Haley Newsome is an unusual success story.
Defying the popular image of the hype Youtuber whoβs always trying to go bigger, louder, and more extra, she takes a Bob Rossian approach, making her content low-key and relaxing, but always delivering solid, actionable advice. She didnβt chase fame, sheβs still surprised when sheβs recognized in public, and although I canβt claim to know her, it seems her Youtube persona is essentially her real self: In conversation, sheβs soft-spoken, analytical, and somewhat reserved, just as she is in her videos.
She’s also the story of a weeb artist who persisted and matured.
She started drawing comics as a toddler, and webcomics in her teens. Her first work as a kindergartner was about a rhinoceros whose horn was too big. βI didnβt know how comics work,β she says, βso I drew the pictures on the front and wrote the dialogue on the back.β She got into digital art at 14 on receiving a Wacom Intuos 4 for Christmas, doing a lot of Invader Zim, South Park, and anime fanart. Her high school webcomic, [REDACTED], which can still be found on [REDACTED],* was drawn in a much more βnormalβ anime style, but one with a distinctive twist that shows the beginnings of what she does now.
*I wouldnβt do this to someone.
She went north to study at Alberta College of Art + Design (now Alberta University of the Arts) where she majored in storyboarding and character design with hopes of getting into the industry. She ended up taking a different path, but character is still her passion and the basis of what draws people to her videos.
There, she started the brief gag comic Disasterpiece, which goofed around with many of the same themes about art school and artist life that she now covers more seriously in her videos, and her ongoing passion project Unfamiliar, which follows kitchen witch Planchette and her rabbit familiar Winston as they move into a haunted house and have to enlist the help of the townβs other magic users to exorcise it.
Her sister introduced her to Youtubing, and she started making videos under the name Lavender Towne in 2016, with a mix of tutorials, letβs plays, and the occasional speedpaint. But she found the most helpful videos were the ones that drew people in. Since then, sheβs amassed a million subscribers, a number she says βstill doesnβt seem real,β and over 121 million views.
Haley with her Youtube platinum award in September.
She also breaks the art-tube tradition of focusing on technical skill, preferring instead to work in a simplified but instantly recognizable style. Itβs characterized by fantastic color palettes and striking character designs but, in her words, βnoodle armsβ and βsquigglesβ for hands, drawing occasional criticism from people who think itβs unprofessional. But as weβll get into, itβs fully intentional, and in fact, not as easy as it looks.
Lately, sheβs also a Twitch streamer: She kicked it off in October with a week of streaming daily, then moved to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 3-6 PST. She works on her Youtube content and comic, draws other peopleβs characters, and plays Jackbox games with the audience. Iβve been watching them for the past couple weeks, and I can confirm that theyβre a lot of fun.
I spoke to her shortly after the first week. Our interview ran almost an hour late due to a computer failure on my end, putting me in a pretty appalling mood, but she was gracious and generous with her time.
So, icebreaker question: Whoβs the best birdie, and why is it Ryouta?
What?
Do you know what Iβm talking about?
…No?
Hatoful Boyfriend?
Oh my God, oh wow. [Laughs] Wait, where did you see that I played that game?
Research.
Well, look, I personally like the doctor the best.
For anyone confused, Hatoful Boyfriend is a dating sim where you romance talking birds, as symbolized by anime boys. Image from the Hatoful Boyfriend Wiki.
Really? Interesting choice.
[Laughs] Iβve just never encountered a yandere route. Well, with a bird.
Heβs such a terrible perso- …bird, though.
A little bit, sure. I suppose.
I mean, he does cook and feed you one of your other dating options.
Look, nobodyβs perfect.
Anyway, first real question: Would you say your path to being a professional artist was fairly straightforward?
In some ways it was, but my destination was a little different. I expected it to go another way: I pictured I would be doing internships, then moving into the industry. So, as far as becoming a social media artist, that ended up being a surprise. But it happened straight out of art school, so in some ways, I went straight from school to an art job.
Did you always know that being an artist was what you wanted to do?
When I was really little, I wanted to be a veterinarian, and then a herpetologist. But after a while, I got into writing, and after some time of being really into writing novels and stuff, I decided I wanted to start adding art.
