I feel that if this project started as something smaller like a mini-web comic series (with a few animated moments), it would have been easier to manage and MAYBE they could have pitched it as a TV show afterwards (similar to Vivziepop’s Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss). But the team was young and had big dreams so it’s understandable that they wanted to see how far it could go.
A scam is when people take money and run off with it but since the project goals weren't even remotely met, it's not surprising that the show hasn't become a reality. Also, 80k is not a "ridiculous" amount of money for an animation project. People have this idea that artists should ideally work for free (because "passion") but in the end it's a proper job that requires insane amounts of training. The bullying that allegedly went on behind closed doors sucks though. However, the way I see it after learning about it in this video, the project simply failed because of the lack of experience of the people involved and wasn't a criminal endeavour that would justify the label "scam".
People are also ignorant to how much work, effort and money animation actually takes to produce proper animated shows at 12-24 FPS. Actual industry level animations are a completely different ballpark to RU-vid videos like Jaiden, Emirichu and Domics.
My dude, $80K for a 7 minute pilot episode is a RIDICULOUS amount of money. That episode could be done by a single animator who has well rounded skills. The designs are simple. The backgrounds are simple. The physics and motion are also simple and cartoony. Overall it is an easy project. There was no need to go full on big studio mode and set aside money for merch and hire a full staff and buy ToonBoom (most expensive of all the animation software) licenses for a 7 minute pilot project. 🤦🏾♀️ Bruh. Here on RU-vid, there are animators who have made short studio-level animations by themselves or with a small team of animator friends using KickStarters. None of those kickstarters came nowhere close to $80k (most are below $10K) and they *delivered* the promised product.
@@ManicPixie-bb7wc My dude, it is not. Kickstarter takes a massive chunk - and fullfillment can cut your number in half. Even a small number of people working on this, plus sound, plus voice, plus music.... nope, you'd be in the red before completion EASY. Especially for Episode 1 where all backgrounds, rigs, designs, and quality control is built out the first time from scratch. For animation - that still would have been ridiculously UNDER funded. And as an animator - I am speaking from an indie animation, two man shop perspective - not a large big studio.
@@ithurtsbecauseitstrue Of course there are people who do this kind of stuff on their own successfully but it's very rare, and often times it's talented teenager - who lives in his parents home and doesn't have to work...
This stuff happens often when a show idea blows up too fast and then there's a rush and pressure to make it a reality. It might have been better if this was just turned into a comic instead of a big project like an animated show.
@@audreyyale2363 honestly while miss officer and mr truffles could have been interesting and unique, all or nothing didn't even seem like that great of a concept, it was never going to happen, but even if it did happen every joke would basically be "this extrovert is aroace, isn't that wacky??" or "these two characters are opposites but they live together!" and it'd get old really fast lmao
Tumblr users have a reputation for being especially illiterate and jumping to the wrong conclusions. Basically Tumblr was proto Twitter in that regard.
I was there, Gandalf. I was there, 3 thousand years ago... I remember reblogging the original comic. Anyway, people who say it was the worst tumblr scam, must have been living under a rock for "All or nothing"
@@catkilledtumblr has nothing to do with Rainfurrest. Maybe the con attendees frequented tumblr, idk, but the con was not affiliated with tumblr in any way.
@@TheSlipperyNUwUdle I think they meant DashCon and just confused it with furries for some reason. Dashcon *was* the largest scam on Tumblr, hands down beating even things like All or Nothing, because Dashcon actually convinced people to show up to it.
i was a big fan of this artist in the early years of tumblr and i watched real time as one of my favorite artists' life plummeted and got dogpiled on like she blew up an orphanage or something. the things people were saying about her were so unbelievably nasty and hateful and it upsets and baffles me to this day. very happy she was able to move forward and is successful now. i hope people who act like theyve never done anything stupid in their lives and feed off cancel clout get humbled.
