Header: The Desperate Bun, 1845, oil on canvas
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Ashley Nichols doesnβt seem to know how she got here.
Her early life certainly didnβt prepare her for popularity. Growing up with adoptive parents in the suburbs of San Jose, she was the lone nerd at a Catholic school she couldnβt have been less suited for, forging her own path in life when she taught herself animation as a preteen with a pirated copy of Flash.
She started her illustration career drawing furry and fan art as a teen, as many artists did but wonβt admit, and was active mostly in theΒ My Little PonyΒ fandom into her early twenties. But after getting widespread attention with a couple of spot-on Steven Universe fan animations, she submitted her demo reel to a promising indie project calledΒ Hazbin Hotel, and was brought on early as lead clean-up artistβthe animator who supervises the final lineart pass and coloring.
For the one guy who stumbled across this article by accident.
The showβs early teasers were more popular than anyone anticipated, so she started livestreaming her animation process, inviting the cast and crew on to talk about their lives, do improv, and with the voice actors, take requests to read lines as their characters. Her channel rocketed to popularity over the course of 2019, leading to an even more successful third career as a YouTuber. Ever since then, sheβs lived in constant bafflement over how many people watch and donate.
After a stint in Seattle, sheβs now back in California with her partner, voice actor Michael Kovach, who plays Hazbinβs raunchy fan favorite Angel Dust. Once clean-up on the show wrapped, the couple continued streaming with The HuniCast, a live free-form podcast that continues the format of the animation streams. …Named for her avatar, HuniBun, seen in the header.
Writing this, it strikes me just how hard it is to explain HuniCast to an outsider. Rambling, messy, and full of in-jokes, itβs one of those things where you really just βhave to be there.β But itβs crack to a specific segment of young animation fans. Itβs gained a massive cult following, is consistently watched by tens of thousands of people, and even animatics of the showβs highlightsβa rite of passage for aspiring animators in the fandomβamass millions of views.
Not to mention itβs spawned one of the best running gags in Youtube history.
It makes more sense in context. Or does it?
These days, after working on the Dreamworks animated seriesΒ Too LoudΒ for a season, sheβs leading cleanup for an animated adaptation of the phenomenal webcomicΒ Lackadaisy, as well as her own pilot,Β Hell Puppy.
But throughout all this, her life has been in a constant state of upheaval, losing one parent before working on Hazbin and another during, breaking off an engagement shortly before meeting Kovach, and dealing with depressive episodes. And most recently, on the day I was supposed to schedule the interview, she was forced to evacuate when one of NorCalβs perennial wildfires raged through her neighborhood.
So uh had to evacuate because of a fire….. itβs currently less than a mile away pic.twitter.com/wYPelfdULb
— Ashley Nichols π° (@AshNicholsArt) August 19, 2020
For 48 hours, she live-tweeted from a hotel as it seemed almost inevitable sheβd lose her house. However, the fire somehow burned around it, and sheβs back. βEverything smells like bbq tho,β she tweeted.
I finally talked to her via Discord about just how she pulls it all off. It went off the rails as soon as it startedβwhich, as we joked after it ended, is perfectly in keeping withΒ HuniCastΒ tradition.
(Questions and answers edited to give it the illusion of structure.)
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First off, thanks for being so patient: Itβs been like nine months since we first talked about doing this interview. But it seems like nothingβs going according to schedule in 2020, and I guess thereβs no one better to talk about that than you.
Oh, tell me about it. Every time it feels like weβre about to settle in and things are about to be normal, some new crazy thing happens.
I was surprised to find out youβre in Northern California, though. I saw a HuniCast clip recently whereΒ you were talking about living near Disneyland?
I try to keep exactly where I am vague, because thereβve been a few instances of people figuring out where I live and trying to come visit.
Thatβs kind of horrifying.
Michaelβs gone out to the movies before, and people have recognized the theater heβs in [from social media] and found him at the movie theater. Itβs just like,Β Oh my God!Β [Laughs]
I guess that leads into the topic of theΒ HazbinΒ fandom and just how overwhelming the size of it must be now.
