Arts - Crafts - Cosplay
Hello! I’m not 100% sure what or why I’m expanding my online presence into my own website, but here I am!
Is this a portfolio, a place to talk in depth on my projects, a place to upload my templates, a place to safely catalog my stuff without fear of losing it on social media, or is it a preemptive setup for any possible future expansion of whatever it is that I’m doing across all these platforms? …yes?
So what is all this then? In short, this is just me cataloging my current and past crafting projects. Whether or not these projects are worth anyone’s time is purely subjective, I’m just putting it out there for those interested.
Here, and across all other social platforms, I'll cover all of my arts and crafts projects, my cosplay, and whatever other projects I may be up to. My most well-known Cosplay projects are Warhammer 40k related, but I also make things based around other fandoms I enjoy, such as Diablo, Silent Hill, Final Fantasy, the Cyberpunk Genre, and more.
I tend to make 2 major Cosplay projects a year, one for Sci-Fi Valley Con in Altoona Pennsylvania, and one for Halloween at my local Roller Skating Rinks.
Please feel free to follow along my reckless creative journey as I fumble through projects while somehow barely making it to the finish line on time.
History
Evil Ernie (Chaos Comics) 1997, 7th grade
Early Illustrations
While I didn’t grow up in the most stable of households, my mothers side of the family was always artistic. My mother was pretty good at painting and illustrating. But after having us, she stopped drawing and painting all together. But as a kid she would share with me her art from high-school, and it was enough to encourage me to peruse illustrating as a kid. My grandmother was a hobbyist, her basement was a full craft room where she made pottery and ceramics. Painting ceramics with her as a kid got me very comfortable with a paintbrush.
Growing up I wanted to be a comic book artist, the comic book boom of the early 90s inspired a lot of kids. I’d buy comic books at the flea market and studying the art and poses. By the time I hit high-school, I was going to the book store, buying books on anatomy to study. And I was enrolled in my school Art-Major program, where I’d spend the first half of the day in an advanced arts class.
Evil Ernie (Chaos Comics) 1999, 9th grade
Early Animation
By about 9th grade I had fallen in love with the new rise in anime, especially OVAs. It opened a whole new realm of ideas for art and expression. It didn’t take long until I found Macromedia flash, and started learning.
For about the first 2 years of dabbling in this software, I used a mouse to draw. Eventually I would start hand animating with paper, scanning the drawings, and then tracing them in flash.
By 2002, as a senior in high-school, I started uploading my flash animations to Newgrounds.com
Newgroundsillaz - January 2003
By mid year as a senior, I got my first art tablet, a used Wacom Artz II.
Immediately I went back and redid some of my older animations, remaking everything, with a much higher degree of quality. Within a 3 month range of uploading animations to newgrounds.com, I saw a huge potential for a possible carrier in the future, in what was a new found artistic outlet.
Newgroundsillaz v.2 - March 2003
Freelance Animator
I spent the next few months refining my skills, and joining communities of animators online. By the time I finished high-school, I was getting freelance jobs as a digital artist and flash animator. I was working under the table for a guy running a small advertising/digital studio (that’s the best way I can describe it.). He’d find work, and pay us for various small online jobs. $50 Flash based banner ads, $150-250 website intro, $75 website art, etc. For a teenager right out of high-school in 2003, this was decent money.
This was long before the days of website like fiverr.com, so my only way to advertise my skills was through newgrounds.com. This was a double edged sword however. To get exposure for my current skill set, I had to make animations to be seen and noticed. But working freelance took away my time to make animations for newgrounds to advertise myself.
It did help that I was building a name for myself, and that several of my videos were featured on main pages throughout newgrounds’ website, and that one of my videos sat at the top of the top 50 of all time (at the #1 spot) for quite a while.
Newgrounds Profile shot (wayback machine)
My work as a freelance artist peaked when I was offered work to help finish the animation segments in Dual Masters, for the PS2.
Duel Masters - 2004
It was a hectic 3 weeks. The animation director was mostly outsourcing flash animators, and that almost all of them had abandoned him in the final stretch. Imagine crunch time, but with nobody to do the crunch!
I spent the first 3 days adjusting my style to match everyone else’s animation. This was the first time ever I was working outside of my own style. So this was a quick learning curve. Fortunately I had access to not just the character sheets for reference, but also full access to the FTP server to view every other shot that’s been done.
This was outside of my usual animation style, while before I only used the brush tool to outline my characters, and hand animated my characters on 2x2 frames. These animations were being done in with the pencil tool (for line consistency), and were mostly done using tween animation. (each section of the body was put in a ‘symbol’ and those individual elements would be moved and warped).
I did get to still pull off a few drawn out animation spots, like this squirrel jumping over the character to steal an acorn. And a some fluid arm animations and lip sync of the villain in the final cut-scene.