Remember when people lost their crap over "Bee and Puppycat" being put on hold for a decade? Yeah, that was a heck of a lot more money and an actual studio failing to deliver. I really think this was more of a legit fall through of the creator being overwhelmed, not experienced enough in animation and production, and not getting the proper help. $88k is a lot of money but idk, the creator didn't deserved such a community meltdown. This is why you just don't throw money at every passion project or silly meme.
80 000$ is insanely cheap for an animated show! I work in an animation studio and we had a small gig where we would animated a fake animated show that would be in a movie. We had about only 5 minutes animated and just that cost tens of thousands (granted, you have to add the back and forth with the producers and director and the modifications afterwards, just that costs a lot and you don't deal with that really in a crowdfunded project). The gig only lasted a month and half. People have no idea how expensive animation are, even our own producers downplays it all the time. They could've done something decent, a few 7 minutes episodes maybe, but the project was mishandled pretty badly. It happens a lot, even in the industry, just put the wrong person in charge or take the money from the wrong source who would try to take control over all the creative decisions and the whole project falls appart. I have heard a bunch of stories about money being wasted. And about the confusion about the pie chart, I'm confused as well because the pipeline seems a bit broken. I think by "production cost" they meant Pre-production such as storyboarding, the animatics, character/bg/props design, backgrounds, layouts etc. They could have work a bit more on that, like how are cost and management different from one another? Isn't management part of the overall cost? And incorporating merchandise cost is such a producer move lol
Just so you know, the $80,000 they were asking for was for a 7 minute pilot episode. Not the series. 💀 My graduation film was 11 minutes long, and it only took me 10 weeks to animate by myself at a very relaxed pace (approximately 4 hours per day). Then 1 extra week for sound design and dubbing. I could make that pilot episode by myself and I would gladly do it for 80K 😂💀 The fact they were allocating money to merchandise and buying ToonBoom licenses instead of just hiring a small team of experienced animators shows exactly how clueless they are. Too much greed and ambition. Not enough practical experience.
@@ManicPixie-bb7wc Ok, I watched the video two times and didn't get it was only for the pilot, English is not my first language so I'm sorry if he mentioned it and I didn't catch it.
@@ManicPixie-bb7wcyeah, i did films for free in college too, for myself. I guess your point is everyone should forever do that? In which case kickstarter is not needed at all... nor costs, money or jobs. 80,000 is cheap for a pilot, even at 7 minutes. Anyone CAN spend their time making something for free. But wasn't one of the complaints being overworked and under paid? Yeah - you need MONEY to pay well and add to the team.
@@ithurtsbecauseitstrue My point is you do not need $80,000 to produce a 7 minute clip and that ONE PERSON can make that 7 minute clip in a couple of months as proven by animation students every year. Who said anybody should work for free? As I mentioned, there are RU-vid animators who have kickstarters for their passion projects. Modest sums of money to fund themselves and pay their bills while they work on the project. LemonFlowerTea and her minions were not focused on producing the actual animation. They had no passion for the project. Their passion was for building their own animation studio and brand. As evidenced by their budgeting pie chart. Who tf allocated over 30% of the budget to “merchandise” for a 7 minute pilot episode? 💀
People upset at the user names kids on tumbler once used, often slurs that were lobbed at them, are pathetic. Go after someone who actually has hatred or nefarious intentions. Not someone who's actively supporting LGBT people. What kind of a world do we live in that the stupid things kids say are held against them for the rest of their lives?
@@breanda She was dating a transwoman, so basically a man. She was never actually LGBT she just went by "they" pronouns and dated a man who went by dif pronouns. I used to be a big fan of hers back in her "Villainous Storyboard" days and she was always really laid back and kid. I think she just got dealt a really bad hand between the fact she got popular on Tumblr of all places, and the hellscape that resided there in its prime.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to make a full length series off a random funny animal picture, the premise is so basic and generic bc there’s next to no source material lol
The other one being the ‚All or nothing‘ idea of a show. Literally just a prompt/ concept with nothing else. Like no actual script or plans. Even a game concept that promises representation for lgbtq and bipoc as far as i remember from izzyyzzyy‘s video didnt have anything else in terms of ideas just past representation
I don't really think this is a major issue, or doesn't have to be ig. The issue is these creators didn't treat it like a prompt/inspiration and instead tried to build the entire show around a simple concept.
