The maiden voyage of this iteration of the stream featured Special Guest and super talented friend of the show Mr. Randy Kono aka the creator of The Harshmallows and many other amazing characters. We chatted about world building and the process of creating story and intrigue behind original characters. We also touched on using real life as reference, ie characters based on people we know and the importance of grounding an imagined world with touchpoints from our lives. 

Manny Cartoon bowled us over with his insightful and poignant take on what it is to be an artist. (turns out it's not that deep). We waded through the topics of creating engagement, social media hype vs pitfalls and promoting yourself in today’s creative badlands. GDM led a valiant effort to elevate the discourse to the ethos of mastery, but was swiftly humbled and reminded that we are all just trying to get by and maybe create some cool shit along the way, don't judge the process.

Frank blew in like a quiet storm and pulled back the proverbial armor to reveal a truly humble and intelligent core, brimming with raw talent and artistic curiosity. A master of self-promotion, he laid out best practices and pitfalls, giving us insight that would've taken years to learn on our own. We touched on connecting with your audience, managing mental health, creative burnout and the beauty of simplicity in design. We will see him again on the stream in the future, you don't want to miss it.

Randy surfed a wave of positivity that crashed right into our little stream with such force that we couldn't help but join in. We talked warmly of the support we all have felt in this small artist community and how important it is to us all. We chatted about gatekeeping knowledge, true self vs artist's persona and influence vs theft. The discourse was ripe and fulfilling, nourishing us for one more week as we all face different challenges, reminding us to be kind as we never know what others are going through.

We embraced our past and immersed ourselves in nostalgia as Frank regaled us with tales of his childhood inspirations. We waxed happy about reconnecting with our pasts through our work, our daily practices (or at least our attempts to hold ourselves to them), ultimate goals and the cure for creative hangover (that uninspired void we sometimes fall into post project completion). The cure? Put simply, take a break from working and recharge, preferably with good company, then get back to creating!

Our childhood selves were reawakened and our nostalgia bones were tickled once again, this time by the incredible Dave of Dimension X Toys. He walked us through his process of creating giant TMNT toys and inspired us with his love for those crazy turtles. We learned about his awesome collabs with his Making a Mutant group, dipped in the discerning pool of bootleg toymaking and discussed best practices with articulating your creations. 10/10 would definitely do it again!

Treeface was the perfect guest to wrap up our year, brimming with talent, knowledge and an overwhelming sense of confident calm. We reflected on the past year's growth, lessons learned, new skills acquired and our plans for the future. Coming from the world of 3D animation, Treeface is well suited to toy making and unsurprisingly has excelled rapidly at it. No challenge is too great for him, so if you need someone to knock your next piece out of the park, you know who to call. See you all next year!