I started off 2021 with a job I found amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and worked for half a year, and questions on how to improve myself as an artist and as a person. Something personal that occurred in the late part of 2020 made me consider and focus on being kinder to myself and more open to other people, a thing that I've been struggling with for years given my work-focused ethic and solitary preference. I felt that one of the ways I could go about this is to participate in community events, and what better website to do so than one that's open to independent creators?

I didn't realize how much of an impact that decision would benefit me this year.

The Summer Festival

Sometime around May, I took note of a post in the collaborative channel of the Newgrounds Podcast Discord server--asking for artists and animators for help on an opening for a online Newgrounds convention in the last week of June--made by someone named @Stanpai. I applied and got accepted. Stanpai took note of an Iron Giant illustration/study I did back in January and gave me my primary objective: create an illustration involving P-bot and Mindchamber doing... something in a Japanese summer festival. So I did that:

Given the somewhat strict time limit that the animation project had, this was a good lesson for me in time and effort management for projects. I was able to complete my part a little earlier than when I was expecting to get it done, giving me opportunities to fine-tune it and help out a couple other project contributors, @KibbySupreme and @devoidgazer, with backgrounds, allowing them to focus on animation. The overall animation turned out excellent, creating a nice proper opening for the festival itself.

The experience working on this project was invaluable, giving me the confidence to work and improve on my animation skills (with another community event coincidentally occurring this year no less). Probably the more important thing from doing this is participating in the convention itself. There I found other creative users that I took an interest in and vice versa, and from there I eventually found myself in a group of people that I was comfortable hanging out with, even if I didn't contribute much to conversation.

The Summer Animation Jams

The Summer Festival was the first time I've learned of the ongoing Summer Animation Jams, with the round 1 entries being displayed on one night by @BrandyBuizel. Coming off a collaborative animation project, I thought this would be great opportunities to test myself as an animator since I've occasionally done only looping GIFs last year. I started participating via the side collaborative project consisting of TV bumpers to go along with the Saturday Morning-oriented round 2 entries, quickly learning how much audio gives life to an animation:

Although I did not participate in round 3, I did help @Quenek441 with 2D assets for his experimental 3D entry based on the game Money Man. His entry got 13th place!

I properly participated in rounds 4 and 5, and I've come to realize a couple things: 1) It's difficult for me to accept when an animation has acceptable quality given my standards (especially with round 4), and 2) Clip Studio Paint, the program I animate with, really doesn't like animating a lot of stuff at a given time. Because of point 2, I've had to learn the bare basics of using an editing software with DaVinci Resolve, which also lead into planning out and fitting in music and voice samples from other people I've asked for help, @xZiriusX, @LilSpook, and @immadametal. It's probably why my round 5 entry is my favorite of the bunch, as it gave me experience working with others as a project director and a video editor, a nice complement to my experience with the Summer Fest animation. It was also front-paged, so there's that!

Needless to say, this was an overall enjoyable and great learning experience as an animator. A lot of issues I've had with time and quality management were improved by participating in these, and I hope to create an animation short sometime soon (and maybe finally do something with the Music Makers pitch).

Tankmas ADVENTure

I had the great opportunity to participate in the yearly winter-themed collaborative project on Newgrounds as an illustrator. However, there was a question that made me stumble a bit in the brainstorming process: how do I make a winter-themed piece based around Newgrounds when my experience with the website is relatively limited? I haven't been actively involved on NG until late 2020, and that was only participating for small art jams.

With this in mind and a bit of confidence talk from @QueenBoo, I decided to base my drawing around these points:

• Rather than make a drawing revolving around the celebratory spirit of the holidays, I wanted to make a slightly depressing joke on working during them, something that I personally experienced with my own job.
• I wanted to make my drawing revolve around something from NG that I personally enjoyed because it'd feel more genuine to me. Sublo and Tangy Mustard was a series I discovered earlier this summer, and the nature of its setting and characters worked well with my first point.
• Instead of populating the background with well-known characters of the website, I wanted to put in original characters made by and sonas of people that I've personally collaborated with. All of the characters I've put in the drawing were from people I've mentioned previously in this post, as well as @MinaSagas's OC, a very good traditional artist who I made a drawing for her Halloween collaboration. Newgrounds has the tagline "Everything by Everyone", and I wanted to emphasize that phrase by highlighting less-known creators who have made or collaborated on neat stuff.

After a few weekends of work, my illustration debuted in-game on the 22nd. It got front-paged, a first-time occasion for me!

This year was important to me as a creator. It gave me important experience not just as an artist and animator, but as a collaborator. Working and interacting with other artists and animators has made me see others' work as their unique ways of expression and points of positive inspiration to constantly improve myself. The most important thing from this year is that I finally found a group of online friends and mutuals that I'm very comfortable sharing my work, interests, and jokes with.

A big thank-you to the people that I mentioned in this post for giving me opportunities to develop myself, as well as the people I've met during the Summer Festival for just being cool people. Here's to more personal growth this year!