I mean 80,000 is a LOT, but 8,000 couldn't have ever been enough to bring it to life the way it really deserved. I don't think it was a scam so much as a LOT of poor choices made in desperation that did not end up working out. They had a vision, it was far above what they could realistically achieve- and they learned that the hard way,
Oh my god, this project. This is INFAMOUS in the art community, like, the second you think about art scams in the community you think of this project. It really feels like the embodiment of “we cant have nice things”…
@@MohammedAgbadi Especially in regards to the potential in diversity. It seemed like the creator really wanted to care in that regard, at the very least? Maybe. I feel like we could have really had something, if only things had gone the right way. I do think it would have worked very well as a graphic novel series, TBH.
It’s not even a scam. People had FAR too high expectations for something that got only 80K for a full fleshed out series, with a crew that was smaller than when Disney started out.
As a Canadian: Yes. We actually do see Bears within urban areas. My parents always had Bear problems where they worked. But regardless, we still need to request aid as they will cause panic.
As a future animator I know animation takes a long time too make and especially if you don't have time and your doing everything by yourself. So I would be surprised if the artist got overwhelmed or got to ambitious to quickly and then all of a sudden you know what to do with the project. People can't except a show to be done quickly like do you want it to look like a mess? Plus it cost a lot of money for production to even start and it would be the equivalent to selling your soul to company you give you creation too and hoping it will sell. So I feel bad for the artist in question. This is actually the shit that stresses me out ;-;
Excuse me, but she was 18 YEARS OLD??? I didn't know about that! Everyone always talked about this like a huge scam that it was done intentionally, but a literal kid that just stopped being legally a kid last week is literally the LAST person I would ever trust to take off such a massive endeavor. Viv, the artist who made Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, worked for years on her own projects and spend a lot of time learning her creaft. Whether you like her or her project, nobody can deny that at least she has experience! Of course that kid wasn't going to do much of anything, they didn't had any clue of what they were doing! Oh, just knowing that I feel truly bad for this person.
Yes. An actual animation studio could have turned that into a real show later if the comic turned out to be good and popular. Much less risk and more financial stability for the creator.
"Passion projects" meaning you can't be paid reminds me of people saying things like "if it's a vocation, if you're doing the job you want to do, why do you want a pay rise?" I think that attitude sucks. Granted, I don't think this was handled well - why does merchandise have such a stupidly large section, considering the goal of this was mostly to bring a cartoon to life, not sell merch -- but also, like, wouldn't that pay for itself? (if it's good). I think this was mishandled, yes, but I also think people hate its failure to deliver their expectations in excessive amounts in calling it a scam. I mean, this was essentially started off by an eighteen-year-old - someone who is barely a young adult and for argument's sake is still likely to be impulsive compared to longer-lived adults. It's not surprising they jumped headfirst into a project without actually using that head to think things through sufficiently... Also, I do think they could have covered their fund allocation more explicitly and with more clarity and had more of a plan, but... like, dang. And if that mistreatment allegation is true, that sucks. This is a good learning experience though for any up-and-coming animators and show creators.
I mean, I don't blame the person. Running an animation project at 18 is an insane undertaking- it's easy to imagine just whapping something out but it does take a lot of money and people. Background art can cost a few hundred, each staff member would probably take around $3k a month in both benefits and pay. If you have 10 staff members it'd be $30k a month. Plus, toon boom is expensive- if they're doing multiple licenses then it might add an extra $3-$5k a month. They also will probably be looking at office space, electricity etc. Which is all very understandable. The issue is, it's an 18 year old getting pushed forward and ramped up towards making an entire studio from scratch for something that likely doesn't need an entire studio. They also probably felt the need to include the people that pushed the campaign forward- so producers etc were added when they too were probably not needed or qualified. I feel bad for the artist, hopefully they go onto making some cool stuff. I don't think this was a scam though- and can see the logic in their funding goal
Fun fact: That wasn't technically a scam, because he had been aiming to hires programmers before everyone pulled funds out due to fear of a scam. Honestly kinda wish we lived in the timeline where the game had been made, even if it might've been bad.
