Rolling Boulders

The view count is rising following the release of Paramedic Robot episode 1. I can see that it is finding its way into search engines, but I can also see that many people are only watching a few seconds of it before moving on. I can only assume many of them discovered it through a link in one of the shorts I’ve released this week and they assumed it would be less than 60 seconds.

A large part of me wants to stop posting videos and allow the pieces to fall where they may. I kind of just want to stop everything related to Paramedic Robot for a while and create some music instead. Sometimes I think about reliving my glory days and returning to my former career path, despite knowing those days are long behind me.

There a passage in scripture that advises one to never look back to the path left behind. It is meant to apply to sinful behavior, and the excitement that may have come with it. I think it also applies to your current venture.

Whether you are stringing together a plot, rhyming a verse, or building a machine, it is always tempting to quit midway due to unforseen circumstances. I saw a recent clip from Joe Rogan where he speaks about persistence and the importance of tenacity. His words always strike me because I remember when he began his show on youtube. He used to get about a hundred views an episode and I felt bad because I remembered him from Fear Factor. At the time, youtube was no place for celebrities – that was for amateurs and people who couldn’t cut it in Hollywood. Now look at him today – any A-lister would be lucky to be featured on his podcast.

I feel certain that the greatest joy in a man’s life is the pursuit of a dream. Whatever goal your after, the joy comes from the journey – not the treasure. When you reach your goal the former obstacles you faced will add to the legend of your eventual triumph.

To put it another, if you pursue a worthy path you will come across roadblocks along the way. It’s imperative you remain creative in spite of these boulders, because what you can’t pick up you can roll, climb, or even blow up.

I hope you greet your obstacles with a smile and step forward even when you’re unsure about the ground ahead.

Paramedic Robot – Full Episode

Alright I’m tired of sitting on this. This is episode 1 of Paramedic Robot. Cost about a year of my life so enjoy.

It Never Ends

I uploaded my 11th animated short today. I’ve been trying to find ways to complete them fast, identifying the bottleneck during each step in the process. Doing all the work myself from start to finish is a time consuming task no matter how I approach it. The short I uploaded today has only amassed 17 views, which is abysmal considering I was getting over 1000 within 30 minutes a few weeks ago.

The short cartoon I published prior to today had a conservative slant. It was eye-opening to see how the likes were stripped from youtube and tik tok. Youtube I’ll give the benefit of the doubt – they habitually identify inauthentic likes and strip them from videos. For example, if you like a video but watch less than a minute of it, that like will not count. But on tik tok I have more views on my “divided opinions on supermarket attack” than any other short. I have proof that it received 16 likes, but I woke up one morning and the count was reset to 1. I mention all this because I am curious if my views are being throttled since this is the first short I’ve uploaded in a while that hasn’t climbed the ladder at any point. I am sure I am being paranoid, since my online presence in minimal, but I am concerned nonetheless.

I would like to begin posting here regularly as I love this “social media” website more than any other. It is the only one that is therapeutic. Trust me, when I am not here I working on the next animation release. Hope you enjoy the videos and look forward to returning soon.

When A Week of Work gets Flushed Away

I spent the entire week designing a puppet for a specific short idea I had. He was designed in 4 views with 8 different head movements. I had everything set up to go into the programming phase. And then, the file encountered an error, and I was unable to open any of it.

Obviously I felt utterly defeated. It was a waste of time and effort, and no amount of research could fix this (I checked the temp files, trust me).

Things like this happen time to time. I’ve allowed it to spiral my mood to devastating lows in the past. To put it bluntly, why not just give up when your work winds up worthless anyway.

Ive come to conclude that events like this occur for a reason, and it is wise to use them for a moment of introspection. I came to realize with this event that despite the hours I had already poured in, I has only just begun.

programming the puppets would take a full day. Recording their movements would be another half day. Then there is the design of the home that the character interacts with – 2 days. And finally there was a need to record 3 other puppet behaviors.

