 Yeah, yeah, but it was funny because Yeah, but when we were coming down here to Philadelphia, I was just like sweet. It's gonna be only like I mean Yeah, it's it's like awesome I get to wear my my fall clothes and stuff like that and I'm like sweet where he's just like buying a buying Okay, let me tell you in Southern California We have like our winter our cold set and that's the one where like okay We have to go up to the mountains and so we have one set of cold stuff Like the idea of having two or three cold days back-to-back, you know, like I actually have to get close for that Yeah, just just for that, but um, so technically the panelists started, okay? Actually, we still have technically one minute Oh, whatever I will also complain about one thing for one minute Which was when I when I made jokes of when I made jokes of LA traffic a bunch of people wrote to be from other Parts of the country to complain about their traffic and other locations particularly. I got so many people from Washington, D.C. I was like oh You think you assholes you think that LA traffic is bad Excuse actually I didn't get anyone from Atlanta riding in from that Yeah Okay, it is 1129, so I believe it is now the start of the panel So if you didn't know I'm dingo from dingo doodles and Joe cats around he's coming. It's he's his own likes spirit animal So anyway, I'm puffin porst. I run a YouTube channel called And I make animated videos on I Make animated videos on judges your dragons and tell the stories online tabletop RPGs and What up nerds I Did yeah, you have to wear it the entire panel made this bed you must lay in it That sword that sword and shield was provided by Patrick shout out to Patrick if you're out there Thank You Patrick. Yeah, you're lucky my reflexes are not great right now We didn't hit you too hard. Anyway, this is Joe cat So Let's go for so I'm Ben puffin porst I run an animated YouTube channel on Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop RPGs where I tell stories from my campaign started about three years ago and I started with kind of like a mouse and just sort of like drawing stuff like that and then Several years ago. I got into a drawing and a drawing tablet and before that I used to do like blog stuff where I tell stories online which no one read Like I mean people come in they're like, oh, it's good work, and I'm like, thanks and You know how it is like online contents like yelling into the void you put it out And you know, but you I could definitely tell like YouTube it was like this was like this was the content I would kind of watch myself, but anyway Joe cat my name is Joe cat and I do Animated Dean animated D&D content on YouTube called the crap guide series where Where I inform people the best way to play D&D, which is to play it wrong And I'm Dingo from Dingo doodles and I animate I Animate D&D series pretty much of like a campaign that I had played Called fools gold. So I'm doing episodically kind of like a retelling of it through animation. So Yeah, and other stuff. I do other stuff too. I do like guest spots. I had you guys as guests, which was fun And I do some life videos too, but mostly I have a real passion for D&D I'm on a D&D kick. So I just keep pumping out the episodes because you guys keep hyping me up And then I'm just like I guess I'm doing the next one because I'm just excited and now And We are we are part of something that is ever-growing the D&D animation community Yeah, it's getting larger and larger by the moment like it's kind of crazy Yeah, that was crazy because I think it was like two years ago I released the video why won't my character die and then that one got like a hundred thousand views over like the weekend And then it just kept like growing from there because I had been you know making it for like a year Or it's just like to put it out. Yeah, and you were you were sort of like the first big one that everyone kind of knew of and then and People think I'm arrogant And then and then further along there were more people doing things like like dingo and you know other people doing ranching out Z does stuff as well and now Yeah, I could definitely I mean I could definitely tell like there was some online animated content that got like really good views And people were watching and stuff like that and it's like but there's no one who's doing it like regularly They're just like condensing their campaign into a way that is very interesting because like other people would do like Animated D&D of other things like Taz or a critical role But like you like now it's like people kind of doing their own campaign So you have people like Aiden and like People not even talking about their own campaign, but just talking about the game like a Cane and Reba. Yeah, yeah, and you talk about the game quite a lot. Yeah. Yeah, and so there's like it's really There's just so much to D&D that you could like you have an unlimited amount of content to make yeah It's just yeah, you talk about anything because it's and that's that's one of the things that lends itself so well to Making online content is that you talk about your own campaign you talk about other people's campaigns You can talk about theoretical ideas for campaigns, you know Yeah, you can make an entire series about why it's a good idea to seduce the main bad guy. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, that was actually the funny thing was that I made the last video I made or the previous one I called it like horror RPG store RPG horror story something like that and people got really confused initially because they're like Oh, you're you know, it's a it's a bad campaign and that's what I would assume and so I had to say like creepy horror RPGs that way just to clarify. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, we've we've all been doing it for like even do two years I'm going on two years in April. You're like three years, Ben Yeah, about three years, and I just started like this year Yeah, well, yeah, you must be done for a year. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, but pretty much this panel is just like How do we do it? Yeah How could you do it from the growing from the growing community? We can tell that a lot of people kind of want to do this as well Not as a career. This is not a panel about how to turn it into a career That was a fluke that was just if you want to turn it into a career get a time machine and go back to like 2009 No, it's more just like it really is up to Like randomness it's luck. Yeah, and for us it was because it was new People didn't really had seen it before so I mean some people want to do it for them So like I originally started the crap guys for my friends because my friends I wanted to get them in a monster hunter I'm like, how can I explain monster hunter them in a simple fast way so that I did that and you know That's really where the heart of it should be is like because people want to make these things for their friends And for themselves when I don't know like maybe you want to edit down a Session of audio that you recorded for your game so that you can play it for the next session and be like episode I'm like on the last time on the adventures of the butt friends. Yeah Yeah, yeah, I initially did not make it for my friends as a matter of fact I kept it a secret from my friends so it was just me talking about the gaze and stuff like that And then it's like after a while a year or something. I was like by the way you guys Yeah So I make online content and I was actually the reason I call it puff and forest was it was just like two random names So that way it was like an alias or something, but I mean, it's like there's nothing like horrendously embarrassing for them I'm pretty sure there isn't but Anyway, so let's talk about like writing. Yeah, how do you making yeah, so what's like the first couple steps of like What we have to do in our process, right? So the thing that starts is writing, you know, you have