How did you first stumble into moderating for Colors Live? What hooked you?
Oh, that's simple! I’ve been a member of the Colors community since the Colors!3D days but became a moderator shortly after I came across the teaser for Colors Live on switch on twitter(now known as “X”) and immediately joined the discord to see what was going on. It was super exciting to see one of my favorite apps getting a reboot on one of my favorite gaming systems so I started working on my introduction and lurking the server to see if I recognized anyone I knew of from Colors!3D.
I started off as a discord mod after @Johannes had noticed how well I communicated with the Colors community and took care of our discord members issues which was easy for me since Colors has been my primary drawing app since Colors!3D and after using an app for so long you tend to learn just about everything there is to know about it. After a while I graduated from discord mod to also a gallery mod after the team asked if I wanted to take a crack at moderation and I said sure! @jaames and @Johannes gave me a bit of training and from then it was history!
The Colors community is one of the few communities I've been invested in for a long time and even after taking a few breaks in the past I've always found myself coming back. This niche little community is special to me and there isn't much quite like it!
You’re an ambitious artist—any Colors Live painting you’re secretly proud of, even if it’s unfinished?
My Mr & Mrs Crowleys piece is something I'm super proud of! Especially after spending over 300 hours on it which makes it not just the longest I've ever worked on a painting, but probably even the longest painting on Colors Live period. So long that's too big for me to upload into the Color Gallery at the moment. Prior to that my "Faun in the Big City" I drew in colors 3D in a pixel art style which especially took long due to no pixel art tool in Colors!3D so I had to use the soft brush at the edge of the screen trick to make for thin, pixelated lines.
Faun in the big city by -zyik-
The Crowleys painting started off as a sketch for a creative visualization college class that stayed a sketch during the assignment because I took so long because of adding details to it. I like to try telling a story with my art and the story in this one was that a scientist and his wife ended up accidently transforming themselves into monsters while developing a cure for their son who fell ill to an unknown disease. I love sci-fi and putting lots of tiny details in my works so the assignment was a perfect excuse to go all in (even if I went beyond the deadline for class and had to submit the uncomplete drawing...).
Something I'm proud of that isn't complete is currently my "Lace Whip" piece. I'm satisfied with how dynamic the sketch turned out and I like that it features one of my oldest characters using her main weapon called a lace. The story of this piece is that Nyra's friend had gone off into the lair of a mysterious, powerful, wish granting trickster capable of granting someone their greatest wish if they complete his trials or trading him something important that also has high value to the person trading it.
Lace Whip WIP v0.8 by -zyik-
Someday I'd like to turn into a comic or even an animation!
Focus is tricky for you—how does running weekly challenges keep your art spark alive?
Seeing what people come up with for weekly challenges is always inspiring, especially when its creative or something hardly anyone would expect!
It gives me motivation to keep pushing myself in a way that's unique to myself since everyone's art journey is different because we all excel at different things. What I enjoy most is seeing some artist who a year ago struggled with keeping color within their lines to suddenly a year later having crisp line art or a unique painterly style! It shows that with enough practice and great effort anyone can take their art to the next level.
Writing interviews and news updates—what’s the wildest thing you’ve learned about the team?
Johannes being a musician was wild to me, Jens working with lucasfilms is amazing too especially since I really like the Monkey Island games. Also, you can't forget about Yoku’s Island express! I love metroidvania and a fun fact about me is that as a kid I used to raise bugs so having a little cute beetle to play is sweet and gives me some nostalgia, even if I never raised any sort of beetle. Also being able to work with the creator of one of my favorite apps is still mind blowing to this day.
Jaames and his friends doing the flipnote studio on switch prank on twitter (now known as X) was super entertaining. I even got to learn the truth about the prank earlier than most people but it was fun to pretend not to know anything.
Twarda is Twarda. An amazing artist and a huge inspiration. I love her dino art as someone into nature documentaries and her creature art is mind blowing.
Madwurmz is well... mad! Always fun to chat with about a variety of topics. I think the most surprising thing about mad is that I think him being such an accomplished artist, graphic designer, and the one responsible for how colors live and other versions of colors looks seems like it could intimidate some people but he's actually a chill, funny dude.