I feel strongly that I must make an attempt to move more efficiently than my competition. I believe it will define my success – or my failure. If I take too long to release new material I will never get off the starting line.

I spent the day creating a 5 minute short from beginning to end. It’s a little odd but I find it funny for some reason. Anyways I posted it above.

Hope your week has been well and you continue to trudge onward.

Well I finally did something right

So I spent my day yesterday creating a new short. The only difference being that this time I researched key words and took the time to title my video specifically to increase the exposure. To be honest I was hoping for maybe 10-15 more views than normal. I’ve been averaging about 40-60 views a on my last 4 shorts. Well I just posted this one less than 30 minutes ago and it’s already over 1.2 thousand views and more likes than I’ve ever gotten before. Needless to say I’m excited for a change. I’m still rendering out the widescreen version, which in my opinion is better, and hope to post it here for you soon.

I hope you have a great day and always remember the best is yet to come – especially if you think it’s decades behind you.

How to Make People Think You’re Rich and Successful

Digging Up the Dirt

An outtake mountain cult ep 4. Available on youtube.

I’ve been developing a plan following my crises yesterday. The fun part about being completed with the episode is that I don’t have to showcase my best possible work with the shorts. I think this plan has evolved from a better understanding of the purpose behind my actions.

The purpose of the youtube shorts is to generate clicks. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be detailed, extraordinary, or anything special. It only needs to be topically relevant and funny.

I am rapidly discovering the importance of incorporating current issues into the comics. By including hashtags that are trending the amount of views each comic receives increases substantially.

The big problem with choosing current events is the risk of becoming controversial. For a long time now I have kept this blog clean of any of my personal political viewpoints. It is with great regret that I now see no clear road ahead without risking controversy. Featuring a political leaning will undoubtedly cause me to lose followers, but it also presents the oppurtunity of engaging new ones. I will continue to try and keep this blog free from any politics, as I much prefer discussing the craft of anything artistic, but accept the reality that engaging an audience of non-artistic consumers will require me to speak of more topical events.

My goal is to complete the short today and possibly release it tomorrow. I may hold onto it in order to do a batch release of shorts. I’ve got to admit, however, that I am well beyond exhausted at creating media that has yet to be viewed or complimented by anyone.

Hope your week is still going strong and you know what you are looking for. If you don’t then you will never find it.

Endless Toil

I went through a bit of a crises yesterday. Year after year has passed where I’ve worked passionately on a project only to chew on the seeds of my fruit. I’m comforted by the knowledge that I’m not alone in this – spend time on any creative platform or forum and you will discover that there is a surplus of unrecognized talent. It is also why I take issue with artists who are cherry picked by an industry and vaulted toward success because of their marketing potential rather than their skills. I actually take more issue with the idiots that defend them but that’s a whole other subject.

Since Monday I’ve been allotting more time to social media projects – such as the comics I’ve published here and a youtube short I’ve been working on. The youtube short has really bothered me because it requires designing a new character and adding a few elements to two already made characters. This doesn’t require much time, but allow me to break down the process of a scene’s creation for you:

1. Record the audio for the scene. A youtube short must be 60 seconds or less, which actually adds complexity due to the nature of restraints. Because the audio is the foundation for the entire scene, it must be funny and communicated clearly. I think 30 minutes to an hour is a fair estimate per minute of voiceover recording. This would be condensed with a pre-written script, but of course the time would only shift to writing rather than recording.
2. Draw the elements for the scene. The short I am working on requires a barbell, a mustache, a radio with receiver, and a new, rapidly drawn character. This could take anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours depending on the level of detail.
3. Programming the character(s). For this scene I’d imagine that would take an hour or less.
4. Record the character movements for the scene – 1 hour.
5. Render out the characters, place them in the same environment, draw the background. I could imagine this taking 30 minutes for this short.

