something, I won’t be able to find it. At all. Especially not if I want to show someone something.

The worst part to me is when people threaten to block people like me because “I like too much but don’t engage enough”, bro, I physically don’t have enough spoons to reblog every single thing you do, you are punishing me for saying I like your art, there is a possibility for me to reblog your art sometimes, but don’t get mad at me for not reblogging your thing when my depression and exhaustion is telling me that reblogging and tagging everything is just, too much work. I want to relax for a bit, and liking thing is how I say “Great job!”

I do try to reblog smaller artists, but me reblogging isn’t gonna get your post anywhere buddy. If I had more than 15 followers I’d make an bigger effort to reblog art with less notes all the time because there is a higher chance that one of them will be on and see it, but as it stands I believe most of my followers are bots, I barely have the energy to write, and in my opinion getting Likes shows that your post is reaching people and you should be proud of that.

Social media has made a post reaching 5 or 50 people seem like a failure, but if you put that into perspective that’s enough people to fill a room, and how many people do you know who would willingly go to the same place to see the work of a random stranger completely willingly and tell someone they liked it?

Stop comparing posts with hundreds or thousands of notes or views to your own numbers, the fact people saw it and cared enough to leave a sign that they like it is impressive, there have been times when I posted something, hoping it’d gain traction, only for no one to even bother looking twice, I have had so many posts and art pieces that never got a single note in the last 10 years I’ve been on tumblr, less than 50 posts broke 10 notes, I’ve only had 3 posts break 100 notes, and only 1 post go past 500 notes. This is across multiple blogs.

Yes, it can be disappointing when things aren’t reblogged, but it’s a sign people see you, and that’s a good thing, because most people don’t even get that. Engagement of any kind is a sign you’ve done something right, especially when it comes to art. Sure, only getting likes can be a frustrating thing, but don’t let it ruin your day, it’s still valuable, people are looking at you, and if they had decided to not leave those likes, you wouldn’t know they saw you in the first place, because there would no sign anyone even knows you’re there.

hey anon i just wanted to thank you for reaching out and i appreciate your perspective. There's a lot of nuance to the discussion you brought up so i just was replying to your ask to let you know that i read it and appreciate you sending this to me.

I hope youre having a good day!

[nish-e-r-r-o-r-neesh]

Ahhhhh okay so this is a little bullet-fanfic a wrote inspired by the amazing creation of @juuria :her video, The String. (Go check it out! And check out her channel! She makes amazing Hamilton animatics and other awesome stuff!!)

 It’s so beautiful and I really wanted to write something for her characters Jamie and Blanka! So uh, here’s a little fic. Hope you like it~

Fanfic: Casa-Blanka

Jamie and Blanka head off to their first date~

Lavender, Blanka noted. Jamie smells like lavender.

In the back of her mind, Blanka made a mental note of how creepy that sounded, but as for the moment, her thoughts were preoccupied by the comforting warmth of the girl in her arms. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the prominent rosy shimmer of her— no, their string. Their string. The red string. After so many years of watching that string stretch off into oblivion, she could finally see the other end.

“Blanka…”

“I’m here.”

“I missed you.”  

“Me too.”

A small rumble from the other girl—Blanka realized she was laughing.

“This is starting to get a little dramatic,” Jamie mumbled into her shoulder, then pulled away to look her in the eyes. She was smiling, exhilarated, luggage drooped around her legs from where she had dropped them in surprise from earlier. She certainly hadn’t expected her soulmate to come crashing into her arms and squeezing the life out of her. “You’re one strong hugger,” she noted.

Blanka shrugged. “It’s been a lifetime and two years, what’d you expect?”

“To get a little warning earlier than two seconds before you come crashing into me.” Jamie laughed again, picking up a duffel bag with Blanka taking the other. She turned to check her backpack and then, satisfied that everything was intact, began the laborious walk out of the airport with her soulmate.

The two hailed a taxi, got inside, and had a little conversation about what had been going on in the past two years. It started out a tad awkward with neither knowing exactly what to say, but was easily fixed by Jamie’s brave attempt of “…So how’s the weather doing?”, resulting in another round of laughter and an actual conversation taking place.