Brian is mysterious. He’s like the hero you never see but is always working behind the scenes towards the greater good.
Picking painting challenge topics—where do you pull those clever ideas from?
I try to go with what's trendy, what I think the community would like, what might be unexpected to keep everyone on their toes by not being too similar to previous contest or could make for some challenges for the community, and also what I like too of course!
Favorite moment moderating the Discord or gallery—any epic community win?
Starting the #heyzyik tag. It makes keeping up with everyone's request or questions far easier and I adore the gifts I get from the community and sharing them with the rest of the colors team! I didn't expect to see the feature request examples you all make but it was a welcome surprise. It's a great reminder that many of you are passionate about colors live and want to continue to see it thrive just as much as we do!
Suicune by Acchan
Do you have any siblings?
Yes I do and I’m the youngest! I have a sister(oldest), an older brother(second oldest), a brother in the middle , and finally I have a twin brother that I’m a minute younger than who also has a profile in the colors gallery who you can find under @Akaraah-3D. His style is different than mines and as kids we’d always come up with stories and characters together. If we unfortunately hadn’t lost most of the old drawings growing up time I’d love to share them all with you somehow!
Duos of the Ages: Experience and Youth! by Akaraah-3D
Weekly organizing is a grind—any goofy rituals to stay on top of it all?
It’s not too much of a chore for me honestly. I enjoy what I do and seeing what you all make, the positive feedback you all give me and each other, and seeing the growth in skill is a big motivator. To keep myself organized I create an offline list of task and challenges so I don’t forget them that I’d find fun for the community to do.
If you could join Jens on a dream Colors Live update, what’s your pitch?
It's a long shot but- animation! I grew up messing about in flipbooks, writing short stories, and a dream of mine is to someday work on a series of animations whether that be mostly by myself or with a team of talented people. Also I have a lot of great memories using Flipnote Studio on the Nintendo DSi which I’m still very nostalgic for to this day! Plus, if Colors Live had animation, I can think of really cool animation related events that could involve the community. For example- a colors animated series featuring crossovers with the characters of people within our community would be fun to do or animated shorts! Of course that also would mean I need to brush up on my animation skills.
I think if we ever did an animation app then having it built mainly for Nintendo Switch 2 would be ideal. First off, it’s got that lovely 120hz screen with HDR+VRR support which would be great for incredibly smooth animating with lovely colors that pop off the screen. Secondly, the extra power means you could easily make animations high resolution and lengthy as well. And thirdly, the camera accessory(I learned it is 1080p and has a wide angle lens which I’m surprised with how good it is quality wise) could make doing stuff like stop-motion animation, rotoscoping, and non-QR code references in Colors Live possible.
More on that, Switch 2 exclusive features would be cool too! The switch 2 having mousemode in the joycon 2s opens up possibilities for new drawing modes(docked painting for example since the touch screen can’t be used while docked), game sharing+screen share+chatting could maybe make for collaboration painting possible etc.
And of course some much needed quality of life improvements for Colors News and moderation I’d like to see too. Moderation needs improved blocking among other things so inter-gallery disputes among users could be resolved easier without moderation needing to step in as much. News could have more tabs for specific sections of updates rather than be on just one page so older news isn’t buried so easily whenever we post a new update.
I’d personally love to have sections added for the gallery devoted to personal contest because one of the most common request I get is people wanting their contest tags featured and I feel bad when I can’t feature every single one. Also a tab for doing monthly art prompts would be fun too! Fun example-February could be “Fae-bruary” and every day of that month could be a different fae theme or we could have more random prompts too! It would be another fun thing for people to do outside of the weekly challenge.
Outside of that, I'd love to see more of the popular features request make it into the app to make the app more modern so colors live or future editions of colors could be more of an app that grows with the user as their skills improve!
Community’s your jam—what’s the coolest vibe you’ve seen grow thanks to your work?
Doing the weekly artist always brings a smile to my face and I feel it really highlights the best of the community aspect of colors- artist supporting each other, acknowledging each other's success, and giving them a chance to shine. It's incredibly wholesome.
Top 3 favorite Colors Live artworks?
There’s plenty of mind blowing art on the Colors Gallery and it’d beimpossible for me to list them all if I tried. Here are some that come to mind.