Still shitty they were targeting a community of people and just mocking them for liking something unconventional. I know everyone has met a shitty brony but I’ve met many shitty people from many fandoms and they’re rarely branded in quite the same way bronies are.
@@TheSlipperyNUwUdle Bronies "are"? Are you commenting from 2012 or something? Back in the early 10's, Bronies weren't just weird, they were *invasive*, and on top of that entitled - there was no fandom they wouldn't crop up in and them get upset when that fandom didn't make them its centrepoint. If you don't believe me, go into the Know Your Meme images, sort between random images (pressing "R" when looking at an image will load a random one) and see how many MLP-themed images you get. I can promise you, it's going to be *a lot*, and this is with ~10 years of new memes and images being created, because again: Bronies were invasive and unable to tolerate a fandom not being "MLP-adjacent". Since then, they've calmed down a lot, though, and as I said at the beginning: the hate has died out since they're not being annoying anymore.
this was actually such a cute premise for a show and i’m sad it didn’t work. but ultimately she was 18 and her followers were definitely expecting too much of someone who’s quite literally fresh out of high school. also lemonteaflower is queer herself, as was stated in the video, and it’s commonplace for queer people to use homophobic slurs as a way of “reclaiming” them.
OK, it is so weird watching this video about an artist whom inspired me to study what I do, to find my passion but I completely missed this thing, since I only used Facebook and she had a fanpage. I even remember drawings about her and Anna Pijamas, since back then (2016) the latino Facebook art community was really small, so many artist talked to each other. I was wondering where has she been all these years, the last thing a knew was that she worked on Villainous, which really inspired me to pursuit my dreams and stuff.
Yeah, this is one of the reason I'm hesitant to do a kickstarter 😅 I think I'll just keep doing animation without it for now, so I don't feel too pressured. Quite the story this was, and I had never even heard of it before. Thanks for sharing!
02:33 had me lmfao 💀 I'm not in Canada but pretty close, once in a while you will see a bear come through an urban area. I lived about a half block from a fire department hall. One year a bear was wandering through and kept going to "hang out" at the fire hall. 😂 They gave it a day hoping that it would just wander off. When it didn't, they tranquilized it and moved it to where it was headed. Things I've seen roaming free in the city: raccoons, skunks, possum, hawks, turkeys, occasionally chickens, geese, a couple different types of snakes, groundhogs. There are things like rats that are in pretty much any city. Can't forget the deer. Usually just one, but sometimes 3-4. My mom used to work at a furniture store and a deer somehow got into the building. The weren't sure whether to call animal control or wildlife, fish and game.
I LOVE hearing different perspectives from the art community on wtf happened with that whole project since it's p joked abt💀! Glad to see one of my fav RU-vidrs covering it!
The part about drawing alone: heyll nah, it’s awesome. Quiet enough for me to focus. But for real tho, I recently became a bit more comfortable drawing in a public space or with people nearby.
Oh shoot…I just finished watching the video. And the fact that the campaign completely folded in on itself from the inside is crazy, especially at a point where the 18 yo artist had most of her control taken away during the whole thing.
@@Snack_Pack_Attack speaking of which, have you found any comfortable quiet drawing spots? So far, I’ve found a few quiet spots in a community college but they don’t stay quiet for long.
Rn i am abouy 21 years old, and the amount of change in my mentaily from when i was 18 is insane I feel bad for what Lemon had to go through here, she was a kid having big dreams and commiting mistakes bc she was a kid I am happy she eventually was able to get into the industry she wanted to be a part of, i hope she was able to learn from these mistakes
I feel so bad for this poor artist. They were put in a really shitty situation. Some people forget that becoming a legal adult doesn't automatically change the way you think or the amount of experience you have. A 17 year old and an 18 year old aren't that different.
Honestly, there should be more environmental shows. There's too many shows, games, movies, etc. that depict nature as inherantly bad. I'd love to see more media that shows you why nature matters.