Depositing Jamie’s luggage at her house was quick enough task. They took a little sofa-break before Jamie suggested they go on with that date they had planned.

Blanka was a little more than baffled, protesting against Jamie planning to tire herself out instead of getting some well-needed rest. Eventually, after a some persuation, she relented and the two decided to hail another taxi.

“So, soulmate,” Jamie said as the other was waving for cab. “Where are we going?”

Blanka froze. She hadn’t exactly planned that far ahead…

“I…um, don’t know.”

Jamie blinked. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I didn’t… I don’t exactly k-know…. I didn’t exactly plan on where to go, okay?” Blanka admitted, embarrassed. She had briefly considered pulling her hoodie over her head before Jamie took her hand with a comforting smile.

“It’s alright, soulmate! We’ll just go into town and see where we can hang out.”

Blanka couldn’t help but smile. Jamie was just so natural sometimes, far better than her. She was falling for this girl even more with each passing second.

“Heh, okay. Oh—here comes a cab!”

____________________-

“Do you like Italian pizza?”

“Hell yes! But… it doesn’t seem like there’s any place to sit.”

Blanka huffed. The place was way too crowded for this time of year. Well, it was a Saturday, so it was a given families and couples would be running around looking for a place to eat. Traffic was heavy, pedestrians lined the streets, and restaurants were jam-packed with patrons. Every fast food place in town had more people than they had seats—not any ideal place for a first date. Or any date for that matter.

Blanka didn’t really have any intention of ‘wooing’ Jamie, or giving her a candle-lit romantic experience, but she really wanted the both of them to have a good time. She feared the hunt for a place to eat would prove more stressful than fun, but Jamie had managed to keep an upbeat smile as they trudged through the streets.

Suddenly, she was pulled to a stop.

“What is it?” Blanka asked. “You found a place to eat?”

Jamie tilted her head for a second, thinking it over, before asking, “You like buffet-restaurants, right?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Good, why don’t we eat here?”

Blanka stared at Jamie for a while, a bit confused- and nervous- of her cheeky grin, until she followed the other’s train of sight and saw the restaurant plaque.

Casa-Blanka

All you can eat Buffet!

“Wow.”

Jamie snorted, attempting a half-hearted apology, then proceeded to giggle her heart out. “Oh my god, I can’t believe we found a restaurant with your name on it,” she gasped between laughs.

In all honesty, Blanka wanted to be mad, but couldn’t help but giggle herself. She’d lived in this country her entire life and never had she heard of a restaurant called Casa-Blanka. Such luck finding it on her first date with her soulmate.

“Come on, let’s go,” Jamie urged upon calming down. “I think there are a couple of seats over there. Ha ha, this is perfect!”

 _________________-

Blanka had already been seated at their table along with her soulmate, but then Jamie had told her to wait for a bit and rushed back towards the buffet table.

Five minutes later, the girl returned with two soup bowls piled high with mounds of iced cream, almost rainbow-like with the flavor variety.

Blanka’s eyes widened dramatically as she took in the sight. “Oh my god….”

“I know, right?” Jamie chuckled and set down the bowls. There was more ice cream than their actual meals.

“W-where did you find them?”

“There was like a row of them in the back. I saw them just before we left, so I had to rush back before they were all out.”

“Well it looks like they’re all out now.”

“Well, anything for my beautiful soulmate!”

Blanka flushed beet-red at that. Jamie offered a little giggle at her expression, though her cheeks were tinted a bright shade of pink as well.

“Well, you’re taking this a lot less awkwardly.” Blanka attempted a little laugh of her own and began scooping up her meal.

“Well it’s true,” Jamie declared, and began spooning her rainbow tower of ice cream. Sensing that her soulmate was about to question her, she simply said, “It’s going to melt.” Before digging in.

Blanka offered a smile at that, and went for her own ice cream tower.