to write you have to figure out what you're gonna do What is the thing that you're passionate about that you want to put out there? Either it'd be information about D&D or stories or Yeah Well for me the thing was is that I just made videos based on what I would talk to people normally And I would just I just tell stories like all the time So I'm like, okay, this is the kind of stuff I would do online because it's like I have practice with it And so that was there was a big like tell for me about like what I was going to go into and That's and then after a while it's like, okay people come back for that and they enjoy that and so it's like, okay This is the kind of content that they're interested in But how do you how do you condense D&D into a story? That's like ten minutes or less Yeah It's a lot of pain I I Struggle with that myself. How do you you have a 50-hour campaign to try to condense it into like that's why I went episodic Like it's literally why I went episodic because well, you know, you're the only you're the only one here who does like an ongoing story How do you condense the each session? Okay, so The main thing when you're trying to tell a D&D story is that you're trying to hit What was really important in that session? Like what are like the three things that was super important? I don't go more than three because more than three kind of like There's a lot of information and your audience can get lost. So you really want to just like simple simple simple And then pretty much So I condense in that way and then I roughly write about To about 1100 to 1600 words. That's how much my document is Yeah, I second that is I have discovered there are a few videos where I will try to go like way over that There was a super long 22 minute video. I made that they have not they've been giving me shit about it Yeah, why would you do that bet? It was it was inside of I had this video inside of me and it's like it's all just gonna come out in one shot In 22 minutes and it's like I got this thing that's been in 22 minutes that it's it's been inside of me for five years that video and it's all got to come out at once Yeah, and I think another thing about writing D&D is kind of quickly summarizing Things mechanics and like different parts of characters because even though some people know about D&D Well, first off some people don't know about D&D like how would you exclaim it explain it to your grandma? Yeah, how would you explain it to your grandmother? Is surprising the large chunk of my content the people who watch my content have never played D&D And so if you're talking about armor class or something or saving throws they're like Whoop, yeah, but if you say if you bring up like oh, there was a spell and got hit And they fall over like that's a little bit more and also whenever you're telling a story like Dingo it's good to reiterate these things in case somebody's joining in or somebody doesn't know the character it's like so So, so-and-so is a warlock, and they have a feature called this. Some people might play warlock and don't know about X feature or Y, you know, spell O, and then quickly summarize it like, this feature which does this, and in this situation, you know. And then you can kind of reiterate, like every couple, like I usually have a rule for myself of like, every three episodes or so, I try to go back and just kind of remind the audience of what's really important, because, you know, they may have forgotten about major plot points, or like, oh yeah, that character exists, you know, it's like, you know, you gotta remind them. But a lot of it with writing for D&D has to do with like, I don't know, who's in my train of thought? Oh. Joe Helming. I don't know where your train was headed. Yeah, I know, I know, it went off the rails and now it's gone. You'll get your thought back, I'll take it, so I did not actually answer the question, I just slammed my head against the thing, so I needed an actual answer, which is that, so like, I'll have 50 hours of campaign and a lot of this stuff is just boring, it's just boring, you know, it's like, trading AC blows or something, or players talking about this or that, or they have like a 45 minute conversation that goes nowhere, and so there's a lot of paraphrasing that gets done, where it's like, they had an hour and a half conversation, which basically boiled down to, we can't fight the dragon yet. Yeah. And then, so a lot of this stuff just gets boiled down, and then I do know that, like, it tends to, people kind of prefer like, a set up, development pay off kind of a situation. Like, if you just say, oh, this funny thing happened, it's like humorous, but it's not like a video, it's just something that's funny. There are some videos I've made where it's like a bunch of random stuff, but people kind of like, Introduction Act One, Act Two, Act Three kind of a thing, and like, I remember in one of my videos, I talked about how there was a new player got introduced to the group, and it's like, new player, first level, first level, first level then, and the thing was, is I never followed up on that character again, they just kind of got introduced, and everyone was asking me like, where is the character, what happened to them, did they live or something, because they felt like that was an Act One set, and that it didn't follow through on the two and three, but it was, I was following through on other stuff, but anyway, it's like, I do notice that people kind of prefer a development that happens, and if a character smacks another character on the back of the head, it's like, that's funny, but like, if they have a history, it's hilarious, you know, or something, or they have some kind of a background that would make it more interesting, and so in a D&D game, you have lots of random stuff that's happened, DICE is being rolled, and really I feel like almost the narrative is, to some extent, a lot of the narrative gets developed like the day after, or when you're like thinking about it after the fact, where you're like thinking about what happened, and it's finally connecting the dots, because in the heat of the moment, you don't think of, like, especially when it comes to discrepancies and plot holes, because when you're playing D&D and it's off the cuff and it's improv, you don't think about that stuff. A big one was the Malakar storyline, where it's like the main villain, so they're fighting, fighting, fighting, and then the main villain, like they disrupt it, but one of the players has to leave, and then they get sent off to all these other locations, and at the time, it's kind of like, oh, it's sort of a letdown, but then you piece the story together after the fact, and it's like, you know, this really was a satisfying end to it because of these things and how it developed. Yeah, it's mostly just like writing to the core, whatever the core is. My personal preference, I think I would do, if I did make story, because we were talking about making story, like story telling, and I haven't done it, but I have thought about it, and I think what I would do is you can cut out combat, like specifics, you can just be like, they fought, they won, or if somebody said like a specific, think less about what they did and what the general thing is. What did they do? What was the conclusion? In a TV show, the fighting actually goes over like really quick a lot of times, and even in like an anime where it's like, it's a long time, like that fight will be like a pause, and then they're like looking at each other, and the thing happens, and then they pause or something, and they don't go like blow by blow, and even if you read like a novel, it's not like Aragorn hit the orc, the orc hits him back, Aragorn hit the orc, you know, or something like that, and they trade blows. I actually don't miss this. A lot of times players would try, or this is an area where sometimes I disagree with other DMs, where sometimes they'll add like flavor to it, of