BLUEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it was not on wheat...

Drew this awhile back when me and my family were watching The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse.

Viva la Palestine!!!!

Don’t stop talking about Palestine 🇵🇸

big smile… famly

RTVS PALESTINE FUNDRAISER 2, April 11th - 13th

Beginning Friday the 11th, RTVS will be holding another 3-day weekend fundraising event for the people of Palestine.

It is a tragedy that Palestine is still enduring the same nightmarish conditions that they were this time last year. There has been little to no improvement in things as Israel continues to break ceasefires and block incoming aid as they try and continue their genocide. We would like to once again rally our community and as many others as we can reach to give what support we are able to to Palestine's people.

Like last year, the event will not be a traditional stream fundraiser, rather than pointing people at one donation point, we will be suggesting a number of different recipients for support. However, this year may be organized slightly differently than the way we did it last time; more information regarding that will be shared in the next few days once we confirm our plan. Overall, it's the same idea: all donations to Palestinians and aid groups will be tallied into our grand total for the event.

The all-day, all-weekend streaming event will once again feature a rotation of hosts from Radio TV Solutions putting on all kinds of events. Themed segments, classic segments, crazy gameshow-type beats, chill segments, gaming w/ Da Whole Crew and MORE await you. The event will be hosted at http://stream.rtvsfundraiser.live/. Mark your calendars, tell your friends, and GET READY!

🇵🇸 FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA 🇵🇸

🍃

This was a pure joy to work on.

For the behind-the-scenes story of how I made this animated mini-short, click “keep reading” below.

I started this 6 weeks ago, just before Nintendo shut down its 3DS and WiiU servers. The server shutdown meant no more multi-player online play for 3DS games, like Mario Kart 7, but also no more uploading to the Butterfly Animation online gallery directly from the app.

As an homage to the Inchworm and Butterfly Animation apps for the DSi and 3DS that I’ve been animating on since 2011, I originally was just going to animate just a single shot featuring something butterfly related.

But the story evolved as I began asking myself a series of "what if" questions that I had fun answering, like, “what if it was a little girl playing dress up as a butterfly?” And then “what if she was first cosplaying as a caterpillar then the butterfly?” “If this is a story of growth, what if she stumbles? What is her attitude when she stumbles?” “What if the design of the girl was something like Isao Takahata or Yoichi Kotabe would draw?”

Making this was the embodiment of everything I hope to achieve with my personal animation: to let creativity flow and just have fun animating and creating.

Since this mini-short was animated on my Nintendo 3DS, there was a memory limit of only 100 drawings, which was a bit of a challenge for longer or complex actions, but was a fun puzzle to solve. Sometimes limitations force you to come up with even more creative solutions. (I was able the squeeze in more drawings than the memory allowed, and filled it to the max!) :)

The song I used is from Rebecca Sugar’s album, "Spiral Bound", and perfectly fit the theme of the short. Initially, while I was drawing the character, I found myself humming a tune from Steven Universe that dealt with beginnings, endings, and not being ready. It’s amazing how the brain can subconsciously pick the playlist!

In the end, that song, sung by Steven’s father in the show, didn’t quite fit, but then I remembered another song by Rebecca Sugar which was more on theme with my story, called “My Own Way to the End”. The whole album is wonderful! You can check it out here:

ffm.to

Rebecca Sugar - Spiral Bound

Choose your preferred music service

Painting the backgrounds for this was the most challenging thing for me, but also the most eye opening! After painting, I would look around at the trees in the neighborhood differently. So many colors when you really look closely.

There’s so many talented people at my work and it was great that I could ask them for advice. One person I asked was the talented Tia Kratter, who happened to teach a mini-painting class for the animators while I was working on this short. I asked her for advice on one of the background paintings and she asked great questions which challenged me to try different things, but I still felt like I was having fun and playing without fear of failure. I mean, it was still hard though! Hahaha!

If you’ve read up to this point, thank you for reading this. :) I hope you enjoy this mini-short as much as I enjoyed making it!