Time for another months challenge! About the EventHello everyone! As end of the year draws close, we want to make our December challenge about you and your favorite things! Join us by posting your work with #favcember2024 tag in your posts. You are welcomed to do either 1 or 2 pieces of artwork per prompt! We're excited to see all the amazing favorites from all of our amazing users. We hope you have fun, and happy creating! How to join Favcember 2024 on Cara1. Participate by posting new work youve made by following the favcember list 2. You can either create 1 or 2 pieces per prompt, its entirely up to you whether you want to do a piece daily!3. Mention #favcember2024 in the description when posting!Cara Theme ListWe encourage everyone to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with the nature of your art and take a chance at growing your art skills within our challenge. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun while creating and nurturing each other's works in comments!We hope you can plant fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy Favcember together as we look back through the year! - The Cara Team

Time for another months challenge! About the EventHello everyone! As end of the year draws close, we want to make our December challenge about you and your favorite things! Join us by posting your work with #favcember2024 tag in your posts. You are welcomed to do either 1 or 2 pieces of artwork per prompt! We're excited to see all the amazing favorites from all of our amazing users. We hope you have fun, and happy creating! How to join Favcember 2024 on Cara1. Participate by posting new work youve made by following the favcember list 2. You can either create 1 or 2 pieces per prompt, its entirely up to you whether you want to do a piece daily!3. Mention #favcember2024 in the description when posting!Cara Theme ListWe encourage everyone to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with the nature of your art and take a chance at growing your art skills within our challenge. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun while creating and nurturing each other's works in comments!We hope you can plant fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy Favcember together as we look back through the year! - The Cara Team cara.app | twitter | instagram | buy cara a coffee

Time for another months challenge! About the EventHello hello everyone, November is here, which means another challenge for yall to enjoy!Considering how the seasons are changing and with that the colors around uswe wanted to celebrate it with this months challengeHuevember! To participate, use the provided color for the days and associated prompt within your artwork and share it using #huevember2024 on Cara We're excited to see all the beautiful colors throughout this month! Happy creating! How to join Huevember 2024 on Cara1. Participate by posting new work youve made by following the huevember list 2. Mention #huevember2024 in the description when posting!Cara Theme ListWe encourage everyone to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with the nature of your art and take a chance at growing your art skills within our budding theme. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun while creating and nurturing each other's works in the comments!We hope you can plant fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy Plantober together. We look forward to seeing your creativity blossom! - The Cara Team

Time for another months challenge! About the EventHello hello everyone, November is here, which means another challenge for yall to enjoy!Considering how the seasons are changing and with that the colors around uswe wanted to celebrate it with this months challengeHuevember! To participate, use the provided color for the days and associated prompt within your artwork and share it using #huevember2024 on Cara We're excited to see all the beautiful colors throughout this month! Happy creating! How to join Huevember 2024 on Cara1. Participate by posting new work youve made by following the huevember list 2. Mention #huevember2024 in the description when posting!Cara Theme ListWe encourage everyone to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with the nature of your art and take a chance at growing your art skills within our budding theme. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun while creating and nurturing each other's works in the comments!We hope you can plant fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy Plantober together. We look forward to seeing your creativity blossom! - The Cara Team cara.app | twitter | instagram | buy cara a coffee

Are you going to an in-person event soon? Do you want an easy way to keep track of people youve met? You can now use your CaraQR to meet other users! Not only does CaraQR let you visit an artists profile to check out their work, it also retains a history of who youve met for you to revisit later. So whether its an artist at artist alley whom you were too shy to say hello to, or a group meet that happened too quickly and you worry about misplacing business cards, you can now find a visit log in your QR Meets history and check whose accounts you have scanned during an event. Think of it as a bookmark for people youve met! How to create your own CaraQR card? Sign in and visit cara.app/qrcardYou can upload a custom background for your QR wallpaper Save the photo to your phone or PC, and use it as your phones wallpaper, so as to show someone your QR code without unlocking your phone; or print it out if you have a display table at an event, so anyone can scan your CaraQR easily. *Please note that QR visits only work one-way, so the other user wont know that you have visited their profile if they didnt also scan your QR code. This is to reduce clutter for people using their Cara QRs for things like artist alley where many people may try to visit their profiles. If you want someone to also check out your profile, remember to let them visit your profile as well! ~Have creative ways to use your QR card? Tag #CaraQR when sharing on Cara, so our team can check it out! Visitcara.app/qrcardto create your custom QR wallpaper Use saved image as wallpaper Lightbox Expo Giveaway Keen to try your luck? Come visit us at Lightbox Expo booth 909 with your CaraQR. We will pick one QR winner at the end of each day and give you an available tote bag of your choice for pickup. Cara at Lightbox Expo booth 909 See all Cara tote bags Winners will be chosen at random, and be notified via Caras direct messaging from the @cara account. You can pick up the tote bag any time throughout till the end of the event.

Are you going to an in-person event soon? Do you want an easy way to keep track of people youve met? You can now use your CaraQR to meet other users! Not only does CaraQR let you visit an artists profile to check out their work, it also retains a history of who youve met for you to revisit later. So whether its an artist at artist alley whom you were too shy to say hello to, or a group meet that happened too quickly and you worry about misplacing business cards, you can now find a visit history in your QR Meets log for users whose QR codes you have scanned.Think of it as a bookmark for people youve met! How to create your own CaraQR wallpaper? Sign in to your account and visit cara.app/qrcardYou can upload a custom background for your QR wallpaper Save the photo to your phone or PC, and use it as your phone wallpaper, so you can show someone your QR code without unlocking your phone; or print it out if you have a display space at an event, so anyone can scan your CaraQR easily. Visitcara.app/qrcardto create your custom QR wallpaperUse saved image as wallpaperLightbox Expo Giveaway Keen to try your luck? Come visit us at Lightbox Expo booth 909 with your CaraQR. We will pick one QR winner at the end of each day and give you an available tote bag of your choice for pickup.Cara at Lightbox Expo booth 909See all Cara tote bagsWinners will be chosen at random, and be notified via Caras direct messaging from the @cara account. You can pick up the tote bag any time throughout till the end of the event.

Hi everyone! October is here and we are happy to share that Cara will finally have our own table at Lightbox Expo this year! To celebrate our first ever in-person event, we are launching a series of 10 tote bags you can preorder for pick up at our booth at the end of this month.The tote bags feature artwork by Katsuya Terada, Wayne Barlowe, Jingna Zhang, Tobias Kwan, Beatrice Blue, Jeff Simpson, Jing Liang, Entei Ryu, and Weilin Zhang. The proceeds will go towards servers costs and expenses that keep Cara running, and we want to thank our friends and artists we discovered on Cara for donating their artwork to support our efforts and the platform. To preorder the tote bags, you can check out our Store or the product links below. We cannot ship any orders unfortunately due to our limited manpower at this time, so please only order if you can pick up your tote bag in person. We appreciate your understanding.

Hi everyone! October is here and we are happy to share that Cara will finally have our own table at Lightbox Expo this year! To celebrate our first ever in-person event, we are launching a series of 10 tote bags you can preorder for pick up at our booth at the end of this month.The tote bags feature artwork by Katsuya Terada, Wayne Barlowe, Jingna Zhang, Tobias Kwan, Beatrice Blue, Jeff Simpson, Jing Liang, Entei Ryu, and Weilin Zhang. The proceeds will go towards servers costs and expenses that keep Cara running, and we want to thank our friends and artists we discovered on Cara for donating their artwork to support our efforts and the platform. To preorder the tote bags, you can check out our Store or the product links below. We cannot ship any orders unfortunately due to our limited manpower at this time, so please only order if you can pick up your tote bag in person. We appreciate your understanding. Cara Lightbox Expo Tote Bags There are now over one million users on Cara, and we are grateful for the community that has come together. These tote bags are but a small slice of the types of illustrators, painters, animators, concept artists, photographers, sculptors, and art directors on the platform. We have also seen pixel artists, comic artists, graphic designers, motion designers, curators, storyboard artists, 3D artists, writers, and many more who have come together to share their work on Cara. We still have a lot of work to do, but we are thankful to everyone who checked us out and are building this community together with one another. We will continue to build so that even more creatives may find a home with us one day. If you are coming to Lightbox Expo, please definitely feel free to stop by our booth (909) to say hi! And to our coffee supporters, thank you! The Cara Team Artist Links: Beatrice Blue | Entei Ryu | Jeff Simpson | Jing Liang | Jingna Zhang | Katsuya Terada | Tobias Kwan | Wayne Barlowe | Weilin Zhang cara.app | twitter | instagram | buy cara a coffee Visit the Cara Web Store

Mix & Match your October art challenge with Plantober! About the EventWant a break from your other list or an excuse to include any kind of plant life in your art? Then chill with Plantober and some greenery - be it forests, cacti, ferns and flowers or your very own fantasy flora designs!Plantober is a community event celebrating the month of October with plant-themed artwork.With seemingly countless art challenges taking root throughout this spooky month, we wanted to offer an open theme as a pressure-free addition to the fun:To participate in Plantober, all you have to do is include any type of flora in your art and share it with #plantober2024!Feel free to use the hashtag alongside art with plants you created for other October challenges, get inspired by our list of daily themes or make up your own fantasy flora designs!Whether you draw a piece including a plant a day throughout the entire month or participate with a single entry is completely up to you: You can join in as much or as little as you want and can.How to join Plantober 2024 on Cara1. Participate by posting new work youve made (which can be a part of other art challenges) including any type of plant or plants from our theme list2. Make sure to mention #plantober2024 in the description box when posting!Cara Theme ListWe encourage everyone to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with the nature of your art and take a chance at growing your art skills within our budding theme. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun while creating and nurturing each other's works in the comments!We hope you can plant fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy Plantober together. We look forward to seeing your creativity blossom! - The Cara Team

Becky Cloonan @beckycloonan - The Pot of Basil @miski - PLANT CRIMINAL Mix & Match your October art challenge with Plantober! About the EventWant a break from your other list or an excuse to include any kind of plant life in your art? Then chill with Plantober and some greenery - be it forests, cacti, ferns and flowers or your very own fantasy flora designs!Plantober is a community event celebrating the month of October with plant-themed artwork.With seemingly countless art challenges taking root throughout this spooky month, we wanted to offer an open theme as a pressure-free addition to the fun:To participate in Plantober, all you have to do is include any type of flora in your art and share it with #plantober2024!Feel free to use the hashtag alongside art with plants you created for other October challenges, get inspired by our list of daily themes or make up your own fantasy flora designs!Whether you draw a piece including a plant a day throughout the entire month or participate with a single entry is completely up to you: You can join in as much or as little as you want and can.How to join Plantober 2024 on Cara1. Participate by posting new work youve made (which can be a part of other art challenges) including any type of plant or plants from our theme list2. Make sure to mention #plantober2024 in the description box when posting!Cara Theme ListWe encourage everyone to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with the nature of your art and take a chance at growing your art skills within our budding theme. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun while creating and nurturing each other's works in the comments!We hope you can plant fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy Plantober together. We look forward to seeing your creativity blossom! - The Cara Team Janine Narciso @jnarciso - Bloomy and the sproutlets Eva Toorenent @evaboneva - Plant Musician Neil Blevins @artofsoulburn -Space Baroque Venrusi Forest Rough Alice Ferox @aliceferox - May We Never Wake Up Robbie Trevino @robbietrevino - Amaniloth Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - Watcher Elizah Leigh @elizahleighartwriter - Papaver Somniferum Eliza Leigh @elizahleighartwriter - Yora Tranca Eva Vilhelmiina @evelmiina - Finnish Folklore Illustrations @lucocurtis - Plants! Mali @sleepimali - Plant Bebs Angela @angothemango - Leaf Chaser Jason Chuang @jasonchuangart - Jade Vine Lich Juliorra @lichjuliorra - Main Cover for Kitasu @digitiel -Rejuvenation @requinoesis -Aurantia - The Vassal of Vanguard Sysina @sysinacgi - Artist's Cozy, Plant-Filled Studio Henry Wong @henrywongdraws - Doggo Flowers @incaseyouart - Plant Art Comp Lich Juliorra @lichjuliorra - Tina in Flowers @sleepingwoolf - Thorned Rachel Sergiyenko @stallelio - Peaceful Dream Natalie Dombois @nataliedombois - Spaceplan(t)s

Hi everyone its Jingna. Long time no see! A few things on whats new with Cara lately: 1. I had severe burnout/depression the last few months so I was offline for a while. Im slowly getting back into things now, but thats the main reason we have been quiet for a while and I apologize. Will share more on what weve been working on in the background2. Dev UpdateWe are in the middle of a big rewrite for mobile app. This is a pretty major milestone as the update will improve app speed, stability, and fix a number of UX issues. And while it may not seem like much on the frontend, and well still have many bugs to work on over time, but its a big step towards making bug-fixing and performance issues easier to work on in the future, so Im really excited!The first new version should be ready early next month. Ill announce again once its up in the app stores. We appreciate everyones patience and understanding. ImagineFX Issue 2453. ImagineFX Interview/FeatureWe're in the new issue of ImagineFX (issue 245)! I did an interview discussing what happened in the last few months for those curious to read up on some behind the scenes. 4. Events: TechCrunch Disrupt & Lightbox ExpoI will be at Lightbox Expo and TechCrunch Disrupt next month! Well have a table and discussion/Q&A panel for Cara at Lightbox, and for TechCrunch Disrupt, Ill be speaking on at the AI stage with a panel about copyright and ethics in AI. 5. Merch/Tote BagsWell be making some tote bags that can be picked up at Lightbox Expo to raise money for our server costs. Right now coffees are still the best way to support us, but we hope this will give people who want to rep Cara merch a chance to get something. Well share more info soon once we finalize the artwork list. 6. #Plantober for October Our October art challenge will be #plantober! We wanted to give people an option for something besides inks and drawings if they wanted, and it just sounded like a fun hashtag. Theme list to come in the next few days, but feel free to start thinking about it!Big thank you to everyone who checked in on me and those who have been supporting us with coffees. It means a lot. We will be back with more details on these updates soon. Thank you! - Jingna

