90% of art advice videos on youtube are unhelpful dogshit btw no matter how good someone is at drawing knowing how to draw is different from knowing how to teach people art skills

update but also some truth bruh (not drama dw lmao)

I’m starting my diploma of game art on monday, which is a fulltime study load. Obviously this means I’m going to have less time for this blog, but luckily anything I make during class can also be uploaded as TS4 content. 

I’m hoping my content is going to become a better quality, cus this is something I’ve always been self conscious about, whether it was made early last year when I was just starting, or it’s an issue that I still don’t know how to fix. 

I also want to make more tutorials as I learn, TS4 honestly only has a few good and actually understandable tutorials for complete newbies to cc making, and, mini storytime bros, I’ve wanted to make cc for sims since I was playing TS2.  It was just so stupidly unobtainable because of the lack of beginner tutorials before, so every time I tried, I just gave up. Which I think a lot of people who want to learn cc making can relate to. 

Since I will be learning literally everything, my ultimate ‘dream’ is to make a tutorial for every part of cc, head to toe, for very beginners. Whilst TS4 is by far the easiest sims game to mod, I know for a lot of people (bc they’ve personally fckin told me) that even just starting is completely overwhelming because of either assumed knowledge and/or the fact that the only tutorial they can find is for non-beginners. 

And like, being totally real for a sec, 99% of simblrs want more followers. You wanna get daily anons and have people interact with your work, and this ISN’T a bad thing. Idky people keep making it out to be, people need to learn the difference between value and validation. If someone has put 2 or 3 hours into editing this pic and they absolutely love it, or they’re consistently posting gameplay shots multiple times a day but it only gets a couple likes... that shit is crushing. Thats some ‘whats the point’ shit.  Anyway my point being, that unless you are some special fuckin sunflower with the absolute best gameplay shots, or a story that people binge, you’re not going to get ‘popular’. I’m sorry, that’s the hard truth about it. A truth I spent 3 years learning, and still am.  Being a content creator is (not always, but mostly) the only way you can build any kind of following on here. Which sucks, but is sadly true. 

Tangent aside, my point with that was simblrs want followers/more interaction> cc is the best way to get widespread recognition> tutorials are overwhelming and not targeted at beginners> cc creating basically looks like a guilded, gated community> simblr gives up> leaves the community because they don’t feel valued enough.

I’m not talking outta my ass either, I’ve been here for 4 fuckin years, and I’ve seen so many absolutely incredibly people leave because the work they were putting in wasn’t worth the reward. Now, I’m not saying that if someone starts making cc that they will instantly get thousands of followers, but I’m saying that if you look at the ‘big’ simblrs, they’re all content creators. 

I hope you’se get what I mean. This isn’t like a whole ‘oooh content creators are so much better than everyone else!!1!’, this is just saying what everyone already knows. Creators get followers and likes because people will ALWAYS want new cc. 

To wrap things up; I’m not saying I know everything about cc, but I’m now in a place where I will be learning everything so I can get a job in the games industry one day. And even though I do tend to come off as an asshole sometimes, I do genuinely care about this community and the people in it.  It would be a dick move of me to keep what I learn to myself. 

The easiest thing for me to do would be videos with voice-overs, but those of you who know what I’m going thru rn would probably know why I have an issue with my voice lmao. So the tutorials may just be in written format.  Idk, we’ll see?? I’ve gone off on such a fuckin tangent holy shit

TL;DR Since I’m now a game design student it would be selfish of me to keep everything I learn to myself, therefore I want to make tutorials on every step of cc making for complete beginners, so I don’t have to watch more people leave when they feel unappreciated. 

The FIX - Bren

I’ve been doing YouTube for a LONG time now, well 8 years certainly sounds like a long time to me.. but eerily doesn’t feel like a long time. We’ve been through so many changes and trails, trying different things, making movies, TV shows, Interviews, Press events... you name it, as a content creator for the video game community I’ve made it. I’ve always wanted to be a successful youtuber when it came to video-games, these days that usually means you have to figure out a silly name and play lots of games and make a fool of yourself (and yeah i’ve done that too). A youtube star is someone that has millions of followers, uploads daily, sometimes twice daily, but I have none of those things... does that mean i’m not successful? I dont’ think so. I’ve conducted interviews with lead game designers, been to top tier invite only press functions, had 2 shows on UK TV for video games, a movie, and run an active community driven youtube channel that has a great gathering of awesome people. So why is it that I feel like I’ve failed somehow? is it because I didn’t find the right audience? is it because I didn’t get launched to super stardom for my time as a games journalist... would I even want that if it came knocking... i’m not even sure I would like it to be honest. It's strange, I've always felt like I’ve wanted to be successful in making video content, films, art, always wanted to entertain and make something that would make someone say “wow” and I have done that, but on a small scale.

Now on Youtube I see things are very different, attention spans are miniscule, kids are starting channels left right and centre, no knowledge of how to frame a good shot, how to use a decent microphone, no knowledge on how to make a proper video... vertical videos of cats being dicks, fail videos, pranks, challenges, all of that stuff to me is benine crap,  redundant. I feel the same about reality TV and how most formats prey on schadenfreude( german phrase meaning "to take pleasure in anothers missfortune") I find it nausiating that television, for the most part, has become so mundane, fuelled by adverts and les than average production values. I recently watched a shocking piece of output form the BBC where they seem to have forgotten that sound levels are important... as well as whitebalance and did the OP forget his tripod? Hand held is ok, but this chap looked like he'd had a bit too much rum in his coffee that morning.  

