#littlestartemis

[ponett]

I went digging and couldn't turn up anything, substantial or otherwise, about Matt Moylan. I need to know how low to place my expectations for my second favorite mega men, because it sounds like "pretty damn low"

Matt Moylan is the Director of Publishing over at Udon. He's been there for ages. He's also a total reactionary.

To give full context, this is gonna get a little long.

Moylan is perhaps best known for the Transformers fancomic Lil Formers, which was popular in the '00s. This isn't super important here, but allow me to go on a tangent because it's where a lot of people know the guy from, and it's mildly more entertaining than just screencapping his tweets. The comic was basically just an excuse for him to draw a bunch of chibi Transformers that people would then use in forum signatures and whatnot. Sometimes he would attach his cranky old geewunner opinions and complain about art style changes or new female characters in the dialogue, if he wasn't just making a generic joke about Wheelie being annoying or Seaspray having a silly voice or whatever.

Comedy gold, I know.

Lil Formers was well known within the fandom. Geewunners and kids who didn't know any better and just liked the chibi Transformers (guilty) loved it. Other fans grew more annoyed by Moylan's schtick. As far back as 2009 TFWiki contributor David Willis mocked it in a strip from his own webcomic, Shortpacked:

His wiki page on TFWiki also recounts a bizarre old bit of fandom drama. Moylan had previously worked for the defunct comic publisher Dreamwave, who published the Transformers comics in the early '00s, and in 2006 he went on popular Transformers forum TFW2005 to make several claims about behind the scenes conflicts and unfulfilled story plans. Most bizarre was a claim that Autobot Sunstreaker was supposed to be gay in the Dreamwave comics, which was written off as a childish attempt to rile up the fandom. His claims were all vehemently disputed by the Dreamwave writers he was shit talking, who would also accuse Moylan of anonymously slandering them and sending them threatening emails. Swell guy!

Anyway, hopefully this isn't surprising to literally anyone who's been on a forum in the last decade, but this nerd who won't shut up about the Good Ol' Days of the '80s is now a reactionary conservative who complains about how they're making everything "woke." And unfortunately he's no longer just some guy drawing dumb little one-panel comics about Transformers, he's now overseeing all of the output at Capcom's go-to comic and art book publisher in North America.

Here's some of his tweets to illustrate what he's like these days.

Yes, that's a reply to Mark "Grummz" Kern. He's also chatted up accounts like Libs of Tiktok and Comicsgate ringleader Ethan Van Sciver. Also note the reply in which he tries to tell Greg Weisman himself that Gargoyles had "not an ounce of woke." This guy's brain is fucking cooked.

Here's a take he posted about The Boys, too, just because it's really fucking funny to me:

After I and several other people posted about his behavior over on Bluesky and expressed disinterest in buying anything from Udon (such as the new Mega Man comics), he deleted his Twitter for like a week. He's since restored it, the tweets in question now long gone. Clearly it wasn't a good look for him to be making statements about his employer's values like this, sometimes in the same breath as announcements about new comics. That being said, he's issued no actual apology for his statements, and Udon hasn't acknowledged it at all. There's no reason to believe he's had a change of heart. They're just gonna pretend he never said any of this. And as of a few days ago, he's been announced as the writer for the one-shot Mega Man ZX comic that Udon is putting out later this year. Yaaaayyyy

I know there are a lot of cool people working on stuff for Udon, but Moylan being in a position of power there means I have zero interest in giving that company money. When your Director of Publishing is over on Twitter trying to court an audience of reactionary nerds and proudly proclaiming that Udon is "anti-woke, anti-DEI," and then you go to their website and the first image you see is this...

...Look, I love huge boobs as much as the next bisexual furry pervert, but this particular image in conjunction with his tweets paints a pretty clear picture of what sort of values Moylan is pushing at Udon. He wants to cater to nerds who will buy softcore Street Fighter hentai thinking it'll own the libs.

So hey, if he doesn't want my dirty woke money, fine by me. I'm not touching anything Udon publishes as long as Matt Moylan still works there.