Hi everyone its Jingna. Long time no see! A few things on whats new with Cara lately: 1. I had severe burnout/depression the last few months so I was offline for a while. Im slowly getting back into things now, but thats the main reason we have been quiet for a while and I apologize. Will share more on what weve been working on in the background2. Dev UpdateWe are in the middle of a big rewrite for mobile app. This is a pretty major milestone as the update will improve app speed, stability, and fix a number of UX issues. And while it may not seem like much on the frontend, and well still have many bugs to work on over time, but its a big step towards making bug-fixing and performance issues easier to work on in the future, so Im really excited!The first new version should be ready early next month. Ill announce again once its up in the app stores. We appreciate everyones patience and understanding. ImagineFX Issue 245 3. ImagineFX Interview/FeatureWe're in the new issue of ImagineFX (issue 245)! I did an interview discussing what happened in the last few months for those curious to read up on some behind the scenes. 4. Events: TechCrunch Disrupt & Lightbox ExpoI will be at Lightbox Expo and TechCrunch Disrupt next month! Well have a table and discussion/Q&A panel for Cara at Lightbox, and for TechCrunch Disrupt, Ill be speaking on at the AI stage with a panel about copyright and ethics in AI. 5. Merch/Tote Bags Well be making some tote bags that can be picked up at Lightbox Expo to raise money for our server costs. Right now coffees are still the best way to support us, but we hope this will give people who want to rep Cara merch a chance to get something. Well share more info soon once we finalize the artwork list. 6. #Plantober for October Our October art challenge will be #plantober! We wanted to give people an option for something besides inks and drawings if they wanted, and it just sounded like a fun hashtag. Theme list to come in the next few days, but feel free to start thinking about it!Big thank you to everyone who checked in on me and those who have been supporting us with coffees. It means a lot. We will be back with more details on these updates soon. Thank you! - Jingna cara.app | twitter | instagram | buy cara a coffee

Hi everyone! #PortfolioDay is happening this Tuesday, July 9th! While we are not an official partner of the event, we would love to share some tips for preparing your profile on Cara, given that we have some tools to facilitate those who are job-seeking and artist-hiring! What is #PortfolioDay? From the official website: #PortfolioDay is a creative job fair of sorts that takes place on social media. Creatives who are looking for work will make a post with examples of their work using the hashtag in hopes of reaching clients and connecting with other professionals in the community. Clients in turn use the tag to find artists to hire! Tips for Sharing on CaraThere is always a lot of excitement around #PortfolioDay, and we have noticed that often times, people are not aware of its origins and that its a tag for artists seeking work. For better clarity on Cara, we want to help make it easy to identify and find artists who are actively looking for work. For artists, we encourage the following:Include both #PortfolioDay and #OpenToWork in your post On your Profile, update the Open to Work status on your About pageFor art directors, recruiters, and clients, we encourage you to check out Cara on desktop:Our website has more robust features for portfolios and search currently You can see portfolio albums on profiles You can use in-depth search, like the Open to Work and category filters We ask that everyone be considerate of others, and only use the hashtags relevant to you. On Explore, we will also showcase a selection of posts tagged with #PortfolioDay in the featured event tab. Update to the latest app version (v0.4.4) and you will see it when the event is running! Preparing Your Artist ProfileUpdate the Open to Work status on your Profile About tab Update About page with relevant bio, work background, and contact info Glaze/Mist, Nightshade, and watermark before sharing Organize your Portfolio Albums (Desktop only)

Hi all, this is Jingna, the founder of Cara. Since going viral, a lot of people have expressed concern about how long Cara can last after seeing the screenshot of our $100k Vercel bill. Many people forwarded me Angelos post about how Cara should become subscription-only, thousands of others have said everything from "ads are fine", "get sponsorships", "do donations", to the more dramatic "just shut down".Its been over a month since this unexpected surge in traffic. We passed 1 million users (!!!), and with our mounting bills, Ive put off time and again on writing this post because I needed time to research, do my homework, work on optimizing our code to reduce costs, and consider as many angles as possible for the long-term health of Cara.This post was difficult to put together, and I feel immensely vulnerable in having to share the details and my thoughts around such a sensitive topic. I know people can easily misunderstand, misconstrue, or take things out of context, but still, I think it's important for me to be transparent about the challenges we have been facing, how we are dealing with them, and our plans for moving forward.My original plan:I avoided promoting Cara most of this entire past year as I know we couldnt afford the challenges that would come with scale, which requires money and a much larger team than what we have to tackle issues we aren't ready for. So my original plans were to: 1) Lay low for as long as needed and build features until we are ready for public launch2) Pilot subscriptions in the meantime, see how much we can sustain against our expenses3) Raise money from trusted people like family and friends that align with our vision and missionI wanted to get us to profitability over time, so we could afford hiring full-timers to work Cara and sustain it long-term. That was the goal.Current State of Things:It costs a lot of money to run Cara.Before the traffic surge, it cost about $2k/month for various hosting and development services to run the platform.When things went viral, I was hit with a $100k bill from one of our service providers for 1 week of traffic.3 weeks after things calmed down to a new normal, a quick back of the napkin calculations say we will need $660k to host Cara for a year.We now have 4 million posts and 5 million images on Cara! These numbers grow by hundreds of thousands each week. So if we account for another unexpected traffic spike within a year, add the cost of spam and moderation that we have to start tackling, and legal fees for advice to make sure we are doing things correctlythe expenses would get closer to $1million.We anticipated spam and bot issues to happen at some point, but due to the new attention on Cara, we are now encountering it much sooner than expected.Ive had to start banning our first porn bots and I am so overwhelmingly terrifiedbetween the potential legal costs, full time salaries and more that I have to start thinking aboutits been a lot.Monetization Thoughts:I planned on having a mix of job listings, user subscriptions, and sponsorship/selected ads in the long term. Each of these would take 1 year to implement given our small teamlast year we did job listings, this year was going to be subscriptions.I wanted to build our community slowly and organically, and eventually open up to more types of creatives such as photographers, designers, stylists, hair stylists, makeup artists, and more from my own industry and beyond.I wanted to steadily work towards being profitable one day, so that we could afford to pay people to work on Cara full-time, and speed up our development so features and tools can be shipped more quickly.With the unexpected traffic, we urgently need to address spam and other issues much sooner than I was estimating for. So to address some of the most common suggestions the community has brought up, my thoughts are below: On Crowdfunding/GoFundMeI appreciate the communitys support so so much, but unlike a Kickstarter, our expenses wont be a one-time only event. Our bills will keep growing, and they have to be paid month after month after month.It might be a viable short-term measurelike the coffee contributions helping us out right now (thank you, everyone!)but its not a feasible solution to paying our bills long-term.When I imagine having to repeatedly ask artists for money in the state of our current worldI just hate the idea so much. I dont ever want anyone to feel obligated or pressured into making contributions. So while its one means of keeping us afloat, I truly believe we need to work on longer-term solutions as we move forward. On Going Subscription-OnlyAngelo Sotira is the co-founder and former CEO of DeviantArt. When I first heard his suggestion to make Cara subscription-only, I couldnt wrap my head around it. But as I started to see spam and ban evasions pop up on the platform, I began to understand how his words as well-intentioned and came from a place of experience after running DA for over 20 years.The discussions around his post got really heated. Some people understood the perspective, many others felt that this would cut off access for young individuals getting interested in artand I agree.I benefited a lot as a 14-year old on DeviantArt 22 years ago, and made life-long friends because access to DA was free and anyone could be on it. I was able to have my first clients like Mercedes Benz because they saw my work on DA.I know the world has changed drastically over the last 20+ years. Spam is more rampant than ever, bots are more sophisticated, and generative AI is only making everything much more difficult and ultimately expensive for us to moderate.Given all that, I realize how a paywall can help cut down bots and reduce scraping for gen AI. It is truly appealing for artists. But even so, my vision for Cara is to benefit the greatest number of people for as much and as long as I can. Even if I may be wrong, I dont want to give that up without trying.Maybe in a year I will regret not listening to this advice, but for now, I want to try all the options I can think of first, even if it means a harder path forward. On Non-Profit GrantsA lot of what Ive seen of good nonprofits requires things I cannot do, such as the founder to network and socialize 99% of their time. I dont have the luxury and time to do that without already having money first. So for now, I can only keep building Cara and work with what I have. On Community InvestingMany people suggested having our community be Caras investors. And its really hard to say this because its very personal, but the biggest grief Ive had since founding Cara was the amount of hate and harassment I have had to deal with from the artist community critical of us.Be it bugs we cant resolve, features we cant yet build, or policies to protect ourselves and our userspeople get so angry and abusive, yell at us in caps, call us names, and would say some very, very horrible things.(Trigger warning for this paragraph, feel free to skip): Up until Cara, I have never attempted to harm myself due to bullying and harassmentand Ive lived through a number of harassments, doxxing, and personally difficult times in my life. So to have been driven to the brink while working on Cara last yearI learned that I need to protect myself if I want Cara to keep going.So as much as the idea of community investing in Cara sounds appealing on paper, I am overwhelmed by the thought of having to endure what Ive experienced a thousand times more.Maybe there are ways to do this if Im shielded from engaging with the community and using the app altogether, but then I wont be able to design or make decisions as I have. And I worry I'll end up in a place where I wouldn't want to work on it anymore, and that's not a path I want to go down towards.Perhaps things will change in the future. But for now, I dont yet know a way around this.Whats next:Over the past month, the team has been focused on optimizing code for cost reduction and scale. We will continue that work, start on in-app subscriptions, as well as begin responding to partnership enquiries and start exploring those potential income streams.Prior to our traffic spike, I also intended to do a round of fundraising from trusted friends to help afford the hiring of key staff so we can speed up Caras development. While the other work are underway, I plan to pick up where I left off, as the funding will assist with our more immediate needs for development and stability, and reduce risks of us rushing into bad product or partnership decisions.There has also been a lot of interest from venture capital firms which I had put off looking at while dealing with our first fires.The increase in traffic and expenses means we do need more money, but as a benefit corporation, our mission and values will take priority. So if we were to consider any offers, it would have to be someone who understands our vision and goals, and as a condition for fundraising, we have to remain in full control of Cara..I built Cara because I wanted a place I could call home for myself as an artist.Our mission is to build a platform where creatives rights are respected, and that will always remain core to our guiding principles.But beyond that, I love the community thats come together on Cara.We are seeing the beginnings of a shift towards more positive mindsets with regards to sharing onlinesomething that hasnt been true in a long timeso I want to keep building Cara in ways to make that possible.I believe we can and should aspire to be a healthier cornerstone to the internet of tomorrow.I want to continue building Cara in that vision, and for those joining us on this long journey, thank you.Jingna ZhangFounder, Cara