Anyway, back to Youtube. I'm a part of a few "small youtuber" groups on facebook, basically if you don't have 500,000 subs these days you are considered to be pretty small time. And in these groups I see thousands of the same posts everyday "yay i got 20 subs" or "how many views do i need before i can monetize." and the best one "sub for sub anyone?" honestly pretty much everyone on those groups that i've looked at (except one or two) literally have no fucking idea what they are doing and couldn't make a video if it meant saving their own life. Time and time again I see the same shit, constantly. It honestly makes me Wince at the thought that these kids are about to embark on the most dissapointing crusade of thier lives.  I started youtube in 2009 and it was a bloody good time to do so as there were pretty much no such thing as lets plays or video game shows etc... we had an amazing show, 4 presenters, heavily edited reviews, sketches, comedy! And best of all we were in with the big boys, interviewing people I never thought i'd ever get to meet!  "But Bren, why didn't you just keep going with that?" Well, thats a whole different story and i'll just sum it up by saying there were differences of opinion and it fell apart.

Starting GameGazmTV was very freeing... I had decided that I needed a platform where I didn't care too much about what content I put on it... I had boxed up my camera equipment and used a phone to film most of the stuff for it... we slapped half naked manga girls all over it with flames and rock music in the hope that we would offend someone enough to just come and look at the channel... even the name "GameGazm" was fucking ridiculous. It wasn't long before we started to slowly change everything. Removing the semi naked girls, and some "dead weight" and started to clean up the brand... but it didn't do anything really.. I started to slip back into the "everything must be good" routine, so started heavily editing videos again, making bigger productions, adding more visual effects to everything... graphical updates, weekly updates, started doing let's plays for more content, live streams... then by year 4 we changed the name fully to Ministry of Gamers in the hope of finally shedding the GameGazm crappy beginnings. And now I've suddenly realised... that I hate most of it... I look back at a lot of our content and pretty much 90% of it I could throw in the bin and no one would bat an eyelid. The content I love the most on our channel is 2 videos... Solstice and Top Gun. 2 videos that I think are actually really worth watching... the rest of them i'm not that bothered about... but solstice and top gun both took 6 weeks each to make... thats a lot of time... and then the most successful video on our channel is a video about a fucking controller that we shot in an hour because we thought "why not" I couldn't give a crap about that controller... but its the only video that i've spent the least amount of time on and its the most successfull thing ive ever made.... talk about a kick in the teeth... thats some way to really get yourself down.

Up until this point if you asked me is YouTube worth doing, should I start a channel? I would have said " yeah its really fun to do, and totally worth it." but ask me right now? i'd say "no... don't do it.. its really not worth the stress you'll put yourself through, its not worth seeing comments like "shut up and stop reviewing games you fat cunt." on a video that you spent DAYS writing, recording, editing.  Its not worth making any video that takes you longer than an hour to do, because honestly... your effort is the last thing youtube gives a crap about." Youtube does not care if you stayed up for a week straight slaving over an edit, making sure your colours are good, sound is balanced, Youtube doesn't care if you spent days crafting a CGI intro for your channel, making custom graphics, building a brand! It DOESN'T CARE... but make a controller video, slap it up, and youtube will give you £300 and a pat on the head..... great... just film your cat doing something retarded and you'll be a millionaire in no time. don't worry about talent... its not required here.

Basically youtube isn't the kind of platform I would like to be on. But not being on Youtube is like saying "I don't want to be on the biggest viewing platform available." throughout my video carrer I've only ever really been interested in making content about videogames. It's my passion so what else would I do? I have a couple of thoughts about other avenues I could explore. But if I really cared about them then I would have been doing it already. No I still care about making content for videogames but now its time to change the focus... change the direction because something has to change... i'm no longer going to use youtube as a platform to give content thats about something else.. i'm going to make it about ME and my team as people, its not a show anymore. I want it to document OUR struggle, OUR journey through a project, how we as people are focused on making entertainment. Youtube doesn't need another gaming channel, it needs to hear about how crushingly difficult it is to get anywhere with content creation, and thats where I want to be now. I'll be working on something I really care about, and i'll provide updates to that on youtube.

I can't keep going the way I have been, a constant viscious circle of dissapointment and failiure, over and over. I'm done trying to fill a gap that just doesn't need to be filled. There are other ways I can use my time and thats the most precious thing to all of us.. becasue there really isnt' that much of it.

Why have I written this? I guess to just put it all down somehwere other than my head.. the more I write at the moment the more I feel it leaving me.. literally like ive turned a tap on and the water was filthy and its slowly starting to clear up. My main point to all of this though was to fully understand why i'm so successful at failing, I make incredible work that never gets anywhere and no one really cares that much about, but its still MY work, and even if only one person sees it and is entertained by it, then to me, i've won. So in closing, I am a youtuber, and a fucking successful one.  And no one really knows it...... yet, and of course i'll never give up, I firmly believe I have something to offer a wide audience, i'm not quite sure what that is yet, but I feel like its my mission to figure it out, I owe it to myself to keep trying! and always give my best. Take pride in what you do, and if you believe in something enough, you will get it... after a long bitter road of absolute mental turmoil.... you'll get it.

Bren.