Cam and Dave did one of these and they're so charming that I decided to do one myself. Also did it to give a lil insight about my life without doxxing myself!

START OF NEW YEAR SHENANIGANS

At the start of 2023 we always make a handful of promises that most of us never keep. But it feels like this year I've done a lot of what I've wanted to do and I truly feel content with this year. Don't wanna make this too long so I'll skip around a lil bit.

REAL LIFE (JANUARY-OCTOBER)

JANUARY-AUGUST

This year I wanted to go out and see my friends more this year and it's been great. Everyone feels like they've changed for the better and still haven't lost themselves. It's a gift to be able to have people we can talk to about anything without fear of what they'll think, I make sure to not take that for granted.

I've also been getting out of my comfort zone and looking at more MEDIA. I was always an "anime is overrated" kinda person until I thought, "What if I watch the animes that look cool to ME instead of whats POPULAR?" And that had me so much more interested in all types of animation styles. I've dabbled in some new styles and I believe some of my work shows that.

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER

Had to move houses due to some unfortunate circumstances, we found a cute lil studio apartment to stay until we can get something better. However, I already really like it here, it's a weird thing to move after staying somewhere so long but I got comfortable fairly quickly. All my shit was on the floor for a bit, including my pc set up! (we've been orderin shit to make the place look proper and shit's been shapin' up recently)

SIDE NOTE: EXPERIMENTING..

Like I spoke a bit about before, I also wanted to dabble in other ART STYLES. This was so much fun to do and scrolling through my 2023 art tab you could really see my will to experiment this year. Also fucked around with animation a bit more, haven't made anything I'd post in the MOVIES tab quite yet (besides the sketch collabs and and an animation I did for Varadiddle)

FRONTPAGE BABY WOO!!

One of my promises this year was that I'd get frontpaged this year and I'm so happy to say that promise was fulfilled.

November 12th, I posted a comic about funkin' and NOT only did it get frontpaged the next day, but it was one of the MOST VIEWED art pieces of that DAY.

The comic was so much fun to make as well, late night drawing while watching Dave's streams was chill as hell. And the fact that my BEST FRIEND was on this as well makes this even better (he did the funny drawing of Dave on the ID panel hehe). I was sketching this out for a bit so when I was like a quarter through the line art I was wondering if it was even still funny. My mom's friend was over and asked to see the comic I was doin. She lol'd so hard that I immediately knew I had to show it to the lovely people on newgrounds.

I know it's been said before but people describing it as Tom putting your drawing on the fridge is exactly how it feels. 9 pages of positive reviews (one being Dave himself) is still hard to wrap my head around! I was in art class when I peeped and I'm sure the people there were wondering what was making me so damn happy when everyone else was bored out of their minds.

REAL LIFE (DECEMBER)

Like I've said, I also wanted to spend more time with my REAL LIFE FRIENDS. Been with me since middle school and kept it real since. I've definitely gone to see them more than before and It's been awesome (even seeing a friend I havent seen since 8th grade!) Just yesterday I had all my closest pals come over, and my dearest mother made us all some A1 breakfast and left us alone for the day. My lil bro (who I love dearly) was there too and all of us were just having a chill, good ass time. We spent most the time talking, playing games, watching TV, munchin on pizza and overall goofing off!

The time went by so fast despite it bein a 7 hour visit. I think that might be favorite day of the year and possibly my life. Definitely pals I'd take a bullet for.. on a good day.

Here's a funny lil doodle I did that day while my brother was playin' a hat in time:

FINAL THOTS

Trying to figure out what my future will hold was like walking a pitch black tunnel with the people you love constantly asking you what you'll do when you make it out. But now rays of light are seeping from the end and I feel like I know what I TRULY want and I know where to start to get there.

Thank you to my friends for giving me the momentum to keep growing. Thank you to the funkin' crew, especially Dave for inspiring me to start art and animation in the first place. And thank you to the people on Newgrounds for giving me a place where the things I want to draw, whether it's shitty, immature, or violent, feel like they can belong.

TLDR / END OF 2023 QUOTE:

"The first year to leave me with a big stupid smile on my face."

Been listenin' to kawai sprite's older shit and it fucks heavy, check this out and the rest of the album if you like chill vibes (not sponsored). Peace out ya'll