Oh, itβs huge to say the least! I love this fandom: theyβre wildly supportive and so, so cool. But there are so many fans now! When I first started working on the project, Iβd like, mentionΒ HazbinΒ or wear shirts of the characters and nobody would know what it wasβnow, if I wear a shirt, itβs guaranteed somebody will be like, βOh,Β Hazbin Hotel! I love that!β
How did you handle becoming a cult figure, yourself, in less than a year?
Itβs still not real to me. I was just doing art livestreams like you see every other artist do, and I brought in my friend-at-the-time Michael, who happened to voice on the project, and we would just talk and goof around while I was drawing. Then it started drawing more and more people in, so I started bringing on more friends, then Iβd reach out to more people in the industry to talk about their experiences, but most of what we do is joke around and have fun.
And it justΒ took off.Β I donβt understand how art livestreams turned into this crazy podcast thatβ My last one had twenty-one thousand live viewers. Thatβs not a real number to me!Β [Laughs]
Ashley, Micheal (cat), fellow voice actor Ed Bosco (basketball), and HazbinΒ creator Vivziepop (possum) in one of the early streams.Β Both animatics in this article by Psycho Patate.
Had there been any plans to start some kind of side project with Viv or the voice actors though, or was it purely spontaneous?
Iβve never had any grandiose plans for anything that I do. I just think to myself, βWhat would I enjoy doing? What would be fun? What would bring people the most joy? Oh, Iβll bring on this one person that everybodyβs really interested in that I kinda know.β
Is that your general philosophy when it comes to making art and career choices?
Yeah! What Iβve found is that if Iβm doing something that I find interesting and fun, other people will gravitate to that as well. I get a lot of people asking me, βHow do you find success? How do you build an audience?β and Iβm like, βThe first step is to not think about it that way. Just think about it in terms of, βWhat would I enjoy doing?ββ Because chances are what brings you joy brings other people joy too.
On the other hand, though: Listening to you talk about your job during interviews, I was impressed by how endurant you were of the parts of art you donβt like. You say you donβt enjoy cleanup, but you still have to do it for over eighty hours a week sometimes.
[Laughs]Β Yeah, my main line of work is cleanup, and on my podcast, one of the main bits is people tormenting me with horrible jokes, trying to make me lose my mind, and Iβm likeβ¦ βThis is it. This is my empire. Iβve built an empire off my own suffering, both in my work and my podcast!β
βCause yeah, I hate doing cleanup animation, but I also love it in a weird way? Itβs so tedious, but itβs the kind of tedium that I enjoy. The part I love is being able to observe, study, and understand the animation work of others. That has helped improve my own animations tenfold.
Cleanup, for those who might not know, is taking rough sketch animation to lineart and color. So you have to sit there for twenty minutes to an hour per frame, looking at every detail of it, studying it, then you also have to look at the whole animation and understand what makes that piece of animation work and what you need to try to preserve in clean-up.
How does working that slowly and deliberately affect you in a field like animation where speed is the name of the game?
Honestly, Iβm not sure. I can be fast when I need to be. Like, I have taken a minute of animation from storyboards to cleaned within 24 hours, which was absolutely insane.
Yeah, thatβs unheard of.
That was a situation where the stars kept aligning to screw me over until it was the very last second and I had to getΒ everythingΒ done. I did it, and it was good, but it wasnβt the best it couldβve been. But generally I do tend to take things slow because I am very nitpicky and I want things to be perfect, and that is also not great.Β [Laughs]
As an artist, you need to find a middle ground where you get it done well but you also arenβt spending more time on it than itβs worth for you. That latter bit is something that Iβm still working on.
But cleanup is basically harnessing [obsession].
Oh yeah.Β [Laughs]Β Iβm a littleΒ tooΒ [obsessive], though. Like, on my current project, Iβll have notes for the animation that comes in and the director will be like, βNo, send it to me first, Ashley, you canβt find every tiny mistake and ask for it to be fixed.β And Iβm like, βBut, but!…β So thatβs something that Iβm having to learn right now.
Is that trait how you ended up as lead cleanup onΒ LackadaisyΒ andΒ HazbinΒ in the first place, though?
[OnΒ Hazbin], I canβt remember, honestly. I was just cleanup for a little while, and a couple of us on the team had a discussion with Viv that we probably need people giving notes on cleanup other than her: I donβt remember how many people were on the cleanup team, but it was a ridiculous amount, and it was just her giving notes to everyone. We were like, βThis is insane; you need some help with this.β So she picked me and three other people to be cleanup leads. And I guess she just picked whoever had the best cleanup, and I guess I was one of those four. …Which is weird to think about, because even now, I still think I have a lot to learn. But it was a really cool experience!