Did studying storyboarding in art school change your style, or help you loosen up and draw faster?
I had a lot of different classes, and a lot of them were not oriented that way: You were expected to refine and refine and refineβbut whenever we had an assignment that was more about getting ideas out, I always really did a lot better with those. I think it was sort of a natural thing that ended up being nurtured by those classes.
And what was it about character design that spoke to you more than other types of art?
I liked thinking about how somebodyβs past and their story would change them visually. Itβs an emotional sort of logic, where youβre trying to make sure that people can get to know them just by looking at them. It felt like a fun puzzle to solve, almost.
So, story is the primary thing youβre thinking of when youβre drawing characters?
Yes. Story has always been my biggest thing. Weirdly enough, art is always a tool for me. I know a lot of people love art first and story second, but I think Iβm the other way around.
And it seems like your actual drawing process is fairly simple? To confirm: You do a fast undersketch on one layer, then ink over it in the next one, then flats in the next one, and then hard shading on the last one?
Yeah, pretty much. It depends on what Iβm doing, but thatβs usually my thing. I never do two sketches; itβs always extremely loose so that I still feel like Iβm drawing when Iβm doing the inking part.
And is there anything about the process that doesnβt make it onto video?
Oftentimes, Iβll do thumbnail sketches to feel out the idea and see if itβs something thatβs actually going to work. Because I noticed that when I didnβt do that, sometimes Iβd realize that I hate the idea midway through doing it. But other than that, youβre seeing the whole process from start to finish.
Does your art style being less realistically proportioned also make it easier to work off the top of your head?
In some ways it does. Weirdly, at times the stuff that looks the laziest ends up being the hardest work. Iβm kind of notorious for my spaghetti arms and stuff: A lot of people think I do them because itβs easier, but I actually think that drawing out a normal arm is simpler because youβre not trying to make perfectly parallel curved lines β¦ But it does make things a lot faster.
Disasterpiece
Thatβs largely a digital problem though.
[Laughs] Yeah, when Iβm drawing by hand, itβs not that bad.
But it seems like youβve incorporated what I always thought was Photoshopβs most frustrating aspect into your art style: the lack of line stabilization.
Itβs true. People said my style changed when they released the smoothing, because it was the first time in years that Iβd had access to that feature. The wobbliness really has become part of my style now.
The way you do backgrounds is also very wiggly and stylized almost to the point of abstraction. Like, some people have pointed out that Planchette lives in a loaf of bread. What inspired that?
Pretty much. [Laughs] That comes from Unfamiliar being something that was therapeutic for me. Trying to make the backgrounds a character is the only way I could do them without hating them. And because I wasnβt planning Unfamiliar as a professional product, I was doing it to deal with the stress of art school in my free time, which I had barely any of, I didnβt put in the work. And now, canonically, her house is all wobbly. [Laughs]
I mean, itβs supposed to look like a skullβ¦ But it kind of looks like a loaf of bread.
Do you have a pre-prepared palette when you go into a drawing?
I basically donβt prepare much of anything before I start drawing. This is partially because lately, itβs been all about speed and getting things done as quickly as possible, so for stuff like palettes and references, if I feel like I need them, Iβll grab them while Iβm working, but I usually try it without first.
Is color theory something you ever have to think about, or is it just second nature?
Iβve always felt like it was second nature. Usually, I have a pretty basic strategy, which is, βWhat color do I want to be the one that people notice first?β That oneβs allowed to be the most saturated, and everything else I just try to cool down.
Itβs all intuitive. Weirdly, when I was learning about theory, that was the first time Iβd ever had trouble with color. I had a conflict about how things should goβI was trying to do everything βrightβ with all the different color schemes, and it just looked weird to me. I drew a lot of black and white stuff after my first color theory class because it was so difficult. [Laughs]
It just scared you away from color altogether.
[Laughs] Isnβt it obnoxious? I mustβve been a terrible student!
But would you say your art styleβs accessibility is part of what makes you popular as a teacher?
