Wow I really didn't expect my comic's cover to be frontpaged, I'm so incredibly honored and happy. ;w;

Starting from scratch with something like a comic can be a little nerve-wracking at first, but I'm just so excited and happy to be doing it. Last time I started a webcomic I believe I was 15 haha. If anyone seeing this has done webcomics before and has any advice or interesting stories I'd love to hear them. c:

Found out that one of my finals this semester is to create a graphic novel in 6 weeks. I am so excited, it's been so long since I've done comics properly. Plus, this year we have a mandatory website coding class so I can finally stop depending on pre-formatted website designs, which is nice. This year is going to be excellent. 

A cautionary tale about my art school experience thus far below, but first I just wanna say, it's extremely nostalgic to return to Newgrounds, I hope that I can start contributing better art more frequently now. It's a little embarassing having so much old crappy art on here but hopefully it'll remind me that I'm always improving haha.

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Art school has released me for the summer and it feels pretty great to be able to do my own art again. I always imagined that going to art school to learn illustration and character design would be a really nice enviroment to create art, but it's actually pretty dreadful, and not for the reasons I might've assumed at the start. Handling harsh critiques and working super long hours is not at all the most difficult or draining part; the worst part is the restriction on what we're allowed to do. They force us to work in all kinds of expensive and sloppy mediums that I happen to despise, and our subjects have been overwhelmingly restricted. Stylization, which I'm known for in all my online communities, is looked down on as something people do to hide the fact they can't pull off realism. So I thought, well, if I show all my teachers that I can pull off realism in portraits, landscapes, and still-life they're sure to leave me be and let me do my thing, right? 

Wroooong. They praised me up and down for my realistic pieces and said they were 'brilliant' (which I can't accept because I'm just painting from something that already exists, where's the brilliance in making copies) and implied that I was wasting my potential doing stylized stuff. And even though when they said that stuff I was always thinking 'Uh, that's insane, no way am I going to stop cartooning' it all slowly got into my head, and gradually I started feeling strange and guilty every time I did art that wasn't school related. I stopped even using my sketchbook, which I had drawn in daily since I was in middle school. 

Long story short, I almost allowed art school to ruin my art, which is a weird experience. Moral of the story, don't let yourself get brainwashed by bitter classicly trained douchebags even if they are your professors. There's a difference between constructive criticism, like 'Your color/anatomy/concept/composition/whatever needs work.' and someone just shitting on your work. 'Cartoons don't have a place here/Why are you wasting your time with that/Who's going to want to see that'. Don't trust anyone who is being blanket-aggro about your style. They're bad news. 

Hey, posting to cover the old one. Haha. Mm it's been about a year since I joined here and I think I've improved. c: Yeeey. Everyone is very helpful haha.

So, apparently I've been scouted! :3 Three people sent me invites before I checked the next day, thanks to all of you, it's pretty flattering. ^^ Newgrounds artists are all pretty damn leet so I'm quite happy about it.

Yep. Hari is a happy Hari. I'll try to post something up soon. :D

Eeeehn just had to get my dumb post from a million years off my profile. Amazingly enough I have nothing to say to you, Newgrounds. Feed me your games and animations. Maybe one day I'll actually contribute.

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Made by me. I love you, Nny. [He belongs to Jhonen Vasquez, btw. This is a fanmade little thing. CMV. But you people are probably smart enough to figure that out all by your little selves.]