Altogether I envision I would be able to complete this 1 minute short in about 5-7 hours, or two days time. And that’s with cutting corners and ignoring impactful details.

I am devastated that quality content will always take significantly longer to create.

I can do the comics in a minimal amount of time, but nearly everything else requires multiple steps. I am even considering the idea of having one of my characters host a conspiracy or news type program. But even that, where all I’d have to do is record the audio and plug the character into a basic background, would still require time for the research.

I remain bothered by my realization; however, I place hope in my belief that I am sculpting the rotors of a machine that will eventually perform more work with the same amount of input effort. I have come to one realization, however.

No matter how much effort or time it takes to create something, it only truly “exists” when it is submitted for the world’s judgment. All the thinking, planning, executing – none of that can be consumed. If I drew a stick figure on a napkin, took a picture, posted it on twitter and a few people thought it was funny, I would have done more to grow my audience than I have in the past 6 months.

Clearly the work you do in private is meaningful and significant – worth quite a bit more than drawing stick figures on napkins, regardless of how many “likes” that may receive. With that being said, posting anything for the world to view will move me closer toward my goal than spending additional time sharpening the corners.

Finished – 3-13-23

I completed the sound mixing Saturday night and rendered the video and audio together yesterday. There are a couple of minor sound adjustments I will make but it is completed. I may add a title animation in the beginning and something at the end. I don’t have a credit scroll as I literally did everything but I would like to add something for the outro music.

I plan to make the episode available free for viewing in 2 weeks, and of course will host a link here. Leading up to that I intend to release short clips and some comics to showcase a few of the main characters. This will be low effort but valuable for generating traffic.

With episode 1 completed I am excited for what the future may bring. Having created an entire set of characters and backgrounds I anticipate future projects using these elements will be 10x more efficient. I will enjoy writing, animating, and mixing again, but more importantly I will be able to steer myself in a specific direction.

It does not require money to produce an animated story, only time. I’m going to treat this series as though it is the foundation for my filmmaking future. By recycling assets I have already created I will be able to distribute content more regularly and grow an audience. As my following increases so will my monetary avenues toward financing a live action film.

I should begin putting together the short clips but won’t be animating anything today. Instead I hope to make a song because it has been far too long since I’ve gotten to work with music.

Hope your week has started strong and you remain courageous in your trials.

All Aboard the Printmaster

After a week and a half since I animated the last scene I’m 75% done with the sound design process. I’m happy I elected to use splice for the majority of the sound effects. Downloading sounds that are already EQed makes everything much easier. Most of the work I’m doing involves bussing different tracks to different reverbs and speaker locations.

Once this is completed I’ll share the full episode with some close friends and put together a short trailer. I think it would be wise to piece together short intro videos for the main characters to build hype for the episodes release. More important than that, I’d like to use the Youtube algorithm to my advantage. Posting regularly for a couple of weeks will increase the likelihood that the cartoon is recommended.

I’m considering splitting the episode up into a few parts. It has a runtime of 28 minutes. I’m undecided about this, but feel I’ll make my final decision based on what will help it receive the most views. Viewers may prefer a 15 minute chunk, but youtube algorithm may favor the longer runtime.

It’s been a joy working with my speakers but I really can’t wait to be done with this. I’d love to work on some music and begin writing a new project. I think it’s equally important to begin work on the second episode immediately, though with one strong caveat.

Future project involving the characters must be produced with far greater efficiency. I will treat what I’ve already created as if they are chess pieces on a chess board. The amount of moves they can make are limited and must always remain within the confines of the board. Even with these limitations, there is an infinite number of combination moves that can be made. By refraining from creating a whole new set of assets I will be able to complete production of a second episode much more rapidly. Entertainment favors minutes of content over quality, and I must keep that in mind if I am to gain viewership and eventually a budget for a live action production.

Hope your week is going well and you keep your nose to the grindstone. Life is empty without purpose, and purpose is empty without strife.