80k isn’t actually a lot for an animated show. People here clearly just had too high expectations for such little money, or even expected really high quality animations for a small sum. Most people online who make really good animations usually have a really well paying job, so they can do this in their spare time (and also) take a long ass time. Like this one really high quality Sailor Moon animation I found apparently took the creator 6 months to make in their spare time… and it looks really amazing.
When it comes to creating an animated show, $80,000 is a ridiculously low budget for even a single 10 to 15-minute episode. To put it in perspective a 20 minute episode of most Western animated shows runs between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000. Even little indie studios doing it on a shoestring budget will need around $300,000.
What in the world? Why do they cost so much? Or better yet, why don't they use that money to produce goods instead? I know cartoons can be cool and all, but what good is it if people are dirty & starving to death? Like come on.
@@ericpratt984I know this comment is a month old, but animation (especially 2D animation) costs a lot because of the sheer amount of effort that goes into it, such as making character designs, storyboarding, rough animation, cleanup and colouring, lighting, etc. takes a LOT of time and effort. But people still try to make in big in indie animation because of how a lot of studios (especially nowadays) are pretty in favour of making boring or inoffensive content to make it as marketable as possible, which is very creatively crushing for a lot of people and pushes them into trying to make it big on their own.
Most people have no idea the actual amount of work that goes into any film let alone an animated film and what that would cost especially if they’ve never done one which is why the first thing I want to see before I consider funding anybody’s film project is “what have they done before?”.
Canadian here in an area with lots of black bears. I can confirm you just see them walking around, sometimes in the city. They get into all kinds of shenanigans.
I was actually around for this whole thing front to back lmao, I followed the old production tumblr and if I were able I would have backed the kickstarter. I still stand by the opinion that it could have been a cute indie project, it was just badly managed by inexperienced people and they should have made more example material instead of jumping straight into the kickstarter off a trend. If this were somehow rebooted, I would still be interested in it, especially in this day and age where indie animation has more of a chance than ever. It really wasn't that bad in hindsight, or perhaps it just seems that way because there's been so much more insane drama since lmao.
80k is such a fair amount to ask for, I've aided animations with Kickstarter goals of 120k USD before. It's so much more than people realize. The artist was given way too much shit they didn't deserve, they had a realistic price in mind and people with no background knowledge just took it and ran.
Haven't seen your channel for a while and seeing this video feels surreal because I know Lemonteaflower in person (not friends or anything) and there's a lot of people in Mexico that really hate her or have a bad image of her. Seeing that a bad image of her reached your channel and more people in another countries feels strange, but I think it's okay to give advice on people that makes really bad mistakes.
As a Canadian in the Eastern Parts of Canada, I have never seen a bear walking around in city or suburbs. I've only seen then in zoos or other nature preservation places. BUT I'm also not an avid camper or take lots of hikes or anything like that. A bear in urban areas is EXTREMELY rare but there are lots of people who own cabins near untouched nature so maybe they have seen a bear in the wild.(?) Not me though.
Great video! I think about this whole era of Tumblr a lot LMAO. What a wild ride. Also, in a similar vein, if you found this interesting, you'd LOVE diving into The Arkh Project. That was a whole mess in a different sort of way.
But the chunk of money for merch makes sense for me, you make merch, sell it, and earn profit as the merch will be a marked up price, this profit could be put back into the project to generate consistent income for the project?
I live in New Brunswick (atlantic canada), and I remember one time when I was a kid walking on a trail, we saw a bear cub. They're rare, even in rural areas, but if you're lucky (or unlucky) you'll prolly see a black bear once every 10-20 years. In more populated areas like Toronto or Ottawa, or Moncton or Edmonton, you'll never see them. You'll see rabbits, skunks, coyotes, and sometimes deer in those areas. I've lived all over Canada, so I'm speaking this from experience. What you said at about 2:20 isn't inaccurate.