Frightful Smile by mawchops
@Mawchops entire gallery is spectacular! Their coloring, composition, how they use perspective etc. it’s all top notch! I remember downloading nearly their entire gallery on my 3DS during the Colors!3D days just to admire their works. This piece is one the many that drew me in.
Turn back time by sharp_eyed_detective
@sharp_eyed_detective has wicked sharp art skills. I find the pose here really cool and her character designs memorable! I could definitely see their works as an animation!
Vesper by Lady Ama
@Lady Ama is yet another spectacular user from the Colors!3D days. This piece here stands out to me due to the perspective.
Favorite artist on or outside of colors?
Honestly, I’m pretty bad at remembering most names unless I frequently see your art or visit your gallery often, which is one the best things about the Colors Live community being on the smaller side, it makes remembering names quite easy! That being said, here are few who inspire me!
On Colors some of my favorites are:
@sharp_eyed_detective, also her sister @st5rb0und, @Lady Ama, @BlackVelvetRose, @Emism, and @Riveryna to name a few! There’s more but I’d be here all day if I tried to list everyone.
Outside of Colors Live:
There’s @garretthanna. I dig how dynamic their art is, how they play with angles, and how they play with exaggerated proportions too! I recommend checking out their poke-knights artworks! So cool and creative!
https://x.com/garretthanna?lang=en
Robaato Art is someone I’ve been following since my deviant art days. Unfortunately they don’t upload much anymore but still their art holds up and I find it really cool.
https://www.robaato.art/concepts
xa-xa-xa is another artist I came across while browsing deviant art many years ago! I used to own an artbook by them though unfortunately it was lost. Another artist with admirable skill.
https://www.deviantart.com/xa-xa-xa/gallery
Personal goals and aspirations? Is there anything you hope to accomplish for the Colors Live community?
Completing more art for one! Both personal and for community engagement as I want to use more of my own personal art to engage more with this lovely community. My casual chimera remix challenge is an example of that and it was hilarious to see how you all dressed up one of my more grotesque looking characters! One of my signatures “trademarks” people notice about my works is that I put a crap ton of details into them. Which is fun for me, but also means it takes me forever to complete some artworks. I want to be a tad faster so I could try motivating more people to enter into the weekly challenges.
Scriggy by -zyik-
Also I want to do more remixes too! I pay close attention to what’s popular in the gallery and I try to make more people feel included when possible. Maybe someday I’d like to do colors comic or short simple story that could involve the community. Like the Colors guy having to travel across the land to restore the missing colors that were stolen by anti-colors and now they need to help from their allies to beat the bad guy! Something you’d see on a Saturday morning cartoon.
Do NOT touch the Lumpy King!!! by -zyik-
More gallery events would be great to do as well that also utilize discord and social media in some way. I’d like to do follow-up interviews or check-ins with previously featured weekly artist too at some point.
For more personal works I want to get back to writing or finally writing some old stories I hope to make into comics or animations someday.
Ember Shallows asked: What’s the greatest part of working on Colors!?
It’s still sort of wild to me that I’m part of the Colors Team despite me being a member for a few years now, honestly. I never thought during my days using Colors!3D on the Nintendo 3DS that eventually I’d end up directly engaging with the team discussing fun events for the gallery, going over possible features, and engaging with the community in the way I do now but life can play out in so many interesting ways!
I think being a frequent user in the past of the Colors Gallery has made me extra qualified for the role I play now in some ways because I’m very familiar with the community and having a more personal connection to Colors makes me really invested in its future and the future of the people using it.
I’d say the greatest parts of working on Colors to me ( no specific order) are:
Getting to know the team on a more personal level. Everyone here on the team are really inspiring and fun to talk to. Everyone is also super busy so we don’t always get to chat but when we do it’s always a treat! I think it’s also important to remember that everyone is human( I think) at the end of the day with a history and a story to tell!
Getting to and actually be involved in the ins-and-outs of Colors Live development is awesome and feeling like I’m part of a secret club is always fun haha.
And finally, seeing the awesome art, wholesome interactions, and people motivating and inspiring each other is a huge highlight every time I take time to browse the gallery. You all make the gallery what it is and I’m grateful for that!
