Lately, I've been having a big think about what makes character designs, and by extension, just art and posts in general, interesting on social media and hot spots like here on Newgrounds. So, I come here today looking for some input from all you folks here on NG: What is the secret? What makes someone's artwork truly worthy of community-building around it? Come, take a walk with me.

In the few months since I've graduated from animation college, I've been posting with fair regularity from a content backlog from over the semester with the occasional recent piece to see if I could break an algorithm. Alongside that, I decided to take an extra close look at all my other cartoonist peers that I know of around the internet to understand what got them their fame from modest but active followings to those breaking the tens of thousands. With that, I took notice to a good bit of things most of them have in common:

• The Big R34 - It's pretty obvious that lewd art gets clicks. You come for the pretty girls in various states of undress, you stay for the lore and the warm, fuzzy, wholesome scenarios the artist likes to play around with from time to time.

• High Fashion and Lots of Things - I've noticed that many of the original character designs of many popular artists are either totally decked-out with accessories (bracelets, bands, rings, necklaces, headbands, packs, bags, stickers, tatts, hairpieces, etc. the list goes wayyy on for what could be expected in the modern day). This list could go even crazier if we include the whole wider scope of fiction. Furthermore, many characters' macro fashion choices I would never see just walking around in real life, and even in the city, such a choice of clothes would be hard to spot. It makes me wonder if such characters are what we artists desire to wear, but feel repressed from doing so because of social norms. It's expected to see it from artists who theme their work specifically about designing fashion, though the sentiment seems to be everywhere if the artist isn't drawing from high-fantasy or sci-fi.

• The Chosen One at the End of the RPG - I recall back in college seeing another student share a recent character design of theirs with a description next to the image. With no disrespect to the artist for what I personally perceived as absurdity, but the character was described (and partially depicted) as a motorcycle-riding, vampiric witch who received magic powers from an ancient goddess of the moon set out on a journey by the ghost of a long-lost relative. There may have been more details on the description, but after a certain point it felt like too many adjectives, titles, and skills to stuff into a single character for a deliberate work of fiction. But, yet, it seemed like the whole chat couldn't get enough of the idea. Could it be that the draw is from our desire for accomplishment and uniqueness in the modern day? Are we all just looking for a power fantasy to latch on to, whether it be played through by ourselves, or conceived by another?

• Loud & Saturated, Yet so Smooth - This one is a recent observation: Lately I've been noticing most creators who focus on original content use a TON of highly saturated colors. In my own experimentation with bright, flashy colors, I've found that's no easy accomplishment. I've been through multiple semesters with a focus on color theory, yet there was something missing from what I learned through that time. It appears that the harmony between every color selected that I detect in these other galleries isn't simply chosen on a color wheel. Though, personally, I believe I am gaining ground on this front, as I've found a method of "applying filters" to my color choices to better unite the color selection and have them fight with each other less. Now, if I could just have a hyper-colorful and harmonious post for all of them. That would really make the front page shine!

• Two or More Familiar Concepts - Especially popular in recent years, a lot of times it just don't seem to cut it to just draw your favorite character from your favorite game or show just standing there lookin' pretty. From here, you got two options: (1) You fuse another property into the content to create something new. I recall a popular fellow BromoJumbo (Instagram and X) took the well-known colorful cast of Batman and gave them a fresh coat of paint, making them all Megaman bosses. Not sure how the series of posts measured up for him, but it looked like another smash-hit to me! I've been doing a little experimentation with the process myself lately. Check out my SSB trophy gallery featuring the mobs of Minecraft. There may only be a couple now, but I'm curious to see where the little project will lead.

• Trendy - I'd say this one's likely the most obvious. I notice a lot of big artists are very keen on trends in the multimedia news. Nintendo announce a new Metroid game? Is the Sonic Movie 4 announced? Has the internet fallen in love with a new waifu? It may just be worth the while to drop whatever you're doing when you hear such a thing and get drawing! For the longest time, it seemed absurd to me to see big-time fanart for a new game or movie that was just announced only a few hours ago, but now I'm beginning to see why that's happening. I underestimated the potential for grabbing new eyes through following trends. With all the people looking through the tags related to the shiny new thing coming out in a few months, surely your art will be shown to a couple thousand new faces, right? Only time will tell when I experiment further with that.

So those are all the factors I've observed off the top of my head for now. Maybe it's a bit much to digest all at once, or maybe it's already plainly obvious to everyone else, or maybe even it's a tad-bit unwholesome to take such an analytical approach to an environment that's so passion-driven. Over the years, personally, I haven't done much of any of these things, or at least not consistently. When I take a step back to take a long look at my own body of original work, I tend to observe that many of my designs are of very ordinary-looking folk, even in high fantasy settings. It is almost as if I am designing characters not to play a sort of dress-up, but rather characters who shine if they are observed through a minute or so of animation, or perhaps longer with an animatic in practical terms. This may prove as motivation for getting some actual animation out for some of my original content to really shine. Regardless, it all makes me wonder what the big difference is between those who can foster a true community around Newgrounds and beyond and those who remain a water molecule in a planet completely enveloped in deep ocean.