Animator Weilin Zhang (Jujutsu Kaisen, Mob Psycho 100) has started a new interview series with fellow animators, and we are honored to bring them to Cara! The concept of this zine will be a serialized interview of many different animators I know, where I ask them about reasonably esoteric things on the craft of animation seldom spoken about in public discourse.I think there is a lacking amount of depth in the educational material available to animators on the internet, particularly in English-speaking communities, so this is in hopes of supplementing that pool of information.Introductions: Spencer WanSpencer Wan is an animator known for his work on Castlevania (2017); The Owl House (2020); and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023). He is the founder and director of Studio Grackle, the studio responsible for the trailer of Hades (2018) by Supergiant Games. Weilin Zhang on Spencer Wan:Spencer Wan is one of the most "complete" animators that I know. I can elaborate on what I mean by admitting that it's kind of hard to encapsulate his body of work with a word more specific than ingenuity. In every department he's ever handled (there's a lot), he's always managed to pick up his own ideas and solutions. I felt that very early on when I came across his tumblr page in 2016. His style in terms of animation and illustration was something I had never seen before among the animators I had known during that time. Every aspect, from the color palette of his backgrounds, to the timing his of animation was new to me and still kind of exists in it's own compartment in my head... but that was just his work as a student and a freelancer. The Owl HouseSince then, he's worn more hats on the productions he's been on and his new tricks now are starting to solve logistical problems to do with animation itself. Did you know his lightning animation on looked the way it did to work with TV regulations to do with epilepsy? His body of work speaks on all aspects of animation, because he is kind of just proficient in every aspect of the craft. Introductions: WEILIN-ZINENice to meet you, My name is Jerry and I'm your interiew host for the glorious WEILIN-ZINE! Im conducting these interviews in the hopes of one day having a Great Forest of Knowledge for the next generation of animators to grow with. I love animation and I want there to be more animation in the future! More and if possible, better than ever before! So that the next-next generation can grow up with even better animation! And then they'll make even betterBETTER animation!!11!1! Please spread this interview far and wide so that generations of aspiring artists can enjoy these interviews!!!!Jerry Nguyen, host & interviewer, WEILIN-ZINEInterview with Spencer Wan6/23/2024~7/12/2024Jerry Nguyen: you know, I feel like growing up and talking to animators of different levels of experience one of the correlations that surprised me at first was that even an animator's tastes in the kinds of animation they like change. So much so I think I can almost guess what an animator likes more accurately by factoring their experience.I'd like to ask you if you still remember what "good" animation looked like to you when you were youngerI think animators that are just starting out, particularly younger animators, have a very specific and pointed preference in animation that they think IS goodSpencer Wan: Well I remember back then I was really attracted to simplicity. I used to get seriously put off by the use of heavy shadows and highlights, so I gravitated toward Norio Matsumotos animation because hed intentionally excluded shadows where other animators would assume it was expected.Like back then it took me a while to see value in some of the best animation out there. I remember I turned my nose up at both Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion because the styles were too detailed for what I was interested in.And when it came to the movement I really liked when things moved in a way I didnt expect.Like it couldve been the best looking hand drawn 3D rotation in the world and I would not have cared. I wanted to be surprised.This was all before I had the vocabulary or knew any of the animators names though. I just knew something about it was getting to meJN: you know I think the fact that he doesn't draw shadows really affects how he puts down black lines. Especially in fabric, I think there is always an extreme frustration where not putting down a line for a fold feels like too little, but putting down a black line is way too harsh, and so as an in between we'll use shadows to record those forms in the drawing. Norio Matsumoto I think excelled at visualizing the balance of his drawings when it was finished as a cel rather than the drawing he put down on the animation paper itselfSW: You know I dont think I ever really thought of it that way. I think for me it was like the drawings already sing without shadows and adding any more to it just felt like muddying it up.I remember when that internal shadow trend started for clothing and it never really landed with meJN: ohhhh, now that you say out loud I guess that was a trendactually, it's funny cause now you ended up bringing back a lot of those heavy black shadows for the Hades trailers and before that also in the Invader Zim Opening.I guess I might suspect that some of it is just a result of the artstyle of the projects themselves, but it looks like you've worked your style around it so I'm wondering if that opinion aged somewhat until nowSW: Well I more meant like specifically the use of only shadow for the interior of cloth. Like I remember thinking everyone was trying to copy that one Yutaka Nakamura scene from Space DandyThe black shadows I used on those projects were mostly just because the Zim one was supposed to look edgy and Hades already had those shadows in the styleAlthough I think it is kind of what my hand naturally wants to do nowId rather do like black shadows than have actual shadows hahaLike if you left it up to me Id only use shadow to show rim light or have one of those ones where it cuts diagonally across the character to make it moodierI love that shitJN: I love that shit too, honestly a lot of the web gen animators who joined around the 2010s feel similarly hahaI think with the Nakamura trend, people had never seen someone animate high fidelity fabric shading that emulated realism like that before. I reckon most people thought it was borderline impossible until he started to do itI think there's something interesting about your threshold for what counts as muddy, the fact that shadows seems to so clearly step over that line. You would think that shadows might be a bare minimum requirement of detail considering how it's basically everywhere in real lifeSW: I guess so, but Im really never aiming to make something look like real life in my workIve only ever wanted to make it look like animation.I dont know, theres a balance in my head that just gets ruined when you start throwing shadow everywhere.And you know, its a lot faster to draw without it, so win winJN: when you conceive of the thing your gonna draw, does it just start as a drawing rather than something like a real subject that you might have to perform the abstraction of in your head?SW: Yeah thats exactly it. I picture a drawing.I mean if Im drawing a real subject then Im going to picture reality, but if Im drawing an animated character then I picture an animated characterI just dont do much realism these days. No one pays me for thatIt used to be I couldnt make the drawings in my head so Id just let my hand run wild, but eventually my skill caught up to what was in my mind.Spencer Wan - SpiderPunkJN: well, lord knows you'd shake the earth if someone did. I still think about that spiderpunk testSW: That one was so hard for me to conceiveWe only had like a few early concepts for the character and they gave me some punk rock poster reference and said make it as crazy as you possibly canI couldnt come up with anything crazier than the style changing every single drawingBut it was like I had to conceive a new thing every time before moving on to the next drawing. I didnt want it to look like it was just changing color. It had to like feel like it was changing styles even if you couldnt see every single oneAnd I wanted to mimic the haphazard collage nature of early punk rock posters so I also had to collage everything togetherMy file crashed so many timesJN: I feel like I saw like 10 new illustration techniques that you've never done before in just that one animation.SW: Yeah I also was bad at them!I was like god damn Im not creative enough for this. I wanted structure back so badlyIf that test had been any longer I wouldve totally run out of ideasJN: so that was all stuff you figured out on the assignmentI legitimately thought you just have used techniques like that before on pieces I just haven't seen yetSW: Yeah I just looked at the posters and tried to recreate the techniques for some of themJN: crazySW: Like okay I can tell this was printed with a printer that was like straight up out of toner, but I have to do it on a computer soStreaky splatter texture subtract layer? I dunnoAnd then I ran out of poster techniques so I just grabbed anything that came to mindLike a spiderman Halloween maskJust slap that in there onceIts relevantI think they actually also did that in the movie on their own, but on MilesJN: This is such a strange reoccuring thing where you frequently lament that you don't possess this creative energyis there someone/something that you might look to as a foil to you in this regard??I can personally attest that I've tried to do some of the rendering styles in even just one frame of that test and I couldn't figure it outlike even the fact that you could identify that this one effect was a printer with no toner I feel like requires a degree of experience with printingSW: Well I used to play around with that stuff a lot more when I was youngerAnd thanks, but I never felt like I was really getting anywhere with any of those styles. It was like that feeling of trying to recreate a style but never quite getting there, only it happened to me a few dozen timesJN: I mean where would you liked to have gotten to?SW: Anything closer to the look they created just by experimentingIt never felt like I got that authenticityJN: hmmm, and for Spiderpunk structure was the thing was distracting you from that stuff?SW: Well I'm used to structure. Usually in production the quality of your work is measured by how well you met the director's vision and how well you stay on model. I'm used to doing that, but here they were telling me to just go off on my own and smack it as hard as I could with every creative tool available to meActually I struggled a lot with that on that production because any time I got Joaquim's boards I had a hard time moving away from themIt was like okay, I don't wanna mess this up, so I'd do a very literal interpretation where I'd be careful to keep everything he put into it in placeAnd then we'd get to review and they'd be like can you do this again but mess it upJN: When you went and messed it up did it go through?SW: Basically yeahJN: sounds like you really have to like strain yourself to do this other thing they were asking you to do hahaSW: Well it's just difficult when you get a storyboard that's detailed. It's like it's telling you you MUST do it like this.JN: Animatics do tend to be pretty compelling to work withI guess you've never really worked off of a comic panel storyboard aside from when you worked with Chengxi Huang rightEven he would do animatics and his panels had a specific blocking to them though, not sure if that dampened the effect storyboards have for youSW: Youre forgetting we both worked on that Carol and Tuesday thing a while backIts not the timing that gets in my way. Its the drawingsWith Chengxi its fine because I can more or less just use his poses and Im pret

Let's ignite our imagination with dragon-themed artwork in August! Ready to soar? Then unleash your creativity and join in on the Smaugust drawing challenge:About the EventSmaugust is a community event celebrating the month of August with dragon-themed artwork!To participate in the challenge, you are free to use one of the many theme lists that are meant to inspire you like the official Smaugust themes, Cara's List or your very own!Whether you draw a dragon a day throughout the entire month or participate with a single entry is completely up to you: You can join in as much or as little as you want and can.How to join Smaugust 2024 on Cara1. Participate by posting new work youve made following either Caras Theme List, the official Smaugust themes or your own ideas.2. Make sure to mention #smaugust2024 in the description box when posting and feel free to add the day and theme if you drew inspiration from a list!Cara Theme ListWe encourage everyone to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with your art and take a chance at learning something new within our draconic theme. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun with their art and raving about each other's works in the comments!We hope you can forge fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy Smaugust together. We look forward to seeing your creativity unfold! - The Cara Team

Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - Royal Hunt Leader List by @faith_schaffer on Instagram - shared on Cara by Hayden Stutz @hsartist S Morris @braverobynart - Swordtember 2024 Prompt List Sharpen your pencils and prepare for art! September is upon us, and that means it's time to create legendary blades! Ready to wield your artistic skill? Then join the Swordtember challenge and bring your sword designs to life:About the EventSwordtember is a community event celebrating the month of September with sword-themed artwork!To participate in the challenge, you are free to use one of the many theme lists that are meant to inspire you like the official Swordtember themes, Cara's List or your very own!Whether you draw a sword a day throughout the entire month or participate with a single entry is completely up to you: You can join in as much or as little as you want and can.How to join Swordtember 2024 on Cara1. Participate by posting new work youve made following either Caras Theme List, the official Swordtember themes or your own ideas.2. Make sure to mention #swordtember2024 in the description box when posting and feel free to add the day and theme if you drew inspiration from a list!Cara Theme ListWe encourage everyone to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with your art and take a chance at learning something new within our slashing theme. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun with their art and raving about each other's works in the comments!We hope you can forge fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy Swordtember together. We look forward to seeing your creativity unfold! - The Cara Team @volcanojungle - This Year's Swordtember List! Olga Tereshenko @olgatereshenko - Koschei Becky Cloonan @beckycloonan - Swordtember sketch dump Jean Paul Fiction @jeanp - Swortember Alexandrea @arcanumlenz - Angelic Knight @hopefulundertone - Swordtember - Renaissance @volcanojungle - Steampunk Sword (2023) Kyo Legends @kyoartworks - Gothic Alex F @stormsong - Swordtember 2023 Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - Vampire Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - Witch Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - Inquisitor Alex Piasecka @alexpiasecka - Swordtember Devin Yang @devinscribbles - Swordtember2022 @slumberprince - Path of the wicked @slumberprince - Selunite Blade Jennifer Smart @jaesmart - The Veridian Lord Antoine Gadoud @axiominus - Swordtember of last year ! @slumberprince - coral and glass blade prompts 2023 Nic Rodriguez @nrgalactic - Swordtember 2023 Drawings Zaba @zabacraft - Alchemist's Sword! Jacob @ponk - Swordtember'22 showcase CHICHI @chichitea - Swordtember drawings from 2023 Nick Rodriguez @nrgalactic - Swordtember 2022 Drawings S Morris @braverobynart -Swordtember Day 14 Arcane & Divine S Morris @braverobynart - Swordtember Day 9, Arcane & Nature Jennifer Smart @jaesmart - Terrible be the Elder Gods in Their wrath @augichii - Doom Royal Heir @augichii-HorrorKnightErrant @dgirael - Swordtember 2022 Leona Florianova @lostfool - Sowrdtember 2022 - Void, Rot @shunyah - Swordtember 2023 2/7 Po @hlifft - Swordtember 2023 (2) Po @hlifft - Swordtember 2023 (2) Po @hlifft - Swordtember 2023 (2) Jet K @jetkadett - Swordtember 2022

Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - Royal Hunt Leader List by @faith_schaffer on Instagram - shared on Cara by Hayden Stutz @hsartist S Morris @braverobynart - Swordtember 2024 Prompt List Sharpen your pencils and prepare for art! September is upon us, and that means it's time to create legendary blades! Ready to wield your artistic skill? Then join the Swordtember challenge and bring your sword designs to life:About the EventSwordtember is a community event celebrating the month of September with sword-themed artwork!To participate in the challenge, you are free to use one of the many theme lists that are meant to inspire you like the official Swordtember themes, Cara's List or your very own!Whether you draw a sword a day throughout the entire month or participate with a single entry is completely up to you: You can join in as much or as little as you want and can.How to join Swordtember 2024 on Cara1. Participate by posting new work youve made following either Caras Theme List, the official Swordtember themes or your own ideas.2. Make sure to mention #swordtember2024 in the description box when posting and feel free to add the day and theme if you drew inspiration from a list!Cara Theme ListWe encourage everyone to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with your art and take a chance at learning something new within our slashing theme. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun with their art and raving about each other's works in the comments!We hope you can forge fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy Swordtember together. We look forward to seeing your creativity unfold! - The Cara Team @volcanojungle - This Year's Swordtember List! Olga Tereshenko @olgatereshenko - Koschei Becky Cloonan @beckycloonan - Swordtember sketch dump Jean Paul Fiction @jeanp - Swortember Alexandrea @arcanumlenz - Angelic Knight @hopefulundertone - Swordtember - Renaissance @volcanojungle - Steampunk Sword (2023) Kyo Legends @kyoartworks - Gothic Alex F @stormsong - Swordtember 2023 Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - Vampire Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - Witch Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - Inquisitor Alex Piasecka @alexpiasecka - Swordtember Devin Yang @devinscribbles - Swordtember2022 @slumberprince - Path of the wicked @slumberprince - Selunite Blade Jennifer Smart @jaesmart - The Veridian Lord Antoine Gadoud @axiominus - Swordtember of last year ! @slumberprince - coral and glass blade prompts 2023 Nic Rodriguez @nrgalactic - Swordtember 2023 Drawings Zaba @zabacraft - Alchemist's Sword! Jacob @ponk - Swordtember'22 showcase CHICHI @chichitea - Swordtember drawings from 2023 Nick Rodriguez @nrgalactic - Swordtember 2022 Drawings S Morris @braverobynart -Swordtember Day 14 Arcane & Divine S Morris @braverobynart - Swordtember Day 9, Arcane & Nature Jennifer Smart @jaesmart - Terrible be the Elder Gods in Their wrath @augichii - Doom Royal Heir @augichii-HorrorKnightErrant @dgirael - Swordtember 2022 Leona Florianova @lostfool - Sowrdtember 2022 - Void, Rot @shunyah - Swordtember 2023 2/7 Po @hlifft - Swordtember 2023 (2) Po @hlifft - Swordtember 2023 (2) Po @hlifft - Swordtember 2023 (2) Jet K @jetkadett - Swordtember 2022

Jeff Simpson @jeffsimpson Let's make a splash with ocean- and mermaid-themed artwork this May! Wanna join? Then dive into the challenge with us:About the Event MerMay is a community event celebrating the month of May with mermaid-themed artwork!To participate in the challenge, you are free to use one of the many theme lists that are meant to inspire you like the official MerMay themes, Cara's List or your very own!Whether you draw a mermaid a day throughout the entire month or participate with a single entry is completely up to you: You can join in as much or as little as you want and can.How to join MerMay 2024 on CaraParticipate by posting new work youve made following either Caras Theme List, the official MerMay themes or your own ideas.Make sure to mention # mermay2024 in the description box when posting and feel free to add the day and theme if you drew inspiration from a list!A new tab on our explore feed featuring #mermay2024 entries along with posted features on our Instagram and Twitter pages will boost your entries throughout May!After the challenge has ended, another blog post is going to summarize the event and commemorate a selection of entries in a final feature. Tobias Kwan @tobiaskwan - Mermay 2023 Cara Theme ListWe encourage you to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with your art and take a chance at learning something new within our aquatic theme. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun with their art and raving about each other's works in the comments!We hope you can forge fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy MerMay together. We look forward to seeing your creativity unfold! - The Cara Team Nabs @nabsdraws - MerMay Illustrations from 2 Years ago Patryk Chudzinski @patichudy17 - Day 1 #mermay2023 Omichi @omichiart - Flower Mermaid enn @entropienn - Mermaids based on Planets - Mercury Ying Lam @inglam - Line Art 01 Fernando Salvaterra @salvaterra - A MerMay Thing Katerina Ladon @lumen - The Mermaid Queen Margo 37 @margo37 - Mermay2023 George Patsouras @cgmythology - Mermaid Creature Nodens @nodensart - Luminosity Mermaid Rona Ks @rona-ks - Mermay Kitten Anthony Brooks @anthonybrooks - MerMay 2023 Glass Nandito @fernandodoesart - Mermaid Virginie Juteau @virginiejuteau - Mermaid inspired by Underwater Photography Katerynka @handrosaur - Mermay Willy Merry @willymerry - Mermay 2023 Izzy @izzymedrano - Late Night MerMay Sketchies Alessia Hilary Valastro @alessiahv - THE SEA BELONGS TO US

