A031-10 Trail Aheads with Postage Stamp borders

North Sulawesi babirusa (Babyrousa celebensis)

“Babirusa” by Hans De Bisschop, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Hello! I wanted to give an update from last post. Which can be found here

So, a direct update from that aforementioned post, when I said "This is my fun project. Fun I take seriously. I do not want to stress myself out and make deadlines for it and such."

Well, things changed!

Now, I am taking it more seriously. But it hasn't gotten any less fun. Since that post, I completed all the art I said I was missing and I made the Carnageman:IKE Teaser (Check it out below!)

This was a project I made using my new favorite zine ever, Mark Gee's 4 Week Animation Guide. I gave myself a deadline, I passed it, uploaded, and everybody loved it!

If you want to check out the zine I used to make this animation, take a look at the link to it below. I kind of disobeyed a few rules in it (mostly the one about "scope." I believe my animation idea was bigger than what Mark would've said is a good idea haha) but very much worth the ten dollars.

I was very depressed at that time lowkey, scrolling on my phone. I had just been let go from my position at TheOdd1sOut. I was out of work, and I would scroll past so many videos of OCs on instagram with 40k likes, doing the most barebones tween-heavy animations. And it would frustrate me- because I could do that kind of animation in a few days! It wasn't such a big deal!

Which made me think- Domenic- that doesn't make any sense. If you can do this kind of thing, then why get mad?? Just get off your phone and go make one.

Can't you?

Something the great BayBoyZone once told me and that I now personally believe to be true is that there is a distinct effect on artists when we spend too much time looking at/discussing art and not as much time making it. You find yourself critiquing tv shows with friends, discussing artmaking on the internet, judging posts, looking at pinterest etc. and when you don't have a big art project going on- it can make you think weird things. It can give you odd reservations.

A lot of times, when people say awful things on someone's work, including mine, I go to their profile, and there is not much art. It is usually just discussions. Tweets about why they disagree with something glitch is doing. Musings about how they hate certain indie creator choices. Just... text.

I feel bad. It must be hard for them to draw.

After the success of the teaser, I opened up my shop. With ONLY Ike merch, for the first time ever. Which was also a big success and took care of some rent and car payments for me, which totally cushioned the blow of my unemployment. If you were one of those people that supported the shop- thank you.

I am not exaggerating when I say you single-handedly bring more art into the world. Because the store drop fundamentally changed how I felt about this project:

It seemed people liked my animation style, more than they were excited at the idea of a comic. So I decided to go all-in on indie animation. No comics for now. (Maybe one day it will change.)

I am currently making a short film about each main character. 1 minute each.

I put together a small team of volunteers; artists and friends, to get this off the ground. We don't have money, and the videos won't be monetized. (ads on 1 minute videos annoy me) It's going to be like the cartoons of yesteryear on youtube where we just make them because we want to and because it’d be cool. To make something from nothing, with total control and beholden to no one. I hope you continue to support this project, and when the first short film comes out, I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

I do not know how things will change from there. Because I want to focus on what is directly in front of me.

We are on week 5 of 8 for the first short. Things are looking mind blowing. I hope to share animations and progress soon, in a companion journal to this one.