Updating my NG page! Kind of forgot to update here since I was on a break throughout most of February, but it was fun posting on Newgrounds since I started in November. I am back now and will be working on more of my original animations as a full-time priority, I've uploaded the backlog of stuff I've made since my absence and there will be more on the way. More Cold War spy girls with guns and cool stuff, aiming to animate a promo trailer and pen a comic in April...

Eh... what else? Maybe a retrospective blog? I spent like the last 6 months straight from August 2024 to January 2025 with 10-20 hour days doing nothing but producing those three sponsored animations for a total of like... 9 minutes of animation that I did all of work for. Like basically all of the key animation, colouring, and backgrounds despite the projects having a budget and I could've probably just hired people to help but I insisted on doing everything myself to my complete mental & physical exhaustion. Aha, well it was fun and the sponsors were atleast an excuse to dedicate myself fully and learn new stuff but yeah... At the pace I was working on those Hoyoverse animations, with the Jane one taking 4 weeks, I expected myself to be able to finish a new Cold War animation from Jan to March, well unfortunately not. I am a bit burnt out, but after a stint in Japan last month, I think I'm good to go and ready to get back to speed on more Cold War girls with gun fun stuff, and I am genuinely excited to be working on my own art and animation for the first time in a while... But yeah for now, I'll be aiming to release a new "We Love Cold War!!" comic and promotional trailer with original animation in late April.

Part of me kinda regrets doing those sponsored animations since they ate up time I could've been dedicating to my own ideas, the Wuwa one did bomb so hard that my career as a "mainstream" commercially-viable sponsored animator is pretty much over lol, but hey, another reason to start fighting again and I'm feeling much better.

I'm still rather conflicted on whether I want to do short and cheap gag animations for WLCW or more longer story serial stuff, and I honestly want to do the latter even if it's insane for one person to take on that much work but I feel like I gotta while I have the time. I've been penning some storyboards and visually they look great, but I realize when it comes to writing and continuity, there's alot I've gotta figure out if I want to make longer animations with coherent stories and dialogue. There's a difference I think when it comes to animating a "sequence" like in a music video as opposed to a "story" or script, and I've always been accustomed to a more frenetic music-video/commercial/anime OP methodology of animation, but for the story ideas I have for We Love Cold War Season One, I realize I need to work in a very different "TV" anime style manner to just tell the story I want clearly and coherently without obsessing over every little shot and piece of animation/motion. To be honest, the first thing I learned after finishing the Calydon Halloween animation, which absolutely wrecked me in terms of work hours, was that "animation isn't everything" when it comes to the appeal of, well, animation. The story, characters, script, and subject matter... The Calydon Halloween animation is so excessive in terms of its pacing and audio-visual design that it's overwhelming and there's only so much I can really do with the characters and premise I'm given. The Jane Doe animation, while at the time I found it embarrassing or that it could've been better, had more appeal in that it was simple, didn't require alot of knowledge of the game already, had decent execution, and people liked the character more lol. The camera moves and flow in that animation also does just work alot better, which is something I largely neglected when working on future animations since I used more hard cuts in both the Montelli and Calydon animations.

Eh... I've learned alot from those sponsorships from me just experimenting and pushing myself, but I need to get back into the groove and start working on an animation that's representative of me and my writing, animation, and style, and not corporate interests. I'm still a bit short on music and female voice actors for the planned WLCW Season 1 in the Summer of 2025, but I will be locking in and working on WLCW as my primary full-time focus now. I am pretty much just living off of the savings that the sponsorships gave me, but otherwise, WLCW doesn't really make any money by itself right now, so if you enjoy my work and want your name in the credits of any future major animations/comics, you can support my Patreon since I recently added a "Name in Credits" perk. Well, if you want, anyways I'm going to get back to work and hopefully will have something to show for it in a week or two~ Thanks for reading!