When I was starting the WoodcraftWorld Technology series, I kept my old Minecraft profile picture and banner that I made with Blockbench and paint.net back in 2022 for a few days before realising that I needed something new.

I decided to brand my channel with my face, but still wanted at least some privacy, so, I put on a face mask that I still had from the 2020 lockdown, put on my £8 AliExpress grey hoodie, and snapped a few pictures holding my old 2012 MacBook Pro. This was a big thing for me, putting my face right out there for everyone to see after being faceless for the past 8 years of my channel.

But recently, I've felt that wearing a mask severely limits how expressive I can be in videos, and also getting hate comments clowning on me for wearing the mask. This has made me decide to switch the main channel to primarily focus on my VTuber model.

This is a change that I think is beneficial for both me and the channel, but you may be wondering "Why not just do a full face reveal?"

I had planned to do a full face reveal at some point in 2022, even going as far as to make a webcam overlay in paint.net for it, an orange circle, with Minecraft birch wood texture taking up the lower sixth of the image, and the text "WoodcraftWorld" in the Ubuntu font over the wood. The only image of this overlay I have is a picture of my monitor which I sent to my friend on WhatsApp, which is shown below:

But then, I thought about it. Is it really a good idea for me, a 13-year-old (at the time), to reveal my face to the entire Internet? So, I never revealed my face in 2022, and just so happened to find the solution one year later. VTubers.

I was just browsing on YouTube Shorts and found a VTuber you may have heard of called Filian. Her shorts showed me that something which I had previously thought was cringey after seeing a clip from Kanna Channel in 2018 was actually really cool, so in September 2023, I decided to try it out. I downloaded FaceRig, created a model in VRoid Studio, and went live on Twitch streaming osu!.

Even though I very well could've decided to do a full face reveal with the start of the WoodcraftWorld Technology series, I decided not to, as at this point, I was much more aware of digital footprint and how future employers search social media. I thought that putting my full face out there would make it much easier to link my IRL self to my online identity. Even though it is very unlikely with how many subscribers I have, I just want to prevent being identified in public.

This does not mean that no future videos will feature me masked up, as for some instances, such as testing a webcam/front facing camera or maybe if I'm dealing with a glossy display, I'll probably be wearing the mask, as it would be easier than keyframe blurring my face in editing. If I ever do vlogs, I'll probably just use keyframe blurring, as wearing a mask, in public, in the UK, is very odd. It isn't like Japan, where many people wore masks, even before COVID-19, and continue to wear it now. I'll also be keeping as the masked up appearance on my second channel max4600.

With all of this aside, I currently livestream on both YouTube and Twitch at
youtube.com/@WoodcraftWorldTV/live and twitch.tv/WoodcraftWorldTV

Maybe, at some point, I'll do a full face reveal, but that won't be for quite a while.
My second channel will remain as it is, with the masked up appearance.