Unfortunately, none of the animators got credited in the game. What I was told was that the files were sent out too late and everything was already wrapping up on the other end for them to update the animators list. And from what I remember, only the animation studio was credited for the animations.
The end of animation
While work was good, and animating was fun. Maintaining that balance between advertising myself on newgrounds with new animations, and finding good paying work was becoming difficult. Around this same time, Disney had just laid off a ton of their traditional 2d animators, after the success they were seeing with Pixar, in a pursuit of chasing a new trend. This flooded the market of freelance animators with much more seasoned artist, cutting off pretty much all work for us new guys.
Newgroundsillaz 5 (Pico day) 2006
I maintained my efforts in uploading the best quality animations that I could to newgrounds. But an unstable life at home, wanting to move out, and needing a steady source of income, I went out and found a real job.
Newgroundsillaz 5 (Pico day) 2006
Unfortunately, despite all the animations I had been working on, and the name I had built for myself. My new factory job was 7 days a week mandatory, swing-shift. I was physically exhausted every day after work, and when offers for animation jobs arose, I started turning them down. I didn’t have the free time or energy to get any done in a timely manner.
I spent 2 years with 0 uploaded new animations. I had been working on one animation for over 9 months, for what would have normally taken me 1-2 months to finish. An ambitious project set in Unreal Tournament 2004, inspired by Red vs Blue by Roosterteeth. It was fully storyboarded, voice acted, and about 40% finished. It would have incorporated everything I had learned from my previous big freelance jobs, and would have used a combination of hand animation and tween animation to give everything a very unique look. All animated on in-game screenshot backgrounds, that were photoshoped to add depth of field. The background shots were using an in-game map, edited in the unreal editor to remove particle effects, and elements, that would be later hand animated in later.
Unfortunately none of that project, or any records of it remains. Because after 2 years of crippled creative outlets, I fell into depression. Working in a factory alone can be depressing, but working in a factory every day, in isolation, with nothing but your thoughts, led me down a path of self destruction.
And by 2007, I deleted my entire presence off the internet.
I was tired of seeing other animators, who I’ve grown to consider friends, begin to excel, while I fell behind.
Newgroundsillaz 5 stats (wayback machine)
Illustration falls
While I couldn’t get much done after work, due to exhaustion, I still spent my breaks at work drawing. The inspirations were random, but it was still an outlet.
Work sketchbook (unknown year)
Work sketchbook (unknown year)
Eventually, this fell too. And I eventually stopped drawing all together.
The rise of cosplay
A few positive upturns in my life started raising my spirits. After the auto crash in 2008, our work schedule changed to give us days off. Then I got hired on as a full time operator at the factory, no longer being a laborer, I was able to exercise my mind a little again, problem solve, and be a little creative. It doesn’t sound like much, but it was enough, plus the pay raise helped.
Several months later, after that moral boost, I finally met my girlfriend, who I’m glad to say I’m still with today.
To top of this perfect storm of positivity, a new convention had come to our town, Sci-Fi valley con. It was small, but fun. Friday my girlfriend and I went to check it out, and saturday I went with some coworkers.
As me and my coworkers sat and watched the costume contest, they were all telling me, “Shawn, if you did this, I be you’d get 1st place.” “Yeah, next year, you gotta do this.”
So the next year (2015), I made me, my GF, and my sisters kid each a costume. Mine didn’t get done in time, but the kiddo got 1st place!
I was in it to win it now, I wanted up there, so we wen’t bigger the next year!
Foxy (FNAF) 2015 Sci-Fi Valley Con - 1st Place kids Category
The next year I went hard on the suits. Imperius, Diablo, and a Demon Hunter from Diablo 3. We got 1st place in the adult category, and Diablo got best in show.
My creative urge was back, and stronger than ever!
Imperius, Diablo (Diablo 3) 2016 1st Adult & Best in Show
From there, I pushed harder and harder every year. Learning new things, and making the best suit I could possibly make.
The convention being so local, I wanted my cosplay to be a contribution to the event. Something worth seeing when people would come to it. But I also wanted it to be known that I was also from the area, and not an outsider wrecking the party of this small town convention.
I’ve made so many friends at this convention, and seeing it grow every year, and all the new cosplays everyone makes as we all grow and expand as artists… it inspires me to keep making things again.
Raynor (Starcraft 2) 2018 Best in Show
The return of illustration
Not only that, but I started drawing again too. Maybe not to the frequency that I use to, but I still churn out drawings again!
Work sketch 2018
A hopeful future
While I still don’t have the free time I’d like to work on all the projects I’d love to. I’ve decided that I will not compromise on being able to create again. My happiness comes from my creativity. I’m at my best when I’m working on a project. And I’ll be damned if I ever lose that again.
Terminator Chaplain (Warhammer 40k) 2019 3rd place