I think so. When I first came into the Youtube art space, [tutorial videos] had sort of a negative reputation. A lot of people would come to these artists like, βHey, how do I make my art better,β and a lot of their reaction was like, βYouβve just gotta practice!β I remember thinking, βThatβs such obvious advice, it would be cool to be able to make tutorials that help people in a bit of a more direct way.β And my artβs not very intimidating, so it does make it easier for people to approach it. …I mean, I hope so!
Do you know what made your channel take off, though? Because it seems like you had a pretty meteoric rise from 2016 to 2017.
I donβt know specifically what happened, but my βDo This, Not Thatβ series seemed to walk the line β¦ It seems controversial and then, when you click on it, itβs just me trying to be helpful, and I think that was a recipe for success in some way. Those videos really popped off.
The most popular of the early series.
After that, it was mostly experimenting with stuff that I hadnβt seen other art Youtubers doing, like correcting books. Stuff that I thought would be entertaining.
Do you have an idea of what you would call βyour average viewer?β
I used to think so, but as Iβm meeting them more in real life, Iβm realizing that I have a lot of range in my audience, which makes me really happy. I get a lot of comments from young girls who have big dreams about going to art school and becoming professional artists, but Iβve met all kinds of different people who follow my channel, and I think the only unifying thing is that they really like stylization and they really like story.
And do you have any advice for aspiring art Youtubers?
Honestly, I would say my biggest advice isβ¦ Try not to do what Iβm doing. Try not to do what any of the art Youtubers are doing. Thatβs the secret. Youtube is a place for novelty, and I think thatβs the reason my channel did well: At the time, there weren’t many people who were using art as a tool to talk about stuff rather than just doing speed drawings over music or reviewing pencils; those two things were all art Youtube was about. So try to find your niche, and find something that Iβm not thinking of and that the rest of my peers arenβt thinking of. I think thatβs the only way to make it nowadays. Youβve got to do something new.
I wanted to get into your influences. Going through the things youβve said you were inspired by, I can see where you took small elements from each one. If I can list them offβ¦ It seems like the bases for your current style are Invader Zim and Gorillaz?
[Laughs] Oh yeah, youβve got it.
Zim fanart from 2009, and 2019 redraw.
Did the noodle arms and strange eye shapes come from Zim?
They didnβt go quite as deep into doing the weird symbols in the eyes, but pretty much. And the super-exaggerated proportions and certain sharpnesses that I still use a little bit, definitely came from Zim.
Where did you get the idea for the symbols in the eyes?
That was actually from watching those really old jazz cartoons and the original Betty Boop stuff. I liked how their bodies would… Thereβs an animation short that I just love where Betty Boop is being carried around in a glass coffin and literally, the singer is just morphing into different things as heβs walking and talking. I like that ability to communicate something, and I thought that would be good for comics.
Oh, thatβs the Koko the Clown one with Cab Calloway!
Yes! Itβs amazing.
What about FLCL?
I love FLCL. That was super influential really early on.
The manga is actually what I was into first, just because it looks like such a mess, but at the same time, itβs so clear. I loved the fact that it looked like it was barely holding itself together, but it had the same level of flow that really clean comics do. And that it didnβt feel like it had to explain itself to youβthere was something confrontational about it in that way. It was like, βThis is just happening, this is the universe weβre in, and weβre just gonna go.β
Image from Amazon
Itβs amazing that you mentioned that, because I had that exact same thought while I was researching this interview. Getting back to accessibility, I read it too when I was twelve, and it was the first manga that made me think, βOh, this is attainable! I could learn to draw like this!β
Yeah! Itβs amazingly beautiful art, but it feels doable.
Scott Pilgrim?
Image from Bryan Lee OβMalley
Big time. Same kind of thing, I was like, βWow, I think I could actually make comics.β
I found an unusual one: Superjail?
CW: Cartoon gore.
[Laughs] Wow, you really do your research, huh? …Yeah, I had many edgy phases in my life, and Superjail definitely fed into everything I was into at the time. It was bright but super violent, and the animation, isnβt it at a super-high frame rate or something? It just didnβt look like anything that was on TV at the time.
Note: I checked afterwards, and this is true. Superjail! was drawn at an astounding 36-40 frames per second depending on the scene, over twice the industry standard for computer animation and thrice that of hand-drawn cartoons and anime. Back in the day, AKIRA and The Thief and the Cobbler were considered insane for having 24.