like add other description into it, and I feel like sometimes I can add baggage to the combat, because suddenly it's now bloated, you know, or something where I prefer to kind of play the combat straight and just be like, okay, mechanically, this is what happens, and then after the fact, we can narrate in our head like this is the way it went down, this was just a beatdown, just whup-hap, whup-hap, whup-hap, and he's like down. Same thing with dialogue as well, you can just like summarize, instead of what they were saying, what is the general conversation about? Get to the core of it, and what was the, what was the mood, how did, if they were mad, make them really mad, you know, it's like you really want to get to the audience as quick as possible of like, what is happening? So just condense and move to the main. Instead of so-and-so says this, and then NPC says this, so-and-so says this, no. So-and-so goes to talk with NPC about blah-blah-blah, they learn this and that, and then now we know what our next objective is, or now so-and-so is mad, and goes and has a tantrum. Yeah, and I think also, yeah. Yeah, I think also a really important thing with writing, especially with retelling a story, is never to try to force emotions onto your audience. It's pretty important, because you can always tell when a writer is trying to force an emotion of just being like, you feel bad for that character, and then the audience is like, no, it's like. Proper build-up. Like the sad music, it's always the worst part of the movie, but it's like the sad music. Yeah, when you start putting sad music in. And it's like, you know. No, I'm not feeling it. Honestly, he's better off. When I, when I had, yeah. He's kind of a jerk. Like he burned down that entire, like he started burning that hospital like a mean. I don't feel, I feel a little bit bad, but not like too bad. Yeah, and I mean, when I had one of my episodes that I did, which was, I think, episode five, and one of the boilers, but one of the characters died. Yeah, not the playable characters, but it was an NPC that like, my character really, really cared about. And to me, I was devastated, because I was just like, I love this character. But I didn't know what the audience would think. I was just like, look, you guys don't know him very well. It's okay if you don't feel anything, but I'm crying, you know? But I'm really upset. And it's just to be honest with your audience and just be like, look, you have to understand that they haven't had that time to really dive in and like that character sometimes. But it also turned out that like, all my comments were just like, oh, I'm crying. And it's like, me too. Me too. Me too. So. But anyway, talking about, oh wait, wait, one thing, since I'm like the outlier, I didn't talk about making jokes. Yeah. And how to be funny. How to be funny. How to be funny. I need to. The easiest way to be funny is, all right. Usually, like. Usually, okay. You wanna, the funniest things are usually relatable things. You notice in a lot of my videos, I make things like, oh. I say things like, oh, awkward moments. Like, if you, figuring out if that teasing comment really hurt your friend's feelings or not and you don't know, it's like, you know, people have been in that situation sometimes. Just like. You're gonna hear that word for word in my next video. And of course the, you know, the last resort is always self deprecation. You don't know what to make fun of, make fun of yourself. Cause you know, you know yourself the best out of anyone. You know what makes you embarrassed. So odds are, maybe somebody else is embarrassed in the same way. And then that can be like the, oh, you didn't have to come to be like me like that. That kind of humor is always good. But yeah. But anyway, moving on to like audio and. First of all. Thank you. I had to tell everybody that's happening. Anyway, how have you guys handled audio? I mean, Joe, I'd like to hear you first. Cause I always love your audio. Thank you. Uh, if you want good audio, the best thing like Mike can help, but like if you just get a decent, even USB mic, it can be fine with some nice like finicking with audacity. The best thing that you need that will help the most is a good recording environment. Put up cloth everywhere. Get some soundproof foam. Make sure the room is small. If you have a car, go into your car. Go into your car. And record. That's what I did before. Take your laptop, yell into the void. Uh. Brother over here. Give you shit about it. Yeah. Probably tell your mom. With someone trying to kill you bad. No, Will. I'm voice acting. I'm a famous YouTuber. Thank you very much. I'm going to be famous. I have, I have work to do. Oh, sure. Work. Okay. And uh, turn your audio gain down real low. As low, like even if it's like bear, you can barely see the waveform because you can always turn it up. But if it's like too high and it's clipping, you can't recover that audio. It's like, it's done. It's going to be like thre-thre-thre-thre-thre. And it's like. Too much. It's going to be too much and you can't get it back. That was loud. I'm sorry. I think it's also, like you're not used to, if you start talking for the first time, it's so weird. It's so, because the problem is you're trying to do it naturally and there's no way that you can do it naturally. Hello there. I am Ben talking to you right now. And it's, it's weird because like sometimes people like ask me, like is something exaggerated? Is it over the top or something? And it's like, dude, I'm reading the script. Like I'm trying to be as natural as I can. That's one thing that just comes with practice. That's one thing that just comes with practice. To the character in my emotions at the time. But it's like, it's so weird to try and recreate those emotions when I'm in the car with a microphone, hypothetically. And. With the police officer knocking at your frickin window. And then. And then. And then. Officer, this is perfectly normal. Just lots of screaming. Excuse me. It's okay. This is for a YouTube channel. I'm sure officers will always appreciate when you explain that. Yeah, I'm a YouTuber. Excuse me. I'm not the beginner in my car. Oh, and although we always use a compressor on your audio to equalize it because you don't want to like have talking real quiet and then suddenly you're screaming and then the blow out everyone's eardrums and then they have to turn it down when it equalize your audio. So for me, for audio, like I don't have much technicality other than like, I have a Yeti. I have like a, yeah. The, the most basic that you can get. Cause I was just like, I don't want to spend like $300. I'm good with 100. So I use that. I actually don't have any like sound wall proof. I literally am in my bedroom and then I close all the doors and I make sure everybody's out of the house. I'm just like, I go throughout the house and I'm like, I'm going to be screaming. You know, please tell everybody that I'm not dying. So I go into my bedroom and then I just have a chair and then I just, I just speak. But for me, it's a lot of, I want it to sound like you're in the room with me. Like I want to have a conversation when I'm doing these recordings because the whole telling of a story just feels more natural if you're thinking of it being like at a party. Cause before I did YouTube, that's what I would do. I'd go to a party and be like, hold on. I have to tell you about this one time. Yeah, you got to tell it like you're telling it to a friend. I sang karaoke and it went really bad. I had to practice a bunch of voices to, so that way the characters could get differentiated because earlier on I did not differentiate the characters by voice. And so you had this problem where it's like, they all kind of blended together cause I would just speak in a normal tone and it's like, this is not going to work. I have to have different voices. Yeah, like even acts. I have like five I could do. And there's one accent I can do and