WithΒ Lackadaisy, I came on just to do a couple shots of cleanup, and I fell into the position of lead by accident? I kept being like, βIβll help with this!β whenever anything with cleanup was going on, and eventually it was just like, βAshleyβs the lead now!β and Iβm like, β…Uh, what happened?βΒ [Laughs]
Do you often find yourself making your own jobs?
I try and help on a project in any way I can, generally, so that tends to have me fall into larger positions than I started with.
Anyway,Β HuniCastΒ is stressful too. Youβve said it knocks you out for a day after each stream.
[Laughs]Β Yeah,Β HuniCastΒ for the viewers is a one-to-two hour event; for me, itβs a three-day event. The entire day before, I have so much anxiety I canβt do anything other than think about that HuniCast. Then on the day of, the moment itβs over Iβm so exhausted I just crash. And the day afterwards, Iβm still completely fried.
For the two people who might not know, I am a very anxious human being.
How did you build up the determination to do two things that painful for a living?
For some people [it takes building up to], and for others, I think youβre just born a masochist.Β [Laughs]Β I think Iβm one of the latter. Anxiety aside, I enjoy these things a lot, I just have to spend a lot of my mental energy doing them.
Your openness with your anxiety is indicative of something Iβve noticed from the rest of theΒ HazbinΒ crewβa willingness to talk about your problems, and the difficulties behind the scenes, that you donβt often see.
I try to be open as much as I reasonably can, because being in the spotlight, if youβre too open, people can use that against you. But I was raised being told that if you have any sort of mental illness, you should never share that, never tell anybody that, and I never agreed. I always thought, βWell, if none of us talk about that, none of us will realize that weβre not alone.β
So I try to say, βHey, I have anxiety but I still work on these projects and do this crazy podcast. Just because itβs difficult doesnβt mean itβs impossible.β And I want other people to find that in themselves as well, so they can try and be more than the things that limit them.
By the way, youβre one of the few big-name internet artists I can think of whoβs justβ¦ openly a furry. Does that attract much negative attention?
[Bursts out laughing]Β Itβs so strange! Whenever people ask me βAre you a furry?β Iβm like, β…I guess?Β Sure?β But if you put me into a situation where Iβm around other furries or at a furry convention, I donβt fit inΒ at all.Β Furry culture is completely alien to me, and I still have yet to figure out why that is.
I definitely am one, you canβt deny it! I love anthropomorphic animals, I represent myself asΒ [audibly trying not to curse]Β a garsh darn rabbit, for peteβs sake, but I just donβtβ¦ feel like one?Β And I guess since I donβt present in such a furry way, Iβve actually caught a break. Furries are infamous for being bullied and being the butt of the internetβs jokes, but honestly, nobody seems to care.
[Laughs] For some reason, it just seems like I have some kind of⦠magical shield of protection from internet trolls when it comes to that stuff.
Letβs talk about your personal project,Β Hell Puppy.Β At first I thought it was a Hazbin spinoff, but is it related to a cancelled webcomic project calledΒ Help, My Dogβs a Demon?
[Laughs]Β Yes! Oh my gosh, I donβt know how you found that, but it is! Iβve had these characters since I was like twelve years old.
A lot like Hazbin.
Yeah, like Viv with Hazbin! Iβve held onto them for a long time. I have a lot of characters that Iβve made and forgotten about, but for some reason these characters have stuck with me, so I needed to do something with them.
How long is it going to be?
Right now weβre figuring out our first short, which will probably be two minutes at most. This is the first fully-animated project that Iβm doing as a producer and director, so I have a lot of things to learn and figure out: The pipeline, how best to manage a team, and all that. So I wanted to make it as short and concise as possible just to be a proof of concept.
But Iβm hoping it will [eventually] be a longer series. Like, maybe twenty episodes? That is the dream, that is the goal, Iβm just taking it one step at a time.
Intermission
I didnβt bring this up in the interview because itβs all been covered in other places, but Ashley draws with aΒ Wacom Cintiq 21, with aΒ Cintiq 16Β as a backupβone of the few possessions she took with her on evacuating, as she informed me in our initial message exchange.
