BartTheSock's Art & YouTube Blog (and other stuff)

Thirty-seventh and final post from the original blog. Every post from now on will be all-new and original. I've also deleted my old blog because there's no point in keeping it around anymore, seeing how I ported all of my old posts to this blog. "As you probably guessed from the title, I'm going to VidCon 2022 this month. I'm a little bit nervous, but mostly excited. I' m also currently working on an animation that will act as a sort of "introduction" to my YouTube channel in general, and I'm getting pretty good at lip-synching in animations. Well, that's about it from me. See you soon, stay safe, and have a good day!"

Thirty-sixth post from the original blog. "I had my birthday and Christmas, and I got plenty of new video games to hold me over for a little while. I got  Pokémon LeafGreen ,  Pokémon SoulSilver ,  Pokémon Alpha Sapphire , and a new copy of  Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins . I also got some books and plush toys, as well as a new computer that my oldest brother, Justin, made for me. It works like a charm. I also signed up for an Adobe Animate class so I can really learn how to animate rather than just try and fail to figure it out on my own. I'm actually learning a lot, and I can take the class at my own pace, so I can go a couple weeks without doing the class (if I need to) and not fall behind. I got  Pokémon Legends: Arceus  the day it was released, and even though it's going to take some getting used to, the best part is that the Arc Phone that you get at the beginning of the game acts as a sort of built-in walkthrough. I also played  Bug Fables ,...

Thirty-fifth post from the original blog. "I forgot to mention a new game I got for the Nintendo Switch a few months ago. Here it is. Game Builder Garage  - I think it's more of a program than an actual game, because you can use it to make your own games, kind of like Scratch. You use these things called "Nodons" to make the code, and you can connect them together to make them do cool stuff. I bought the game a couple weeks after it was released (I think on June 30, 2021), and I had a lot of fun with it. I was able to complete all seven tutorials, as well as the checkpoints in between them. After that, I tried making my own games, and I really wanted to make a turn-based battle system, kind of like in Paper Mario or something. I think that was way too ambitious for someone who had just barely completed the tutorials, and I couldn't get the enemy (Jr. Troopa) to jump correctly, probably because I was using a Moving-Object Nodon for Jr. Troopa, and there was the is...

Thirty-fourth post from the original blog. "My mom, stepdad, and younger sister are going up to Utah this weekend, and I'm staying at home. I did video games in the past two weeks, so that's good, I guess. Animal Crossing: New Leaf  - Good news: I got my approval rating from 14% to about 54%. I think I have to talk to villagers regularly and stuff, but the advice I got from Isabelle was to fish up trash from rivers or the sea and dispose of it at Re-Tail. That sounds easy, but I think I'm going to have to do a lot of fishing to get any trash that I can dispose of, so I'll just try to increase my approval rating in other ways. Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam  - I managed to get through Sunbeam Plains and Doop Doop Dunes, and I completed a good chunk of the Expert Challenges, too. I'm mostly done with the Twinsy Tropics Dungeon, but I have to beat Roy and Wendy first. Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling  - I started over on a new file, but I didn't delete the pr...

Thirty-third post from the original blog. "Okay, I haven't been blogging at all in the past six and a half months, so here's a post from me just to add something to this blog. I bought  Animal Crossing: Wild World  for the DS,  Animal Crossing: New Leaf  for the 3DS, and  Animal Crossing: New Horizons  for the Nintendo Switch. I also beat  Pokémon Red ,  Animal Crossing: New Horizons ,  Super Mario Bros. , and  Super Mario Bros. 3 . Super Mario Bros.  - I beat this on the Nintendo Switch Online service. The trick I used to beat this game without getting a Game Over was to use the Warp Zone in World 1-2 and the secret Warp Zone in World 4-2. Then I created a savestate before I started World 8-1. Every time I got to a point where I could pause for a second, I replaced the old savestate with a new one, so if I died, I could just reload the savestate I had and try again. I guess that could be considered cheating, but Nintendo should hav...

Thirty-second post from the original blog. "I got  Pokémon Black  and  Pokémon Y  recently, and they're pretty fun. Anyway, here's a list of other video games I played. Pokémon Red  - I got through the Pokémon Tower and the Silph Co. building, all while getting every item, beating every trainer, and even defeating my rival twice. I also caught a Gastly in the Pokémon Tower and earned a Hitmonlee from the Karate Master by defeating him and his lackeys in the Fighting Dojo. I caught a Cubone in the Pokémon Tower as well, but my Game Boy Advance SP froze for some reason before I could save my game, so I couldn't keep the Cubone. Thankfully, I evolved my Pikachu into a Raichu using a Thunder Stone, and I taught it TM24 Thunderbolt, so now I have a pretty strong Electric-type Pokémon. I also gave my Eevee a Water Stone so it evolved into Vaporeon, and I got my Magikarp from the Pokémon Day Care on Route 5 and evolved it into Gyarados. Then I taught Gyarados some...

Thirty-first post from the original blog. "I made several personal achievements in my Pokémon games, as well as Bug Fables. Pokémon Red  - I managed to use Cut to get to Route 9 from the east side of Cerulean City, and I got through Routes 9 and 10 easily. Then there was the Rock Tunnel. I had already taught the HM Flash to my Pikachu, so the navigation wasn't too hard (mainly because I used a map on the Internet to navigate), but the battles in the Rock Tunnel started wearing me down a little bit. I don't think any of my Pokémon fainted, but a couple came pretty close. Anyway, I got through the Rock Tunnel after catching an Onix and a Machop, and then I had to battle a few more Trainers at the end of Route 10. I think one of my Pokémon might have fainted at this point, but I can't remember. Either way, I finally got to Lavender Town and healed up my Pokémon at the local Pokémon Center. At this point, I decided to level up my Abra on Route 8 so it would evolve into Kad...