that's absurd. And damn it, he stole that accent. Now I can't use it for any other character now because he like owns that character. And so, cause the thing is I would use that absurd accent for like other characters. I'm like, oh, hello there. Okay, this is me. I'm doing my accent. And then, cause it's like I had the one. And then now he took it and so I can't do it again. Yeah, yeah. And I find that with like voice acting, which I mean like I'm still very much a novice. But if it feels cringy, you're doing it right. Yeah, I think there's also this instinct. I remember where I first started I would like, hello, okay, I'm doing. And you talk like really soft spoken or something like that, cause it's weird. It's really weird to just be by yourself just kind of shouting into a mic. And then it gets slightly less weird as time goes on. You just keep doing it. I totally get it if you're not comfortable, believe me, I understand. But you have to just keep pushing through and realizing that you have to do what's best for the video. Sometimes that means putting your anxieties aside and being like, okay. Just put your pride aside. Put your pride aside and just put it out there. Be embarrassed. There's so many times, there's so many times when I finish a video and I can't even watch it when I'm done. I cannot watch some of my older videos. The latest, I'll go back like a year. No, I'm talking about my now video. I'm talking about my now videos. I'm talking about like the last video I posted like a couple of weeks ago, I would finish it and I'd be like, can I have Felix? Can you watch it? Tell me if there's something wrong and then I'll upload it. It is the worst feeling in the world when you upload a video and like, I will rewatch it or something and I'm like, yeah, totally should have fixed that last week. Totally should have fixed that last week. Well, my video's a perfect one. Okay, thanks, Joe. That's great to hear. That's the biggest thing when it comes to any voice acting or like creative is like, you just have to let yourself be embarrassing and you are going to be cringe and you just got to get over it. Yeah, you just have to move forward. Because eventually that cringe is going to turn into like genuine like good substance. And it's going to be like, whoa, that looks so natural. They can just do that. And you know, if you're still uncomfortable, even the professionals cringe at themselves freaking like, I'm sure Matt Mercer sometimes listens to his own voice and he's like, ugh. But anyway, getting on to animation. I will now pass the buck. I will now pass the buck over to these two and finally fuck off. Can we get, can we get the, oh, there we go. Okay. Red. So anyway, the thing is that these two have way more background in animation in artwork than I do. Yeah, I think, Ben, I think you should go first. Yeah, that's why I think you should go first. Oh, great. Yeah, you, well, that's good. That's great. You did that. Fabulous. You did not do any art until you started your YouTube channel. No, I hated art. Hated, hated, hated, hated it. And if I could go back in time and be, talk to my high school stuff and be like, hey, by the way, you're going to be making cartoons. I would punch them in the face in multiple sides. Cause I just hated it cause it's like, it's so slow, it's like writing, but like really slow. You're like, hey, I want to draw this thing. And then you spend like two hours on it and it looks terrible. Like why would people do that? And it was, it was actually would have, once again, I was running a blog and I was like writing and I tell stories and stuff like that. And then I'm like, oh, I kind of want some art for this. And then I saw an artist working. And I think the thing that really sold it for me was I realized like they were making mistakes and kind of backing, going back over it to like fix it where someone would draw a line and then they erase it and draw another line. And I'm like, oh, like, and it made me realize how like, you know, they're fixing stuff, they're going along slowly and like, and seeing the sketch work and realizing their thought process. I'm like, hey, I could do that. And then I tried it and I was like, oh, no, I can't. But I actually, I got into art and more as kind of like an intellectual thing of like, I can't do it, but why? And it's like, and so I just kept puzzled. Yeah, and I kept practicing on it, but also when I first started, I just used a mouse to draw. And that was why the character designs were the way they were. It'd be like two circles for eyes and then an oval and then two glimpses. Didn't you use MS Paint? I use something very similar to MS Paint that was like the bootleg version of something else. But anyway, so I started drawing with that. And so for the first year, all of my art was done with a mouse where I just kind of click, click, click, click, click. And then I used, started using a drawing tablet. And the first one I did, one of the first ones I did with a drawing tablet was the critical roll video, the animation for that. And that was because I was like, if this artwork clicks terrible, I'm going to get stabbed to death. And so the, I love the fans. It's just that I, I'm like, I really want this to actually look decent. And then people like, oh, this is pretty cool. And then the next one I made, or one of the ones I made after that was like, well, my character died and then it became better. What would be your advice for someone who is never drawn before? What's something that you wish you knew when you started? It's, so the thing is that to me, I almost look at art or as drawing as, it's almost kind of like writing, where you like learn a form, like you learn a certain move to make a certain thing. And then you just remember those small components. And then the components come together for characters. So it's like this piece plus this piece plus this piece in the same way that like letters, but it's a very complicated language in a way. And so you kind of make certain motions over and over. And also when I would draw, it's very different from writing because I would just go like this and do chicken scratch. And then it wasn't until later that it's like, oh, you're using your whole arm like to make certain things. And if you, if you don't really draw, it's very unusual. And plus I like, I was always worried about like, oh, the line's not straight. It's gonna be kind of squiggly. And later on I realized like, oh, it's like sometimes people use like a stabilizer or they've just have so much experience that like they do it quickly or something. They're a little tricks that I can use to make it stable. Cause I always would be like, it's gotta be a perfect line and time if you're going later, it wouldn't look right. And yeah, just like the other skill, you've got to let yourself be cringe. Yeah, yeah. And on the opposite side of the spectrum, you literally do drawing as a job, as a job, like before and now. Yeah, I did previously. Yeah, cause I went to, cause I mean, I'd drawn my entire life. Drawing was like the one thing that I was good at. So yeah, I went into college for it, but it was like a 10 month program. I couldn't do like a four month or four year program. I get too squirrely and jump out of the window. I just can't do it. So I did like a 10 month program of just like digital art and traditional art. And then I took a year off and then I went to 2D animation school as well. So that was a 12 month program. And I just, I wanted to just learn it. I had this like urge of just being like, if I don't do this, I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life. And I didn't know why I was just like, okay, I guess I'm going to go. And I just did that. But on the side, from 2012 till YouTube, I did comics. I had drawn comics in high school and all throughout my life. But then I was like, you know what? I'm going to take a swing at it. I'm going to try to do comics. And the comics was like one off funny