=== THE FIRST STRUGGLE ===

The reviewers however, thought otherwise. I received some pretty harsh comments! Most notably some people called my work "pointless", and in contemplation, I had to agree. Some others would mention the shitty quality of my toons, but I really didn't see anything wrong with them. Maybe I just didn't see any way to improve it, although I do remember being quite stubborn, thinking people were just being jealous of my work.

But not everyone on Newgrounds was out to demotivate me. I remember when someone taught me the basics of onion skins, and recommended me to start animating frame by frame. There was still a long way ahead of me, but it definitely was a step in the right direction! There was an an ambitious project I was working on called Sword Of Worldbounds, which was based on a story I was writing. Seeing as that flopped, I became aware of a harsh reality; my content wasn't worth watching.

My bad: Some people enjoyed watching my toons. People like Wallpaperman for instance. It was the mockery of my good old buddy here which pushed me over the edge. The scores on my Dragonball Future movies lowered the batting average on my profile, and that's how I decided to have my flashes deleted by Wade. In the meantime, the both of us collaborated a lot.

• Reasons To Create: Reviewers have mentioned the pointlesness of my creations, so I decided to prove myself and come up with better stuff. I pretty much gave up on doing parodies from that moment onward.
• Creative Developments: Frame By Frame animation became a frequent thing in my animations, and I applied weird shading techniques to my drawings which made everything look worse. Nothing else really changed though. My drawings were still looking very bad.
• Outcome: I did an ambitious project which I never got any recognition for. It became increasingly harder to work on solo projects.

"Animation can be a lot of trial and error - like, you try something out and you can't be afraid to start over or throw stuff away; That's what I've learned. You've got to be okay with throwing away a drawing even if you're super proud of it."

- jessejayjones

"typically when I feel creative or I want to do something, it's because I want to communicate something. One of the most common things that kills my motivation is when I ask myself, "Who am I communicating to?""

- Kwing

"Here is what I have learned:
good story + bad graphics + short duration = success.
bad story + good graphics + long duration = failure."

- GregoryShitcock

[INDEX]

1. A FRESH START
2. THE FIRST STRUGGLE
3. THE COMFORT ZONE
4. THE UNDERDOG
5. FUTURE PROJECTS