Tem stream arc, I kept it up for around 2 years!

Sometime back in 2020, it was a popular trend in artist circles to draw your own vtuber avatar. This was before it was really popular over here (I think). I feel there's more resources now, but I remember I mostly just used the Live2D tutorial series to learn this stuff.

I started with a quick simple concept for the model.

I drew each part in layers! Seperate layers for things like pupils, eye whites, etc... I'm bad at this type of organization usually.

Not bad for my first try!! I was excited to see it come together and enjoyed learning how to do it. Though, I had a lot of difficulty understanding how the physics worked.

All rigged! Pretty scary looking huh...

This was quite a bit later, but I drew and rigged one other outfit (sleeby tem).

Well... I put in all the work on the model, so I thought "might as well give streaming a try!" I only meant to do a few fun test streams with this model, but I got an overwhelming amount of positive reinforcement so I continued for awhile, streaming maybe once or twice a week for an hour. I believe there was a few who thought this was my new job or career. I thought that was a cute misunderstanding.

I started with a talking stream, a Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy stream, and a sketch request stream. It was fun! Though I definitely felt a little odd at first talking to a source without verbal feedback.
Camelliaさん was really kind and made me a few songs for the background when I would talk to chat, and iffykins did an awesome job being a mod.

At some point, I made a twitch so I wouldn't flood my main youtube channel with streams stuffs. I tried to make it nice with a few icons and presentation and such. It was fun to do those too!

For each stream, I drew a little thumbnail to go along with it!

Something I enjoyed doing was animating clips from time to time. It felt relatively stress-free because I was just working with my own audio, I wouldn't be overstepping working with other people's stuff, so it felt kind of freeing. I did find my own voice getting grating from time to time though.

Some backgrounds I drew for some of the animated clips.

Most of these animations were relatively low effort, just something to doodle or play around with sometimes. I would storyboard/animate these in Adobe Animate, paint the backgrounds in Krita, and put it all together with effects and all in After Effects. After Effects is what I used to make clips edits as well with all the text floating around.

Wow when I think about it, I did much in this kind of process huh? I definitely burnt out eventually trying to juggle this as a hobby with work and other things. At this timing I started getting really sick from pushing myself too hard. While it was a fun exploration, this kind of thing as just a hobby is a lot!

I learned a lot with this little venture! I got a lot better at speaking in general, friends noticed I was a bit more audible, vocal and that I was speaking more clearly. I suppose it's pretty good practice for speaking if you're someone like me and might not speak very often. After each stream, even though I'd have butterflies prior, I'd feel great afterwards!

If I were to impart a little wisdom, there is a personal element to streaming that's far more potent than any other venture I've ever tried. This is a double edged sword to be careful with. As a streamer, your viewers can get very attached to you in a way that's different from admiring an artist, writer, musician etc. Even if it's you putting on a mask or an act, your viewers are picking up on your tendencies and patterns, they are hearing your voice, and there is a sort of connection that is being established as a result of this. I've heard a wording for this once, I think it was something called "parasocial"? Some viewers stop viewing the streamer as entertainment, and start feeling a close attachment.
It can feel very nice to feel like you are making a difference in others' lives, to hear you are making their day just a little bit better. But it is important to remember, to both the viewer and the streamer, that people on either ends are strangers. It is also important to remember, anybody can be watching your stream, some people feeling more entitled to you than others. A super fan can turn into something else with the flip of a coin. No matter how many walls and boundaries you try to establish, this can always just happen, so it's something to keep in mind before jumping into an activity like this.

Aside from the words of caution, this activity can be very fun and fulfilling. I've learned much! I think if I wasn't an artist firstly, I would've continued with streaming maybe trying to turn it into what I do for a living. I just have other ambitions and things I'd like to try and see. Maybe some day in the future, I'll go live just for fun.

You can watch some archives of my old streams here: Tem Archives