She animates with Toon Boom, and illustrates withΒ Clip Studio Paint, which she described on a recent HuniCast as superior to Photoshop for artists in every way. For a plug, Wacom Tablets come with three free months of CSP. Just sayinβ.
I wanted to move on to your influences. So, I spent a long time digging to find what youβve cited as your influences, then right afterwards, you went on [the podcast]Β Whoβs on NextΒ and just listed them all. But I guess I can still ask what they mean to you.
CW: All of the adult language.
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Letβs start withΒ My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
My Little PonyΒ was what set me up forβ¦ I guess I could say success on the internet. I learned a lot from that fandom: How to market yourself, how to set up merch stores, how to deal with going to conventionsβso I was a lot better equipped for success later on.
And I can still see the influence of it in your art style too.
Oh yeah. [Sighs]Β Iβll never get rid of my cutesy pony and Danny Phantom influences.
That brings us toΒ Danny Phantom.Β You talked about the influence of Butch Hartmanβs art style, but what was it about the show itself that spoke to you?
I honestly donβt know. Does something ever just captivate you and you canβt really put into words why? I think part of it was that I discovered it when I was in elementary school. I was an outcast. I was a nobody. I didnβt make many friends at all until I was likeβ¦ Out of college. Iβve always been somebody that doesnβt easily make friends and isnβt easily liked. Growing up, I was the only person I knew who would draw, who was into cartoons and anime and animation. I went to the snobbiest school you could imagine; all of the kids there were nothing like me.
So I saw this show about this kid who is completely different from everybody else. He does have his friends, but heβs still basically a social outcast. Being really young, it was nice to see somebody that I could relate to, but was also so cool and got to do all these amazing things and had all these powers. And Iβve also always been into ghosts and the paranormal. So, I guessΒ Danny PhantomΒ hit all of those notes for me. And going back now, the show is so witty, and fun, and unapologetically itself.
And how about Disney? Everyone in animationβs inspired by Disney movies, but youβve specifically shouted outΒ Glen Keane.
IΒ adoreΒ Glen Keaneβs work. I donβt think it was a conscious attraction, but I think I picked up on it subconsciously through the years. I loved his work onΒ The Little MermaidΒ andΒ Beauty and the Beast,Β but it was weird: I was always drawn to the shots he worked on specifically, but up until a couple years ago, I had no idea who he was or that those were his works. Until finally I was like, βOh, this is all this one dude! No wonder Iβve been so obsessed with all these different pieces of the puzzle!β
Thereβs this incredible amount of life and emotion that he puts into his work, and thatβs something that I can only strive for. Itβs phenomenal, and I could study it for hours.
A compilation of scenes heβs animated over the years. (Just watch it on mute.)
And youβre planning on getting a tattoo of one of his works?
Absolutely. One of my goals is to get a bunch of tattoos on my drawing arm of artwork by various artists or from various things that have inspired me. Right now itβs just a Totoro, but I want to get one ofΒ Danny Phantom, one by Lauren Faust, one by Glen Keaneβ¦
The Totoro is a good lead-in to the next one: Studio Ghibli.
I think every artist has taken some form of inspiration from Ghibli. Itβs one of the greats next to Disney in terms of raw beauty and incredible visuals and storytelling. I remember discovering Ghibli movies in seventh or eighth grade and it was like nothing Iβd seen before. It felt a little bit like the anime that Iβd grown up with,Β PokΓ©monΒ andΒ Sailor Moon,Β but it wasnβt quite that and it wasnβt Disney either. It was completely unique.
From Light in the Attic
And a lot of the subject matter that Ghibli movies tackle is related to nature, and Iβve always been a huge lover of animals and nature. I grew up watching Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel all day, and I was always playing outside. Those movies just capture the feeling of being a little kid, playing in the outdoors, believing anything in the world is possible and thereβs magic imbued in everything around you.
I can only dream of being able to do the same someday. I want to work on films and projects that capture that same kind of lingering beauty.
And for a movie that has a similar feel to it, but in a different way:Β Summer Wars?
From Character Design References
Oh, I adore Summer Wars! It isΒ suchΒ a good movie. Iβm forgetting the directorβs nameβ
Mamoru Hosoda.
