Compared to last year, 2024 was a far quieter year on the public side of the zayJax coin.

Only nine renders and one animation this year. (3 if you exclude commission work or renders featuring commissioned models).

Well the answer is fairly simple, burnout and a ton of commission work.

This year was, by far, my most successful yet in terms of work. Lots of new folks and recurring clients. And as you can see on public platforms, mostly Coda. He's an excellent client to work with and every rig i have to do presents a new technical challenge for me. Which forces me out of my comfort zone in ways that i would've never done otherwise.

Pomni's face, Zooble's mix and match parts, Gangle's EP4 face, Baron's incredibly detailed face, The aprons on most of the cast, even a Lord X rig i made a while back all were challenging on their own right, leaving me a far better artist man by the time i finished them all.

Speaking of which, yeah! The TADC Model Pack! That took a significant amount of time out of the year with the overhauls leading up to the release and updates, and it's honestly some of my best technical work yet. But you all know that, you've all seen it and (probably) downloaded it. With each new episode released i learned new tricks, refined old skills, and just became overall a better 3D artist both on the technical and artistic side despite how simple these characters might look.

Here's a quick highlight thread of some of the best stuff i've seen that uses the pack (excluding Coda's work because then that would be like 90% of the list).

Unfortunately most people don't tag (or credit) me when using the pack so there's probably other good stuff i'm missing out on.

https://x.com/Funtime_Robbie/status/1873133593343771023

https://x.com/MrFrostyAnim/status/1843853792678425005/video/1

https://x.com/blueanimates_/status/1825352130728771781

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utk7F8zlUtM

https://x.com/MrFrostyAnim/status/1826952760098537535/video/1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CahGbsPrPc0

https://x.com/Avovet3D/status/1873376174912811030

But let's focus on what else happened aside from TADC despite it being a major focus throughout the year.

A lot happened surprisingly enough.

Early this year i got INVITED to this year's Pico Day NJ Event! I was genuinely super excited to go to the event, i could meet lots of cool artists and go to the US for the first time! New faces! New places to go to! But unfortunately i couldn't go due to passport complications that are still not resolved to this day. Whoops.

But it was streamed! So i could take a peek of what i was missing, i tuned in live to see what was going on, backtracked a bit and couldn't help but notice that there was an animation shown that looked eerily familiar. Eh let me click the timebar and Oh REREDEEMER WAS SHOWN THERE????????? I am still in awe that it even got considered at all. It made my entire month and i was so happy to see people enjoyed it THAT much. Big thanks :)

I also did some character renders for The Stupendium! Ooh!

It had been a while since i had made a render up to that point but i'm very glad i did it, shows that i still got it despite how few renders i tend to make.

And aside from that i really wanted to step up my game with the few renders i could make in my spare time, and the Boom Buster and ZB&ROX revamps were the result of that. I tried making more frequent stuff starting with the Stylish Crocs render all over to the ATHF one, but i felt like i was just making renders for the sake of making renders, which is not fun. I want to show clear improvements in the stuff i put out, and if it isn't there, then it's not worth showing. Might sound harsh but that's how it is for me.

But there is one thing i've been cooking up.

Earlier this year, i said this.

That was a fucking lie! You see, i was trying my best to cook up a script for a completely original ZB&ROX animation, no strings attatched. Voice acting, a funny plot, actual shit going on, the works! But something terrible happened.

Originally titled MEET THE ZAP-BOT, it was gonna be a two-parter about ZAP-BOT getting a world record for... something. I barely remember the original premise, but it was meant to be something like the Meet the Team videos mixed in with how Homestar Runner handled it. But there was one problem.

I kept writing. I wrote too much.

One thing led to another and FUCK

yeah it's... beefy. Around 8 minutes if all goes to plan. I can't show it since it would spoil all of the fun but this is a long-term project i wanna be chipping away at in my free time, when the burnout eventually fades out.

There isn't a lot done, aside from a new character, MEET THE SPINEBREAKER (name pending)

he is very mean and he's green.

He's the main antagonist of the script, but don't let his looks fool you because this guy is pathetic as shit. Which is fitting because this is a comedy short with some tiny bits of action here and there. The problem is that it's 8 minutes, and as you already know, animation takes a bit! I don't know what the future of the project is, as i've done most of the progress during July. There's a script, there's a storyboard, and there's a VA for ZAP-BOT. It's paused as of now but i will 100% come back to it in the future.

Here's some test renders, all of them will be unused, but it was a fun way to explore what kind of rendering style i would be going for. I'm gonna go for something a bit more stylized (mostly because of render times) in the final animation though.

I tried testing out a neat shader a while later. I like it.

Aside from that i strengthed my relationships with newfound friends, met lots of new people, joined a team of cool people making an animation that will likely release next year (you'll know), and overall gave a bit more time to myself this year. It made it so this profile is a bit of a ghost town, which is a bit of a shame. I wish i could do more, but unfortunately i can't.

I'm in a far better spot compared to last year fortunately, so i'm doing well. It's just that personal art has not been a focus, but it will perhaps be next year. Who knows!

I also have a Bluesky account. It's not Twitter so that means i can safely say Sonic Movie 3 sucked dick and i won't be beaten to death with rocks so that means it must be the superior platform

zayjax.bsky.social

zayjax.bsky.social

zayjax.bsky.social

See you all in 2025!