Thirtieth post from the original blog. "I got back to writing in my red  Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Do-It-Yourself  book, and I filled up the journal on Christmas Eve. It only took one journal entry to fill it up from where I had it because I had been writing in it since I started 4th grade (with the occasional journal entry in between 7th grade to now). In order to keep journaling, I got out my other Wimpy Kid DIY book (this one is orange) and picked up where I had left off at the end of 3rd grade (with a note after the last journal entry telling the reader to read the red Wimpy Kid DIY book before continuing). I don't know why I never finished the orange one, but if I had to guess, I think it would have had something to do with the fact that the drawings in the orange journal from when I was 7 and 8 weren't as good as the drawings I made when I was 9, and I didn't want there to be contrast. I think towards the end of 3rd grade I decided to give my drawings of myself lig...

Twenty-ninth post from the original blog. " Minecraft: Java Edition  - I uninstalled Minecraft: Bedrock Edition from my computer because my older brother Chase had told me that that's what he had done on his computer (because Java Edition is better than Bedrock Edition because there's a little bit more stuff in it). Then I bought Java Edition with my own money and joined Chase's server, Pen Island. He had made a neighborhood that was also called Pen Island (which, for the record, is what I'm referring to when I say "Pen Island." It's the neighborhood, not the server). Anyway, Chase had made a big (but simple) wall around Pen Island, and he had made his house, a crop farm, a tree farm, a barn, an enchanting building, a huge mine, and a few other things. When I got on the server, after we made my house (it was mostly me that did it), we tore down the wall Chase had made so he could make a bigger and better wall that also went around the EXP farm that Ch...

Twenty-eighth post from the original blog. "I did Inktober for October, and it was fun. I decided to do them digitally because I don't have an actual scanner, but while it was fun, it was a bit too much work to get them just right for posting and stuff. Plus, I traced most of them from already existing pictures using different layers in Photoshop, and I kind of felt like I was cheating, even though tracing something is okay (probably as long as you don't pretend you drew it all by yourself). I also played video games. Paper Mario  - I already beat this like four times (and twice I beat it basically 100% (except for all of the hidden blocks)), but this time I'm going to beat it 100% (including the hidden blocks), and I'm going to read everything and play it (relatively) normally. I just beat Chapter 4, and now I have to do my least favorite Peach intermission: make that cake for Gourmet Guy. I can do everything easily except for the part where you have to bake the c...

Twenty-seventh post from the original blog. "I got the video game  Pokémon Gold  a few days ago, but while I like the game so far, there were some issues with the copy I bought. Pokémon Gold  - I bought this game with my own money on Amazon. Most of the copies I found were about $50 or so, but I found one for only $15, so that was good. When it came, I was excited to play it, and I did, but there was just one problem. The in-game clock wasn't working. I figured it might just take a second for the game to register the time or something, but it wouldn't start. It was stuck at about 8:54 PM, the time I had put in when it was actually 8:54 PM. I did some research, and I learned that  Pokémon Gold  and  Silver  (and also  Crystal ) have a battery in the cartridge that makes the in-game clock work. If the battery dies, then the in-game clock will stop working, and there's a chance you won't be able to save your game. Thankfully I could still save, but t...

Twenty-sixth post from the original blog. "Okay, so I forgot to blog for pretty much all of August, and I'm sorry about that. I can't remember exactly what video games I played over the past month-and-a-third, so I'll just go over the highlights. Paper Mario: The Origami King  - I found a walkthrough for this game only a few days after I said that there weren't any walkthroughs for the game, and I used it to get almost all of the collectibles, Toads, ? Blocks, and Not-Bottomless Holes in the "red streamer" part of the game. I got all the way to the Big Sho' Theater, but I missed the collectible and the Toad I could have gotten on the part after the Wild West scene, and I (stupidly) deleted my save file because I was worried I had blocked myself out of getting 100% clear, since I couldn't think of any way to get back to where I needed to go after I (would have) finished the "blue streamer" part of the game. Oh, and I also got a Game Over ...

Twenty-fifth post from the original blog. "As you could probably guess, I got a new video game. That video game is  Paper Mario: The Origami King . Paper Mario: The Origami King  - I have to say, this game was better than anticipated. I already figured it was going to be good ever since I first heard of it two months ago, but I didn't realize it would be great until I actually played it for myself. I've already defeated (well, kind of) the Red Streamer on Overlook Tower, and from what I've played so far, I have to give it an 8 out of 10. The battle system relies a bit too much on puzzle logic instead of combat strategy, but other than that, it's fun. However, I will say that my OCD in relation to being a completionist when playing many video games (especially RPGs) makes it a tiny bit harder to enjoy when I'm trying to search for those last few Toads or ? Blocks or collectibles or Not-Bottomless Holes and I have no idea where to look. I know they don't have...

Twenty-fourth post from the original blog. "As you probably guessed from the title, me and my family went to see my brothers and sister up in Idaho. On Tuesday, June 16, we took a plane from Nevada to Colorado, and then another from Colorado to Idaho. The whole thing took around four to five hours or so, and everyone just wanted to get to the hotel and hang out. After we checked into the hotel and got everything unpacked, we went to my oldest brother Justin's house, where my other siblings Dean, Chase, and Kayla were staying for the week. Kayla made ritzy chicken (which is basically just homemade chicken strips with Ritz cracker crumbs as the covering instead of whatever they use for normal chicken strips) along with mashed potatoes, and they were pretty good. I also played  Pokémon Red  while I was up in Idaho. I'll tell you the details along with the actual story, something I haven't done yet. Pokémon Red  - I recently got back into this a few days before we went to ...