A lot has been going on. It hasn't been awful, it hasn't been great, it's just been... weird. Progress of the projects have been good but recently I hit a bit of a writer's block in just about all of them simultaneously. Like, what do I animate next? What moves do I make this guy do? What do I start on afterward? I end up staring at the screen for an hour and realize I didn't get anything done. This cycle has repeated multiple times for the past week and I'm getting tired of it. I'm trying to break free of its shackles, but life in general has hit me with a few curveballs and it's getting on my nerves. When mentally you're not doing so hot, it will come out in your work, and perhaps that is what is going on. I hope I can get it together soon. I know I can, it's just a matter of when.

​-T4k

It's still a bit early, but it's been very disappointing; the film I recently uploaded was, compared to the amount of subscribers the channel has, barely viewed by anyone. Not necessarily because they did not click on it, but mainly because, apparently, most of them weren't even notified whatsoever by YouTube that it was uploaded. I don't know how the site's system works exactly, but obviously there is some kind of system it has implicated in it (most likely recently) that picks and chooses who gets to see what. My theory is that Mick the Mercenary: The Movie, being a film and not a cartoon--as cartoons are primarily why people subscribed in the first place--had an extremely limited release; I've had viewers tell me they didn't see it in their subscription box.

I don't know what the system is and I don't know why it exists, but it's stupid. Regardless of what someone originally subscribed for, why limit the notifications down to less than 1% simply because a clearly faulty system believes it picked up on something somewhat unrelated to what the channel usually shows? What is this supposed to accomplish? When someone subscribes, they want to be notified when the channel has a new video uploaded. Why remove the one and only function of that? What's the point of even having people subscribe at that point?

There's a channel I have that has about 500 subscribers that had a video uploaded to it today. Within hours, it reached about 600 views. The channel with over 50,000 subscribers' video took 4 days to reach that. How innovative.

YouTube's just been a sinking ship for so many reasons the past few years, but unfortunately this, to me, is just a final nail in the coffin. Sadly, there currently aren't any realistic websites that provide the same services YouTube does. Nobody is or even knows about any of the site's equivalents. There's nowhere else to go.

It's a shame. I want to be doing this animating/directing stuff for real one day, and seeing the way things are now, that day couldn't come a moment too soon. Here's hoping.

-T4k

In a world filled with chaos, Mick the Mercenary, a self-employed hit man, is visited by a nearby US military veteran, Chester the Combat Vet. The two form an alliance when the leader of a mercenary compound offers a position for the two to assassinate a list of bounties. As the newly-found associates accept the position, Mick and Chester soon realize they have agreed to more than they bargained for. Watch it here!

A couple of years ago, I created a channel where my homies and I could just whatever we felt like doing, "Mick the Mercenary". It later became a--primarily--flavor-reviewing channel, but at some point, I felt like making a movie about the characters the channel revolved around. Thus, Mick the Mercenary: The Movie was born. Enjoy the VFX and aluminum foil grenades!

-T4k

As 2017 comes to an end, here is a brief overview of how the year went before we enter 2018. As a whole, I was pretty happy with how much better this year was over the last few I had. Here's hoping 2018 is even better!

HERE IS THE YEAR IN REVIEW VIDEO!

-T4k

I can't believe it's been like 6 years or whatever and I never had my own domain name for this site. It was super easy to get one. I just never really thought about it for some reason. Well, I have one now, and that's what matters. I'm happy about that.

​-T4k

I can't legitimately say I'm confident in the fact that this is the 76th progress report I've posted, but it's probably around there. It's been awhile since I've let whoever's reading these know what's going on. In short, it's been both physically and emotionally busy and stressful for this poor devil lately, but I've been pulling through. For the month of October, I pretty much spent it all drawing; making pieces that I published up on the internets as well as just sketching and practicing. Since this month, I've been working on Team Fortress School again, and it hasn't been the most pleasant of experiences considering I started it nearly two years ago, so I've been seeing all the mistakes and roughness that I feel needs to be polished and re-tuned. So needless to say, I've just been fixing up and even redoing a few segments of the animation. Not very fun.

However, I'm finally about ready to move on from what animation has initially been completed and to the next few sequences the video has. Hopefully I'll be able to just plow through it, because this thing has been hanging around for so long and I keep getting people telling me they want to see it. Hopefully it'll do well and people will like it.

