@sebulant - @Aalasteir (Q) - Index
Q: What is the Internet about?
It’s about whatever you decide to do with it. For me, it’s about talking to my friends online, or looking at other peoples’ creations, like art or speedrunning history videos.
Q: How did you discover NG, and why did you join?
I discovered Newgrounds back in 2011 when my cousin showed me Moving Targets by Eddsworld. Then after that, the site had always been in the back of my mind. I probably visited once every couple years or so, but I never had any reason to stay.
I signed up for the first time in 2019 wanting to reupload some of my YouTube videos. After making my account I realised that the movie portal probably wasn’t the best fit for my content, so I never went through with it. I still made a blog post announcing my grand arrival though. I deleted my account shortly after being called a slur in the comments of that post lol.
Then in 2021 I made my second (and current) account so I could save my scores in FNF. The thought of posting art on Newgrounds didn’t really occur to me until I saw Bacun shilling the hell out of the site on Twitter. I’d gotten a pen tablet a few months prior to this and it went largely unused, so this looked like a good opportunity to get my money's worth.
Q: The story of your username: sebulant
I wish there was more to it, but it’s just a nickname someone called me for a couple weeks. I happened to need a new username at the same time, so it stuck. It really bugs me that I didn’t coin it, it feels like I stole it in some weird kinda way.
Q: What do you like about creating art and games, and what got you interested in them?
Creating stuff is just fun, especially when it involves drawing Pokemon or Psychonauts characters. Also seeing people engage with the stuff you make is great too, the amount of positive comments that Wanted! got was awesome.
I first got into art when I was around 5 years old and I’d seen a drawing my older sister did. It was simple but looked alright. Most importantly though, I thought to myself: “I could do that”, and I did. After this I just kept drawing more and more, at some point I was drawing full comics in my sketchbook every night. I stopped drawing consistently around 2014, but started again in 2020 after buying a new pen tablet on a whim.
Getting into game development was kind of an accident. I first learned to code through a Minecraft mod called ComputerCraft. I wanted to have a password lock on a door, so I looked up and watched a tutorial series on the basics of programming the computers. It was only after this I had learned a real language called Lua, and not some made up Minecraft one. After this revelation, I started programming simple console games in ComputerCraft, then Lua, then Python, and then finally going to university and making “actual” games in Unity.
Q: Your advice for artists and game developers
It’s tricky for me to give out advice because I still feel like I’m still at an intermediate level in both fields. If anything though, try not to get discouraged. It’s very easy to see someone else's work and think “damn, I could never do that”. This mindset is cringe and you shouldn’t see it as a competition. Looking at it as inspiration or a goal for you to eventually achieve, I find that helps me overcome this mindset quite a bit.
Even if you think your own work is bad compared to others, there’s still a good likelihood that someone else is gonna like what you do. If you’ve ever seen the “HoLy ShIt TwO cAkEs!!!” meme, basically just that.
Q: How did you create your Newgrounds Skin Swapper?
It is made using Javascript in Tampermonkey.
The whole concept came about because we were running the Pico Day 2023 site skin for a few months in a row. Normally I wouldn't have cared, but I saw someone point out a minor error with an outline in the art and it was driving me nuts. I also remembered seeing Ninjamuffin stream himself writing a Tampermonkey script that let you save blog post drafts. So, knowing you could use Tampermonkey to “mod” Newgrounds, I started work on a simple script that would change the background image. I was having fun though, so I kept slowly adding more and more features until we ended up with the full customisation suite we have today.
Q: How did you create BYLE?
BYLE was made using Unity and various other 3D art programs I don’t know/remember the name of. I worked on it alongside a team of 6 other of my friends from university, it was our final year project. I’m not exactly sure how long it took to develop, but I think it was around 9 months. We were lucky enough to get a spot at a game convention’s indie game section, and got lots of feedback from the public about game balance too.
Specifically, I worked on programming the character base and all the powerups. Also added an occasional bit of weapons and UI code too. I did pretty much all of the 2D art for the game, excluding the loading screen. None of that art was meant to be permanent, but it stuck because no one else could be bothered to change it.
We were all graded low 70 marks for the game, which is pretty good. Even after finishing uni, we kept working on the game to add more content and get it published on Steam.
Q: What do you think about Unreal Engine?
It’s a good engine, and there’s a reason why it’s industry standard. But fuck does it seem difficult to learn, even with prior knowledge of other engines. I have briefly used it before while I was at university, but I was only programming in it for 1 semester, and my grade at the end of it wasn’t fantastic (still passed). It’s been 3 years since then (I think) and I don’t remember any of it.
That being said, it is my current aim to learn it, but with it being such a difficult task I find it hard to stay motivated. Truthfully I would rather be investing more time into Godot and making games for Newgrounds.
Q: Your experiences with video editing?
Video editing is fun, and I still do it occasionally, but my passion for doing it has long since gone. I started doing it early 2016 after watching a tutorial on how to make Gabe the Dog song edits. The first one I uploaded was a Wii Shop Channel cover and it got thousands of views. None of this momentum carried over to the rest of the channel but it served as a great motivator to keep posting to the channel.
My channel slowly went from Gabe edits to just batshit memes that made no sense. Gabe edits were tedious to make, and shitty memes were way easier and more fun. In 2019 I burnt myself out by doing nothing but video editing for a solid week, resulting in my longest video ever. I never really recovered from this and by 2020 any motivation and will I had to make videos died. I tried to keep going, but with me just starting university I found myself not caring enough anymore.
The channel had a good run and I enjoyed doing it, but looking back most of those videos are really really bad. I deleted/re-edited some videos to purge some particularly edgy jokes not too long ago. The sense of humour I had when I was 14-18 is really embarrassing and not a good look for me now. Some of the more recent videos are still kinda funny though, both parts of “TOP 10 WORST ANIMALS” I think are my favourites.
- Tag Karma
One time I was out watching my friend spray paint some stuff around our village. He'd previously pasted his tag 'Sesh' onto various walls and bus stops, but wanted to try an actual illustration on a legal wall. As he was painting, we overheard some annoying kid in the nearby skatepark boasting to his friends that he was Sesh, not knowing that the actual Sesh was right behind him. We saw him try to recreate the tag and it was hilariously bad. We found the whole thing really funny, but there was a decent chance that kid had an older brother who would've beaten us up, so we didn't say anything LOL.
Moral of the story is don't steal other people's art because they will probably laugh at you.
Q: Why do you think other people try to steal other people's art?
It’s just attention seeking really.
I won’t lie, when I was 7 I traced over a bunch of Mario renders and showed it to my friends saying I drew it. Just like that kid who tried to steal my friends tag, I wanted people to think I was a really good artist and all the attention that came with that.
You could also make the argument that jealousy is another reason, but I think that is what drives people to create AI artwork instead. Prompters without any art experience get jealous of actual artists, so they claim AI art is making art “free for everyone” because “anyone can now do it”. Ignoring the fact you need to fork out serious cash for hardware/services to run AI software, anyone can still make art anyway, they just refuse to learn.
Q: Your favorite food and drinks
My Aspergers usually makes me a picky eater, so I don’t like most foods. That being said, you don’t wanna see me on a Shrove Tuesday, I will be devouring pancakes like my life depends on it.