News, Updates, and Random Crap - 2017

Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - 10:03 PM

I AM DOING THINGS, RAR, RAR, RAR! Added page 1 and page 2 (out of 2) of a transformation comic of a human dude to Tails (you know the one), and a ref sheet for my buddy's fursona! You should check them out, I'm super happy with them! ESPECIALLY IF YOU LIKE FOXES. For reals, this is ALL THE FOXES.

IN OTHER NEWS. I cannot stop researching planted aquariums right now! And dragons. Dude, I get into huge obsessive bents on things, and man, is it fish right now. BUT I GUESS THAT WORKS OUT, CUZ IT WAS MERFOLK ALL DAMN SUMMER. Man, I missed the boat on not drawing much of that stuff. DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE!? IN CASE IT WAS TOO SUBTLE, IT WAS A WATER PUN. I don't know where the dragons come in. Dragons are cool, though.

Yay foxes, though! - Sonic

OH HEY, I ALMOST FORGOT TO ADD THIS ONE. Damn, this poor illustration keeps getting neglected. I wanted to do a November themed illustration and I couldn't decide between doing something for No-Shave Movember or to celebrate finally getting top surgery. SO I DID BOTH.

Saturday, November 11, 2017 - 10:34 AM

It has been a crazy month! I finally got top surgery October 24, so a little more than three weeks ago, and while I was laid up and not at work I finished a short animation based on a glorious pun about fast zombies (called ZOOM-BIES! It's in the animation gallery). I also put together a new Demo Reel for 2017 that you can see above! PRODUCTIVE! Yeah, yeah, 2017 is nearly done. Whatever, I'll make a 2018 reel later. With blackjack! And hookers! Maybe. Well, probably not, I don't really have any projects with blackjack or hookers planned right now. BUT IF I DID, THEY WOULD SO...probably go in the demo reel!

Maybe something set in a casino or saloon? - Sonic

Thursday, October 5, 2017 - 10:59 PM

Hokay, added the Epic Mickey Title Card Art to the gallery, and an entry to the blog.

I SHOULD BE RECORDING AUDIO FOR THINGS NOW, OR SOMETHING, BUT I'M NOT. LOOKIT THAT.

I'm not filling space to make the icon work. YOU'RE filling space to make the icon work! Oh, you know what's awesome! The show, Galavant! It's a glorious musical, and dude, it's hilarious. Go watch it! Somehow, it got two whole seasons, even!

Season two has love zombies. You should see them! - Sonic

Thursday, October 5, 2017 - 10:28 PM

Argh. Freelancing/career pursuit questions! I know I need to focus my efforts. Okay. Let's get to focusing. I should chose one project, do that, and that's it. I can't. I need to do IDM, and it's just…a terrible fucking idea/business decision. But I need to do it for my heart. And therein lies the problem.

Okay. The idea I keep coming back to is to have a project rolling to generate passive income and interest. A comic makes a lot of sense for this. I was planning to do Aura's story, because there are a lot of things I want to say with that story, and it's ready to go, the initial dev is done, the whole story is plotted, and it's ready for production. Comics are faster to make than animations and can be used to demonstrate a different skill set.

But, animation is where my heart lies. It's where my passion is. It makes me scared and happy and terrified, and all those complicated emotions of real love and real risk. Animation is ultimately what I want. If I work on comics, the goal would be to segue to animation in five years. Cuz let's be real, I still kinda suck at animating. But the only way to get better is to do it.

If I work on comics for five years, I'll improve at comics. Some of these skills translate. Some do not. And skills I desperately need to grow will be a good animator will not develop. So there's that.

I guess it comes down to goals, except it doesn't. If the goal is to "make it" to the point where I can support myself, and then do a massive course-correction into animation, the goal is still animation. And also, that's a shitty plan, when I could be learning the things I need now, instead of setting myself up for hoards of catch-up or worse later.

So…IDM and shot animations with a side of illustration? Is that still too spread? Mrf, still kinda back where I was with that, but I do have some scripts that will work well. Gives me a direction to run, anyway!

But then anxiety. Fuck you, anxiety, I do what I want. - Sonic

Saturday, September 30, 2017 - 9:55 PM

HEY GUESS WHAT. We have a comics section of the site, now! Well, kinda. Almost. Sorta. That's what it says in the topbar, anyway. Cuz, yanno, I'll put more comics up there eventually. But yeah! We have a comic. So that's neat! It's a Sonic the Hedgehog fancomic I've been plugging away at on-and-off since 2009 called Anything But Ordinary, adapting the fanfic, My Life: Anything But Ordinary. So yeah! If you like stories about a girl being transformed into an echidna, check it out! I know I do!

For reals, if there's TF, I will give it a shot. - Sonic

Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - 9:16 PM

I WAS FUCKIN' PRODUCTIVE TODAY. Ahem. Right. We (and by that I mean I) have a blog now! So that's neat! Additionally, there's another illustration in the Illustration gallery, it's the new title card art for our upcoming This Game Needs Played let's play of Sonic Generations!

There is also an After Dark Gallery now, with sexy new arts! (well, new to the site, and other new stuff will go there as I make it, so NYEH!) So check it out!