Check out part 2 here:
zyik-interview-part-2
Oh, that's simple! I’ve been a member of the Colors community since the Colors!3D days but became a moderator shortly after I came across the teaser for Colors Live on switch on twitter(now known as “X”) and immediately joined the discord to see what was going on. It was super exciting to see one of my favorite apps getting a reboot on one of my favorite gaming systems so I started working on my introduction and lurking the server to see if I recognized anyone I knew of from Colors!3D.
I started off as a discord mod after @Johannes had noticed how well I communicated with the Colors community and took care of our discord members issues which was easy for me since Colors has been my primary drawing app since Colors!3D and after using an app for so long you tend to learn just about everything there is to know about it. After a while I graduated from discord mod to also a gallery mod after the team asked if I wanted to take a crack at moderation and I said sure! @jaames and @Johannes gave me a bit of training and from then it was history!
The Colors community is one of the few communities I've been invested in for a long time and even after taking a few breaks in the past I've always found myself coming back. This niche little community is special to me and there isn't much quite like it!
You’re an ambitious artist—any Colors Live painting you’re secretly proud of, even if it’s unfinished?
My Mr & Mrs Crowleys piece is something I'm super proud of! Especially after spending over 300 hours on it which makes it not just the longest I've ever worked on a painting, but probably even the longest painting on Colors Live period. So long that's too big for me to upload into the Color Gallery at the moment. Prior to that my "Faun in the Big City" I drew in colors 3D in a pixel art style which especially took long due to no pixel art tool in Colors!3D so I had to use the soft brush at the edge of the screen trick to make for thin, pixelated lines.
Faun in the big city by -zyik-
The Crowleys painting started off as a sketch for a creative visualization college class that stayed a sketch during the assignment because I took so long because of adding details to it. I like to try telling a story with my art and the story in this one was that a scientist and his wife ended up accidently transforming themselves into monsters while developing a cure for their son who fell ill to an unknown disease. I love sci-fi and putting lots of tiny details in my works so the assignment was a perfect excuse to go all in (even if I went beyond the deadline for class and had to submit the uncomplete drawing...).
Something I'm proud of that isn't complete is currently my "Lace Whip" piece. I'm satisfied with how dynamic the sketch turned out and I like that it features one of my oldest characters using her main weapon called a lace. The story of this piece is that Nyra's friend had gone off into the lair of a mysterious, powerful, wish granting trickster capable of granting someone their greatest wish if they complete his trials or trading him something important that also has high value to the person trading it.
Lace Whip WIP v0.8 by -zyik-
Someday I'd like to turn into a comic or even an animation!
Focus is tricky for you—how does running weekly challenges keep your art spark alive?
Seeing what people come up with for weekly challenges is always inspiring, especially when its creative or something hardly anyone would expect!
It gives me motivation to keep pushing myself in a way that's unique to myself since everyone's art journey is different because we all excel at different things. What I enjoy most is seeing some artist who a year ago struggled with keeping color within their lines to suddenly a year later having crisp line art or a unique painterly style! It shows that with enough practice and great effort anyone can take their art to the next level.
Writing interviews and news updates—what’s the wildest thing you’ve learned about the team?
Johannes being a musician was wild to me, Jens working with lucasfilms is amazing too especially since I really like the Monkey Island games. Also, you can't forget about Yoku’s Island express! I love metroidvania and a fun fact about me is that as a kid I used to raise bugs so having a little cute beetle to play is sweet and gives me some nostalgia, even if I never raised any sort of beetle. Also being able to work with the creator of one of my favorite apps is still mind blowing to this day.
Jaames and his friends doing the flipnote studio on switch prank on twitter (now known as X) was super entertaining. I even got to learn the truth about the prank earlier than most people but it was fun to pretend not to know anything.
Twarda is Twarda. An amazing artist and a huge inspiration. I love her dino art as someone into nature documentaries and her creature art is mind blowing.
Madwurmz is well... mad! Always fun to chat with about a variety of topics. I think the most surprising thing about mad is that I think him being such an accomplished artist, graphic designer, and the one responsible for how colors live and other versions of colors looks seems like it could intimidate some people but he's actually a chill, funny dude.