@ryuvhiel - Ice Dragon Luis Bento @luisbentoart - Smaugust 2020: Days 1 to 6 Let's ignite our imagination with dragon-themed artwork in August! Ready to soar? Then unleash your creativity and join in on the Smaugust drawing challenge:About the EventSmaugust is a community event celebrating the month of August with dragon-themed artwork!To participate in the challenge, you are free to use one of the many theme lists that are meant to inspire you like the official Smaugust themes, Cara's List or your very own!Whether you draw a dragon a day throughout the entire month or participate with a single entry is completely up to you: You can join in as much or as little as you want and can.How to join Smaugust 2024 on Cara1. Participate by posting new work youve made following either Caras Theme List, the official Smaugust themes or your own ideas.2. Make sure to mention #smaugust2024 in the description box when posting and feel free to add the day and theme if you drew inspiration from a list!Cara Theme ListWe encourage everyone to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with your art and take a chance at learning something new within our draconic theme. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun with their art and raving about each other's works in the comments!We hope you can forge fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy Smaugust together. We look forward to seeing your creativity unfold! - The Cara Team Aleksandra G @shay3li - Fullmoon Dragon @inkvisage - Muuu, 2023 @inkvisage - Ququmatz, the Feathered Serpent, 2023 Izzy @lordfurfur - Smaugust 2019 Luis Bento @luisbentoart - Smaugust 2021 - Week 2 @chorilate - Smaugust 2023 John Tedrick @tedrick - Smaugust 2020 Vincent Coviello @vincentcovielloart - Dragon Spirit Maartha Laiho @pencilcat - Koi Dragon @ryuvhiel - The Dragon of Sunset Katie Croonenberghs @kamakru - Smaugust 2016 @behane - Mini-Smaugust 2023 - Part 2 Felix @alaitallon - Smaugust - Tea Refugio Sanchez G @cusago - Moltentongue Drake Felix @alaitallon - Smaugust - Ninki Nanka @neonpsychopomp - Dragonache @delyththomasart - Smaugust 2023 - Tenidraco @ryuigi - Forest Dragon Lucius Amberg @lucuisamberg - Mother Eden Sanders @creativemechanics - Dragons!

Hi all! Were super excited to bring you this update filled with new features! We hope you will like them Whats new: Added About page to profiles Added video and Sketchfab embed options Jobs board search, filters, post deletion Business account type added for jobs board Block user now available via profile page - Added Sign in with AppleBug fixes and improvements: Fixed OTP codes not sending on first sign in attempt(!!!) Bookmarks page layout updateCopy link for posts added to all screen sizesFixed profile timelines not always showing all postsFixes memory issues with large image uploadsFixed bugs on pinned postsUpcoming: Glaze integration Mobile app We will go into new features below! Video and Sketchfab Embeds It was previously possible to embed a single YouTube, Vimeo, or Sketchfab link in posts, however it wasnt possible to add them to portfolio posts or see them in lightbox view. This new feature allows you to upload multiple playable embeds on your Cara posts. Simply click on the play icon in your drafts window to paste your links: You can now embed multiple video and Sketchfab links to your posts on Cara. Profile Page AboutYou can now add resume, bio info, or work availability to the About tab on your profile! To add your About page, simply log in to Cara, go to your profile page, and look for the About tab.We plan to update Caras search features in the near future and make work availability a search option. So we recommend you to update your availability if you are open to work! When populated, the About tab will show up on your profile. Example: Jingna Zhang / @zemotion Use the Edit About option to update your About page. Job Search & Filters As the number of job listings grow on Cara, we want to make it easier for users to search through the jobs board to find listings relevant to them. This new updates adds the option for you to search the jobs board by using keywords and filters to narrow down what you are looking for: Company Business Profiles You can now save company information to be prefilled when submitting job listings. If you are a recruiter, lead, art director or company representative, you can find the option under profile Settings. Simply switch your account type from Individual to Business, and you will see the company information fields to fill out.Once saved, the filled company information will automatically be populated in all new job post forms. Original posters can now also delete their job posts if a role has been filled. Coming up next: Glaze integration for CaraMobile app launch Do you have any feature requests you hope to see in the future? Submit them on our Discord so our dev team can see them! As always, if you run into any bugs or issues, please let us know at support@cara.app or on Discord. Thank you! The Cara Team cara.app | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee

sparth @sparth - Line work personal sketches The spooky season is here and we want to welcome October with a brand new challenge: Caras Sketchtober!Are you ready to participate? Find out how! About the Event We are proud to present our drawing challenge for this month: #Sketchtober!To make it easy for everyone participating in various art challenges in October, weve decided to do Sketchtober to celebrate all of your sketches made during this time.As usual, there is a different theme for each day, and youre free to participate in any way you like. Mix and match themes, use your own, draw to your heart's content or show us your sketches and finished pieces! Sketchtober on CaraCheck out our dedicated Theme List below #sketchtober hashtag will be featured in Explore Chatting about Sketchtober and sharing links to tagged pieces over on our community Discord server join us there!Editorial feature at the events conclusion How to participate in SketchctoberPost new works youve created during this month Include #sketchtober in your post description All artworks, discussions, WIPs and mediums are welcome to be submitted to this Sketchtober! Cara Theme ListFeel free to follow any theme list you like, or personal ones youve made yourself. If you are looking for additional ideas or a guideline to stay inspired and motivated, here is what the Cara team proposes: Rodrigo Silveira @rodeen - A Gathering of Magic Owl @greyevilowl - Portrait studies Adrian Bush @plunteere - Daily works- October 2022 Adrian Bush @plunteere - Daily works- October 2022 Jeff Simpson @jeffsimpson - Mother Sketch Serhii Kasianchuck @skasianchuck - Sketchbook Stuff Tano Bonfanti @tanobonfanti - Morning Sketches Tano Bonfanti @tanobonfanti - Warm Up Things Richard Anderson @flaotraps - Current Free Time Doodles Richard Anderson @flaotraps - Current Free Time Doodles Kenji @kenjiloo - Rain Liu @raaain - Portrait Design 2 Steven Yaffe @juststevenyaffe - Sketches 03 Kali Riste @sketchysketchin - Sketchbook Samples April 2023 Eliza A @eliza - sketchbook pages Kyle @krossj - Knight Sketch Neungsonie @philocsini - Lord Gnawdwell Tobias Kwan @tobiaskwan - Wimple Coming Soon! Sketchtober isnt the only news we have prepared for this month!Get ready for Cara's Sketchbook Sunday - a regular blog featuring insightful interviews with amazing artists of our growing community.Stay tuned for more!Are you up for our monthly drawing challenge? Join us on Discord to chat all things Sketchtober! The Cara Team

September flew by like a gust of wind and it took with it Caras first Swordtember. Many different designs and ideas were showcased throughout the month, and we had so much fun exploring everyones original creations!We hope everyone enjoyed themselves and will keep creating for Sketchtober too. As promised, the grand finale is here with a feature of the most interesting artworks from this event below. Thanks to all who took part! Jan Ma @itsjanma - Days 7-10 Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - This sword belongs to a healer Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - This sword belongs to an enchanter Ksenia Palchikova @kotartist - This sword belongs to a vampire Hayden Stutz @hsartist - Swordtember 2023 - Whole Collection Hayden Stutz @hsartist - Swordtember 2023 - Whole Collection Hayden Stutz @hsartist - Swordtember 2023 - Whole Collection Olga Tereshenko @olgatereshenko - Koschei S Morris @braverobynart - Day 9 Arcane & Nature Jan Ma @itsjanma - Swordtember prompts 1-3 from @/braverobynart Tomatio @tom8toj - Swordtember Day 2: Wizard Alessia Hilary Valastro @alessiahv - Bones - Day#26 Kim Van Deun @sketchferret - Possessed sword Kim Van Deum @sketchferret - Another one for Swordtember2023

These companies with new open positions have been added on our jobs board! Also, we would like to highlight that Plarium just joined our jobs board with artist vacancies. Feel free to check them out! Kojima Productions, JapanCharacter Artist WeaponsMechanical ArtistProject Manager Kitbash3D, USA3D Graphics Tools Engineer Riot Games, SingaporeManager, Animation Art - League of Legends Digital Domain, North AmericaIntegration roles in Vancouver, Montreal, CaliforniaFX roles in CaliforniaFront-End Pipeline TD in CaliforniaLookdev roles in Vancouer, MontrealLighting roles in Vancouer, MontrealLayout roles in Vancouer, Montreal Dreamhaven, USAAssociate UI Engineer, Moonshot Games View open jobs listings on Cara

Hello everyone, we are happy to share that the Cara team will be at LightBox Expo 2023 (Oct 27-29)! LightBox Expo celebrates art in the entertainment industry in all its forms, highlighting the works of many esteemed artists and industry peers. We want to be there to speak with the community and hear about your thoughts, needs, and feedback about Cara so far. Caras founder, Jingna Zhang @zemotion will be there with our senior engineer Katie @ktsalz. They will be walking around the event halls wearing Caras t-shirts and tote bags, and giving away a few goodies at random each day! So dont be shy and come say hello! See you at LightBox Expo this weekend! The Cara TeamTwitter | Instagram | Cara

Caras mobile app is available for download on Apples App Store and Google Play now. Hello everyone! Today, we are excited to announce the launch of Caras mobile app in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. In preparation for Lightbox Expo (27th to 29th of October 2023), we want to make sure that you have the app ready to make the most out of the event. Our latest featureCara Meetlets you scan a users Cara QR code and keep track of who you meet at events. Whether its artist alley tables or someone you encounter when out of namecardsusing Cara Meet will help you keep a record of everyone you speak with at an event, and allow you to access their profiles directly in your QR Meets history afterwards. Stay in touch without the worry of misplacing namecards, forgetting which social network you connected on, or the pressure of following someone back on the spot. Create a Cara account and fill out your profile information to make the most out of the app this weekend. Cara App Download Links: *For Android users who previously used the browser app: you can either delete the previous browser app, or go to App Settings in the new app, then set it as the default for Cara URLs. This way, the QR codes will be opened in the correct app when theyre scanned. About the Cara AppWith the launch of our new app, we hope to further enrich our community with Caras social features, whilst continuing to improve the portfolio aspects of the platform so that recruiters, editors, and art directors have a place to find human artists easily.We hope you can connect with peers and followers, share your work, and find industry jobs from AAA and award-winning studios. App Features:Share images and gifsFind human artists: our AI image detector filters out AI-generated content from Cara portfolios Cara Meet: keep track of people you meet at events. Stay in touch without the pressure of mutual follow backs on the spot, or needing to take photos of namecards at artist alleysHome feed customization: control what shows up in your timeline Jobs board: find job listings from AAA and award-winning studiosDirect messages: stay in touch with friends, or contact artists for work About page: can be used for extended bios or users resumes. Use it to indicate work availability Bookmarks: use bookmarks and albums to organize references and posts Download links for Cara app: App Store, Google PlayQuestions & FeedbackIf you discover any bugs or have questions, you can join our Discord community and submit them or reach us at support@cara.app. We have been extremely lucky to have a wonderful community behind usjoin us as we continue to grow this communal space for artists, by artists. The Cara Teamcara.app | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee

Alejandro @mirabalart - Witches Izzy @izzymedrano - Succubus 001 Hello, hello all, Tonight, Caras corners will be haunted by the spirits and creatures of the spooky. From 2D to 3D, from environments, props, to portraits and more, countless artists have displayed their fascination for this special day, inspired by the colors, history, and symbolisms it holds. We are celebrating Samhain/Halloween with some of images of our own. Pumpkins, skeletons and creatures of the night are here to take you to their sometimes colorful, sometimes gloomy dimension. Which one will you follow? Have fun and we hope you enjoy the Otherworld with Caras Spooky Night Special! Nodens @nodensart - Vampire Anna Christenson @achrisart - Witches' Village Jason Behnke @jasonbehnke - Necromancer SCG @artofscg - Halloween for fun Maria Gabysheva @myvushka - Halloween 2022 Willy Merry @willymerry - Halloween 2020 Alexandr Leskinen @leskinen - Happy Halloween Ashley Hankins @ashleydoesartstuff - Dying for a Cup of Tea Dmitry Dalnev @ddalnev - The silkworm Witch Hampus Flink @hampus - Danse Macabre II Karina S @chirunax - Teeth Luciano R @lvcky - Abandoned cemetery Andrea Corsini @syqkos - Nightmare room Welume @welume - Ghostie Stefania Nour @ttfdraws - Original - Vamp Madeleine Fjall @madeleinefjall - Travelling to Blkulla Etienne Savoie @etienne - Treasure chest Bananopus @bananopus - Pumpkins Fest Sol Azpiroz @solazpiroz - Witchy Items Ema Brico @emabrico - Bewitching Xayah and Rakan - League of Legends Fan Art Natasa Ilincic @natasailincic - Magpie Natasa Ilincic@natasailincic - Owl Witch D Austin @thewantedpumpkin - The Inn - Stylized Environment Jonathan Ly@lyart - Witch cottage Lola Serre @lolaserre - Halloween labyrinth Guardian figurine Max Turnbull @oats - witch hazel Edouard Noisette @enoisette - The Sacred City of Igrin, Pt.2 Alvaro Cardozo @alvaro-cardozo - Trick or Treat William Dawson @williamdawson - Hallowe'en Logan Preshaw @wickedinsignia - Haunted House Mayte CG @maytecg - Danse macabre Alexis Rives @deadslug - Bored witch thinh bui @thinhbui - The little witch is watering the plants hung bui @hungbuiart - Inktober Witch 1 - 2018 Ipan Hf @ihf95 - Unhallowed Capital Alena N @ymhin - Bride

