So, we have finaly met the ending. The Christmas Countdown is over.

For those who didn't follow me: In the past 24 days, I made it my task to draw 1 full illustration on a daily basis while simultaneously holding livestreams. It was a considerably big thing, especialy for me personally, so lets start the retrospect at the beginning.

Why did I even do that?

One of my more regular stream guests asked this question. Besides delivering new works for the art portal and contribute to the community, It was mainly a self test.

In the past few months, many things happened in my life. Things I didn't told you about because, honestly, they aren't very riveting subjects. However, if I had to summarize my situation, it would be as follows:

Lack of aspiration

I had many things to do. Many things I wanted to do. Big things. Things that may change my life. Still, for some reason, I did not want to give 100% or work on something over an extendet period of time.

Reflecting on it, it may have been me being affraid of failure. The fear that my hard work would not pay off, leaving me stranded in some way. The fear of meeting my limits and not being able to push beyond. Ideas of "Thats not good enough!", "You don't have enough time!" and "You don't even know how that works!". The list goes on.

However, in the past few months, things got slightly better. I managed quiet a bit of things I would have previously seen as impossible. The "Girl in a room 2 collab" things, for example. I had little to no time for it, but I still wanted to deliver the best thing possible. So I pushed myself, improved, worked as hard as possible and one step beyond. What is most important is that I was genuinely satisfied with what I accomplished. There was a certain feel of accomplishment that I didn't had in quiet some time. Looking back, it may not have been the greatest piece of flash animation ever, but I am still proud of it.

Through that, I began taking more risks and went into things with all I got. When I can do it and want to do it, there is no excuse for not doing it to the best of my abilities. When I think It may fail because of personal failure, do it anyways and make sure not to fail.

The Christmas Countdown was one of those decisions. I wanted to see just how far and how much further I can go.

This is quiet possibly the most sappy and personal thing I have ever written on the internet.

The Protocol

What has changed troughout this month?

• I have almost doubled the size of my Art gallerie, from 31 to 55 pictures.
• Tom Fulp and the NG art twitter now follow me (yay!)
• I made plenty of new friends
• I have become more active on social media
  • I opened a twitter where I share some nice art related findings or general silliness
  • I finaly have a proper livestreaming format
  • I give out regular updates on NG about general stuff on a weekly basis (it began before the actual countdown, but I am counting it anyway because I can)
• I have a clear idea what to improve upon
  • Environments are still a huge pain for me
  • some more "plastic" studies of the human hody are necessary
  • Perspective

Whats to come

Difficult to say. I will keep doing what I am doing, thats for sure. I will also keep working on myself and my skills. However, contrary to the previous years, I will deliver what I promised. Common updates, weekly reports, regular artworks etc. have become mecome dear and mandatory for me. The updates will be more common, the reports more "weekly" (?) and the artworks better.

I said it in my CC announcement and I will say it again:

The best is just good enough and Bonsai delivers.

With everything said and done, lets storm head on into next year

BB

SPECIAL THANKS:

• Cairos: http://cairos.newgrounds.com/
  • for his feedback, encouragements, collaboration, features and sticking with me trough this entire month. Words can't describe my gratitude. Stay awesome.
• PlagueDocterNick: http://plaguedocternick.newgrounds.com/
  • for following me trough the streams and his feedback on almost ALL of my work. I promise I'll respond to all of them!
• Doomroar: http://doomroar.newgrounds.com/
  • His feedback always made my day.
• The NG Art Portal
  • ​for their honest feedback, both positive and negative.
• LoboF: http://lobof.newgrounds.com/
  • for informing others about what I did and following the streams.
• Tom Fulp
  • for being Tom Fulp

My apologies if I forgot someone :(