[punkitt-is-here]

You dress like you're trying out for the first american Doctor (please note: this is a complement)

I think this is my favorite ask ever

[wakebymoonsleepbysun]

Late bday present for my partner @littlestartemis! Their fursona with a keyblade (which was traced from a ref because I can't draw keyblades and I wanted it to look right TwT).

I am very proud of how it turned out. ^^

[bs-el]

@beangods tagged me to describe myself in moodboard style by using only pics from my phone! i had no idea tag memes like this were still going around =w=

I wanted to use non-cat images but i went through like all 1000ish images on my phone and honestly like half of them are pics i've taken and the other half are cats

I'll tag @moth-fuzz @trans-shiny-primarina @nate96411 @halfangelhavoc @sapphic-sppider @littlestartemis @spookynewt and really all my friends and mewtuals weheheheee

[the-hydroxian-artblog]

I understand of course that there's no artistic shortcuts, and that the only way to learn to do a thing is to practice it a bunch.

But man, every time I see your art on my dash, some part of my wishes I could flip a switch and just mimic that style in one go. How long does it generally take you to do any of your random sketches? And do you have any advice for nailing the sort of. Casual dynamic style you do so well.

Most sketches of just a pose and a half take me anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour, mostly depending on both how detailed the character is, and how ambitious/inspired I'm feeling to draw them.

It's as you said, hard to recommend anything other than "practice", but I detailed my study regimen here. Something I hear is useful but don't do myself is straight up tracing sketches of other artists (for your eyes only, don't go posting them and making claims), mainly to learn and improve your own muscle memory and "get in their head". I've only done that very sporadically as inking practice. That's not me saying it isn't a good idea, I just haven't built up the habit. Feel free to do that with my own work, by the way!

Either way, my "casual dynamic style" comes from honing my eye and muscle memory to the point where I can draw poses more efficiently and visualize them, which my daily study regimen helped me hone. When you "get" to where I am, you'll find that there's only more to learn, though. Think of speedrunners; someone being better than even 90% of players looks impressive, but once you hone your skill to that point, you'll realize there's 10 times as much distance between you and the guy that's better than 93% of players. People who shoot for world records, being the best of the best, wind up making thousands more attempts than others lower on the ladder ever will.

The biggest takeaway is that you shouldn't be expecting yourself to be all that satisfied at any point, IF you aren't drawing something you enjoy. DALL-E 2 images look impressive and even incredible, but after a while the novelty begins to wear off. Training your neural pathways to make better and better art works the same way; you actually dampen your ability to get a dopamine hit off of good art alone, so you try to make it better, and eventually you grow only somewhat satisfied with your new normal. You need to draw stuff that actually makes you happy. That's the sort of thing that will fuel your journey for real. It's why art quality seems to not really matter all that much on social media, as it's work that the viewer and artist relates with that often winds up getting any traction. It's not a great analogy as all art has inherent value, but some kinds of art is definitely more motivating to draw and engage with than other kinds.

It's also why I draw stupid shit all the time. I get more of a dopamine hit drawing stupid shit that scratches an itch. Maybe your thing is cats. Shipping characters. Trains. Buildings. Find something you can't easily get tired of drawing, and study it as often as you can. Not too much to burn you out, but enough that you don't mind taking the challenge again and again. Don't rush it, just study a small amount at regular intervals. It's as David Karp once said: It doesn't matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop.

[hools]

Their nickname is GameCube

oh my god ............

[slarpg]

So I'm encountering an unfortunate problem where the game doesn't seem to be reading my PS4 controller. Near as I can tell I have all of my controller inputs and settings right, so I'd thought that even if it's only set to take xbox or something, steam would still function as a middle man for me. But, nothing.