Wes Anderson?
Iβm a big fan. All of his stop-motion and a lot of his live action stuff are some of my top movies of all time.
It seems you take a lot of color inspiration from him, but not his obsessions with front views, leading lines, and symmetry.
I feel like I would do more symmetry stuff, but I do things too quickly; Iβm not as meticulous as him. But I do like the pastels.
Oh, and in Moonrise Kingdom, thereβs a scene where a dog gets shot with an arrow, and instead of showing that, they flash to an image of an arrow and a few different sounds. That inspired me a lot. I like that heβs willing to do things that are unconventional.
TW: Animal cruelty.
It seems like you take a similar approach in that you often skirt around creepy things or horror in your work, but aside from the Creepypasta series, you donβt go overtly dark. You like the idea of not directly showing things like that, but insinuating them?
Yeah, itβs interesting because usually a filmmaker would revel in that action-oriented violent moment, and instead, he just doesnβt show it at all. It was a sort of restraint.
[Those are] my sensibilities in general. When I first started doing Unfamiliar, for example, I wanted to create a world that was very soft, where nobodyβs a bad person, but thereβs an undercurrent of dark things throughout all of it. Itβs like being passive-aggressive with dark themes [laughs]: Iβll never put it on the surface.
How about pastel goth and lolita fashion? Is that where you get a lot of your outfits and color palettes?
For sure. I was really obsessed with gothic lolita.
And it seems like lately, youβve been taking a lot of inspiration from Japanese and Korean pop art, like superflat and animation memes?
Thatβs interesting, a lot of people donβt pick up on that. Anytime I had to do a research project in school, Japanese pop art was my main obsession, and I definitely think it leaks into my art. Junko Mizuno, Murakami, and a few other artists, I was definitely inspired by.
Junko Mizuno wood prints. Image from Twitter.
You spent a few months in Japan. How did that happen, and what did you do while you were there?
My partner, who Iβm living with, had a job that required him to go to Japan [to work on a game], and Iβve been wanting to go there for so long, so I was like, βI work on the internet, we might as well go together.β And I basically just did all my Youtube stuff from there.
Where in Tokyo were you?
For the first bit, we were in Shibuya, and after that, we stayed in Shinjuku for the rest of the three months.
Nice! Would you say Shibuya and Harajuku fashion rubbed off on you while you were there?
Models in Harajuku several years ago. It and Shibuya are two adjacent wards of Tokyo considered Japanβs trend capitals. Image from Tokyo Fashion.
A little bit. Iβd say the fashion scene in Japan has cooled down a lot since when I first got interested in it. Harajuku wasnβt as βexploding with weird stuffβ as Iβd come to expect, and Iβve seen a lot of fashion blogs Iβve followed saying things are getting more toned down with the colors recently, partially because a lot of the pop-up shops are getting edged out by like, Forever 21. [Laughs.] And itβs changing the fashion around there, which is sad.
But I saw some really beautiful things when I was there. It was interesting [comparing it to] what my expectations were from when I was a kid obsessed with Japan: The reality of it was just as interesting, but in a lot of different ways. I ended up being more inspired by the architecture than big, crazy fashion or the weird stuff people would write articles about.
So many novels and things from Japan employ magical realism, and when I went there, I understood why. Youβll be walking down a busy street in the middle of Tokyoβitβs like New York, itβs bustling, thereβs a million peopleβand you step to the side into an alley, and suddenly all the noise is gone. You walk a little ways, and then thereβs an old-fashioned shrine in the middle of the city. Itβs like, βWhat? Where am I?β The constant mixture of ancient, beautiful things and all this modern stuff that looks like it was built yesterday was so fascinating.
Going forward, what are your goals?
Honestlyβ¦ I recently hit a million subscribers, and that was my biggest Youtube goal since I started. I didnβt even think it was possible. But ever since that happened, Iβve been feeling weirdly like the windβs been taken out of my sails. Iβm like, βWellβ¦ What do I do now?β It was a weird moment, because obviously I was really happy, but at the same time, Iβm starting to feel like I want to try other things in addition to Youtube.
I really want to do more comic work, because itβs been my side project that always gets pushed off whenever Iβm running out of time. If I could make my story more important, that would be great.