TypeProton @typeproton - #sketchtober wings The first Caras Sketchtober is over and now, its time for our wrapup feature!Its been so exciting to see the variety of styles and approaches that our community showcased during the challengefrom figurative portraits to monster designs, to environment layouts, emotive explorations, and even animations. Its been a pleasure for us to explore the inner worlds of our artists during this month, and see that a simple idea like a sketch can hold such endless potential and bloom into so many different types of interesting and stimulating expressions. We hope everyone who participated had a great time. We now leave you with a selection of these fun and inspiring artwork from this Sketchtober! Pi Pei @pipei321 - Pi Pei @pipei321 - Alessia Hilary Valastro @alessiahv - Berries|Fangs - Day#23/24 Choppete @choppete - Inktober 2023 24. SHALLOW Pi Pei @pipei321 - sketch20231023 Matt Taylor @matt - Spoon Marty @damarten - Music Box TypeProton @typeproton - #sketchtober wardrobe Monday W @monday - Sketchtober Martyna @mkasinskaite - Old drawing with little story Martyna @mkasinskaite - "Valkyrie" Yen Shu Liao @yensliao - "Old Companions" Akrosh @akrosh - Sir, youre not tall enough for this ride Alex Pushkarev @edarneor - Ink Drawings Choppete @choppete - Inktober 2023 14. CASTLE Pi Pei @pipei321 - 20231030 cara.app | twitter | instagram | discord | buy us a coffee

Hi everyone, we are excited to announce the launch of Cara Glaze betathe long-awaited collaboration between Cara and The Glaze Project! Glaze is a tool designed to protect artists from style mimicry by generative AI models, and we are honored to partner with the Glaze team to bring this tool to more users in the artist community. Cara Glaze is now available on all Cara Portfolio accounts. Community accounts will receive access in waves in the coming days so long as we do not experience abuse or usage issues. To check your account status, or sign up for early access, visit the Cara Glaze dashboard: Cara Glaze Dashboard What is Glaze? Glaze is a program designed to protect human artists by disrupting style mimicry in the training of generative AI models. Below is an example of how Glaze affects AI models that try to replicate an artists art style. The sample original art features the work of John Tenniel for Alice in Wonderland (1865, public domain). The LoRA models were trained on sets of 15 images, one original set without Glaze, and one set protected using Glaze. Left: sample of original art style. Right: AI-generated outputs In the output generated by the two models: Trained on images with no Glaze: the artists hatching style is closely replicated. Trained on images with Glaze: the style looks much more visibly disrupted. Information republished with permission from the Glaze Works post on Reddit by WonderfulWanderer777. A few more examples below: Result from model trained on original images Result from model trained on Glazed images Given the clear result of using Glaze, we recommend everyone to Glaze their work before posting online, and to make that process easier, we have collaborated with The Glaze Project to integrate Glaze into Cara. To learn more about Glaze, visit the official Glaze website. Access Cara Glaze What is Cara Glaze? Cara Glaze is an integration of the Glaze tool on the Cara.app platform. Users will be able to access all features available on Web Glaze, with the added benefit of users being able to: Create new posts that apply Glaze automatically Upload multiple images, and download the Glazed versions as neededall in one place How Cara Glaze WorksOn the Cara Glaze dashboard, you can:Create a new post and Glaze all images within the post, orUpload multiple unrelated individual images to be Glazed You can Glaze an entire post with the New Post option, or upload various unrelated images using Choose File At this time, its not possible to edit or remove Glazed images from a post after creating it. So if you want granular control over the quality and result of each Glazed image, we recommend uploading individual images instead of using the New Post option. Glazing via +New PostWhen choosing the +New Post option, a standard New Post pop up will be displayed for you to enter your post information. You can attach images as usual. After clicking Next, images from the post will be loaded into the dashboard, where you can choose your Glaze intensity. Write your draft as usual. Clicking Next will load load the images into the Glaze dashboard Choose the intensity you want to Glaze each image at. This cannot be changed after you click Glaze on your post. Glaze OutputAfter clicking Glaze, images will move to the Output section and be queued. Once Glazing is complete, you will receive both an email and in-app notification. Please be reminded that at this time, Glazed posts are published automatically. To have more control over your Glazed images or intensity level, we recommend using the Choose File option to batch upload your images and review them individually. Notes & FAQCara Glaze DashboardFor questions about Cara Glaze, check the Cara FAQ For issues while using Cara Glaze dashboard, submit bug reports using our Discord or email Cara Glaze is only available on desktop and mobile browsers at the moment. It will be added to our mobile app at a later date after initial testing stabilizes. Glaze Image Quality and Output For questions and issues with Glaze output or image quality: Check the official Glaze website for their Guide and Q&A and; Contact the Glaze team directly using the #glaze channel on our Discord or via their websiteAs a reminder, the original Glaze program is free to use. You can download the desktop app, or use the original Web GlazeTo access Cara Glaze, visit the link below: Cara Glaze Dashboard Have questions or feedback? Reach us at support@cara.app or join our Discord community to submit suggestions. Thank you! The Cara Teamcara.app | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee Mobile app download: App Store | Google Play

Hello everyone! Were happy to announce a number of our new features and several bug fixes since our last dev update! Please see more below: New features on Cara Cara Glaze Drag & drop images upload on desktop Search filters added to artwork search View search results by top or most recent New category tags: Photography, Makeup, Hair Styling, Fashion Styling, TattooAnd in case you missed it: Cara mobile app download Users I've MetBug Fixes & ImprovementsExplore grid improvements on desktopno more rectangles crops or shuffling when loading page AI flagging improvements Images in lightbox view are no longer cut off at the top on mobile browsers Reduced confusing shuffle while typing username @mentions Bookmarks fixesLogin email updatesSidebar media section missing images on user profilesOTP codes now send normally upon request Edge cases where deleting accounts through mobile app caused errorsFix to hopefully prevent broken images from occasionally showing on the platform Jobs page UI update Cara Glaze We are proud to announce our collaboration with The Glaze ProjectCara Glaze! With the new Cara Glaze dashboard, you can create a new post and Glaze all the images within it automatically for posting, or upload and Glaze individual images to download and review them later.Cara Glaze is available on all Cara Portfolio accounts. Community accounts will receive access in waves in the coming days so long as we do not experience abuse or usage issues. To check your account status, or sign up for early access, visit the Cara Glaze dashboard: cara.app/glaze Please note that Cara Glaze is only available on desktop and mobile browsers at the moment. Feature will be added to mobile app after we stabilize testing! Drag & DropTo upload images, you can Drag & Drop them directly into the post box now! This will save time in manually clicking all the buttons and you can now operate on a larger area! Search FiltersFilters have been added to artwork search!By using the Search filter, you can select the options you need while looking for images. This way you can easily narrow down your search experience making it more specific. Dont forget that we have also introduced work availability options in profiles. When searching for artists, its not possible to filter by their open to work availability in case you are hiring. Artists can update their settings on their profile page. Users Ive Met - Cara MeetAs previously announced, with Cara Meet you can scan Caras users QR Code to keep track of the community members you meet along the way. Without the pressure of following someone back right away, you can check their profiles in your QR Meets history afterwards, an easy way to connect and dont get lost in contacts! Cara Mobile AppDont forget that Cara Mobile App is now live on Apple App Store and Google Play Store!On the previous Dev Update you can find all the info about the App, including the current available features!Our aim is to constantly improve both the social and portfolios aspects of the platform in order to give a nice and smooth experience to the community and also make it easier for recruiters and artists to find each other. We also announce that we will soon drop our support on the PWA (Progressive Web App), so dont waste time and download the app on the following links: *For Android users who previously used the browser app: you can either delete the previous browser app, or go to App Settings in the new app, then set it as the default for Cara URLs. This way, the QR codes will be opened in the correct app when theyre scanned. Questions & FeedbackIf you discover any bugs or have questions, join our Discord community and submit them or reach us at support@cara.app. Thank you! The Cara Teamcara.app | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee

Julien Belin @julien - Winter Forest Hello everyone! The year is almost over and the warm shades of fall are leaving us in shifting to the colder tones of winter.This time of the year is always an inspiring for the arts: falling leaves or snowy forests, menacing creatures, snow queens or Christmas scenes are amongst the main characters of this colorful display of artworks we are treated to at this time of the year.We thought about this as a journey and an adventure to accompany us together into the new year.The Cara team wishes you Happy Holidays and a serene, beautiful start to 2024! The Cara Teamcara | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee Francisco Fuenzalida @fuenzalida - Envars Autumn vibes contest Irene Nogueron G @inogart - Nene's Hallows Eve & Day of the Dead Noukah @noukah - Leaf Collector Hang Bui @hangbui - Back from School Allison Chin @allisonchinart - Fiery Autumn Thu Cao @thucaoillus - Garnet's World 05 - Moon Festival Amy Nguyen @amynyan - Year of the Cat Caleb OBrien @cobrien - The Delivery Snowman 3D Max Turnbull @oats - snow day Ornella Greco @ornitoplatypus - Snowy paths Kuang Hong @noah-kh - Winterfall Max Bedulenko @maxbedulenko - Winter Orjan Ruttenborg Svendsen @orsvend - Troll/Snowman Tokity Balazs @tokitybalazs1208 - Winter Thomas Arnaud @chroma - Snowy Sunset Matt Taylor @matt - Merced River - Yosemite Jingna Zhang @zemotion - Winter's Rose Kamila Szutenberg @karamissa - Warm-up 06 Yun Ling @lingy000 - Winter Trip Christopher English @christopherenglish - Alone YangY @aayangy - Ice Age Ierlix @ierlix - HAppy Holidays Archie Eka @stevenarchie - Plein Airpril Day 3 Rhys Griffiths @rhys - Winter groeegr @groeegr - Winter Julia Metzger @juliametzgerart - Die Winterwacht Anton Fadeev @shant - The Lady of Winter and her friend Jeff Simpson @jeffsimpson - THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER'S WAR CONCEPTS Yasushi Matsuoka @yasuartstudio - Snowy River Mermaid Liko - Nicolas Nguyen@liko - Snow golden lake David Jones @davidjones - Snow Elf Yulia Zhuchkova @avalach - Winter Song Oliver Chen @oliwa066 - Snowfield shop Etienne Hebinger @ehebinger - Winter Evening Lidia Goryachewa @sadtea - Winter Cat Yulia Zhuchkova @avalach - Lunar Ravens Graeme @graemedalyart - Snow Day GREMO @greenmold - Christmas Luv @its-soulfy - New Year Fireworks / Sky: Children of the Light Valeriane Duvivier @valeriane - Happy holydaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! Valeriane Duvivier @valeriane - Lady Snow and her helpers Foofarawr @foofarawr - Christmas in Pallet Town bkvoxel @bkvoxel - JPN02: Winter Wei Wu @weitoocool - Red Winter kaktuwanchik @kaktuwanchik - Koliadnyky(Christmas caroling) Marie Kister @marie - Christmas Campaign HK @bag2d - Winter 2022 KlausPillon @klauspillon - Personal Work Connect with us! cara.app | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee

Hello everyone! To wrap up the end of year, we are celebrating with two community events: #CaraBest9 and #CaraWishes! #CaraBest9You can now generate your own Cara Best 9 here! Image: Jingna Zhang @zemotion | Generate yours at: Cara Best Nine Share your post on Cara or social media with #CaraBest9 so that others can see what you have been up to! This hashtag will be a featured tab on Caras Explore page through January 2024! #CaraWishesHave a message you want to send to the Cara dev team or a new feature you would like to see in 2024? Tag #carawishes in your post and we will send it on to the team! If youd like to send the team a gift, you can buy us a coffee! .We also encourage you to write a message to someone you enjoyed engaging with on Cara. Let them know if you appreciate them! We are so happy to see new friendships forged and art discovered on the platform this year. We cant believe our one year anniversary is coming up on January 9thwe have plenty of news and feature plans lined up, and cant wait to share it with everyone in the new year. Once again, the Cara team would like to wish you a happy holidays and wonderful new year. See you in 2024!!! The Cara Teamcara | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee Dont forget to check out our winter seasons art feature!

We have new listings on our jobs board. The new openings include an internship from Blizzard, senior animator from WildBrain and more. Keep reading to find out more! Blizzard, USAConcept Art Internship WildBrain, CanadaSenior Animator, CGAnimator, CGLead FX Artist, CG (Unreal)Senior FX Artist, CG (Unreal)FX Artist, CG (Unreal)Lighting/Compositing Supervisor, CG (Unreal)Lead Lighter/Compositor, CG (Unreal) Dreamhaven, USAUI VFX/Animation Artist (Fixed-Term Contract)Audio Software Engineer (Fixed Term Contract) View open jobs listings on Cara

Zhang Hao@sleeeeeepyz - Lunar New Year is upon us and its coming up on February 10th, 2024! As this is the year of the dragon, we couldnt miss the opportunity to host Caras first art challenge of the year with something so mythical and fun. Want to join in? Read on for details! Year of the Dragon Challenge #LNY2024 Unleash your imagination based on the theme of Asian dragons. (This is the year of the wood dragon, if you are curious about the element!)If you need a little inspiration, scroll down for an assortment of past dragons and lunar new year celebration art from the Cara community. How to ParticipateInclude the #LNY2024 hashtag when posting your work on CaraAny media, style, finishsketches and WIPs posts are always a joy to see! Submit as many entries as you like Date: Ends on Feb 25th, 2024 Join our Discord server to chat about history, lore, research, and WIPs!The #LNY2024 hashtag will be a featured tab on Caras Explore page through February 2024.We will also conclude with an editorial feature at the events conclusion! Kan Liu@artof666k - Connection About Lunar New YearLunar New Year follows the lunar calendar, which runs in a 12-year cycle of Chinese zodiac animals. Each year is ruled by a specific zodiac sign and element, and 2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon. In Chinese astrology for yin and yang, this is the year of the Yang-Wood Dragon. Celebrations can start a few days before the new year and last for days after, depending on the region. On Cara, we will start by featuring some past works with an assortment of dragons and lunar new year art for your enjoyment. We look forward to your pieces at the end of the event. We hope you have fun, and wish you a Happy Lunar New Year! The Cara Teamcara | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee yushan@yushan - Qiwuzu Serpentiform Family, White Dragon Alena N@ymhin - MYTHBOOK 3 Fugurisko@fugurisko - Ruins Exploration Kan Liu @artof666k - WaterSleeves Dance & The Dragon aosma @aosm - cciko @cciko - 5 vosian @vosian - Dragon Amir Borghei @amirdraws - The Dragon's Rest Temple GaoMingze @snowgao - Pi Pei @pipei321 - 23-24 Daria Shestakova @lethendralis - Magical Items Illustrations Penett @penett - Year of the blue dragon kongtiaoxiaotailang @kongtiaoxiaotailang - Alex Kuhn @alexkuhn - Dragon Kevin Glint @kevinglint - The Immortal Podium: Enigmatic Dragon Phil Liu @eclypse - Azure Dragon Audre Schutte @charamath - Fox dragon free sculpt Kuang Hong @noah-kh - Xuan Yuan Gaowen Fu @gfu97 - Old dragon lord YINJIE CEN @infall - 2022.Dragon's Rise: The Forgotten Realms YINJIE CEN @infall - 2022.Dragon's Rise: The Forgotten Realms YINJIE CEN @infall - 2022.Dragon's Rise: The Forgotten Realms Casey Straka @cstraka - Copper King My Hanh @myxhanh - Dragon Bees @paintedbees - Sisu Redesign Vo Trong Hieu @umgj - Girl with the Dragon Chafer @chafer - Happy New Year Nikittysan @nikittysan - BICHIGHU, the History Recorder Dragonfish Russell06h @russell - Cassandra Jean @cassandrajean - Year of the Dragon Rowena Doge @rowenadoge - Beyond the Skies (2021-2022) 8th creation @8thcreation - White dragoness of Eteos Olongtea @olongtea550 - Auspicious Year of the Rabbit~ kongtiaoxiaotailang @kongtiaoxiaotailang - pipi @pipi - LAMP @lamp - Have questions? Join us on Discord!cara | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee

Cara is proud to be the official platform partner for Warrior Painters #PleinAirpril this year! What is PleinAirpril?PleinAirpril is a social media campaign started in 2017 to celebrate Earth Day. The aim is to challenge and engage with plein air artists across the globe and to encourage them to share their artworksone per dayduring the month of April. How to participate in PleinAirpril 2024Every day of April 2024, paint one painting based on the themes "City, Forest, Ocean, Mountain" and post your work on Cara or Instagram Use the hashtag #PleinAirpril, and tag @warriorpaintersYou can use any medium you want as PleinAirpril is about experimentation, practice, and exploration! Challenge yourself to paint more from life, but feel free to create photo studies or virtual plein air piecesDue to Instagrams recent limitations on artwork discovery via hashtags, participants are encouraged to post on Cara for increased visibility, Content shared on Cara stands a better chance of being discovered and reshared by both the Warrior Painters and Cara community. About Warrior PaintersWarrior Painters was founded in 2016 as a way to connect artists from all walks of life, who share the same passion of showcasing natural and architectural diversity through plein air painting. The majority of painters in the group work in the entertainment industry, spanning from animation and games, to live action films and theme park designs. There is also a good number of freelance illustrators and concept artists. ~As per usual, we have curated a selection of stunning past #pleinairpril artwork on Cara. Check out what the community has been up to, be inspired, and we hope to see you join us this PleinAirpril! - The Cara Team Have questions? Join us on Discord!cara | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee Patti Vincent @pattivincentstudio - PleinAirpril Angela@angothemango - #PleinAirpril Car Karin Brandenberg @kbrandenberg - PleinAirpril 2022 Karin Brandenberg @kbrandenberg - Studies 2023 Karin Brandenberg @kbrandenberg - PleinAirpril 2022 Jelly Octopus @jellyoctopus - #PleinAirpril Elise Braud @itsmoriartea - Pleinairpril Day 24 Yiguang Wang @pessamin - PleinAirpril 2022 Alex Forner @alexforner - 6pm Yiguang Wang @pessamin - PleinAirpril 2022 Yiguang Wang @pessamin - PleinAirpril 2022 Elise Braud @itsmoriartea - Pleinairpril Patryk Olas @patryk - PleinAirpril Adriana Bica @bootlegwhale - PleinAirpril Karin Brandenberg @kbrandenberg - Studies 2023 Max Maury @maxtronaute - PleinAirpril Elise Braud @itsmoriartea - PleinAirpril Vic @spookyastronaut - Pleinairpril Japan Yiguang Wang @pessamin - PleinAirpril 2022 Karin Brandenberg @kbrandenberg - Studies 2023 We hope to see you join #PleinAirpril this year! cara | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee

Jeff Simpson @jeffsimpson Let's make a splash with ocean- and mermaid-themed artwork this May! Wanna join? Then dive into the challenge with us:About the Event MerMay is a community event celebrating the month of May with mermaid-themed artwork!To participate in the challenge, you are free to use one of the many theme lists that are meant to inspire you like the official MerMay themes, Cara's List or your very own!Whether you draw a mermaid a day throughout the entire month or participate with a single entry is completely up to you: You can join in as much or as little as you want and can.How to join MerMay 2024 on CaraParticipate by posting new work youve made following either Caras Theme List, the official MerMay themes or your own ideas.Make sure to mention # mermay2024 in the description box when posting and feel free to add the day and theme if you drew inspiration from a list!A new tab on our explore feed featuring #mermay2024 entries along with posted features on our Instagram and Twitter pages will boost your entries throughout May!After the challenge has ended, another blog post is going to summarize the event and commemorate a selection of entries in a final feature. Tobias Kwan @tobiaskwan - Mermay 2023 Cara Theme ListWe encourage you to take this chance to explore new ideas, experiment with your art and take a chance at learning something new within our aquatic theme. Most of all, we are excited to see everyone having fun with their art and raving about each other's works in the comments!We hope you can forge fresh friendships, discover new artwork and artists, collaborate and enjoy MerMay together. We look forward to seeing your creativity unfold! - The Cara Team Nabs @nabsdraws - MerMay Illustrations from 2 Years ago Patryk Chudzinski @patichudy17 - Day 1 #mermay2023 Omichi @omichiart - Flower Mermaid enn @entropienn - Mermaids based on Planets - Mercury Ying Lam @inglam - Line Art 01 Fernando Salvaterra @salvaterra - A MerMay Thing Katerina Ladon @lumen - The Mermaid Queen Margo 37 @margo37 - Mermay2023 George Patsouras @cgmythology - Mermaid Creature Nodens @nodensart - Luminosity Mermaid Rona Ks @rona-ks - Mermay Kitten Anthony Brooks @anthonybrooks - MerMay 2023 Glass Nandito @fernandodoesart - Mermaid Virginie Juteau @virginiejuteau - Mermaid inspired by Underwater Photography Katerynka @handrosaur - Mermay Willy Merry @willymerry - Mermay 2023 Izzy @izzymedrano - Late Night MerMay Sketchies Alessia Hilary Valastro @alessiahv - THE SEA BELONGS TO US

Hi everyone! Cara is currently experiencing very high traffic load and we are aware some users have had trouble accessing the platform or signing up these last couple days. We would like to post an update on the sites current status:First of allweve had a spike in new user signups and we want to say a warm welcome to all new users! Unfortunately, there were also some attacks on Cara mixed in, so it took a while for our team to disentangle things, but services should start returning to normal now. Currently known issues & troubleshooting infoCan't signup Signups were blocked for a few hours while we fixed things, please try again now & let us know if you still can't sign in or sign up. Profile pictures not saving on mobile app Try using cara.app in browser and see if that solves the issueOTPs sent to emails timing out We can't figure out what's causing this, please contact us with info on the email service you're using/any screenshots.You can also use Google/Apple instead of email to sign up, but you dont wish to, rest assured we are actively looking into the issue.AI detection alerts Edge cases where alerts pop up for AI detection and user can't publish their postthis was a feature in our early beta from over half a year ago, and its already been depreciated and should no longer be happening. If this occurs, please verify you're on latest version of the app and contact us with your device and OS version, and any other info you can provide!Glaze is temporarily disabled This is due to our security measures and we will work to reenable it as soon as we can get through all other security and access issues.TLDR: Site experienced huge traffic spike of genuine traffic mixed in with some attacks on Cara. We have some temporary measures in place now which should help the site return to normal while we work on permanent solutions. If you still experience slowness or outages, please report to the team as it helps us immensely to be aware of whats happening. We appreciate everyones patience and understanding as we work through all this! Gentle reminder that Cara is still in beta so there may be hiccups and things are far from polished. We hope you can be patient with us as Cara is built by a group of volunteers and we are a very small team! Supporting Cara You can support Cara with Buy Us a Coffee. Everything go towards hosting and server costs to help keep Cara running. If youd like to join our volunteer team at Cara, we are looking for engineers, project assistants, moderators, and social media and support staff to help our growing community. Check out our blog post for more info. Bug ReportsBug reports are always helpful!Cara is a huge engineering effort for a small team, and we cant always catch every bug. If you let us know when you encounter issues, then we can look into them, or else we may not even be aware!So please contact us if you encounter any bugs or issues. You can reach us via Discord or email: support@cara.app Thank you for the support! - The Cara Team Have questions? Join us on Discord!cara | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee

Hi everyone! #PortfolioDay is happening this Tuesday, July 9th! While we are not an official partner of the event, we would love to share some tips for preparing your profile on Cara, given that we have some tools to facilitate those who are job-seeking and artist-hiring! What is #PortfolioDay? From the official website: #PortfolioDay is a creative job fair of sorts that takes place on social media. Creatives who are looking for work will make a post with examples of their work using the hashtag in hopes of reaching clients and connecting with other professionals in the community. Clients in turn use the tag to find artists to hire! Tips for Sharing on CaraThere is always a lot of excitement around #PortfolioDay, and we have noticed that often times, people are not aware of its origins and that its a tag for artists seeking work. For better clarity on Cara, we want to help make it easy to identify and find artists who are actively looking for work. For artists, we encourage the following:Include both #PortfolioDay and #OpenToWork in your post On your Profile, update the Open to Work status on your About pageFor art directors, recruiters, and clients, we encourage you to check out Cara on desktop:Our website has more robust features for portfolios and search currently You can see portfolio albums on profiles You can use in-depth search, like the Open to Work and category filters We ask that everyone be considerate of others, and only use the hashtags relevant to you. On Explore, we will also showcase a selection of posts tagged with #PortfolioDay in the featured event tab. Update to the latest app version (v0.4.4) and you will see it when the event is running! Preparing Your Artist ProfileUpdate the Open to Work status on your Profile About tab Update About page with relevant bio, work background, and contact info Glaze/Mist, Nightshade, and watermark before sharing Organize your Portfolio Albums (Desktop only) We are currently piloting the Portfolio Albums feature on desktop. You can organize your posts by creating albums and categories for your portfolio. This beta feature currently available on the website only Share, Discover, & Support!#PortfolioDay is a great time to discover new artists and boost those who are seeking work. So give a Like, Comment, or Repost where you can! A note on Quote Reposts: some of our users may not be aware, but any comments and likes left on quote reposts wont be shared or notified to the original poster. So if you want people to engage with the original artist, consider making a standard repost without writing text when you share their work! We wish everyone a fun #PortfolioDay. Cant wait to see your portfolios! The Cara TeamHave questions? Join us on Discord!cara | twitter | instagram | buy us a coffee Remember to update your app! Ran into an issue? Submit a bug report!

Hi all, this is Jingna, the founder of Cara. Since going viral, a lot of people have expressed concern about how long Cara can last after seeing the screenshot of our $100k Vercel bill. Many people forwarded me Angelos post about how Cara should become subscription-only, thousands of others have said everything from "ads are fine", "get sponsorships", "do donations", to the more dramatic "just shut down".Its been over a month since this unexpected surge in traffic. We passed 1 million users (!!!), and with our mounting bills, Ive put off time and again on writing this post because I needed time to research, do my homework, work on optimizing our code to reduce costs, and consider as many angles as possible for the long-term health of Cara.This post was difficult to put together, and I feel immensely vulnerable in having to share the details and my thoughts around such a sensitive topic. I know people can easily misunderstand, misconstrue, or take things out of context, but still, I think it's important for me to be transparent about the challenges we have been facing, how we are dealing with them, and our plans for moving forward.My original plan:I avoided promoting Cara most of this entire past year as I know we couldnt afford the challenges that would come with scale, which requires money and a much larger team than what we have to tackle issues we aren't ready for. So my original plans were to: 1) Lay low for as long as needed and build features until we are ready for public launch2) Pilot subscriptions in the meantime, see how much we can sustain against our expenses3) Raise money from trusted people like family and friends that align with our vision and missionI wanted to get us to profitability over time, so we could afford hiring full-timers to work Cara and sustain it long-term. That was the goal.Current State of Things:It costs a lot of money to run Cara.Before the traffic surge, it cost about $2k/month for various hosting and development services to run the platform.When things went viral, I was hit with a $100k bill from one of our service providers for 1 week of traffic.3 weeks after things calmed down to a new normal, a quick back of the napkin calculations say we will need $660k to host Cara for a year.We now have 4 million posts and 5 million images on Cara! These numbers grow by hundreds of thousands each week. So if we account for another unexpected traffic spike within a year, add the cost of spam and moderation that we have to start tackling, and legal fees for advice to make sure we are doing things correctlythe expenses would get closer to $1million.We anticipated spam and bot issues to happen at some point, but due to the new attention on Cara, we are now encountering it much sooner than expected.Ive had to start banning our first porn bots and I am so overwhelmingly terrifiedbetween the potential legal costs, full time salaries and more that I have to start thinking aboutits been a lot.Monetization Thoughts:I planned on having a mix of job listings, user subscriptions, and sponsorship/selected ads in the long term. Each of these would take 1 year to implement given our small teamlast year we did job listings, this year was going to be subscriptions.I wanted to build our community slowly and organically, and eventually open up to more types of creatives such as photographers, designers, stylists, hair stylists, makeup artists, and more from my own industry and beyond.I wanted to steadily work towards being profitable one day, so that we could afford to pay people to work on Cara full-time, and speed up our development so features and tools can be shipped more quickly.With the unexpected traffic, we urgently need to address spam and other issues much sooner than I was estimating for. So to address some of the most common suggestions the community has brought up, my thoughts are below: On Crowdfunding/GoFundMeI appreciate the communitys support so so much, but unlike a Kickstarter, our expenses wont be a one-time only event. Our bills will keep growing, and they have to be paid month after month after month.It might be a viable short-term measurelike the coffee contributions helping us out right now (thank you, everyone!)but its not a feasible solution to paying our bills long-term.When I imagine having to repeatedly ask artists for money in the state of our current worldI just hate the idea so much. I dont ever want anyone to feel obligated or pressured into making contributions. So while its one means of keeping us afloat, I truly believe we need to work on longer-term solutions as we move forward. On Going Subscription-OnlyAngelo Sotira is the co-founder and former CEO of DeviantArt. When I first heard his suggestion to make Cara subscription-only, I couldnt wrap my head around it. But as I started to see spam and ban evasions pop up on the platform, I began to understand how his words as well-intentioned and came from a place of experience after running DA for over 20 years.The discussions around his post got really heated. Some people understood the perspective, many others felt that this would cut off access for young individuals getting interested in artand I agree.I benefited a lot as a 14-year old on DeviantArt 22 years ago, and made life-long friends because access to DA was free and anyone could be on it. I was able to have my first clients like Mercedes Benz because they saw my work on DA.I know the world has changed drastically over the last 20+ years. Spam is more rampant than ever, bots are more sophisticated, and generative AI is only making everything much more difficult and ultimately expensive for us to moderate.Given all that, I realize how a paywall can help cut down bots and reduce scraping for gen AI. It is truly appealing for artists. But even so, my vision for Cara is to benefit the greatest number of people for as much and as long as I can. Even if I may be wrong, I dont want to give that up without trying.Maybe in a year I will regret not listening to this advice, but for now, I want to try all the options I can think of first, even if it means a harder path forward. On Non-Profit GrantsA lot of what Ive seen of good nonprofits requires things I cannot do, such as the founder to network and socialize 99% of their time. I dont have the luxury and time to do that without already having money first. So for now, I can only keep building Cara and work with what I have. On Community InvestingMany people suggested having our community be Caras investors. And its really hard to say this because its very personal, but the biggest grief Ive had since founding Cara was the amount of hate and harassment I have had to deal with from the artist community critical of us.Be it bugs we cant resolve, features we cant yet build, or policies to protect ourselves and our userspeople get so angry and abusive, yell at us in caps, call us names, and would say some very, very horrible things.(Trigger warning for this paragraph, feel free to skip): Up until Cara, I have never attempted to harm myself due to bullying and harassmentand Ive lived through a number of harassments, doxxing, and personally difficult times in my life. So to have been driven to the brink while working on Cara last yearI learned that I need to protect myself if I want Cara to keep going.So as much as the idea of community investing in Cara sounds appealing on paper, I am overwhelmed by the thought of having to endure what Ive experienced a thousand times more.Maybe there are ways to do this if Im shielded from engaging with the community and using the app altogether, but then I wont be able to design or make decisions as I have. And I worry I'll end up in a place where I wouldn't want to work on it anymore, and that's not a path I want to go down towards.Perhaps things will change in the future. But for now, I dont yet know a way around this.Whats next:Over the past month, the team has been focused on optimizing code for cost reduction and scale. We will continue that work, start on in-app subscriptions, as well as begin responding to partnership enquiries and start exploring those potential income streams.Prior to our traffic spike, I also intended to do a round of fundraising from trusted friends to help afford the hiring of key staff so we can speed up Caras development. While the other work are underway, I plan to pick up where I left off, as the funding will assist with our more immediate needs for development and stability, and reduce risks of us rushing into bad product or partnership decisions.There has also been a lot of interest from venture capital firms which I had put off looking at while dealing with our first fires.The increase in traffic and expenses means we do need more money, but as a benefit corporation, our mission and values will take priority. So if we were to consider any offers, it would have to be someone who understands our vision and goals, and as a condition for fundraising, we have to remain in full control of Cara..I built Cara because I wanted a place I could call home for myself as an artist.Our mission is to build a platform where creatives rights are respected, and that will always remain core to our guiding principles.But beyond that, I love the community thats come together on Cara.We are seeing the beginnings of a shift towards more positive mindsets with regards to sharing onlinesomething that hasnt been true in a long timeso I want to keep building Cara in ways to make that possible.I believe we can and should aspire to be a healthier cornerstone to the internet of tomorrow.I want to continue building Cara in that vision, and for those joining us on this long journey, thank you.Jingna ZhangFounder, Cara