Unfortunately I can't guarantee support for PS4 (or Switch) controllers due to the game being made in a decade-old version of RPG Maker that predates those controllers existing and becoming standardized for PC use. The number of Steam features (such as controller support) I'm able to integrate into the game is also extremely limited because of this

If you don't mind using an extra step, however, you can use a simple key remapper program like JoyToKey to map the keyboard controls to whatever buttons you want on pretty much any controller in existence

[kynimdraws]

How did the funny nuzlocke lady become a dumping ground for people to throw their FE opinions at. Like hell, why do people feel the need to come running to you and go "Hey ACTUALLY-". Very telling too that they always do it on anon

I have no idea tbh LOL

This isn't even the worst ones weirdly enough bc the 3H era brought out SO MANY to the point I put a pinned post for them specifically

[aurasisle]

Kingdom Hearts. Any or all, pick an entry

ok I actually own the first one, but I haven't touched it. which is kinda blasphemous cause I know everyone and their mother has played it at this point. all I know is that there's some funny tonal whiplash hearing mickey, donald, and goofy interact with serious story beats and I look forward to seeing that in full sfgdha

[seeyouguyslater]

We switched over to using this liter thats like. Little pellets made out of pine? I think it might literally be called Feline Pine or something. Covers up smells REALLY well, super easy to clean, and almost impossible for the cats to make a mess out of. Plus no dust like with clay liters

seems interesting... but also idk how well my cat will like it...

did it take alot of time for your cat to acclimate to it?

[ponett]

Unrelated to anything but I just blitzed through IDW Sonic for the first time. Completely forgot about your moment of glory before I got to the next page and went "Hey I recognize that dog!!" Very late retroactive congrats

[punkitt-is-here]

I assume everything is ok post-cop if you're posting on tungl?

LMAO potentially?? Accidentally walked out of a panda express without paying for a peace tea, I just goofed and forgot to bc the counter is on the opposite end and they sent a cop to my place. Reminds to be seen if I've gotta do anything major aside from pay a fine

[breaking-the-code-au]

I discovered your comic completely by happenstance, but like... instant follow. I love this concept, I love these minor redesigns, and I'm legit impressed with how well you can draw the sonic cast, I've found them deceptively difficult to do accurately. Looking forward to more!

Thank you so much!!!

[bumblequinn]

This is a very specific pull, but I'm curious about some of your potential inspirations in the SLARPG soundtrack. Namely, Secret Haven, with its use of synth and drums, reminds me a LOT of the old David Bowie movie "Labyrinth". Am I hearing things, or was that a vibe you were gunning for?

i actually didn't see labyrinth until a few months ago, years after i wrote that track! but i wouldn't at all be surprised if there's some chain of influence that could be traced from secret haven back to that movie through some of the 90s composers i took inspiration from! ^^

that track is one rare exception from the game where it's hard for me to identify anything i pulled from directly. there's definitely a lot of klonoa 2 vibes in the instrumentation (esp in the back half)... maybe also a touch of chrono trigger bc i know at the time i had watched an 8 bit music theory vid on it somewhat recently. beyond that, who knows :')

[the-hydroxian-artblog]

I just opened myself up for commissions for the first time, and I was wondering how you go about promoting yourself, if at all. Like have you reached a point of notoriety where you don't really need to, or do you have a strategy for when/where to put yourself out there to catch the most eyes?

Be annoying, but annoyingly consistent. I chose fridays to stream and work, I post an announcement at 2:45 in the afternoon, and stream my commission work at a consistent time a few hours later.

I also have, more crucially, my consistent daily drawings that built up my audience and do decent numbers on twitter and tumblr, which do the job of Reminding People That I Exist. All of these together mean that you have a recipe for people who know you, like your work, and know in the back of their minds whenever you post something, "They're open for comms on fridays..."

It's a numbers game, pretty much. I want my commissions to be affordable, which in and of itself is basically a strategy. To be frank I kind of hate that self-promotion turns everything you do into a hustle, and is so tricky and annoying for both sides to deal with on these platforms, but it's the method I've found to work. Work consistently -> self-promote consistently -> build an audience -> secure customers.

[hools]

Hey I just wanted you to know that girlcat resonated with me on a level I didn't think I could get from something other than my own art and personal interpretation of myself.

GIRLCAT HAS RESONATED WITH A LOT OF PPL IT LOOKS LIKE..i do not know how but im glad you seem to relate to her fkdsgjdfsfds