So I finally have the beginnings of a proper stream schedule: I stream every Sunday and Wednesday from 1PM EST to 6PM EST.

I might also stream at 7PM EST on weekdays (bar Wednesdays) and go to as late as 12AM EST.

Saturdays are my off-day, I don't typically do things on that day unless otherwise specified. (It's the only day of the week that's semi-available for my D&D group, lol.)

I mostly stream games, typically retro games I grew up with or indie games I want to highlight, but I do occasionally stream art when I'm feeling brave.

If you'd like to keep up with my stream updates, or just hang out in a chill place, I have a Discord server:

https://discord.gg/DMffh7k

Fuck I hate Twitch, but the only alternative is Youtube and setting up a stream on Youtube is a nightmare. I don't think I've ever seen such an unfriendly backend for streamers. It straight-up WILL NOT let you go live in OBS, it wants you to let the website take over your stream software and you need to keep your browser open the entire time you're streaming.

What the fuck Youtube? When I had a lower-end machine, keeping Chrome open while streaming would crash it. This is blatant gatekeeping and while I can outpace the resource drain today, fuck Youtube doing this in the first place. Just work like everyone else, you dunces. You're not even the biggest fish in this ecosystem so maybe you should be a little more accommodating, yeah?

And as for Twitch, fuck Twitch, but without an alternative I'm stuck using them. Their service works, but their admins are thirsty and spineless and can't ban people clearly breaking the rules. Yknow, I don't give a toss if you wanna make money effectively selling your body on camera, but what bothers me is that this is explicitly against the rules and some people get away with it just because they're hot. Either enforce the rules equally or just allow porn on your platform. At least with the latter, I can stream a Let's Play of Corruption of Champions.

Anyway, if anyone has an alternative, lemme know. Tried going back to Hitbox.tv but apparently that's dead now. Could use Picarto but that one is for art and kinda discourages people using it for gaming, it also doesn't have the latency to handle games because it's, well, not for games. XD

Twitch link: https://www.twitch.tv/midorimushrooms

So my activity here has dropped significantly in the last month. I figured I should probably give an update on why.

I've been drawing more traditionally lately, but don't have a convenient means of posting my art. Whenever I've tried to in the past, Newgrounds flips all my pictures sideways and won't let me fix this. I gave up on it after that.

I've also picked up needle felting as a hobby. I'm not sure how welcome those kinds of posts would be on this site though.

I do post on Twitter though, and will attempt to figure out what Newgrounds's problem is with my images. They're probably just too big and the site is having a kneejerk reaction to my tablet's resolution or something.

Anyway, that's really it. I just haven't been drawing digitally, but I'm still around.

A note on traditional art: it's about 3 times slower than digital, but the process for me is more cathartic. I'd recommend any artist going through a slump or just needing to take a breather try drawing on paper every so often.

It's good for stress relief, and god knows we need that during these times.

Y'all stay safe and try out some new indoor hobbies.

I mean, I feel honored, but surprised. That was honestly the last thing I expected, especially today when I'm sure there will be a lot of amazing pixel art uploaded.

If you're stopping by my small corner of background art from the front page, I invite you to check out my favorites. There's some really good artists in there, a lot of whom are much better than I am. (I faved their work because it inspires me or serves as a good reference for me to improve.) Most of it is also in the same vein as what I already create, or strive for.

I don't have much else to say, really. Just that I'm greatly appreciative that my work is enjoyed. It really makes my day. (I never see this much attention on dA XD)

Hi, so, first I wanted to say how surprised I was to have one of my submissions featured on the front page of the site. I'm glad someone liked it enough to slot it up there, and that a bunch more people thought it looked interesting enough to click on. I'm even more surprised at how pretty much all of my uploads perform so well here. I'm used to my posts getting ignored/buried on tumblr/dA and discoverability is pretty poor on twitter. It made it initially difficult to know if my work had an audience at all.

I'm glad to be finding one here, and that people seem to respond positively to a simple background artist's uploads.

As per a New Year's resolution, I'd like to try streaming art every weekend. I don't have a set day or time, and all I can say with absolution is that it probably won't be on Saturday between the hours of 10AM to 2PM EST. I'm leaning toward Sundays, probably not too late in the day, at least for now.

I stream games and art on Mixer infrequently, but will focus on art on the weekends. I'm doing this because I've gotten a few requests in a couple discord servers I'm in to show my process or make tutorials. Apparently, my style is actually unique enough to warrant people asking about my process, somehow...

Anyway, my Mixer link is on my art page. I'd like to stream today, even, assuming my internet holds up. I'll try my best to answer questions in the chat, or recruit a friend to watch it for me. I hope that doing weekly, or bi-weekly, art streams might at least be entertaining or interesting.

I'd like to end this off by saying that there are background/landscape artists on this site who are ten times better than I am, and anyone who might follow me to glean insight into background art should really check out my favorites and follow those guys as well. I'd imagine you might learn a fair bit more from the truly great illustrators than from me, and I know that I've already gained some insight just by studying some of the images I favorite. That's probably the best thing about being in this smaller community, it's a little easier to find the people above me in skill level whose work meshes with my interests. More than anything, that's what helps me grow.

And having others be interested at all keeps me motivated. I'm very glad for the people who vote and favorite my posts. You have no idea how much that means to me, caring about what I make enough to rate it and leave comments means more than the world.