Between September 18 and October 20 this year my account’s level on the Divoom app shot up from 17 to 59. I managed to draw commemorative pixel art up to level 57, included, before the bug got fixed, and the level was demoted to 17. It feels a bit harsh, though.

The Ultimate Answer.

…

If we only knew what it meant.
(determinism gone mad, maybe)

Had my first blocked user. They sent the same offensive message a second time on another of my drawings. Before 2021, you could be pretty sure it was some bored 12 yoa, but nowadays it equally could be a bot powered by an LLM. Those are equally inconsiderate, unless constrained.

When someone else reviews a new photo frame on YT and one’s pixel art is casually shown by the reviewer, one can’t but feel like proud of oneself. At least, I felt that way, searching for a review of the new 10.1 inch Divoom Time Frame, and found this video by Marc The Geek.

Rolling Down Without End, a Penrose staircase.

Here’s the animation celebrating that I reached level 30 in the Divoom community yesterday. No other artist has reached this level yet, and some are on the platform since 2021 (I only 9 months). I suppose posting on average more than once a day, and being recommended by the staff a lot helped.

I removed my image archive with Pixoo64 gifs from micro∙blog, because it didn’t work for me. I’m moving them (slowly) to my Flickr account. Flickr has its problems with animated gifs, but management isn’t one of those; on micro∙blog there’s no management for large (100+) collections.

I’m about to reach level 30 in the Divoom community, higher than any expert artist of the app, much more skilled than me at pixel art. I suppose I happened to tick the right boxes with the algorithm, since I’m only using the app since Christmas 2024, and most experts since 2021 or so. Anyway, I made a rough animatic based on a rough sketch with all the key poses, and made a pixel animation from the frames.

I will share the finished pixel animation if and when I’m awarded level 30.

There’s a good reason to avoid cities when training for a marathon. There’s the well-meant, though unwanted advice. There’s also the occasional hatred from those who think you running is a statement. In nature, none of those interactions, just people enjoying life, the same as you, marathon runner.

To become a Divoom Ambassador you’d need 5000+ followers on social media, and regularly engage with your followers. I don’t qualify, not even by a long shot. I will try to grow my follower count, but doubt I’ll ever reach 5000+ with my pixel art. I’m now at 10 on Bluesky, 4991 to go 😬

Here is a process video of the sketch I did of the dragon from Bubble Bobble, and next the 64 x 64 pixel art animation of said sketch.

I must say that the current MB blogging system has become worse than before. For instance, if you edit a shortpost the enclosed image will be placed outside the text and if edited the image will be duplicated. Also, the shortcut to my account only includes one blog not all blogs. An ugly mess!

Round and round they go. Wherever they land we’ll never know. They keep on flying from door to door. And quite soon there will be even more. It’s maddening, makes you cry. Because all they do is fly and fly and never die. 🪰

Since it’s inspired by his self-portrait, I call this one “Vincent.”

Currently reading: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole 📚

Finished reading, for the second time: The Chronicles of Narnia (Chronicles of Narnia, #1-7) by C.S. Lewis 📚

I’ve made a page for my Pixoo64 pixel art. I didn’t get to add even half of the 280 images, because Microblog’s interface for adding images and putting them into a collection is rather cumbersome and error-prone for me. So, expect a slow and careful addition of new images over the next few weeks.

I wonder if I have to deal with age verification with an account created on 5 March 2006, so before Google bought YouTube in November that year. I hope not, but since AI logic is involved, I’m not so sure.

A non-host read advertisement in a podcast means an instant unsubscribe, however much I enjoyed the show so far.

Oh my!