My cat decided to sleep in my pants before I took them off. - Sonic

Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - 5:26 PM

TODAY IS A DAY OF FRUSTRATION! First: I totally had top surgery scheduled for today, but I hecked up all the things, and it had to be rescheduled! Second: The first draft of the blog post describing all these things failed to save. FUCKIN' A, DUDE!

Okay, so here's what I learned about surgery today. WATER IS NOT OKAY. Yeah. When they told me I had to fast before surgery, starting at midnight, I was under the mistaken impression that water didn't count, and was totally okay. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. What they are trying to do, is give your stomach time to empty out, just in case the anesthesia, which often causes nausea, causes you to throw up on the table, as apparently, with the tube down your throat, the vomit can get re-routed to your lungs to either cause major complications, or cause you to suffocate and die. PLEASANT. Not gonna lie, it did cross my mind to simply say, "Oh, is that all, well, hold my shit, I'll be in the bathroom," and simply purge, but...that's really not something that hospitals smile upon. Fortunately, surgery was re-scheduled to October 24, so my initial panicked idea that it would be another three months at least before this could happen were allayed. JUST A MONTH, I CAN DO THAT. I'm still pissed at myself, but I can do the thing.

Probably this isn't the worst thing ever? As I actually came out as trans to my parents just this past Monday, and giving them time to adjust to this new and scary idea before I go in for surgery isn't the worst plan ever...especially when they're still insisting on having me convalesce at their place. Whee.

Yeah, long story short: Horrible web of lies, lies get worse, only way to get through the thing is to tell them the things. I still kinda want to vomit from the stress, despite the fact that they've taken this whole thing so, so much better than I ever would have expected. Yeah, the first version of this post actually described some of the details, buuuuuut...it's gone forever now. I'll have to see about delving into that cluster-fuck again later, but I'm out of the brain juice to write it all out again. Maybe next time!

Brain juice is more important than orange juice, but probably less delicious. - Sonic

Sunday, September 10, 2017 - 2:29 PM

Hey guys! I played with the illustration gallery some more last night, and got rid of all those thumbnails that I had spent all that time making in the first place! Whoops! Ah well. Smaller versions of the full illustration are waaaay better "thumbnails" than weird 300x100 cropped things that don't always work very well. Maaaaybe I should go back and make proper smaller thumbnails of the full illustrations to help load times? I dunno if that's an issue. Probably not right now, but something that has the potential of happening. We've got a similar potential problem brewing in the animation gallery. I TRIED TO DO IT DIFFERENTLY, GUYS. I REALLY DID. Unfortunately my lack of skill with the webseat building (yeah, that's right, I called it "webseat") struck, and...well, the current animation gallery is a functional compromise. Whatevs. Potential to do it differently, but probably not soon, by virtue of I have no ideas on how to improve/correct the current potential but not necessarily yet present problems I forsee. WHEEEE!

IN OTHER NEWS! I added a new illustration to the gallery, and you can see it here. It's the title card for a let's play I'm part of for the game Song of Seven: Overture. So yeah! You can see said Let's Play on our This Game Needs Played Youtube channel here. So check it out!

Flying off into space - Sonic

2:52 PM Addendum
Because this is apparently becoming a tradition now, I also just updated the site intro (you know, the thing at the top of this page above my demo reel? Yeah, that thing.) TO PRESERVE IT FOR POSTERITY OR SOMETHING, IT NOW SAYS: "This is a site intro! There are many like it, but this one is ours! By which I effectively mean mine. I'm Rowan Sutter, but I go by Sonic, because of reasons! I make animations, illustrations, and comics for fun! I especially love writing and drawing stories focusing on transformation. Bonus points when these stories involve Sonic the Hedgehog or unicorns in some manner. Well, at least I know what I like!"

Yeah, that's probably better than the thing talking about oranges growing out of someone named Sydney's ass.

Monday, September 4, 2017 - 5:30 PM

Okay! Added a bunch more artwork to the illustration gallery, so, good times! Making alllll the new thumbnails.

Signing off for now. - Sonic

Sunday, September 3, 2017 - 11:18 PM

Holy chaos, we have updates and news posts and stuff! I added more animations to the animation gallery and re-structured it. Now instead of a ton of bizarre thumbnails, we've got a bunch of embeds. That should work better. I also updated the banners and logo, and I'll be adding more illustrations to that gallery as well. Basically, the current idea is "ADD SOME MORE DAMN CONTENT."

I should probably also improve on the site intro. I currently have a placeholder of: "Rar, rar, rar, here are words. So many words and stuff. I AM FULL OF TACOS AND SALAD, IT IS MADE OF SALT AND NACHOS. Look at this tush, oranges are grown in Sydney's ass." Probably aught to keep that from being a long-term thing.

Signing off for now. - Sonic

12:55 AM Addendum
Okay! Added four more images to the regular gallery, and I'll be adding even more...probably tomorrow. But yeah, added This Game Needs Played Channel Art, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams Title Card, Rowan Design March 2016, and Steel Design March 2016. So yeah, we're catchin' up to now! Kinda! More than the site was. I'll also probably build a few sections for comics, and bust the fanart cherry more thoroughly up in here. Gonna call it a night for now, though.