Naw, bears roaming is common in Canada, as well as other wildlife. The more near a forest (which at least in my province is everywhere) you are, the more likely. Literally pokemon hiding in all the wild grass. Also even at the time, I thought the project was kinda cringe. I don't have much faith in what I feel was a cash grab, no matter how well intended to follow through, it is what it is. I say that because banking on a meme really is that. Sad the artist lost money on it.
This is why believing that you can change and create anything with only the internet is purely delussional. All the successful things that happens in the net is just the surface and the real deal always happens in the offline world. Touch some grass people.
watchin as i draw lol 7:26 9:39 well making merch helps support show- well would have helped basically, havin merch is a way to make more money, like a loop? which is how alot of youtube series run (take helluva for example or even hazbin, maybe lackadaisy) but thats usually for AFTER a pilot lol which is why its alot of money, which shouldve went into other stuff too it sucks this never became a show, there's so many fandom animations i see being made, these days as a starter, but still need a better team
I feel so bad for the 18 year old animator (as a 19 year old majoring in animation and hoping to make my own animated show one day in the future). If my art would have gained this much popularity I would have been so excited and it would be so unfortunate and sad for it to flop. The artist's career is just starting, however, and I'm sure they will make great things in the future!
Strangely enough, this video gave me a few ideas and lessons on how to start working on my own series. I once considered pitching them to a huge studio once if it might become a successful indie project, but maybe it could be better if my future project will stay an indie production to the end. But who knows, I haven’t come up with concrete plot lines or world building aspects yet.
the fact it was NOT funded was so LUCKY! Lemon Tea dodged a MUCH heavier bullet if she actually had to deliver it Animation and crowdfunding are no joke. You NEED to know very well what you're doing or you'll be crushed Glad everyone had the chance to move on, all the best
i'm surprised their account is still around, and they are a Disgaea fan too thats pretty cool, glad they got another chance to work in animation after all that.
Just want to remind everyone that the people who made the Velma reboot show didn't have any good intentions. Not for representation and definitely not for fans of the scooby gang. They admitted to hating the original and I think they showed their hatred well. Them changing her skin was most likely to get it the amount of attention it got, before ppl successfully forgot it's existence.
I'm sorry but 18 year olds are not "kids"... 2 months after i turned 18 years old i moved into my own place, made my own food, tucked myself into bed and put on my big boy pants every morning. And never have i had an issue figuring out how to constructively deal with a situation in the most productive and civilized way possible. People who say that 18 year olds are just kids are doing nothing but enabling their bad behavior and using them being teenagers by a technicality as a justification to excuse said bad behavior. Take responsibility and be better!! 18 year olds are adults, PERIOD... They may not be as experienced as a 55 year old but if they are old enough to drink, drive, get tattoos, vote and even consent to being sent into a warzone then they are certainly old enough to recognize what's morally right and wrong!!...
She could have paced herself and did a comic instead and got funding to do it full time eventually i feel like this is a classic case of taking on to much to fast
normally you see more deer than bears in canada but if you live up in the mountains you might see a bear sometimes, sometimes even a moose. had a moose stuck in a fence once, my neighbour saved it luckly.
It is pretty normal to see bears in Northern & rural Canada. Small towns, small city suburbs, along highways, on walking trails. Its also very common to put down bears who get too confortable entering human spaces. The consensus is that if they know human homes/towns/garbages = food then they'll just keep coming back because its easier than hunting. If a bear is gonna be relocated they have to *really* be relocated, far enough from wherever they were getting into human stuff that they wint be able to (or wont bother to) make the trek back. And all of that process is more expensive and time cinsuming than putting them down. I personally believe in relocation but I know from experience that its usually not what happens with them. Maybe they'd bother to do it with a cub cause it has a whole life ahead of it, and may struggle more to find its way back to human towns. Buuuuut on the flipside the cub now knows human towns = easy food and it is at higher risk of coming back to that town, or another one, as an adult. 🤷♂️
The first thing that come to my mind when I saw the thumbnail was "wait, the storyboard artist of Villainous was the one who made that cop bear thing?" Well, as they say in spanish, life is a handkerchief.
