Yo. Been participating in stuff on NG now for a few years, wanted to humble myself with this post and give an example of how not to operate on this site and the surrounding communities.
The Lore of an idiot:
Got a wacom cutting board off an amazon warehouse deal (great tactic for any kinda kit) post-pandemic and starting uploading unfinished sketches under the name CoolioShootyMane, did a few collabs, shit was sweet. Did this for roughly half a year, then got involved with some artists from the Festivals server when it was still under previous management. Started streaming "drunk karaoke" and bothering streamers around this time lmfao. Dicked around like this for roughly a year, til' fall 2022, then I tried to create a team for doing various projects. Mainly shortform games that'd fit well on this site. Throughout this time, I really didn't know how to act, and presented myself as someone who I was not. I put WAY too much time into surrounding myself with (very busy!) artists that I assumed would take an interest in me and my art, and tried to soak up as much information as I could. Anyways, somehow I got a couple people helping with my first game project, Grey's Grimoire.
This endeavor failed miserably! lol, what a waste of time it was. Like a whole ass year down the shitter. Hated the failure to the point of deleting my first account. Gave up on the team after getting scammed by a modeler, who couldn't complete a fucking (paid commission) low poly weapon model within two months. This was a turning point for my views of NG as a platform, which was unfair, but eh. Throughout late 2022 and 2023 Art / games took the back seat and writing became more of a focus. Got kicked outta my house for being a drunk dickhead. Started openly beefing with artists I didn't agree with. Stopped caring about friendships I'd fought very hard to maintain within NG. Released an asset flip text based game that had absolutely 0 soul or effort put in. It was all shit, a fucking shit boat up a shit river on a shit-course for failure. Kept another account throughout this, Marjanglers. Deleted that too, as I blamed my own collective failures on the community and some shitters who I'd started beefing with along the way.
Had upgraded to a proper screen tablet somewhere in there, but saw no improvement in my art because I didn't care to put serious hours in. I'd get frustrated, pivot to another project in a different discipline, and repeat this bullshit cycle for too long. I put far too much emphasis on my lack of equipment and created mental crutches for myself, whether it was "This drawing tablet is shit, there's parallax towards the edges." or "I need to build an entire fucking audio booth or there is literally 0 reason to even try recording stuff." Throughout this all, I was hitting the booze VERY heavily, and this really ties into everything. I'd drink and stop giving a shit about doing the work, NG became more of a social safari where I'd just try and talk with people. In reality, I was just drunkenly bothering everyone with no clear goal or motivation, flailing about like an idiot gorilla, creating beefs for no reason.
Tip #1
Keep your fucking head down and DO NOT ENGAGE with any group / individual that your gut tells you not to. Keep DMs STRICTLY related to your work, do not ramble on. Be respectful of people's time. Observe, then assess the risk of association. There are a surprising amount of gross people on here who are VERY cunty, will very quickly create an opinion of you, (as they've done for many other artists), and will share this opinion with people who could be very influential. This website is far smaller than one might initially think.
I consistently fucked this up many times, and due to my actions, a lotta people really started hating me. Some of it understandably so, but there are vindictive worms in high places here too, so just be careful and assume that anyone and everyone won't keep information to themselves.
Tip #2
FOCUS ON THE MISSION. If you are here to become a better artist, stay consistent and be true to yourself when it comes to progress. You will produce absolute shit sometimes, everyone has an off day. You will also produce absolute bangers if your hunger stays the night as an artist, in whatever discipline you choose. Go ham on some nice equipment if you can, but work within your means. There are MANY artists on NG who have overcome very real limitations and became stronger / more unique, whether mental, financial, physical, etc. This website truly is a valuable resource to any fledgling artists.
Tip #3
Leave your ego at the door, there will always be someone doing better work than what you can produce (at this current moment), ESPECIALLY in the professional tier and from other websites like artstation. Stay. In. Your. Lane. Sometimes an asshole with a silver spoon who has had the luxury of doing this shit since they were a fetus will come around, and will reflect this with an absolutely foul attitude, while putting you and yours down to feel better about their own art. It's quite sick (and sometimes celebrated in certain circles), so if you get pressed, hunker down and think carefully about how your following actions will be perceived by the community as a whole, almost as if the big Fulp upstairs is watching lol.
Tip #4
Vet collabs. A lot of them are ran by people with no administrative experience, or children, and you will end up wasting time. Nobody on this website is a professional judge, and there have been MANY instances of unfair / frankly shit judgement in competitive collabs, yes the ones where actual money is on the line. Go in with a MAJOR grain of salt and don't expect to win anything, I'd recommend only collaborative projects for at least a year or two, unless you've been trained or have tons of mileage.
Tip #5
Don't take anything on here too serious. Follower count doesn't mean anything. Comparing yourself with an established artist whose been doing this for years isn't healthy. This place is not a pre-paid course to become an art god. It also isn't some place to spam blammable garbage that was made in 5 mins because lolz. It is a WILDLY different place than 20 years ago, and in 20 years it'll be different too. Learning about the history of NG is both valuable and fun.
So ye idk, figured I'd ramble on for the last time here. Giving up for good on anything NG related, same with all this art bullshit. My biggest regret is getting more involved in the yapping than in creating, so hopefully someone will read this and it will help them out. Real ones will call you on your bullshit, but a lotta motherfuckers will treat you as a toy and encourage dumb behavior, so be careful. Sorry to all the talented people I bothered or let down, probably both lol. But to all the scum that circlejerk in petty little cliques and just shit talk, fuck yall, eat many dicks, a bag of dicks even.