panel kind of thing. It wasn't like a running story or anything like that. It was literally me just trying to figure out how to panel things, how to tell jokes. There's really terrible jokes and all my old stuff just because I'm just trying to learn how to do comedy and stuff like that. So I did that for a while and then eventually I got contacted by a company, a game company that was like, hey, we saw your comics. I did a comic that kind of went a little viral, whatever it was, but it was like a Sombra comic. So if you guys know Overwatch or something, when Sombra launched, I made a funny comic about it. It was like something about Wi-Fi and all that stuff. But they saw that and the company was like, oh yeah, can you do that? But like 60 times and I'm like, sure, for our game? And I'm like, yeah, sure, I'll make jokes for your game. So I did that for them for about a year. And that was a lot of fun. That was a big learning experience for me. And then I would actually get a paycheck. I was like, yes, finally, I made it. You've done it, success. Yeah, yeah, I mean previously I had done commissions and tried to do that for a long time, but finally I had like an actual pay stub. And then I kind of, I paid for my rent and I paid for very minimal living and I saved every single dollar. And then I had accumulated enough money at the end of that year contract to literally have a year off if I wanted to. I was like, okay, I will still be poor, but I will be enough that I can do whatever I want for an entire year. And that's when you started animation? That's when I started YouTube. And how would you... Can I step in and talk to the conversation about how we met around then? Sure, what happened? What happened? So what happened is that she contacted me and she said, like, hey, I'm interested in getting an animation and making dojo dragon stories. And by that time, like 20 other people had contacted me about that and they'd send me their videos and stuff and I'm like, good, you know, good jobs. They want support and it's like, what do I need to do? It's like, I don't know. But anyway, so this person contacted me, Dingo. And she's like, oh, I'm thinking about making a video. This is gonna be my first video. Well, I'd already done the video. I literally, it was my very first video, which was the karaoke video. And then I was like, I put it on Twitter and I tagged him in it and it says, hey, you kind of inspired me to do a funny D&D story. Like, throw it at you. And so I check it out and I'm like, this is really good. This is your first video? Because I was coming at it from like, oh, like I had never drawn before. And then like, I see it. I'm like, this is real, this is your first video. This is really good. And so I'm like, you know, and so. So if he was a real artist, he would have been like, it's garbage. I was trying and I kind of gave her the spiel at the beginning of like, you know, YouTubeing is really hard. Like if you want to do other ones, you know, it's going to be a rough road. And then like in the first week, she gets like a hundred thousand views or something. I'm like, she's fought like, okay. Well, yeah, because we were going to Skype or whatever and talk. You were going to Skype like at the end of the week. And she had like a hundred subscribers. And by the end of it, she had like 10,000. It's like, we, there's nothing I can tell you that you don't already know. But on the topic though, what is something that you can tell people that they don't know if they would want to start getting an animation? Something you wish you knew? The one thing, I mean, the big thing with animation and drawing in general is like, life drawing is super duper important. I didn't realize how much life drawing was important to me until like, I left college and then I didn't have it all the time. What is life drawing? Yeah, life drawing is pretty much when you have like, somebody naked, stand in front of you and then you have to draw them. And I mean, you can put pants on them if it makes you feel comfortable. But pretty much we did that in class all the time and they would be doing poses like every five seconds almost. It was like five second pose, five second pose. And you'd have to draw it really, really quick. And by doing those courses, I did so much growth in those things and that was super important to me. You learned form and silhouettes. Yeah, it's form and silhouettes and learning how to draw fast and trusting your eyes. That was the big thing. For your hand to translate with your eyes is just like, you have to learn to do that. It's not natural. You have to focus and keep working at it. But also with animation, pick up the book by Richard Williams, the animation book that he does, I can't remember. But the creator of Richard Williams is stable. Yeah, and also the animators survival guide with the 12 principles of animation. Is that the one? No, that's Olly Johnston. I will say I'm always continuously impressed by your guys' artwork. It looks phenomenal. And pace yourself. As someone who doesn't pace themselves because I'm a hypocrite, pace yourself. I hope you guys, or fans of him, appreciate him. He's been working nonstop on his video. I'm done though. It's uploaded now. Yeah, he was doing it all day. I did not know you completed that. Before this panel, he's like, I'm working on a video right now. But yeah, one technical thing, learn how to do in-betweens. For those of you who don't know, in-betweens and animation is if I draw one pose of my arm like this, and then I draw a second one like this, instead of going straight ahead, drawing it here, here, here, here, I don't know where the arm's gonna end up. I draw it here, I draw it here, and then I draw the middle here. And then it's gonna look pretty natural. Do that with everything. That makes animation so much easier. Yeah, cause you have to cut corners when you're making such a huge amount of content. Like to be honest, our stuff is like, I call it slutty animation. But it's just like you have to cut corners where my stuff is all black and white pretty much. However, you can trick people by using colored lines. So if you have a background, and let's say there's a bush, just draw the bush green, like with a green line. And your mind will naturally fill in that color. So, what? Ooh, also, also change the scene a lot. Don't do the same like, no, keep going. I didn't tell you to stop. One thing that I, a pitfall that I run into is I'll draw a scene the same way as if the camera is like looking at them from a profile view and you can see their whole body for the whole thing. Change it, maybe do a close-up, maybe add a low down view or high up view. Yeah, totally. Change, yeah, a variation to make it interesting. Because it's a visual medium, you want to make it interesting. It doesn't even have to have motion, you know, like, and another thing, another corner you can cut is how you do dingo where you'll take the character and you'll stretch them like away before they do the motion. And it kind of kind of give you the illusion of like the anticipation of like, I'm gonna go this way. Yeah. So a lot of animators do that. You do a little squishy and you're done. But yeah, there's lots of things you can cut and you kind of also need to, with animation, get into the mindset of like, it's good enough. Move on. Learn to finish it. Don't add minute detail, like if it's like not, don't perfect it. Oh, you can't. You can't with animation. You'll never will and you'll never finish it. Yeah. It's like shove it out the door. You can see the progress from like one, like my first video to the latest one, you can see progress of just being like, I've gotten faster. I've gotten the lines are cleaner and stuff like that. Cause you get more confidence, you go on. But if I had just spent my entire year on one video and be like, it's gotta be perfect, then I wouldn't have had that growth. I would have just kind of gotten stuck. So you need to just get into