Animator Weilin Zhang (Jujutsu Kaisen, Mob Psycho 100) has started a new interview series with fellow animators, and we are honored to bring them to Cara! The concept of this zine will be a serialized interview of many different animators I know, where I ask them about reasonably esoteric things on the craft of animation seldom spoken about in public discourse.I think there is a lacking amount of depth in the educational material available to animators on the internet, particularly in English-speaking communities, so this is in hopes of supplementing that pool of information. Introductions: Spencer Wan Spencer Wan is an animator known for his work on Castlevania (2017); The Owl House (2020); and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023). He is the founder and director of Studio Grackle, the studio responsible for the trailer of Hades (2018) by Supergiant Games. Weilin Zhang on Spencer Wan:Spencer Wan is one of the most "complete" animators that I know. I can elaborate on what I mean by admitting that it's kind of hard to encapsulate his body of work with a word more specific than ingenuity. In every department he's ever handled (there's a lot), he's always managed to pick up his own ideas and solutions. I felt that very early on when I came across his tumblr page in 2016. His style in terms of animation and illustration was something I had never seen before among the animators I had known during that time. Every aspect, from the color palette of his backgrounds, to the timing his of animation was new to me and still kind of exists in it's own compartment in my head... but that was just his work as a student and a freelancer. Since then, he's worn more hats on the productions he's been on and his new tricks now are starting to solve logistical problems to do with animation itself. Did you know his lightning animation on The Owl House looked the way it did to work with TV regulations to do with epilepsy? His body of work speaks on all aspects of animation, because he is kind of just proficient in every aspect of the craft. Introductions: WEILIN-ZINENice to meet you, My name is Jerry and I'm your interiew host for the glorious WEILIN-ZINE! Im conducting these interviews in the hopes of one day having a Great Forest of Knowledge for the next generation of animators to grow with. I love animation and I want there to be more animation in the future! More and if possible, better than ever before! So that the next-next generation can grow up with even better animation! And then they'll make even betterBETTER animation!!11!1! Please spread this interview far and wide so that generations of aspiring artists can enjoy these interviews!!!!Jerry Nguyen, host & interviewer, WEILIN-ZINE Interview with Spencer Wan6/23/2024~7/12/2024Jerry Nguyen: you know, I feel like growing up and talking to animators of different levels of experience one of the correlations that surprised me at first was that even an animator's tastes in the kinds of animation they like change. So much so I think I can almost guess what an animator likes more accurately by factoring their experience.I'd like to ask you if you still remember what "good" animation looked like to you when you were youngerI think animators that are just starting out, particularly younger animators, have a very specific and pointed preference in animation that they think IS goodSpencer Wan: Well I remember back then I was really attracted to simplicity. I used to get seriously put off by the use of heavy shadows and highlights, so I gravitated toward Norio Matsumotos animation because hed intentionally excluded shadows where other animators would assume it was expected.Like back then it took me a while to see value in some of the best animation out there. I remember I turned my nose up at both Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion because the styles were too detailed for what I was interested in.And when it came to the movement I really liked when things moved in a way I didnt expect.Like it couldve been the best looking hand drawn 3D rotation in the world and I would not have cared. I wanted to be surprised.This was all before I had the vocabulary or knew any of the animators names though. I just knew something about it was getting to meJN: you know I think the fact that he doesn't draw shadows really affects how he puts down black lines. Especially in fabric, I think there is always an extreme frustration where not putting down a line for a fold feels like too little, but putting down a black line is way too harsh, and so as an in between we'll use shadows to record those forms in the drawing. Norio Matsumoto I think excelled at visualizing the balance of his drawings when it was finished as a cel rather than the drawing he put down on the animation paper itselfSW: You know I dont think I ever really thought of it that way. I think for me it was like the drawings already sing without shadows and adding any more to it just felt like muddying it up.I remember when that internal shadow trend started for clothing and it never really landed with meJN: ohhhh, now that you say out loud I guess that was a trendactually, it's funny cause now you ended up bringing back a lot of those heavy black shadows for the Hades trailers and before that also in the Invader Zim Opening.I guess I might suspect that some of it is just a result of the artstyle of the projects themselves, but it looks like you've worked your style around it so I'm wondering if that opinion aged somewhat until nowSW: Well I more meant like specifically the use of only shadow for the interior of cloth. Like I remember thinking everyone was trying to copy that one Yutaka Nakamura scene from Space DandyThe black shadows I used on those projects were mostly just because the Zim one was supposed to look edgy and Hades already had those shadows in the styleAlthough I think it is kind of what my hand naturally wants to do nowId rather do like black shadows than have actual shadows hahaLike if you left it up to me Id only use shadow to show rim light or have one of those ones where it cuts diagonally across the character to make it moodierI love that shitJN: I love that shit too, honestly a lot of the web gen animators who joined around the 2010s feel similarly hahaI think with the Nakamura trend, people had never seen someone animate high fidelity fabric shading that emulated realism like that before. I reckon most people thought it was borderline impossible until he started to do itI think there's something interesting about your threshold for what counts as muddy, the fact that shadows seems to so clearly step over that line. You would think that shadows might be a bare minimum requirement of detail considering how it's basically everywhere in real lifeSW: I guess so, but Im really never aiming to make something look like real life in my workIve only ever wanted to make it look like animation.I dont know, theres a balance in my head that just gets ruined when you start throwing shadow everywhere.And you know, its a lot faster to draw without it, so win winJN: when you conceive of the thing your gonna draw, does it just start as a drawing rather than something like a real subject that you might have to perform the abstraction of in your head?SW: Yeah thats exactly it. I picture a drawing.I mean if Im drawing a real subject then Im going to picture reality, but if Im drawing an animated character then I picture an animated characterI just dont do much realism these days. No one pays me for thatIt used to be I couldnt make the drawings in my head so Id just let my hand run wild, but eventually my skill caught up to what was in my mind. Spencer Wan - SpiderPunk JN: well, lord knows you'd shake the earth if someone did. I still think about that spiderpunk testSW: That one was so hard for me to conceiveWe only had like a few early concepts for the character and they gave me some punk rock poster reference and said make it as crazy as you possibly canI couldnt come up with anything crazier than the style changing every single drawingBut it was like I had to conceive a new thing every time before moving on to the next drawing. I didnt want it to look like it was just changing color. It had to like feel like it was changing styles even if you couldnt see every single oneAnd I wanted to mimic the haphazard collage nature of early punk rock posters so I also had to collage everything togetherMy file crashed so many timesJN: I feel like I saw like 10 new illustration techniques that you've never done before in just that one animation.SW: Yeah I also was bad at them!I was like god damn Im not creative enough for this. I wanted structure back so badlyIf that test had been any longer I wouldve totally run out of ideasJN: so that was all stuff you figured out on the assignmentI legitimately thought you just have used techniques like that before on pieces I just haven't seen yetSW: Yeah I just looked at the posters and tried to recreate the techniques for some of themJN: crazySW: Like okay I can tell this was printed with a printer that was like straight up out of toner, but I have to do it on a computer soStreaky splatter texture subtract layer? I dunnoAnd then I ran out of poster techniques so I just grabbed anything that came to mindLike a spiderman Halloween maskJust slap that in there onceIts relevantI think they actually also did that in the movie on their own, but on MilesJN: This is such a strange reoccuring thing where you frequently lament that you don't possess this creative energyis there someone/something that you might look to as a foil to you in this regard??I can personally attest that I've tried to do some of the rendering styles in even just one frame of that test and I couldn't figure it outlike even the fact that you could identify that this one effect was a printer with no toner I feel like requires a degree of experience with printingSW: Well I used to play around with that stuff a lot more when I was youngerAnd thanks, but I never felt like I was really getting anywhere with any of those styles. It was like that feeling of trying to recreate a style but never quite getting there, only it happened to me a few dozen timesJN: I mean where would you liked to have gotten to?SW: Anything closer to the look they created just by experimentingIt never felt like I got that authenticityJN: hmmm, and for Spiderpunk structure was the thing was distracting you from that stuff?SW: Well I'm used to structure. Usually in production the quality of your work is measured by how well you met the director's vision and how well you stay on model. I'm used to doing that, but here they were telling me to just go off on my own and smack it as hard as I could with every creative tool available to meActually I struggled a lot with that on that production because any time I got Joaquim's boards I had a hard time moving away from themIt was like okay, I don't wanna mess this up, so I'd do a very literal interpretation where I'd be careful to keep everything he put into it in placeAnd then we'd get to review and they'd be like can you do this again but mess it upJN: When you went and messed it up did it go through?SW: Basically yeahJN: sounds like you really have to like strain yourself to do this other thing they were asking you to do hahaSW: Well it's just difficult when you get a storyboard that's detailed. It's like it's telling you you MUST do it like this.JN: Animatics do tend to be pretty compelling to work withI guess you've never really worked off of a comic panel storyboard aside from when you worked with Chengxi Huang rightEven he would do animatics and his panels had a specific blocking to them though, not sure if that dampened the effect storyboards have for youSW: Youre forgetting we both worked on that Carol and Tuesday thing a while backIts not the timing that gets in my way. Its the drawingsWith Chengxi its fine because I can more or less just use his poses and Im pretty sure hed want it that way anywayAnd I think on a TV production Joaquim wouldve been happy with that tooBut we were on a feature together and I was supposed to be trying to invent things every time I made a testOr at least it felt that way. Apparently it feels that way for a lot of people in featureJN: yea I did forget we were on that together actually, my badIf it was the drawings that tied you down then would crappier drawings have liberated you or just further confused you. You know how like there are those panels of essentially stick figures sometimes in some storyboardsSW: Actually yeah. As long as I can tell whats going on I usually prefer crappy drawings. Or at least thats what lets me exercise the most creativityJN: I think this is kind of a really funny topic that kind of worthwhile to get into, the idea that you, me, and probably a lot of animators might prefer shittier drawings in some scenarios.There's been a few other pieces of your answer that I think warrant revisiting, and if it's alright I want to backtrack through this conversation back up to the opening question to kind of tie it back up in order to continue discussing that very first answer"Crappy" is obviously reductive from my part, but I think more specifically I really prefer drawings that are sprawling and suggestive rather than simple and discreet, if I had to say.Im not sure if this is how you would describe what you're imagining when I say "crappy" though. what would you say?SW: I would just say anything that isnt trying to demand I draw the scene an exact wayPast that it doesnt really matter much to me. It can be suggestive or gestural or just a quick scribble because someone ran out of timeAs long as its giving me permission to ignore how its drawn, then thats enoughA storyboard is supposed to be an idea anyway, not a layout guideI get it though, I mean in America thats whats expected nowJN: It'll probably be gradual but if American storyboard artists had better pipeline with the animators (which I think is where it's trending) we might see animatics gravitate in that directionSW: That would be great, except were rapidly barreling in the other directionJN: still?SW: Thats what I see anywayJN: how do you figure with Flying Bark?SW: I mean Flying Bark is a great studio and has a ton of talent.And it hasnt stopped American storyboard artists from jamming their boards full of unnecessary poses even knowing that theyll be able to to a good job with itPart of that is on the higher ups for expecting that sort of thing, but part of it is on the artists for creating that expectation in the first placeAnd like, thats not going to make a lick of difference if you have the animators at flying bark working for you. Theyre going to do good work regardlessBut I bet its annoying for them to have to use every single pose in those storyboardsJN: I'd bet on that too. I think they should just convert half of the American board team into just animators haha, feel like most of them wish they could animateI always suspected that might have been why they feel the need to put out such over-realized animaticsat least part of why*SW: Im certain most of them could animate. Ive tried to encourage that but I almost never see people take the plungeI think they WANT to animateI think theyre afraid of job securityYoud have to be pretty insane to pick animation over storyboarding in America if you were thinking about moneyI mean, when I first started, there were hardly even any jobs for animators hereIts wild to see those start to creep back inJN: feels pretty great. Personally speaking everytime I've had to work on an animatic like that I have always thought "why don't you just get the board artist to just animate this".I'd claim that animatics like that hold back the potential of the entire pipeline if you have talent like Flying Bark.the animatics really force the hand of the animators to produce extremely snappy, darting motion because that's pretty much all you can afford to do while still stringing together the poses in each sceneparticularly when there are that* many panelsSW: You know if theres a sheet timer involved the animators that get that are forced to use all of those poses too. They dont get a choiceI think its probably different for Flying Bark since they work