Yes! All of his projects have a very similar vibe. Theyβre a lot funnier in a lot of waysβmore cheeky and more lively, but his work also very much captures that nostalgia.
Yeah, he also didΒ The Girl who Leapt Through TimeΒ andΒ The Boy and the Beast…
AndΒ Wolf Children.Β Thatβs one of my favorites.
Finishing up the influence list:Β Steven Universe.
Oh yeah!Β [Laughs]Β I. Sobbed. WhenΒ Steven UniverseΒ was over. I sobbed when the main series was over, and I sobbed at the movie, and I sobbed at the end ofΒ Steven Universe Future.Β That series is so much fun, and so cute and sweet and full of heart.
You can tell when a creator loves the project that theyβre working on. You can tell when they pour all of themselves into what they do, and thatβs one of the things that I respect so much about Rebecca Sugar. She poured her absoluteΒ heartΒ into it, and it shows. Everyone who worked on that show obviously loved it to bits, and it radiates through in every drawing, in every background, every song, every aspect of it.
I made a lot ofΒ Steven UniverseΒ fan animations, I tried my best to capture the art style of the show because I loved the way it looked, and I still look back to it and try to learn as much as I can. [Itβs] one of my biggest inspirations forΒ Hell Puppy.Β When we were figuring out how to handle certain aspects of it, itβll be like, βWell, how did they do this inΒ Steven Universe?β
One of said fan animations.
I have the art book for the show, and I took a bunch of sticky notes, a highlighter, and a pen, and just tookΒ a millionΒ notes on things that I could learn and pick up on. Itβs been one of my biggest inspirations in my own productions.
Speaking of your formative years, though,Β HazbinΒ may have been your first industry job, but I was surprised to find out you went to art school.
Yeah, I went to the Art Institute of… Silicon Valley, I think they called it?
Sunnyvale?
Thatβs the one! You know more about me than I do!Β [Laughs]Β It is shut down now, because I think they got charged with defrauding the government for student loans or something like that? Something absolutely crazy.
Yeah, it was this huge deal with all the Art Institutes.
And hearing that alone, you can understand why I left.
I have friends that went to Art Institutes and⦠definitely had things to say about them. What was your experience?
There were a lot of talented people there, but what it felt like is, they would just take absolutely anyone no matter how much they cared about art or not. So there were a few people who genuinely cared, and then a whole bunch of people who didnβt careΒ at all.
And the teachers didnβt seem to care either. I think my classes were like, four hours long because we were on the quarter systemβmaybe Iβm remembering wrong since I try to forget that place. But we would be in class for maybe an hour, then the teacher would be like, βAlright, Iβm done, everybody go home.β Weβd rarely have a full class.
So I just decided, βYou know what? Iβm done with this. Iβm not learning anything that I couldnβt on my own.β So I kept going to the counselorβs office like, βI want to leave,β but they would pull in the head of every single department to convince me and pressure me not to.
So eventually I just stopped showing up to class, ghosted all of their calls, didnβt pay them, and they eventually dropped me.
Youβve said that one of the things you want to do more is give advice that you wish you had when you started your career. What is some of that?
Some of the best advice I have would be related to art school, and that is: You donβt need to go if you canβt afford it, [or if you canβt go to a good one]. It wasnβt necessary for me.
But thereΒ isΒ a lot to gain by going to art school, and that is the connections you make while youβre there. So if youΒ canΒ afford to go, I say go for it, because one of the best things youβll get out of it is meeting peers who are going to help you along the way.
The way to network in the industry isnβt vertically, it is horizontally. Those are the people who are going to be growing with you and receiving similar opportunities. If youβre friends with them, they will want to help you out, and you can help them out in return. So meet your classmates. Be friends with them.
But also, of course, connect with your teachers and any guests they might bring in. One of the most important things is just making an art family for yourself.
Letβs finally get intoΒ HuniCast.Β First off, is it basically just a Discord callΒ broadcast through Streamlabs OBS?
Yeah, basically! Recently Iβve been having my guests record their audio if it isnβt a live one so it can be edited a little bit, but usually itβs just everybody on a Discord call, being streamed live on OBS. I donβt know how weβve never had a horrible accident!Β [Laughs]Β Like, some guest saying something awful, the internet cutting out, something like that.