Brian is mysterious. He’s like the hero you never see but is always working behind the scenes towards the greater good.
Picking painting challenge topics—where do you pull those clever ideas from?
I try to go with what's trendy, what I think the community would like, what might be unexpected to keep everyone on their toes by not being too similar to previous contest or could make for some challenges for the community, and also what I like too of course!
Favorite moment moderating the Discord or gallery—any epic community win?
Starting the #heyzyik tag. It makes keeping up with everyone's request or questions far easier and I adore the gifts I get from the community and sharing them with the rest of the colors team! I didn't expect to see the feature request examples you all make but it was a welcome surprise. It's a great reminder that many of you are passionate about colors live and want to continue to see it thrive just as much as we do!
Suicune by Acchan
Do you have any siblings?
Yes I do and I’m the youngest! I have a sister(oldest), an older brother(second oldest), a brother in the middle , and finally I have a twin brother that I’m a minute younger than who also has a profile in the colors gallery who you can find under @Akaraah-3D. His style is different than mines and as kids we’d always come up with stories and characters together. If we unfortunately hadn’t lost most of the old drawings growing up time I’d love to share them all with you somehow!
Duos of the Ages: Experience and Youth! by Akaraah-3D
Weekly organizing is a grind—any goofy rituals to stay on top of it all?
It’s not too much of a chore for me honestly. I enjoy what I do and seeing what you all make, the positive feedback you all give me and each other, and seeing the growth in skill is a big motivator. To keep myself organized I create an offline list of task and challenges so I don’t forget them that I’d find fun for the community to do.
If you could join Jens on a dream Colors Live update, what’s your pitch?
It's a long shot but- animation! I grew up messing about in flipbooks, writing short stories, and a dream of mine is to someday work on a series of animations whether that be mostly by myself or with a team of talented people. Also I have a lot of great memories using Flipnote Studio on the Nintendo DSi which I’m still very nostalgic for to this day! Plus, if Colors Live had animation, I can think of really cool animation related events that could involve the community. For example- a colors animated series featuring crossovers with the characters of people within our community would be fun to do or animated shorts! Of course that also would mean I need to brush up on my animation skills.
I think if we ever did an animation app then having it built mainly for Nintendo Switch 2 would be ideal. First off, it’s got that lovely 120hz screen with HDR+VRR support which would be great for incredibly smooth animating with lovely colors that pop off the screen. Secondly, the extra power means you could easily make animations high resolution and lengthy as well. And thirdly, the camera accessory(I learned it is 1080p and has a wide angle lens which I’m surprised with how good it is quality wise) could make doing stuff like stop-motion animation, rotoscoping, and non-QR code references in Colors Live possible.
More on that, Switch 2 exclusive features would be cool too! The switch 2 having mousemode in the joycon 2s opens up possibilities for new drawing modes(docked painting for example since the touch screen can’t be used while docked), game sharing+screen share+chatting could maybe make for collaboration painting possible etc.
And of course some much needed quality of life improvements for Colors News and moderation I’d like to see too. Moderation needs improved blocking among other things so inter-gallery disputes among users could be resolved easier without moderation needing to step in as much. News could have more tabs for specific sections of updates rather than be on just one page so older news isn’t buried so easily whenever we post a new update.
I’d personally love to have sections added for the gallery devoted to personal contest because one of the most common request I get is people wanting their contest tags featured and I feel bad when I can’t feature every single one. Also a tab for doing monthly art prompts would be fun too! Fun example-February could be “Fae-bruary” and every day of that month could be a different fae theme or we could have more random prompts too! It would be another fun thing for people to do outside of the weekly challenge.
Outside of that, I'd love to see more of the popular features request make it into the app to make the app more modern so colors live or future editions of colors could be more of an app that grows with the user as their skills improve!
Community’s your jam—what’s the coolest vibe you’ve seen grow thanks to your work?
Doing the weekly artist always brings a smile to my face and I feel it really highlights the best of the community aspect of colors- artist supporting each other, acknowledging each other's success, and giving them a chance to shine. It's incredibly wholesome.
Top 3 favorite Colors Live artworks?
There’s plenty of mind blowing art on the Colors Gallery and it’d beimpossible for me to list them all if I tried. Here are some that come to mind.