It begs the question, where do you guys think success as an artist comes from? This time, I discourage the notion of "just keep posting what you love and it'll happen!" We all know that and I appreciate encouragement, but multiple things can be true at the same time. Over the many years of posting art on the internet, something hasn't been working out for me personally, and I'm certain there are many like me who have similar problems relative to similar social and professional interests. What do you guys think the game is? I'm very curious to know what sort of buzz there is about it and if there are any other hard workers around that find themselves in a similar, stagnant position that just can't get off the ground.

I encourage you to share thoughts.

Until next time.

I just got back from a weekend with the fellas out at the bars and clubs of West Virginia and had a great time. This time around, I figured it would be fun to try something that was a real hit at the bars around my university college town. What I'd do up there is take a pad of sticky notes and a pencil, and spend the first half of the night just doodling away, sticking a bunch of characters people know all over the place (mostly CN characters and Pokemon). I didn't notice until a friend pointed it out to me a month after I tried this the first time: The bartenders began collecting my notes and sticking them on the wall behind the bar, which was crazy cool to see. After that, the doodling became a regular thing to do there, and it soon became a great conversation starter with people taking a peek at what I'm doodling and getting a quick hit of nostalgia, and, of course, the bartender kept collecting the notes that the the other patrons didn't take. At that point, it felt great to feel like a Regular with a capital "R". While I've graduated, you know I'm covering the place in little sketches the next time I visit.

Fast-forward to this weekend, I decided to try the same thing. Though, I was a little skeptical this would work out well, considering the clubs around the parts of WV me and the fellas were visiting were a lot bigger and a bit higher class than the modest karaoke bar from school, and the college on the other side of town isn't known as much for quirky, artsy types. Regardless, I began doing my thing. At the end of the day, it's more about having fun than sucking up attention. This time, though, I got a little more creative and employed a few things I learned in my last semester of school: If you're gonna draw characters, ya gotta give 'em some context to really draw people in. In this case, since I'm in a pool hall and a dance club, draw the little guys partying it up with that stuff. Since we started out playing pool, I couldn't just draw Jake the Dog waving a friendly hello. Maybe it would be cooler to sketch 'em up leaning up against the wall with the pool stick waiting for his turn. If you sketch up Mitch Sorenstein, then he's probably gonna make a "My Mom" joke either about putting back shots of tequila or landing a forceful scratch of the cue ball. The bits just write themselves during a hoppin' bar crawl.

Initially, reception to the notes was pretty quiet outside of the posse, though the popularity kicked up when we hit the dance club across the road for a livelier crowd. We got a lot of eyes, a lot of references, and even a few requests. After a bit, even some of the staff got in on it. Heck, the next night starting back at the first bar, we saw all the notes from yesterday getting lined up behind the bar just like up at the old place from school. Feels good to make a mark, but better to shake things up to get groups mixing together over their favorite shows and games.

Until next time.

P.S.: If you're gonna do this yourself, make sure you draw stuff that is widely familiar and that regular people are gonna like. Depending on the venue, ya can't be too avant-garde or too self-interested with it. Otherwise, people are gonna get turned off from someone shoving their personal art all over the place and in the face. You can draw people in with a sharp sketch of Gir or Skips, or even a Slowpoke, and point them to the real personal work on your socials that you actually want to show off. Then, they can take it from there. Remember, it's about bein' cool, bein' real, and just hagin' out. Don't think too hard and don't try too hard.

Howdy, fellas! So things have been pretty quiet around here for the past couple years, and the situation is the same with pretty much all my other online presences. Reason being, I have been studying at animation college for the past two years. With that, I have good news! I have graduated university with a 2D Animation Bachelor's and I've started a multimedia business! Since I've graduated college, I now have a lot more time to get investing on things directly related to my career path, not being bogged down by loosely-related electives and courses I don't really need subtracting my time from the real priorities and forcing me to shift gears constantly. I'm happy to just focus most of my energy towards one big concerted effort.

On the business side of things, I've been doing a lot of planning and logistics to get things moving for real up to this week. That includes working on a big social media campaign that I'm hoping to integrate my presence on this site into. I've been doing a lot of rearranging with my current social platforms to suit what my new, focused priorities are and prepping to be a lot more active where I'm needed.

So, my plan for Newgrounds is to designate this as a looser portfolio site where I just post fun, silly artwork to chill out with the kool peeps around these parts. It's a similar idea to what I'm doing with one of my Instagram accounts, though, that one is a lot of silly art plus fun aspects of my personal life and general socializing with my local community. I'll likely be having a similar presence on X coming soon.

I figured I would make a big housekeeping and re-introductory announcement for the handful of peeps that were hanging around this profile before. Hopefully this return is able to catch ya on your next scroll through here. Keep an eye on this page, and spread the word. I'm on my way to play with the big dogs.

See ya around!

Good news! I've been scouted! Looks like I'm here to stay. Honestly, while my numbers aren't crazy here, my engagement has been much better than other media platforms considering I find that most other people I interact with are serious artists around here. I'd like to give a warm thanks to all my fans so far and the kool dood who scouted me. I look forward to continue posting here, continuing to create artwork, and interacting with more people.

Man, I realized once I went looking through my files for content to post here, I really don't have much "finished" work to post. I have tons of sketches and messy concept art but nothing that colorful and polished from the past year. I got tons of character turnarounds and character model color palettes but not a lot of scenes. I better change that with this upcoming year. Homies bits are going on the to-do list for sure.