the idea of that nothing's perfect and you're gonna do way better if you just keep moving on. Okay, so moving on to avoiding burnout. Burnout. Burnout. Yes. Burnout. Cause we are in a very, like I mean, normally in people in most jobs, like they do get burnt out of their jobs quite quickly, but in ours, like it's such a passion fueled work where it's like, ooh, I'm inspired to make this thing that then when you're out, like you're just done. It's so hard to tell jokes cause it's like, ha, ha, ha, I'm making a joke. So especially if this is going to be a passion and a hobby thing for you, which it is, it's not gonna be a career. Don't crush people's dreams. Well, I don't want to set them up and be like, oh, you're gonna go to VidCon 2019 and eat. Don't make promises you can't keep. Yeah, just like, cause like, I don't want to be like, ah, you're going to go in the YouTube rewind. That's what they sound like. That's them. You're going to YouTube rewind and you're going to meet Psy again. He's releasing Gangnam Style 2. But like, if you're not feeling it, stop. Try something else. Even if you still feel like, oh, I want to keep doing animation, but I'm not feeling it for some reason. Try a different subject. I gotta ask you guys's opinion. How do you feel about like, how has your cycle been for like burnout? Do you go through it on like a regular basis or anything? Also, just to clarify, burnout is just when you're just like, I just don't feel like making a video. Like I just don't have it. Like you love it and you wish that you could, but you're just like, I can't. And I would just like want to do something else. One thing is to try to implement that passion into another thing. Like for me, after I did the wizard video, I started doing Nuzlocke videos and I still did animation, but I just did animations for the intros and outros, as a way to practice where I'm still doing animation, but just like not in the same form and it was something slightly different. And that's inspired me again. Another good way to just get rid of burnout is to go live and have a life, maybe not travel if it's expensive. You can hang out with some friends, do things, go to your job. So once a year you do that one hang out with friends thing and it's like, I have fulfilled my quota and that is a problem. You'd be surprised how refreshed you are and like how many ideas you'll get when you're not like just hunkering down and just like, you can't really force it when it comes to like inspiration and like the passion being there. I mean you get burnout anytime you do a thing over and over. Like I was running, I got into running D&D games. I was running like three, four sessions a week and I'm like, man, I love D&D, but not like that much. Like I love it like this much, not this much. You're eating too much cake, you have too much cake. You know, it's like you're just eating it every day. But for me, I kind of go through like burnout cycles where I'll be kind of like, you don't really hear from me for a while and then I'll work on other stuff that like doesn't get released or like sometimes I'll have like, you know, I'm in burnout phase where I'm writing like three, four, five scripts and I'm just like, I can't record the audio for a while. So sometimes that causes a bunch of delays. And then other times I'll like, ooh, and then I'll be like putting them out. But there was a period of time when I first started the channel where I was just, I had like a winter break to make videos and I was just waking up and then making a video for the full day and I'd go to bed. And that was my entire day for like weeks and weeks for several months. And I was just like this, I cannot, that is not. Is that not normal? Ooh, one thing. Okay, if you have a project that's in the works and this goes for anything, like any sort of hobby or like passion project, if you have a project that's in the works and you really wanna work on something else, at least finish that project first, but don't go back to it and like, at least finish it and like so that you can learn and get better at finishing things. Because if you only start projects, you're not gonna be able like, as it gets closer to completion, it's gonna look bad and you're gonna be like, that's because you don't learn how to finish. I also do that thing where I have like multiple projects and then one of the projects gets stopped and so I like, ah! And then I go over to something else and I start working and then I get stuck there. So I'm like, ah! Yeah, that can be a problem. It's like when you open up the save file of like an old game and you start playing and then you're at a part that you got stuck. It's the one part you hated and so you boot up the game and you get to the part and it's like, eh! And then you quit the game and then you boot up another one. Oh, another game I didn't like. But basically you finish it and then start that thing you're passionate for. If it's like, if you're working on like a series like we do like and you're not feeling the series, come back to it later. Finish the one you're working on and come back to it later. Go work on that thing that you're like, ah, I can't wait to do that. Go do that. It'll refresh you. Change of pace is good. For me with Burnout, Burnout is, it's a constant struggle because like every video I have a period of time where I'm just like, it's like a week where I can't do anything. And I actually have to completely step away from social media because like, I love getting comments and messages and stuff, but it gets a lot and not because it's bad, but just a lot. It's like it's a room full of people just went, hello! And it's like, you know, it's a lot. So I have to pull away and I have to be like, no, no, I'm okay. Doing my own thing. So pretty much I like turn off my computer. I'm off of the internet for like three days. Well, but then I go into Netflix. So, but it's pretty much like, oh, I have a series I have been neglecting because I've been working so hard. So I'm just gonna binge it now and like, oh, I'm gonna go to the pool and swim or like I'm gonna go for a walk. This is also important. Have a dedicated workspace and time and have a dedicated play space and time. I, when I was in college, the place where I ate, slept, played games and worked were all the same place and it ruined me, don't do that. Even if you can afford it, have a dedicated work computer. Don't put games on your computer. I wanted to write a novel and I used to work in my bed, type and stuff out and that was the most miserable thing because it's like you're in your bed typing and then you go to sleep and you spend another eight hours in the bed. Yeah, because that's become your workspace and you're like, I could be typing right now. It is the most depressing thing in the world to spend like what, 60 hours just in the bed. Yeah, because your brain associates that bedtime with you typing and it's like, I feel like I'm wasting time because I'm not typing so that anxiety is keeping me off and then you just die. Yeah. But anyway, do we wanna move over to Q and A stuff? Yeah, we can, I think we covered pretty much. I think we got it all. Yeah. We probably missed a whole bunch of stuff but we'll remember it like 10 minutes, a good 10 minutes once this panel's done it's like we totally botched that, didn't we? Yeah. So now we're gonna open up to Q and A. Yeah. Do we have microphones that we can... Do we have microphones for people to line up? Line up, yeah. Or do we have people that are very loud? Over there, where? All right, you're very loud. You can say question. Where's... Yeah, awesome. Yes? Actually, we have mics on the two lanes. If we can because we're streaming, they need to be on both sides. And so it's actually better to use the mic so that way they can... If you guys can go back and forth. If people can hear that. Yeah, yeah. So people can start lining up. He can go first, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, let him do his