“You know,” she said, between mouthfuls of the creamy sweetness. “I think you’re beautiful too.”

Jamie blushed, then offered an adorably bright smile. “Thanks, soulmate.”

Ahhhh idk what I’m doing i hope you enjoyed reading this! (I know this should really be on my writing blog but idk uwu )

[vivalatoons]

My Talk: Wander Over Yonder

If you’re ever need some help, look for an orange, furry person and his best friend who’s a Zbornak. I’m talking about the great cartoon, Wander Over Yonder. We celebrate the show’s 4 year anniversary with a reflection of Wander Yonder Over. Doodley doot da doot doot, whoo!

Originally, this was supposed to be posted on June 27th on the one year anniversary of “The End of the Galaxy”. Something happened, and it didn’t post. I was upset, because it was lost forever. Thanks to @peepsqueak she has My Talk from her email. She noticed me about it, and I thank her a lot for saving me from doing this all over again. That’s the story. Again thank you to @peepsqueak, and let’s get into this reflection.

It was 2013 when I saw a commercial of this orange person wanting to give this skeleton a sandwich. The skeleton man was getting furious at him. A new show titled, “Wander Over Yonder” was coming to Disney Channel.

August 16, 2013 The Picnic premiere. The episode starts with Lord Hater and Emperor Awesome battling to get a wish from a visiting celestial being during the aligning of the planets that happens once every millennium. Wander is also there to watch the aligning of the planets, which makes Hater angry. Hater can’t achieve his goal on getting his wish, when Wander offers him a sandwich and taking photos. Hater realized that the planets are almost aligning, and rushes to ask the visiting celestial being a wish. Before he says what he wanted, Wander comes over to take more photos. Angry at Wander, he wished Wander would leave him alone for 5 seconds. The celestial being granted that wish, and everyone isn’t happy. The being leaves, and Wander continues to take more photos of Lord Hater and Commander Peepers. They would fall down, Sylvia would leave the restroom and asked Wander what she’d miss, Wander has photos he took that shows what has happened, ending the episode. I really liked what I saw in this show. I laughed, the characters were great, and the story was simple but fun to watch. From there, I decided to watch more of Wander Over Yonder. It’s worth knowing that Wander Over Yonder would broadcast to Disney XD starting with episode 15.

Plot. The plot is simple to follow. Wander, who’s an optimistic being, and his Zbornak steed, Sylvia travel the galaxy to help anyone in need. While they help others or having fun, they always followed by Lord Hater, Commander Peepers, and his army of Watchdogs. They would help bring an egg back to its nest, delivering a box, bring a baby back to their parents, return a sock, give everyone a gift, and do more good deeds in the galaxy.

Characters. Wander and Sylvia are the good guys who help those in need. Lord Hater wants to be the greatest villain in the galaxy, but gets distracted from chasing Wander. Commander Peepers is Hater’s right hand man eyeball in command. These four are the main characters of this show. There’s a lot of recurring characters, like the Watchdogs, Emperor Awesome, and other villains and creatures that need help.

Season 2. This season would shift from silly to a bit serious. Season 2 would introduce a new villain to the show, Lord Dominator. Dominator is more of a villain than Hater is. Dominator likes to destroy planets than conquer them. Under all that armor, Dominator is an alien woman who likes to bully everyone in the galaxy. Wander and Sylvia still continue to help people, but have to deal with Lord Hater and Lord Dominator along the way. This season shows how Wander and Hater make breakfast, Sylvia collecting all of Wander’s personalities, an epic battle with the villains, Hater having a rock and roll concert, an cartoon in a cartoon, a musical special, Wander and Sylvia traveling in the past and future, and more stuff like that. Just as I was excited about how this season was amazing, I saw something I never wanted to see.