But all that stuff does happen. Regularly.
[Laughs]Β Yeah, actually, youβd think I would be used to it by now! But Iβm still just like, βOh God, The audio cut out for point-five seconds of a two-hour production! Everyoneβs going to hate this podcast and think itβs terrible!β But then after the fact, Iβm like, βOh, what does it matter?β
In fact, part of the appeal ofΒ HuniCastΒ seems to be that you do everything youβre not supposed to in an audio productionβpeaking, sound quality issues, talking over each other…
[Cracks up] Talking over each other, cutting out, internet going bad, people just randomly dropping; every single one is a mess. Thatβs probably gonna be how they always are. I think part of the charm of my podcast would die the moment I figured out how to make audio not peak anymore.
Fan animatic from a guest appearance byΒ Invader ZimΒ andΒ Helluva BossΒ voice actor Richard Horvitz
And what isΒ HuniCastΒ if not a constant stream of guests saying something awful?
Youβre right! Youβre not wrong!Β [Laughs]Β People ask me what HuniCast is about and Iβm like, βI donβt know… Iβve never known…β
Writing the intro, I noted how hard it is to describe it to someone whoβs never heard it before.
Itβs a bunch of industry goofballs coming together and talking about their experiences, and also just a bunch of random nonsense. I guess the draw of that is, thereβs this expectation that people in the industryβthese voice actors and artists that you look up to areΒ professionals:Β They have everything together and everything figured out, and theyβre very intimidating. So I like to bring people on and just be like, βLetβs talk about getting food poisoning for an hour!β
We also talk about cool behind-the-scenes stuff and give advice, but I try to be as unintimidating as possible and I think that carries through to my podcast. Weβre just a bunch of nerds who happened to fall into this position where people think weβre a lot cooler than we are.Β [Laughs]
To bring it all back, if youβre having fun, other people will enjoy that with you.
So, a final question, just for fun: What happened to your giant inflatable Baymax?
Ha ha!Β Oh my God, youβve done your research! My ex-boyfriend stole it, is the short version. I lived with this boyfriend for a while, and when I decided that I was gonna leave, he just took all of my stuff and put it on the front porch like, βHere!β And I was like, βCan I look everything over?β And he was like, βNo, I donβt want to see you.β
And I was this shy, awkward young twentysomething, and I didnβt check to see if Baymax was still there, and he wasnβt!Β [Laughs]Β And Iβm too awkward to ever be like, βHey, give me Baymax back!β So he just kept it! And I swear to God,Β to this dayΒ I am still on the lookout for another life-size inflatable Baymax, because that is the coolest thing Iβve ever owned in my entire life!
Brought my baymax to fanime. People keep asking to take pictures nonstop xD pic.twitter.com/YiF91JWAOA
— Ashley Nichols π° (@AshNicholsArt) May 23, 2015
We definitely need to put out a call to find you another Baymax.
Please, internet! Please help me! He was taken from me!
…OK, since that went so well, I think I can throw in just one more βresearch flexβ question: Did you ever get the five dollars for your first commission?
Oh my God! How many hours did youβ No! I never got it. My first commission ever, I was never paid for.Β [Sighs dramatically]
But here you are now, soβ
Look, I may have a hundred-and-something thousand followers on Twitter, but I will never forget those five dollars I was cheated out of when I was sixteen!
And I think thatβs a good note to end on.
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Ashley can be found on Twitter atΒ @ashnicholsart, on Instagram atΒ @ashleynicholsart, and on Youtubeβalong with the HuniCast and all her animation projectsβatΒ Ashley Nichols Art. Please donβt find her in real life.
If thereβs any justice in the world, one of you will start a GoFundMe for a new Baymax where you can only donate in five-dollar increments. Check back for that.
About the Interviewer
CS Jones has always described himself as a βPhiladelphia-based freelance writer and illustrator,β and will continue to do so even though he just moved to the suburbs. His work can be found at @thecsjones on Instagram and Twitter.Β …Or thecsjones.com, although that one hasn’t been updated in a year. He will soon, he promises. And yes, he also painted the headerβalso with Clip Studio Paint on a Cintiq 16βbut the site cut most of it off, so here’s the full thing.