thing, yeah. No, after you. Yeah. So Kat, how do you record your no breath videos? So I have a stutter, a very slight, because I have fat lips. And I... It just takes practice. I do a bazillion takes. Like sometimes one line will take like 10 takes. And I just kind of learn the line, repeat it over and over. And just until I get a natural one, just like over and over again, practice rehearse. I don't speed it up. Just practice. Thanks. So we'll probably just like back and forth. Yes. All right, there you go. Hello. Hello. Hello. It's okay, I'm getting used to the mic too. This is for Jo Ket. I'm a very new fan, but a big one nonetheless. I am also an artist. I love your art style. I think it's very great. Thank you. It's very fun. I don't. It's really good. I was just wondering like, how did you come upon your art style? I feel like it's very hyper specific to you. So like, how did you get that? I say this about any like developing art style is learn real life first, learn what you're going to simplify and then sprinkle in parts of different art styles that you like. Like for example, I sprinkle in a little bit of Disney and a little bit of anime because I like both of those things. But I learned just like Dingo, real life drawing, real life drawing, learn anatomy because your art style is like a simplification and like expression of how you would see the world in this cartoony style. Like how you would simplify it and then develop it from there. Yeah, that's how I came to my style anyway. Occasionally I would see an artist do a thing where I was like, I didn't think of that and then I would try and implement it in. But every now and then I would go back and learn figure drawing again. Awesome. And also real quick, did you plan matching your picture? Like was that with your jacket and your shirt? I did, because this is my outfit. Thank you so much. Yeah, of course. All right, that's fine. Hi, might I just say it's an honor to stand before you guys. You're like a council of elders or something. But this is a question for all of you. How intensive is your thumb nailing storyboard process when it comes to approaching a video or animation? You assume I do that. You assume. Okay, so the I don't storyboard as well. I should. If I ever start doing what they do, I should. I do. Dingo, you probably, yeah, you actually storyboard. I mean, I do like this little guys, but it's literally like at most every day when I try to tackle the video, it's about a minute I want to accomplish. So the thumbnails itself maybe take me about, I don't know, 10 minutes. And they're really, really simple. Like just stick figures. I'm just trying to figure out who's gonna be in the shot. What is the shot? Like is it an upshot, downshot, side shot? What's happening? And it's really, really quick. Not much details. It's very simple. For a piece of furniture can literally just be a blob. Oh, I can literally go chair, it's right down chair. And I'm like, okay, got it. For me with thumbnails, I tend to prefer like character's faces or like whoever. So that way people have something to identify. Like an Otterton video, it's like, oh, Otterton has to be in the video. Oh no, we're talking about like storyboarding. Oh, I thought I heard thumbnail. Well, yeah, that's the use thumbnails for storyboarding. That's a new art term that we'll tell you about it later. Yeah, I'll teach you, I'll teach you about it later. I'll teach you all of the things. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you. Is this good? Yeah. I thought it'd be like two of a cause. As you guys have been doing your videos and whatnot, have you thought like of what you'd ideally like to do next? Like for example, like for Dingo, you know, currently you're doing the Fool's Gold stuff and things like that. Do you think your next set of videos after let's say that wraps up, would it just be another campaign? Would it be more like something closed stuff? So like what's our next big project? Next big project. Yeah, like how does like inspiration hit you? And then there's also like that nervousness of like, well, is this gonna be as well-liked as what I did before? And how do you do with that kind of struggle, you know? Ben, do you wanna go first? Yeah, that's, yeah, I worry about some of the old stuff. Like the thing is that if you've been making content for like any length of time, what happens is you have some videos that are like really strong and then the next video that comes out is like not as strong. And you have to be like, oh, this is just funny cause it's, the problem is that if you keep trying to like one up yourself over and over, you'll never make content. Even as like a GM, like you're running games, like you'll have a game that goes over like really well and like, oh, it's gotta be like 10 times better. And the problem is sometimes you get content that's like really strong and it's like, you have to just kind of be okay with like, this is just good or great content. And then there's also this, the thing where you have this cool idea and you start making it and it gets like down, it's not as good. It's like, you thought it was a 10 out of 10, that's really an eight out of 10 and you have to be okay with it being at that level. But what about you? I would like to make like a animated short film, like a like 10 to 15 minutes like fully animated. I don't know, I don't know what it'd be about, but I would like to fully animate something to the level of my Nuzlocke intros. For me, I mean, the Full School campaign actually, it's like, I looked at how many episodes it'll probably be. It's gonna be a few years, like yeah. It's a long campaign, it's like, it took a year and a half. So it's gonna be a long campaign and I even starting in the middle, wow, a lot of stuff. But after that, actually on my side, I actually write pilots for shows in the way and I kind of like try to pitch them to companies and stuff like that. So originally after this, I was like hoping to eventually get into TV. Writing for TV would be really cool. I'm treating this YouTube project as a way for me to figure out how to write a TV show. So that's why my content's very TV-esque like dialogue. It's also a portfolio. It's my portfolio and also my like learning ground. Like I need to figure out how things work. Part of the reason I started on YouTube was like, even if it doesn't go anywhere, at least I have like a portfolio of artwork that I can like. I have experience with this. And as far as the second part of the question, like about how do you know if it's gonna do well, you don't, you just gotta trust that what you're doing is you're passionate about. And it's gonna be your personal growth. Yes, and the only person you can guarantee that it's gonna like it is you. So make it something that you like because you can't guarantee anybody else is gonna like it. You have to be proud of it. You have to make something that you're proud of. You can't really cater to anyone but yourself. Okay, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Next question. So I was wondering what everyone's favorite video to make was, maybe not necessarily the most mechanically well done, but what was favorite to make? Like fun? Yes. Kind of thing? Fun. I don't think that one. Ben, do you know? Okay, so one which came out like really well was the latest like Call of Cthulhu video I did, the story line. I really liked, I also liked the Deadlands story line where they're going for gold. And then the other one that I really liked was, there was one with Bernard, the whale, and Bidey the spider. And then at the end it has the joke with the turtle friends where they're like, what's your guys' name? Turtle, beep! And it's like I'm not gonna talk about that which my comment section has been bringing up on every single video. I think my favorite is not even a D&D, it's a game video. It's my overly edited Persona 5 series because I get to, I'm a graphic designer, I have a master's degree in graphic design. And I just loved recreating all the like UI stuff and the poppin' and I made like a, like a red and white Persona style pog face and it was great. And yeah, that was my personal favorite. I think I have like, I have one that's the D&D one, which was like episode six, which is when Mr. Wizard Lee comes in and that was a really fun video to draw because he's just such a, such a bitch. So it was fun to draw him and it was really fun. And then I had a life video that I drew about me in water and that was really fun. Yeah, that was really fun. I loved just going hog wild on that one and just kind of like stretching my legs and having fun. Yeah, that was fun. