shit's wack yo

So in the interest of cutting down art time I decided I'd fuck about with traditional stuff ie pens and am so much faster this way it's insane. I been spending like 12 hours on one drawing with digital and now I can do this stuff in less than an hour.

(Apologies for the weird blown out colouring, my scanner is weird like that)

I feel like a fool. This doesn't mean I'll stop doing digital but I am gonna try practising traditional more, since while I like these I think my lack of practise shows. Maybe I'll get some more materials for it. I jokingly said somewhere that I was quitting to go and do watercolours but I may just end up doing exactly that, minus the quitting part.

Yes. As I said in my last news post it was extremely likely that this break (or rather, deceleration) was going to happen, and I am now informing you that it has. This post is mainly as a way of reaffirming it to myself but I'm also attaching a couple of explanations since I think they would be helpful to anyone who might find this decision strange.

-Why do I need this break/deceleration?

To start off I would like to make it clear that this is not because I'm burnt out. In fact, I am so far from that that my being this way is itself sort of the issue. Basically, I've been spending too much time on art, to the point where I feel like I've forgotten how to invest my time in other things. Being as I have many hobbies and interests outside of art and, more importantly, am in university for something generally entirely unrelated to art (in the sense of drawing at least), I don't like that recently I've let art sort of eclipse the rest of my identity.

-What other interests?

Several, but for the big ones there's literature (both reading and writing) and music (both listening and making the stuff.) Going to uni for electrical engineering. Most of these things are incompatible with drawing, at least at the same time.

-Right then. Well, if I've been spending so much time on art, where is it?

Well, some of it (quite a bit of it in fact) is in this forum thread, and some of it has been the type of stuff I only share in what I would describe as intimate environments so it hasn't gotten shared here. The reason that the stuff hasn't left that forum thread is that I haven't viewed any of the images therein as, as it were, worthy of their own art submission.

-OK, but surely if those drawings are "quite a bit" of what I'm doing I can't be spending that much time on them, right?

You would think, but I draw with a mouse. Part of the reason that I currently don't have any plans to make a living off of art is that I draw with a mouse. It's slow, and I shouldn't do it, but I do, and I really do need to find the opportunity to learn how to draw digitally with...not a mouse, but as of now that's how I be and there's nothing doing.

-Will this mean I stop posting art?

Nah. What I mean by deceleration is considerably limiting the amount of time per day I spend on drawing to hopefully make use of it for other stuff. In fact, I will be posting some art a couple of days from now, hopefully, though that one is mainly a compilation of things I did before starting this.

-Who are you anyway?

I dunno man. Who are you? Who can truly say who they are in these tumultuous times?

-When will this end?

Almost definitely by the time my exams finish, and it's unlikely I stop before then. If something happens that makes me keep this going after the fact I'll try and make another post explaining what's up.

In the meantime here's something from a project I've been off and on about since I know people like to see pictures to keep them entertained:

Or at least a considerable art deceleration. I know that probably seems rather rich coming from me, since my art uploads are like twice a month at most nowadays, but I'm just putting this out there in case someone just notices a sudden complete cease of activity on my end and is interested enough to be concerned. I'll probably write a lengthier and more in-depth news post whenever I get to actually doing it but this is just a heads up so it's not too sudden if and when I do get around to it.

Just know that "might" really means "almost definitely" and "soon" means "really soon" as in "I have a maximum of two drawings left to do before this takes effect" level of soon.

I believe this is the first time I've been frontpaged without the submission either being a collab where I was only a very small part, or the submission being related to a Newgrounds event like pixel day or the like, which is obviously cool but I need answers for why something from nearly two weeks ago entitled "I hate this drawing" suddenly got that status >:(

hey i finished all the patterns on this bike right here the rest of the drawing shouldn't take so long probably

That's it, my dudes, that's all I wanted to say. I did legit want to make something for Pico Day but I forgot when it was and was reminded that it was today only yesterday. But this isn't like an excuse post for all the assuredly rabid fans out there asking where the hell my Pico Day submission is, because they don't exist.

Anyway, to reiterate, happy Pico Day. Hope everyone's day has been made a little better in these trying times.