After that, I have countless ideas of cartoons I want to do, but it's such a shame considering there's so much to be done and even then they'll take a long time anyway. Either way, life's been pretty good, and I'm happy the way things are turning out and shaping up. 2017 has been so much better than the last 2 years I've been through.

​-T4k

So, out of nowhere, now the Hearthstone Minion Impersonation video is getting recommended to users on YouTube, as its views are going up and up. That really took me by surprise. But that being said, there's something I've been pondering and wanted to mention... and I normally don't do posts like this, but...

The reaction it's been getting so far has been the most mixed response I've ever gotten on anything I've ever made before; there's plenty of people commenting on the fact that they think many of the impressions were "spot-on", while there's a good chunk of people who just want the video to go down to the fiery depths of Hell. I've really thought about this for a while and tried to figure out what's going on here, and what it is exactly that's making certain people hate the video so much.

I wonder if people thought I was trying to be this professional actor who knew what he was doing and was trying to impress everyone, and when they got a video of just some random guy trying to plow through every minion's voice in the game (which was the point of the video, I felt), they found it laughable that so many of the voices were off. Not that I really care, but it's just silly to me that these people are getting boners over the fact that this one guy can't pin-point the exact voice of every single minion (including the females... seriously?) in the entire game. I tried explaining it in the description and a pinned comment on the video, but people tend to not read stuff, I guess.

Either way, it's nice how the video's popping up in various places on that dreaded site, because, remember: any publicity is good publicity. :)

-T4k

So I finally finished this montage of me attempting to do voice impressions of just about all of the Hearthstone minions' battle cries. It was an absolute nightmare putting it all together. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3E8RXV9d1k

-T4k

Well, all I can say currently is that I'm amazed at what's been going on this last week. I never thought that Hearthstone animation would get as popular as it did so quickly. If you were to ask me, I would have assumed that it would have gotten maybe a couple thousand views, and then a few months later get a little more recognition, sort of like how An Animal Crossing Tale did. But out of nowhere, apparently it's been appearing in random YouTube users' recommendations, regardless of whether they searched up anything involving Hearthstone or not... but hey, I'm not complaining! It's fantastic to know so many people have seen it so quickly, and as I'm typing this, those views are still counting! It's been so motivating for me to try and get some more stuff out, hopefully at least one more cartoon before the year's up.

Y'know, I think I kinda found my "style" of movies, as of now... for years, as I've been experimenting and trying all kinds of different avenues, I think I now realize my "thing" is making slightly more "serious" videos... like, battle scenes, stuff that makes you go "woah, that's awesome". Not trying to sound arrogant or anything, but I'm just stating an observation. I've tried doing stuff that I mostly saw on the internet, like weird, screamy, disoriented comedies, but for years I always had this want to create content that people would find "cool"... if that makes any sense at all. So, I went all-in, tried it out, and got a pretty awesome response. So, I think I'm gonna continue to do that!

And just FYI, no, I'm not stating that there's anything wrong with making "weird comedies"; I'm just saying, I'm doing something different than that. Recently I've been discovering that, in life, you gotta be you, and you gotta discover yourself. Do what YOU like, create what YOU would be entertained by... and that's when things will start to turn around.

I'm just so happy with the way things have been going this year. Like I mentioned previously, it's been LIGHT-YEARS better than the last two years were for me. Thanks so much for everything, everyone. I can't wait to see how everything unfolds from this point on! So many projects, so much excitement!

​-Twisted4000

So there's been a turn of events. I'll just leave it at that.

Bottom-line, it appears that the Hearthstone animation, and I'm proud and elated to announce this, will FINALLY be released within THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS!! I just cannot tell you how happy I am to finally get this thing done and published. I ended up finishing it much faster than anticipated. There's just some editing and slight kinks that need to be worked out and the audio needs to be done. THAT'S IT. I just can't wait. I'm like, anxious about it. Hooooooolllyyyyy WWOOOOWWW!!!!!!

After that, there's the Team Fortress School cartoon that needs to be done. Then there's commission work... but this thing being done REALLY frees up A LOT. Can't wait! STAY TUNED!

​-T4k
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