Indie Light

Our intrepid reporter and friendly neighbourhood bear, Tori B Bearly, was lucky enough to talk with Clover, a VTuber and dusty highland cow!

First of all, howdy! It’s so great to speak with you! Would you like to give a lil introduction to who you are and what you do?

Howdy! I’m Clover, a dusty highland cow vtuber that loves to goober about and make critter vtuber models!

You’ve said you’re from North Carolina! What would you recommend people check out if they’re visiting your neck of the woods?

I may be biased but I love NC! Especially the mountain side I call home. If you love the outdoors, music and arts, pleasant foods, and cozy towns, WNC is right up your alley!

What made you pick a highland cow as your model?

I just really love highland cows

You’ve mentioned before that you started with animation – Did you go to school for animation? What drew you to animation and moving art?

I never went to any formal schooling for animation. I took one middle school class in 6th grade and my art teacher junior year of high school covered Adobe Animate for a project but, that’s about it. I’ve always been obsessed with motion graphics and animation since I was a kid. Made little flip animations in the corners of books a lot growing up and started making digital animation as early as 3rd and 4th grade using PowerPoint.

What drew you to Vtubers?

Honestly, I had one VTuber pop up on my timeline talking about how it all worked and it started me down a rabbit hole. I thought it was really cool that there was a way to combine animation and puppeteering and it struck me with the motivation to learn how it works.

Your journey of making your model got a lot of attention – what was your reaction to so many eyes on your content?

There were quite a few milestones in my journey so far as traction goes. I first started getting some attention when I was posting updates on my progress of learning Live2D with my Day 7 Update getting a good amount of views and comments on TikTok. With that traction, a lot of folks started commenting on my accent, so I made a video explaining my accent that got a lot of attention on ALL my social media. Because of that accent video, a lot of folks showed up to my streams the day I decided to start up Twitch. So many thought I’d been streaming longer than that and asked why I wasn’t an affiliate yet. I got the question so much that I decided to post about it on Twitter, screencapping my path to affiliate tab that showed my average viewership being above partner numbers but my days streamed being too low to qualify for affiliate. Which got half a million impressions due to the amount of controversy it spiked in the Streaming sphere. It was very jarring and unreal. tbh, it still doesn’t feel real and I try not to think too much about it. At the end of the day, I’m just here to share my progress as an artist and vibe with good folk. I just never thought it would be so many folks haha/

What drew you to streaming?

Every VTuber seemed to be streaming based. and the requests for me to stream were pretty loud and many. I’m glad I did because it’s so much fun.

Do you have any specific goals from streaming?

None at all tbh. My journey has been very unconventional, getting partner in just two months on the platform. Maybe one day I can get more connected with the platform and become an ambassador. but for now, I just want to share good moments and positivity with the Twitch community while making cute, silly goober models.

What advice would you like to give to aspiring artists, animators and streamers?

Don’t be afraid to mess up. Mistakes are where we learn the most. Experiment a lot, enjoy the journey, and learn to love every ctrl+z.

What tools do you use? Which would you recommend?

I used Krita for years as my preferred drawing software. It’s such an underrated tool for being free. Recently I just switched to Clip Studios Paint and I love it even more but will always sing Krita’s praises to new artists since it’s a free way to get into digital art.

What’s your go to work snacks and drinks?

warm green tea with honey and lemon or peppermint. I don’t snack a lot but, when I do, it’s usually popcorn/kettle corn.

You’ve talked about you being autistic and having ADHD – do you find this influences your art or how you create your models?

I do think that being AuDHD has affected the way I approach art. Fundamentally, the way I see and process things is just different from the average person. For example, it’s pretty well known that I make sound effects while I animate, which is not just something I do for content. I actually “hear” movement and tend to echo those sounds when animating. I also think that, because motion is a hyperfixation of mine, I tend to grasp how things should move quicker than most just based on how folks comment on how I make it look too easy. But also, I have to force myself to take breaks or I’ll be at my desk for 12 hrs without eating. I also find myself dreaming about animation or, worse, unable to sleep because my brain has a hard time turning off “animation mode”.

Do you feel it affects how you relate to your audience?

In general, I don’t think having AuDHD has affected the way I relate to my audience much. Though I have had some folks with neurodivergences of their own describe feeling seen or finding comfort in similarities of behavior/thought processes. In the end though, I think myself and folks of all types and personalities can get along just fine.

Finally, thank you so much for your time – please hype yourself up a bit! Let us know where we can find you!

I appreciate you wanting to interview me! I hope I can continue to bring joy to the world with my animations and models. All my socials and other info can be found on my Carrd!