The title explains everything essentially. What with a limited data plan and being stuck indoors using the internet, and probably busting it up over the course of several uni-related Discord voice calls, my internet is now at a limping pace and won't recover until the 8th of this month. If over the next few days I don't post any art, that won't be much different to the norm, but also now I have extra justification.

In the meantime, though, I will be trying to update this forum thread here on Newgrounds every day with images that are hopefully less taxing to upload. I managed to upload an image today so fingers crossed my connection doesn't get any slower.

VROOOOOOOM Vroom Vroooom Vroom Vroom Vroooooom Vroommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm VROOOOOM

VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOMMMM VROOOM Vroom Vrooooooom VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

This story technically starts like a month or more ago. Being of an inclination towards progressive rock bands, I realized one day that all the singers appeared to be men. I don't have any issue with male singers obviously, but decided it would be nice to have some more variety in the voices I hear all day, so after a quick Google search I came across Renaissance, with the singer Annie Haslam.

And they were good. Very good, in fact, good enough that I will now link some of their stuff here because it is also relevant to the band this post is actually about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDNMDugFju8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMcbhwoEzr4

But eventually, as is the case with basically all bands and musicians, unless they happen to be Rick Wakeman's solo career, I ran out of their albums to listen to so had to move on to another band. I decided to choose the same path by which I'd found Renaissance but was feeling in a Pink Floyd mood so rather than searching for progressive rock I instead chose psychedelic rock. I then came across a list of recommendations of not entirely psychedelic rock bands but just rock bands in general, all with women as the singers, and came across this band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4qgL7KhQGw

This was the first song to show up when I googled the band, and I personally really like it, even if the English is maybe a little messy. I thought the singer, and also flute player, whose name is Youko Rouyama, or Yoko Royama depending on who's writing, had a very nice voice too, but what got me somewhat interested about the goings-on with the band is immediately seeing upon a google search for them that they only had 2 albums to their name and that Google only seemed to know one member, Masumi Sakaue, who I believe was the harp player given the videos associated with her:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoJ1fXraDt8

I'm given to believe the channel this was posted to is actually run by her so that's quite nice in its own way.

But what was interesting to find was that when trying to google their history I only came across the page explaining said history in the citations of the Wikipedia article on the book Vermilion Sands, rather than the band. The first thing of note in said history, was that the band started as a cover band, and the first band that the history mentions as a point of inspiration for them to cover, is Renaissance. And I think you can somewhat hear the similarities in vocal style between the two bands, even when Yoko's singing in Japanese:

https://youtu.be/kyZJ8SFcxj0

I ended up listening to both their albums in one day, and they're both very good in my opinion. It was some way through the second album that the whole affair made me feel very sad, because the vocals change. They change quite a bit, seeing as the singer, as far as I can hear, for the later songs in the album, is not Yoko Royama but Hatsune Miku:

https://youtu.be/ua5eq6EKjKc

Which of course took me off-guard, but what I had read about the band and what I was hearing, after a few minutes, sunk in in a rather dreadful manner, because I had already read that Yoko had died in 2004, of cancer, so then came to realize that there was a rather upsetting motive for her replacement. The album came out in 2013, as a tribute to her, and the effect of her voice suddenly being replaced in the middle of an album like that really made me feel quite bad for her and all the people involved, as if I could feel her hanging over the project like a ghost.

I don't know why the replacement was Hatsune Miku nor am I in the mood to enquire but I'm guessing the band had started recording before she died and then either couldn't find or didn't want to find a replacement singer, and still had the lyrics that she'd written to work from so in either case eventually decided to finish the album in the interesting way that it's finished now.

The whole story really makes me both wish the best for the members who are still around and also somewhat reflect on the nature of art. It seems to me that all these guys were all pretty talented, and they have what I'd say is quite a powerful story behind them, but I hadn't, and haven't, heard anyone, outside of the writer behind that list I found them on, and the people that I've told about them, talk about them in any capacity in my life.

They, as far as I can tell, simply sat down and made music, and it seems that even if they'd been sure no-one would've ever heard them apart from themselves, which was almost the case, they'd have made it anyway, which I think, even if it's not technically motivational, is inspiring.

So finally, though I know they won't see it, and it's likely that very few people will read this, if any, respect to all the members of Vermilion Sands, living and dead, and rest in peace to Yoko.