entirely digitally, but Im speculatingBut yeah Id agree with you. If you made me use all of those poses it would seriously hold back my workLuckily Ive never been contractually obligated to. I would cut poses all the time and no one was ever the wiserJN: yea, I have also been very fortunate to bend rules and get away with itfirst time hearing about a sheet timerSW: So when America started outsourcing animation to South Korea, they needed a way to communicate the timing of the animatic and the lip sync to the animators thereSo some old animation people became sheet timers who write this episode long x sheets that include all that info including compositing directionIm summarizing a lot here, but thats basically how it wentAnd the sheet timers are ancient now. They dont really train new sheet timers. Every sheet timer Ive met has been in their 60s at leastBut as an animator on one of these productions, you just get your section of x sheet that pertains to your scene and all the timing and posing has already been decided for youYou basically just make it on model and add breakdownsSo now picture youre handed a scene where the storyboarder chose to draw over a dozen poses and they didnt understand animationYou can see how frustrating that would beMost of the union productions Ive been on call them scenes by the way, not cutsJN: just sounds like all of America's pipeline problems are concessions to having to make overseas outsourcing work yet againScene lengths are also getting tighter and tighter too,,It's honestly kind of crazy how much your work is shaped by how long a scene is. I've had to forego so many ideas, probably like at least half, just because that specific cut was 6-10 frames too shortas a specific example, it is impossible to animate the kind of floating, weighty quality that you find in old Disney or Satoru Utsunomiya, or Hashimoto these days unless you break the time length pretty egregiouslySW: Well traditionally the scene length is decided by the editors and not by the storyboardersThe editors are actually in a different union so they really dont like it if artists branch over into timingThe union I mean, not the editors specificallyBut yeah, in American animation they tend to cut much faster. Its just whats taughtPeople always said that my scene lengths were super longJN: I dont think I would have ever thought that would be a factor in thiswait then who comes first in the pipeliine, the storyboard artist or the editor??SW: The storyboard artist does. Then it gets passed to an animatic editor who times itBut these days we have a lot of board artists timing their own animatics before the editor ever get itJN: that pipeline seems to make a lot more sense when I remember that until recently storyboards were ostensibly comic stripsSW: I mean, they still are. No matter how you look at it its an animaticPeople are just conflating them because the storyboarders still identify as storyboarders and so when they post their work on the internet they say these are my boardsI think Ive done the same thing actuallyJN: right, I mean just to clarify I meant that having editors time out the scene made a lot more sense if they were given storyboards drawn on those thumbnail blocks where either there wasn't any time written down or the timing was still pretty broad and estimatedactually, I think they do that in Japan because they still use konte pagesSW: Id kill to have someone time my storyboardsSo much work I wouldnt need to doJN: wow are you sure?sounds like it could demand a lot of correspondence to get it rightSW: I feel like it would be more a matter of just directing the timing situationally, but yeah overall I dont think I need to have full control over thatJN: interressttinnggggSW: I see you forming opinions about me over thereBut you should KNOW this about me by nowI dont need full control when I directJN: I just mean it gives me something to consider about my own preferencesnot sure I have considered the opportunity to delegate handling that beforeSW: Well if you find a good animatic editor to work with let me know hahaJN: ...you know what? I will consider it it, I might have some candidates in mindSW: I mean Ill probably keep timing these smaller projects, but for a full 22 minute episode Id be very eager to hand that offId be eager to hand off the storyboards too, for the most partJN: give it to meeeeeeSW: DealJN: alright, well I think the other thing that I really wanted to talk about with you that you had mentioned earlier was about how you picture things in your head. Im going to be honest this might straight up torpedo this interview because this is probably way too subjective to really reliably converge on the same definitions but let's fuck around and find outParticularly I think it's interesting that you sometimes just start from a drawing if it's what your work asks of youbut over the last few days I sort of started to check with myself if I might also do that I think I do too. And if I had to guess the reason I can do that probably more than anything has to do with sheer amount of "drawings" I've looked at in my lifeIt's kind of* weird but like at some point the drawings you see sort of "are real" much like the buildings and people you see are "real" in the way that they occupy your surroundingsSW: You sure about that? You havent been able to see them since you were a kid?JN: you know I really don't knowI could remember cartoons that I had seen, but when I drew it was always beginning from imagining what the real thing wasand then working it downit wasn't until my teenage years where I started to emulate artists that I could begin to start with a "cartoonized" imagefrankly when I started to emulate Nakaya Onsen it was probably the most palpable moment where I could do thatI always had trouble with configuring the ribcage and pelvis, but when I started to emulate the way Nakaya Onsen drew, I literally started to be able to draw anything I wanted to some extentSW: You bathed in the knowledge of the Nakaya OnsenJN: more real than you can imagineit was like discovering a cheat codeSW: It was a little different for me. I was always able to picture cartoons since I was very youngEmulating other artists for me was more about training my handsI remember I used to like overlay them on my vision and watch them doing things in whatever room I was inJN: seriously??you'd have to be able to like transpose their proportions according to perspective and everythingSW: I can assure you it wasnt an active effortJN: could you like modulate what the cartoon looked like?for example if you imagine like a spectrum of cartoon to realistic, could you have slid down that spectrum all the way to realistic?SW: Mmm probably not back thenAnd at some point I stopped doing it because people thought it was weird Id just be staring offI just figured its something everyone didOr could doJN: lmfao, how old until you found outSW: I mean I think I just found out nowI havent thought about that in a long timeIts not like I ever talked about itJN: well, in that case. Since it seems like I might infer that realism was something you* trained your mind to be able to visualizeI kind of want to ask if this was also true with respect to motionI mean did the cartoons you imagined move in a specific way..?SW: It was so long ago now. I think they just moved like cartoons Id see on TV back then JN: Sorry about the long silence here, on the other hand the time gave me ample time to mull on your answersI think where our last conversation ended off I was very interested in how drawing and more interestingly consuming animation might have expanded the sensitivity of your visual imaginationyou know how like people who are very into music are extremely sensitive to the texture of certain sounds, or even how people who have a wider vocabulary to describe different hues allegedly appear to be much more sensitive to subtle hue changes?I think stuff like this is well understood in the visual sphere for static images, like how people are able to describe a painting or a photo in terms of hue, lighting, brushwork, composition etcbut I dont think in terms of animation Ive ever really come across the same level of vividness. I know at least for me watching animation has given me the capabilities to picture differences in my head that I dont really have the words to describe. I think Norio Matsumoto is a landmark example for me personally, specifically the way he animates acrobatic mid-length scenesand I think it has a little bit to do with the way he modulates his frame ratesSo I just first wanted to confirm with you if youve also experienced this thing where looking at so much animation has expanded your sensitivity with regards to movementI know Ive asked you before and heard you lament about the fact that at your current stage youre much more affected by lower framerate animation to the point where itd steer you into wanting to* make your animations smoother than you otherwise would have because the choppiness in your own work would bother you otherwise.SW: Ahh yes. My Richard Williams syndromeNorio Matsumoto totally still does it for me though. Im much more sensitive to it in my own workOr in the work of animators Im directingIm a lot less bothered if its not related to my work at allI can MAKE myself be bothered, but why would I?If Im watching someone elses work Id rather try and turn the criticism off and try to enjoy itJN: Before you start animating a scene do you imagine it in your head first?SW: I do, yeah.I usually do some thumbnails of whats in my head and then move on to storyboardsJN: does it work kind of like what we talked about earlier where you kind of imagine directly the kind of movement you need rather than starting from a realistic version and then caricaturizing it?SW: Yup! Theres really no realism involved in the way I workJN: How'd that look like?? Were you able to like imagine the individual frames or did you imagine like a video playingSW: I mean were getting back to the thing where I could just see characters whenever I wantedJust, these days I do it all in my headJN: yea, I guess I'm just trying to figure out what the boundaries of it are if there are anyI came across Shingo Yamashita's old web diary one time and he mentioned how he thinks in Japan, there's 2 ways of animating. 1 is you plan the scene as a series of still frames that the scene transitions through. 2 is you imagine a film being played and you sort of pause the film in your head every 1/12th of a second or so and draw that still frameand I guess I'm curious if you have something like this going on where you might feel you fall closer to either side of this dichotomySW: Maybe closer to the second one. Its just not a film for me. I didnt watch too much film or grow up studying film, so my understanding of drawing doesnt come from thereIm just grasping at a scene I can be inJN: Sure, sorry I just mean video not necessarily live actionSW: Right, no I get itBut for me I picture the entire spaceI guess itd be less like a film and more like a 3D software?Im sure its not super uncommon to be able to just live in the space in your headJN: yea probably notSW: When I do my thumbnails youll usually see me redraw the same idea from a few different angles and then I just cut the things that dont work for meThose basically become my beats and then I use film rules to figure out how to connect themJN: so you have like a 3D sim of the whole scene in your head as you thumbnailSW: For lack of a better analogy, yeahI can look at it top down or from below, or I guess from any angle I want toThe one thing I cant do is change the camera lensI have to figure out focal length through experimentingJN: okay that's fucking interestingSW: Cause its not a camera for me, its the focal length of my eyeballJN: hmmm I mean it's kind of bizarre you can sort of frame step things because that's also something that your eyeballs can't doat least Im not confident that your brain processes things in frame ratesbut things* like smears and blurs do eyes to us...SW: Well Im not exactly frame stepping or whateverIts more like super smash brosJN: uhhhhhSW: Like you can pauseAnd move the camera aroundI did that all the time as a kidJN: I seeeeSW: And my pose to pose in animation also comes from experience. I used to only use straight aheadJN: I guess then if your imagination works like that one of the things i can imagine you having to adjust to is getting a sense for how long 1/12th or 1/24th or 1/8th of a second feels like in your imaginationSW: Well, actually I figure all that out laterLike I can make it faster or slower, but whats the pointYou knew right? I draw all my animation before timing it outJN: I didn't know that actuallySW: Oh. Maybe we never talked about thatI draw the entire thing on 1sAnd then I pick my timing laterMy brain naturally times things on 3s for 24fps, so I usually start by making the whole thing 6sAnd then I make it 8s for slower, 4s for fasterAnd if it felt right at 3s it just stays a 6The 3s thing is just because of how I developed. I used to animate almost exclusively on 3sJN: fascinatingcause if the poses look right it doesn't really matter how the timings differ it'll only change the pace at which the movements occur huhSW: ExactlyJN: if you play a video at 0.5x it still looks reaalisticSW: One day I was just like why am I starting and stopping drawing when its just gonna end up on 3s anywayI could just continue drawing without breaking my flow and worry about the rest laterIf your spacing is good your timing really becomes secondaryJN: I used to time it out as i drew so that as I flipped I could get a better sense of the timing of the whole animation so I could be better informed on how to decide the spacing for the next frame I was gonna drawI since abandoned it and animate like what you are describing nowSW: I think you just naturally end up here eventuallyThe old school style is to use the x sheet to time your drawings so it makes senseJN: rightthe other thing I was curious about is when you go to animate a scene how do you figure out whether to use animation camera illusions like background slide vs an actual camera over the canvasSW: Oh, that?Its usually just whether the characters feet are onscreenWith some exception but it ends up that way 90% of the timeA background slide is always a better option for production so I favor that whenever I canJN: so that doesnt occur to you in imagination it's just something you work out after you're done with that partSW: Well its something I work out while Im looking at the storyboard trying to figure out my layoutId rather not worry about really precise camera movements that someone else has to replicate later in AE, not to mention strobingAlthough I have plenty of tricks for getting around thatJN: ..you do??SW: And then if youre working with an Asian studio you probably need to think about paper and peg switching and its such a choreWell yeahLike for example I would do things like create a 4 frame camera movement for a 4 frame holdCant strobe if you just freeze the character in place long enough for the camera to zip past themI had someone try to rewrite my x sheet for that once, citing strobingAnd I was like did you actually look at this or what? JN: wait if im understanding it right you'd just animate the camera at 4 fps?SW: Well that was for a quick movementBut like, for a longer one you can use the same principleSay you need to make the camera pan quickly over the scene but its uhhh like 12 framesYou can plan your motion around that so it either holds longer in the middle or is on 1s just in the middleThe strobing only happens with the spacing is far enough for the eye to pick it up, right?So if the thing is barely moving when the camera is moving fast, no strobingAnd then when the camera slows down it can move againJN: that's smart as fuckyea that makes a lot of senseSW: Its just something I picked up on while I was fucking up hahaMost of what I do is because of some frustrationAnd trying to get around it without making more drawingsTruly I am the laziest animatorJN: uhhhhhSW: [emoji]Put that in your interview Links: Spencer Wan: Cara X TumblrWeilin Zhang: XDiscover more:Animation on Cara Cara Edit: Animation (2022)