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next question. Hello, good afternoon. Hi. So I heard a story that you were inspired to go through Fool's Gold when you saw Puffin. And you're like, here's my thing. And I noticed a similar animation where character's here and it smashes it and it works, I've seen it throughout distinct styles. How much artistically are you looking at YouTube and kind of going to and not stealing, but I mean being inspired by other artists and their styles and also from where you guys started like an awesomely apocalyptic karaoke story, a character death, how to do D&D poorly. Do you start with the premise of I've got funny stories so I'm going to use a cartoony style or did you start from I've got a kind of cartoony style, I may be going to go a little more humorous. So what do you do first? So it kind of like, how are you influenced artistically and what comes first for you to draw? Yeah, so Dingo, how much of a Jaden animation clone are you? Yeah. It's art, it's inspiration. It's death, no I know. Friends, don't hate me. You steal from everything and it's inspiring. Do you remember what I said about the teasing, making someone legitimately mad or not? No, I'm feeling that right now. No, no. No, actually, well it would definitely like watching the story time animations just like their format, because I really like their format. But as for my style, like the way I draw, that's from like my comics, which was like, I just kept getting my eyes bigger and bigger and I just kept going. That's actually stemmed from like a deviant art account that I saw and I was like, I really like their style and I kind of took some inspiration of their style but it eventually morphed into what you guys see now. But as for what came first, I think it was the art and then my humor kind of fell through. But it really goes hand in hand where I just, I think in jokes. Okay, also the other thing about the eye thing, like I think everyone realizes when they start drawing, there's so much space on a person's face. Like the eyes are tiny. Like you could like, look, all the score head could be taken up with two giant eyes. Like really terrible design the way. Was there anything that inspired you then? Yeah. So for me, I started with the goofy stories and then I had to adjust and do art and then it's like you realize like, this story deserves better art and so you start practicing and stuff and then get like hopefully better and better. So you're just a story before the art. Yeah, but it's also for me, it's the realization like expressive faces are a huge part of the story for me and so that's why I started practicing on. And for me, I just really liked this one character from RB and the Chief. It's Master Chief and he's a big jerk and he had a show where he would review games badly. Like he reviewed Ocarina of Time and it's like, oh, look at this controller. It's dumb. It's got three sticks. What do you do with the third stick? Shove it up your butt. And I was like, oh, that's hilarious. This guy's hilarious. Yeah, and I'm like, I want to do that for the stuff that I like because that doesn't exist. Actually one of the first videos I made, so I really like Zero Punctuation by Yahtzee. That one, yeah. And what happened is I started, I actually, the first time I ever made a video, I tried to make it similar to like, like I was borrowing from his style and then like within like 10 seconds of making the video I'm like, no, no. I forget if I got through the script or started reading it, but it's like the other thing is his style is so different from the way that I naturally do my humor kind of a thing that it's like, I can't, this is not my... Whereas his style is something that I completely ripped off. Yeah. And yeah. Yeah, how much of a clone are you? Yeah, well, about 90%, the drawing is like the other 10%. And then the drawing came second because originally I did it for Monster Hunter where there was no drawing. And I was just like, well, I'm gonna do it for D&D, but I don't, there's not enough B-roll for me to use. I would have to go through so much B-roll. So I was like, well, it's a pen and paper. So, you know, let's draw. How would this guy draw? He would draw like this. And then that's how it works. We do only have two minutes left, so we're gonna wrap up. I thank you for the question. Next. So, first up, I wanna thank you, Joe Kat, face-to-face for the surfetched video. You're welcome. Because that came out of nowhere and that was for me. But secondly, for the three of you, and Joe Kat specifically, because he made such a big jump in his videos, is what made you decide to do videos on D&D specifically? Why D&D? Because I like it. Bam, next question now. I think we mentioned this earlier. There's just so much to it, you know? There's so much cool stuff and it's fun to play pretend and this is an adult version of play pretend and there are so many cool stories to tell for me personally. Yeah, I mean, with me, Dungeons and Dragons was way more interesting than my life. So I was just like, this seems like a way better story to tell people than my actual every day. Ben, go fast. Yeah, we have time for maybe one more question. Yeah. Ben, you didn't answer. You didn't go fast? Fast, quick, don't tell a story. Anyway, I love Dungeons and Dragons and so that's what I do. Anyway. Perfect, next. Hey guys, so you have all become really successful in your own right and it sounds like you all started just doing this for fun. Yeah. The quick question, how many hours a week do you actually spend working on this and is it supplementary income or full-time now? For me, it's full-time. Full-time. And the thing is that when I do an animation, it's a huge time sink and then other times it can be kind of slow. Yeah, it's inconsistent. I think if I were to average, it would be probably like a typical 40 hour work week. Mine's 40 to 60. I work on a consistent, like I work five to six days a week, which is not healthy, don't do that. Yeah, thank you. Okay, one more, last question. So sorry, anyone who we didn't get to? Sorry, so Ben, Puffin. Yeah, I only recently became a fan of your videos. I looked at them and I just go meh. But I started watching them and I'm like, this guy is actually pretty cool. This is mainly for you then. My group is so bad with remembering what it is I actually ended up having to become the group chronicler. I just want to know like, do you do that when you like run groups? Do you go into this thinking like, maybe something in here is going to be funny or do you just go in and just play the damn game? So the thing is that honestly, I just kind of play, like I do have a bunch of ideas going in and then I have to remind the players what's going on. But I think sometimes you just kind of go in and play and then just see what comes out of it. It's the best option. All right, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you everyone for coming. Yeah, and one last thing. Yeah. One last thing. Today at two o'clock, I will be signing at booths of 4,001. 4,001 at the deck of many. Can I come? Yeah, you can come. But yeah, so I'll be there from two until I get tired, which is I'm trying for four o'clock. So at least till four, I'll be signing. I'll do it. Thank you so much. You're all beautiful. All right.