[ANIMATION] FOS_04_01 (Patreon)

There we go. It's done. Sorry it took so long. I think, for me, art pieces have a kind of "shelf life" in my mind. In the beginning, I tend to get pretty jazzed and zazzed about them, and as time goes on, that feeling starts to fade. And then turn to disdain. And then absolute hatred. Well, that's probably pushing it. But, I've been pretty unwilling to get this one done, which sucks. I mean, didn't I do a bunch of other shit while this one has been pending? And even then, I started it like, ages ago. It's just been a long thorn in my side. And even then, I have the other view to do. Really, this one is only, like, halfway done. 

I won't complain, it's entirely my fault that it took so long. It's just something I need to understand about myself. As we saw with the previous Hornet animation, I can get stuff done in a really timely manner. I just need to get it through my thick noodle (my head, not my penis. My penis is thin) that the more I let myself get sidetracked, the more I let myself get distracted, the exponentially greater amount of time it will take for my current, pending project to get finished. Hell, I'll bet this isn't even the only one, aren't there other animations that I said I'd "get around to" finishing? Jesus. I'm a real slackass. And since I'm not a cute anime girl, it's not endearing. It's probably just annoying. 

I'll start working on being better about it. But, I won't beat myself up. I think that attitude has been really bad for my art. I've been trying to foster (heh) a way better mindset with art, so hopefully my work starts really shining again. I think it will. Maybe. Something I'm remembering is... and this might be hard to follow... my overall passion for this sphere of art. That is to say, "The Devil's Cartoons," or, smut. Filth. Whatever you wanna call it. I like it a lot. It's fun to look at. It's fun to draw. Obviously, otherwise I wouldn't do it. But I had forgotten my passion for it. And what that means, as an artist, is... you feel kinda... connected to it all. Like some kind of parasite on a great big beast. But, instead of leeching off the great big beast, you give to the great big beast. For me, starting out, I wanted to leave my mark. And by god, the biggest dream of all, was inspiring someone else to make art, too. That's something I feel like I lost touch with. I had stopped looking at the work of my peers, that is to say, I stopped looking at hentai. And that feels like I lost my sucker-mouth connection to the great big beast. Yeah, I've been making art. I have been giving to the great big beast. But, what's been important is that I haven't really felt like I have been. I've been existing in my own brain, sliding work out, and not really caring about what it's for or what it's doing. 

To continue on that idea, something I've kind of picked apart is the whole composition of an art piece. In my opinion, an art piece can be divided into two components. The "Artistry" component, which is the Idea. And the "Draftsmanship" component, which is... the actual rendering of the idea. The drawing. The animating. The thing you see here, before you. To further explain, the Artistry of this one is basically the description. Frankie sunkin' on Bloo's dunk. The Draftsmanship component is... the attached gif. The actual art piece. For the past year or so, maybe longer, I've pretty much exclusively been focusing on that Draftsmanship component. I wanna learn shadows. I wanna have better proportions. I wanna learn backgrounds. Yadda yadda yadda. All surface level shit. With the ideas I was getting, or was asking for, I would sign them off like "Good enough. It works." Now, nice drawing skills are absolutely important. Definitely. But, without that initial spark, without that Artistry, they feel... flat. See October, something that still rattles me. Sure, maybe those animations look nice. I certainly think they do. But they're flat. Sterile. That's something you can't really see in it, only feel. Because there's no Artistry to it. "Okay," you say, "that sounds like a lotta bullshit, and I stopped reading halfway through your essay. But, in order for you to further your argument, I want to interject with my own thought, since I'm a hypothetical person. What about that Loona animation you made? Seemed like a lot of people liked that one." And you're right, hypothetical person. I think people liked that one too. Because it had artistry. Now, some of you might have noticed my joke, I think I've made it here on Patreon. I say "Oh, the Devil told me to draw this one." or something along those lines. Basically, what I'm saying there, is I was "inspired" to do so. To bring it back to all this, it was Artistry. To explain it in non-artist-bullshit terms, the idea comes fully formed in my mind, as an image. I see it in my brain. I don't describe it to myself. It's just there. And, it makes me feel something. It stirs me. There's a kind of warm tightness in my chest with an idea like this. That's what the Loona animation idea did for me. With something like the Blair animation, I did a lot of asking around. I did a lot of brainstorming. No mental image, no feeling. And, everyone picks up on it. Like I said before, a friend of mine told me that my earliest shittiest work had "something" that the newer ones don't. That something is the Artistry. Because every one of those ideas came into me (heh) fully formed, as images, that made me feel something. If they don't make me feel something, how're they going to make you all feel anything?

Basically, what I'm trying to say with all this, is I want to be pursuing ideas like this, from now on. I know how to come up with them. And, they might not all be superstar smash hits. I'm not... trying for that. Right now, all I want is to just feel that awesome feeling again. I dunno, I'm really realizing that everything I've been doing this entire time hasn't been working, and my best work is when I was mainly doing it for fun, in the very beginning. I wanna feel that spark again, and I want you guys to feel it, too. That almost sounded suggestive.

Oh yeah, didn't I say I was gonna do shadows on this one? Well, a more gutless worm of an artist would say something like "Ohh, I just wanted it to have more cohesion, if it had shadows it wouldn't fit in with the others." Which, sure. That's a valid consideration. But no, I won't lie. I didn't want to do them. Again, mental shelf-life. I really, really want to get onto another piece. I will ACTUALLY do the other view for this one, but not right away. I need to recharge myself with something brand spanking new, and then when I hit this one again, hopefully it will be easier.

Post Essay Script: Kyde, why do you make such long fucking essays? I don't wanna read all that art shit. Well, I do that in the hopes that someone reads it and it helps them out in their own art journey. Or, any kind of journey. Something my favorite artist said, was that he found it super annoying when artists would hide their process. And like, yeah. I feel that too. It's bullshit. I want to share my own process, my own mindset, in the hopes that maybe it'll help someone. Shit, you could be a game dev or something and probably go through the same or similar issues I've gone through. I get the hilarious irony that this is fucking porn and I'm saying all this sappy garbage underneath it, but I personally think this is art, and is worth taking seriously. I dunno, if it's helpful to you, great! If you think my post novellas are worse than cooking article intros, then I agree with you. But, I still want to record all this. I feel... compelled to. Like some creepy little prophet. Also I like that this is like my own personal echo chamber and I can say pretty much whatever I want. 

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Anyways! Back to business. Next up is an idea that I'll be making sure brings me joy. Also, I'll be getting that polling set up for this month. Technically, this one is for fucking... November...? Uh, we'll be trying not to take so long this time around. Anywho, stay tuned for more shite from this guy.

- KYDE