Return of an old project

Way back in the day, when the internet was young, dsi paint was still a thing, and I was more creative, I started making an animated series on flipnote hatena. It was called TMJ, named after the MMO being created on the dsipaint site that I was on at the time. Since I met my friends in that site, (and loved getting attention, since I was... (am) an attention hog), It was kind of a way to show off my "animating skills." (what little of it I had) and impress my friends. The main hook was that I had them all as characters in the show, which kept their attention cause they would want to find out what had happened to their characters. Over time, I have continued the formula of using my friends as characters, but when I do that, it's more of a thank you. TWTWE and Exorcist both feature my friends as characters, but that was more of a show of gratitude and appreciation to them for being good friends. So I thought I'd Bring back TMJ as a way of saying thanks.

O.K., fine, that kind of oversimplified and rationalized it. Let me just start from how I decided to redo TMJ. Well simply, I was in study hall, and I was bored. I started drawing. you know those times when you just draw and don't really think about what it is your drawing? That’s what I was doing. With no clear image or goal in mind I just drew, and like some miracle of fate or something stupid like that... I drew the old paint crew. You have to realize two things, first of all, at different times in our lives, we all eventually grew up and left dsipaint. We moved on. I was one of the last to leave, but eventually, even I moved on. I only really kept in contact with very, VERY few of my old friends. (then I lost contact with those few people.) So at this point the only person from paint I still have contact with is supersonic. So I don’t know, after drawing us, I just nostalgia'd so hard. I missed the good old days on paint. I missed the wonderful friends I had made. That was one of the things that led to the decision to redo TMJ.

the second reason is that I was unsatisfied with how TMJ ended. I actually planned out TMJ really thoroughly. Like I had up to two whole seasons planned out in my head along with all major events and character backstories. In the end I was prohibited by my lack of skill. I couldn’t animate well. I didn’t know how to tell a story in any other form than writing yet. I was going to build up the state of the TMJ world, over time get some flashbacks so we could learn more about the characters, and have awesome fight scenes. Except, though I planned out the story, actually animating and making episodes was different from writing on paper. sometimes I didn’t know how to draw something, was constantly cut off by the 999 page restriction, or certain animations (like fight scenes) just took to long to draw page by page. I had to split episodes into parts. The first 2 episodes were supposed to be setting up the story. The 3rd episode was supposed to introduce the villains in the form of a huge fight scene with frieren. that was supposed to be 3 episodes! I kinda suck and drawing fight scenes so episode 3 took waaaaaaaaay too long to make. I didn’t want to go on a 3 month hiatus right after only releasing 2 episodes, so I posted the backstories for the characters. most of which hadn’t even shown up in the story’s timeline yet! so yeah, though I got in around... i don't remember, 7 episodes? most of it was backstory that left the viewer confused cause he had no clue who 3/4th of these people were. Then I finally got episode 3 (which was now episode... 8?) out, which for some reason people treated as the season finale. So some people were kind of ticked or kind of sad cause they thought season 1 had ended and they hadn’t shown up in the story, or only got to be in one scene in the background for a few seconds. I reassured everyone that the series had not ended, that the fight was not the season finale, but it was just the beginning. from there, fights were going to get bigger, longer, and take place on a grander scale. I was going to have to fix my story so that the flashback parts still had some mystery about them, because I kinda ruined it by putting the flash backs first, but I would find some way!

Then the 3DS happened. As you all know, they announced flipnote for the 3DS even before it came out but didn’t really reveal anything. I was (mistakenly) under the impression that it would come out along with the launch of the 3DS. So I was one of the suckers that immediately traded in my dsi for the 3DS. People were (rightfully) worried about the show because even though I said that the last episode wasn’t the end, I hadn’t posted anything in forever, in which i said I was waiting for flipnote 3D to come out, and the show would be twice as awesome. (hindsight sucks. T.T) of course, Till today, flipnote 3D hasn’t come out in america, and all my friends left. Even I left.

So that was my legacy. A poorly made show with a mediocre fight scene for the ending and flashbacks that rose so many questions that would never get answered. What bothers me isn’t that it sucked. that’s part of learning. no one is born as an awesome artist, they suck, they practice, and they get better. What bothers me is that this is what I left in remembrance of my friends. Most of them didn’t even show up in the series. it was sad. The friends that helped me learn, and grow up, and changed and influenced me for better or for worse, didn’t get a proper farewell.

so these two reasons combined were why I have decided to remake TMJ. To make a huge thank you to all The great friends I made and lost over my years on paint, and to give them a proper representation in this new series. also thanks to other animations I have made, as well as the video games I have made, I know I can do much better this time around. I also got supersonic to help me out with the show. So now the show isn’t for showing off, it’s a huge thank you note. Thats why I want to try my best on it. So I hope you will look forward to the new series. ^^