Are there any other downsides to being a Youtuber?
I think the hardest part for me lately is that Youtube rewards doing things quicklyβyou want to have as many drawings per video as you can, and you want it to be fast and exciting for peopleβand thatβs baked itself into the way that I work now. I feel like Iβm always in a hurry and I can never really finish what Iβm drawing. Thatβs been my biggest frustration with that style of content creation.
I [normally] like it because I am someone who likes to not fuss over things too much and just get my ideas out there, but itβs getting a little fast even for me. And itβs harder for me to look back on my Youtube stuff and feel as proud as I do of a comic or something like that.
Speaking of that, you give a lot of advice for being noticed on social media, but do you ever worry weβre getting to the point where algorithms are gatekeeping what art we get to see instead of helping us find what we want to see?
Yeah. One of the things I worry about with the algorithms is that it seems like theyβre bubbling people. It seems like a lot of these sites just want you to keep consuming the same stuff over and over, and I do wonder how people are going to stretch their legs and experience new things when our media is just trying to give us as close to what we already like all the time.
It used to be, when I would [watch] a video thatβs different from what Iβd usually watch: a soap-cutting video or something Iβd never usually click on, the recommendations next to it would be other soap content, so Iβd be able to go down a rabbithole with that. But now, it seems like if I click on something even slightly out of my comfort zone like an ASMR video, itβs going to send me back to drawing stuff immediately. It wants me back in my normal videos.
Iβm basing the get-noticed videos off of my own experience because I donβt really know else to help. [Laughs]
Do those frustrations limit you or motivate you?
I think they motivate me. I never wouldβve seriously tried Twitch just a few months ago, but the fact that Iβm realizing thereβs an upper limit on how much fun I can have doing the same thing all the time is forcing me to try new things.
Itβs hard to complain about Youtube because itβs been such a good job to me. Itβs been so fun, and I get to do so much of what I wouldβve wanted in my free time and make that my job, so itβs hard to feel bad about it. But at the same time, I think itβs healthy to be constantly trying to do new things, and pushing myself to keep going to places where Iβm not going to automatically get noticed, and see if I can build things up again in new spaces.
Youβve said that one of your other dreams is to be the showrunner for an animated series. What would you want it to be about?
Thereβs a story that almost got picked up right when I was about to graduate from school, and I had to choose between it and Youtube. Itβs been haunting me ever since. Itβs the same one Iβd want to make into a show, because I have a lot of faith in it, and I think it would work really well episodically:
It would be a kids-to-teens-oriented show about Girl ScoutsβIβd probably call them something elseβbut basically, it turns out that when you get all the patches, thereβs a secret agent level. Three girls get all the patches at the same time and they make this secret force of Extreme Elite Girl Scouts, and they go on adventures. But it turns out one of them has gone rogue: [Sheβs] doing yarn bombings and all these DIY crimes throughout the country, and making the company look bad.
They donβt know who it is, but it has to be one of them because she knows too much to be an outsider. So these girls have to find the rogue Girl Scout somewhere in the country, [and theyβre doing] all this detective work.
That sounds really good. When you say it almost got picked up, do you mean published as a comic, orβ
Yeah. I was looking at the time demands, and my Youtube had just started taking off, and I decided to do that instead. Which I donβt regret at all, butβ¦
Finally, walk me through the creation of your greatest work: Gingerbread Planchette.
Sure! For the first step, youβve gotta get your gingerbread dough that your sister made, then make sure that you donβt cut it out or anythingβthatβll look too nice. Just grab lumps and smash them down with your fingers, then put black currants in for the eyes. Thatβs pretty much how you do a Gingerbread Planchette!
Lavender Towneβs Youtube Channel can be found here. Her Twitter is here, and her Instagram is here. As of this writing, sheβs streaming on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 3-6 Pacific Time, here.
Questions and answers edited for clarity and concision with permission.
About the Author
CS Jones is a Philadelphia-based freelance writer and illustrator. He spends his spare time listening to Spotify and falling down Youtube rabbitholes. Someday, heβll finish that graphic novel. In the meantime, his work is best seen at thecsjones.com or @thecsjones on Instagram.