March 5, 2016. Craig McCracken announced that Wander Over Yonder isn’t coming back for a 3rd season. The reason Disney didn’t give the show a 3rd season was because they felt that 80 episodes of Wander Over Yonder were enough. I doubt this claim, because I think Disney cancelled it because of ratings. Craig also stated it wasn’t ratings. Then, I was lost. Why would Disney XD cancel a show with such upbeat tone and puts a smile on your face? This news did drop hard on me. Knowing the show was over made me mad and I would say “I hate this network, they made the biggest mistake of their life.” My anger wasn’t going to do anything. I got over it slowly, but I still continue to watch the new episodes. As I was smiling and laughing at what I saw, deep down I knew the end was coming.

The final episode. I was in Ohio, visiting family over the summer. I was in my grandparents’ home. It was a typical day until it was time. I went to the TV room, turn on the TV, and loudly sing the theme song. As the episode was playing, I was screaming, fangirling, laughing, crying, and cheering. I was feeling a lot of emotions. I absolutely love the finale. The finale was outstanding and had a perfect sendoff also the ending animatic had a twist, and I’m not talking about it because I’ll get mad.

Animation. If there’s one word to describe the animation, it’s bright. I truly admire the animation style. Everything from background, characters, ships, etc has such a nice palette of colors. It grabs my eyeballs, and I can’t stop looking at the screen. The animators in this show has such great talent.

Voice acting. Another great group of talent in the show. Jack McBrayer voiced Wander, April Winchell voiced Sylvia, Keith Ferguson voiced Lord Hater, and Tom Kenny voiced Commander Peepers. Lord Dominator was voiced by Noël Wells and Fred Tatasciore when Dominator is in armor. Wander Over Yonder had some great guest stars on their show. They include Aziz Ansari, James Marsden, Edie McClurg, G Hannelius, Will Arnett, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Jon Hamm, Eddie Deezen, Alex Hirsch, Jason Ritter, Kristen Schaal, and more. Every character in Wander Over Yonder has amazing person voicing them.

#SaveWOY. This started as a petition from Change, created by Gemma Cummins. She runs @peepsqueak and continues to help get Wander Over Yonder a 3rd season. The petition was to encourage Disney to make Wander Over Yonder season 3 happen. People would sign up for it, and the campaign got stronger. Now, every 27th of the month we post things to make Wander Over Yonder trend. There’s also Operation F.O.R.C.E, where fans around the world help Lord Hater conquer the Earth by taking photos of places with the Hater flag. Fans still want a 3rd season, they’re not going to stop until Wander gets the ending they deserve. Link is here to sign the petition: https://www.change.org/p/walt-disney-encourage-disney-to-make-wander-over-yonder-season-3

Craig McCracken. A man who deserves a lot of praise for being in the animation world. Craig has created The Powerpuff Girls (1996), Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, and Wander Over Yonder. I love how he tells stories, his animation style, and the message he put in his shows. @crackmccraigen is such a treasure in the animation world. I love him and he’s the one of the greatest cartoonist in history.

Wander Over Yonder as a way to think positive. It’s no shock that Wander is full of optimism. This show is full of that. No matter what happens, Wander always look on the bright sides of a problem. I mention this, because we need Wander Over Yonder in the world. As current news can be depressing and horrible, we need A LOT of positive thinking and optimism in our lives. What I love about the show is that fans say the show helped them in their lives. No doubt it has made a life a bit easier. I would have depressing periods where I kinda feel numb. I would turn on Wander Over Yonder, and it makes me feel a little happier. It does help me pull me out of those dark times. This part of Wander Over Yonder has a great impact of fans and people. For a cartoon to help people with their lives, that is incredible.

Wander Over Yonder is one of the greatest things that Craig McCracken has created. It has clever humor, creative storytelling, and amazing animation to look at. I highly recommend this show for anyone who wants some positivity in their life. It’s so interesting how Craig created Wander and he represents optimism, happiness, and just a bouncing ball of joy. I do hope Wander does get a season 3. I continue to spread the word about this show. I think if anyone needs to smile or be cheer up, Wander is the key. This show is an underrated gem that everyone needs in their lives. Everything about this show has a huge smile on my face. At the end of the day, I always live by WWWD. What would Wander do? This orange, furry spoon would do anything to help anyone in need, cheer someone up, or play his banjo.