Frightful Smile by mawchops
@Mawchops entire gallery is spectacular! Their coloring, composition, how they use perspective etc. it’s all top notch! I remember downloading nearly their entire gallery on my 3DS during the Colors!3D days just to admire their works. This piece is one the many that drew me in.
Turn back time by sharp_eyed_detective
@sharp_eyed_detective has wicked sharp art skills. I find the pose here really cool and her character designs memorable! I could definitely see their works as an animation!
Vesper by Lady Ama
@Lady Ama is yet another spectacular user from the Colors!3D days. This piece here stands out to me due to the perspective.
Favorite artist on or outside of colors?
Honestly, I’m pretty bad at remembering most names unless I frequently see your art or visit your gallery often, which is one the best things about the Colors Live community being on the smaller side, it makes remembering names quite easy! That being said, here are few who inspire me!
On Colors some of my favorites are:
@sharp_eyed_detective, also her sister @st5rb0und, @Lady Ama, @BlackVelvetRose, @Emism, and @Riveryna to name a few! There’s more but I’d be here all day if I tried to list everyone.
Outside of Colors Live:
There’s @garretthanna. I dig how dynamic their art is, how they play with angles, and how they play with exaggerated proportions too! I recommend checking out their poke-knights artworks! So cool and creative!
https://x.com/garretthanna?lang=en
Robaato Art is someone I’ve been following since my deviant art days. Unfortunately they don’t upload much anymore but still their art holds up and I find it really cool.
https://www.robaato.art/concepts
xa-xa-xa is another artist I came across while browsing deviant art many years ago! I used to own an artbook by them though unfortunately it was lost. Another artist with admirable skill.
https://www.deviantart.com/xa-xa-xa/gallery
Personal goals and aspirations? Is there anything you hope to accomplish for the Colors Live community?
Completing more art for one! Both personal and for community engagement as I want to use more of my own personal art to engage more with this lovely community. My casual chimera remix challenge is an example of that and it was hilarious to see how you all dressed up one of my more grotesque looking characters! One of my signatures “trademarks” people notice about my works is that I put a crap ton of details into them. Which is fun for me, but also means it takes me forever to complete some artworks. I want to be a tad faster so I could try motivating more people to enter into the weekly challenges.
Scriggy by -zyik-
Also I want to do more remixes too! I pay close attention to what’s popular in the gallery and I try to make more people feel included when possible. Maybe someday I’d like to do colors comic or short simple story that could involve the community. Like the Colors guy having to travel across the land to restore the missing colors that were stolen by anti-colors and now they need to help from their allies to beat the bad guy! Something you’d see on a Saturday morning cartoon.
Do NOT touch the Lumpy King!!! by -zyik-
More gallery events would be great to do as well that also utilize discord and social media in some way. I’d like to do follow-up interviews or check-ins with previously featured weekly artist too at some point.
For more personal works I want to get back to writing or finally writing some old stories I hope to make into comics or animations someday.
Ember Shallows asked: What’s the greatest part of working on Colors!?
It’s still sort of wild to me that I’m part of the Colors Team despite me being a member for a few years now, honestly. I never thought during my days using Colors!3D on the Nintendo 3DS that eventually I’d end up directly engaging with the team discussing fun events for the gallery, going over possible features, and engaging with the community in the way I do now but life can play out in so many interesting ways!
I think being a frequent user in the past of the Colors Gallery has made me extra qualified for the role I play now in some ways because I’m very familiar with the community and having a more personal connection to Colors makes me really invested in its future and the future of the people using it.
I’d say the greatest parts of working on Colors to me ( no specific order) are:
Getting to know the team on a more personal level. Everyone here on the team are really inspiring and fun to talk to. Everyone is also super busy so we don’t always get to chat but when we do it’s always a treat! I think it’s also important to remember that everyone is human( I think) at the end of the day with a history and a story to tell!
Getting to and actually be involved in the ins-and-outs of Colors Live development is awesome and feeling like I’m part of a secret club is always fun haha.
And finally, seeing the awesome art, wholesome interactions, and people motivating and inspiring each other is a huge highlight every time I take time to browse the gallery. You all make the gallery what it is and I’m grateful for that!
Check out part 2 here:
