Hola,

I was partly inspired by some of my art friends to make a general overview of current and look ahead type of thing.

I think it's been kind of interesting to see peoples year round-ups for 2020 because while we were all bound by the C-word, it was a year of unique creativity. I kind of compare it to music movements like punk and rock where there is a particular amount of creativity reacting to really large social and human issues in the world.

i think like most of my colleagues, i find that 2020 was a bit of a homecoming in coming back to art and the art community. To some extent, what choice did i have? Once March rolled around, i had the rug pulled under me(as did everyone else really), where my lifestyle of flying around and being a socialite at bars was kind of over. I think in hindsight, and looking ahead, i will fine-tune that part of my lifestyle to not be so dependent on that. Looking back at my portfolio of work, i find it kind of cool to see that the themes and pieces i've made kind of reflect what was going on around me, more so than more whimsical pieces i made in 2019. I think Tom and the guys at the newgrounds HQ played a key role in keeping people motivating and shifting the gloom to an opportunity to make cool things. Read @psychogoldfish write up for the full scope of what that means.

Through lockdown, i was able to meet newer generation of artists, the @snackers @ninjamuffin99 and @wandaboy of the newgrounds scene. I was welcomed with open arms to all sorts of discord servers and got introduced to and work with new people. I'd eventually get drunk and storm out of said discords but i eventually wander back.

I think throughout my career at newgrounds for years i felt a personal responsibility to be someone that had to come up with stuff and be the ring leader of large projects and it was kind of nice to switch roles last year and be a participant in other peoples visions.

This was a good thing, i hadnt returned to the animation portal in years and i forgot what a different beast it is from the game portal. Where you are making stuff designed to be interacted with and as a result, can go back and fine tune and add stuff in. In the animation portal, you got one shot boo boo, so it definitely felt more 'scary' for me, and it brought me back to the old days of submitting here where there is that uncertainty of someone totally hating something you spent a long time on.

While nobody knows what this next year will bring, i do think that even having the 'calendar' change brings with it a new sense of optimism and with all thats going on, its kind of hard to come by at times.

Working on a new thingie, hopefully releasing later this month.

CIAO.

Hola,

Not a whole lot going on, America has been very bad at Corona, so the world hates us so i cant travel anymore! It's fine though, I've been making a ton of progress on my game and I'm still looking to be done by Autumn and back on the road in 2021.

If you feel nosy, or just want to know what we've been up to, wander over to Nick's discord channel thingie.

Other stuff I've been working on, i haven't gotten back to it but I've been designing a site background for this website. Been kind of sidetracked but it's on my queue. On the non-digital side, I'm moving later this autumn. Probably still in philadelphia, but in midtown village or something around there. Looking to shorten my commute to work and also be able to wander back from bars easier. Maybe i'll invite u to a housewarming party, if u wear ur damn mask.

Speaking of quarantine, https://potatoman.newgrounds.com/ suprised Krinkels and i with some little figurines he designed. I'm still kind of blown away looking at it on my desk. He just needs a little server to spill his beer on.

I have some more newgrounds stuff i want to give back to the wild, but i'll wait for a good spot to do so.

Ciao.

UPDATE: Congrats to @damnedbyfate you came up on the random username generator thingie. You r win.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their anecdotes. I read all of them and it was quite uplifting and motivating to read and more important than ever to preserve this community. I'll give away more stuff soon.

Apparently NG is a quarter century old now! Time to give away some NG stuff from my vault.

Here's how to win:

You have to be a NG supporter to win this one.

This aint for bustahs who don't support keep the lights on.

1. Comment with a memory of your interaction with this site (try and be positive).
2. That's it.

One rando comment below will win this newgrounds flag, it's been around the world at newgrounds meet ups and stuff. There are a few of them floating around but this one is my personal one. Also, in this care package is a yellow / orange castle crasher and some stickers. I'll pick someone out later this month and do another post about it.

See ya

here it is in Australia

I found this in my closet, into the package it goes:

Tried a little experiment yesterday and it was actually alot of fun (kind of stressful tbh) but it kind of re-ignited the thrill of making stuff just to make stuff, quick iteration, and spur of the moment ideas. You feel ALIVE.

It started with just tweeting, hey i wanna collab, must be done QUICK. Then @snackers sent me a msg asking whats on my mind.

I wasn't sure really, so i was like ummm... what if we split the canvas in half and you draw on one side and i draw on the other and then i'll smush them together after a few hours.

Here's a summary of the conversation:

Me: so im thinking, you pick a side, right or left. and its an eating contest.

Snackers: so I just animate myself eating?

Me: you / your character, whatever really. what would be fun to eat

Snackers: hmm what am I in the mood for

some spaghetti and meatballs

Me: ok spaghetti with one giant meatball on top.

Snackers: ah yess

And that was it, after a few hours, we joined the files, I added the fluff at the beginning (ready set go), and a simple bg and titles and we were done.

It's alot of fun to see the final product. It aint going to win no Grammy but it shows two approaches to a problem, two different styles, solutions, and just raw energy.

I want to continue to explore this concept more, it kind of reminded me of the old Time Trial days.

If you'd like to be part of it, keep your eyes peeled on twitter, they by nature are kind of spontaneous.

Feel free to drop me note if you have suggestions or you want to learn more

Hoi,

Hope you are surviving in some way. Pretty wild times out here in Philadelphia!

Anyways be sure to give the Elon Musk Jam a shot, on top of a big prize pool, i wanted to donate some swag that i found in my old office for whomever comes in last place (12th). 12 is my favorite number so it works out.

If you are working w/a team you'll have to figure out how to split up a shirt and pink knight, i dont know that's ur problem.

Also you can't win the blanket in the back, i need that to sleep. Everything else is yours.

Stay safe x0x0

I assume @bomtoons will post about this in his own userpage, but i think itd be fun to get both the programmers (his) point of view and the art side (me) on this drawn out re-make.

BACKSTORY:

I think we started working on this a year and a half before the actual 10th anniversary of the game (2008). We got pretty far, and then as with most things, life gets in the way, i think i was moving into a new job, and moving, and i think Nick had some stuff on his plate going on in the west coast of the continent. The game got about 80%? done then sat for awhile, i'd make stuff but i ended up not liking it or i just didnt feel like it lived up to what i wanted a remake to feel like. So I'd not pass over the art. Whatever the reason, the game sat for a few years.

PODCASTS:

I think even though the game had stopped being in production, it always seemed to come up in conversation, so in some ways it probably was what kept it alive, even as it lay dormant. I think the last podcast i was on with ZJ i stared to feel like it was worth seeing where that got left off, and most recently the podcast with Nick, started to feel like there was some momentum and started getting on the same page. The tough thing about making a game is that both you and our peers have to be on the same motivation and wavelength or it just doesnt work! So it was nice to have been invited to do those podcasts or maybe i would have never gotten back my mojo to continue it.

ABOUT THE ART:

I think aside from the art being an upgrade from where it was years ago, remaking this game has had its own set of challenges from a creative standpoint. I'll try to loosely talk about some of them:

Framerate: This game's art was built for 36fps. Which wouldn't normally be so bad if the game wasnt so huge in regards to screen size. It's built at 1920x1080, for a game with a 2px stroke (its a wierd pixel art style which ill get to in a minute). So each sprite takes forever to work on, i think just the foilage up top took me about a week to do correctly. I think the original had recycled sprites for the knights, this one has unique ones for each version and Tom himself has some new attacks and variations from the original.

The sloppy 2px stroke: This was kind of an unnecessary experiment that ended up being a total pain to integrate into a game of this scale, because each outline i have to redraw twice so that some parts of it have a 4px outline and some 2px. I call it a sloppy 2px stroke. At the time it seemed like fun but its a total annoyance. Too late to redo it all now so the show must go on!

Anyways here's a gif Nick made to post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykURWvAo6Eg

As most people in the US, and the world really, we are on lockdown for a few weeks. While it was a bit disconcerting walking home with all my favorite bars and restaurants closed yesterday, if this is the sacrifice that needs to be made to 'flatten the curve' then it's worth taking heed to it. I think as Tom mentioned, this is a great opportunity to catch up on stuff on the front page. Just while eating breakfast, I clicked through a few things and had forgotten how fun ChutneyGlaze's style was or how the Flashgitz guys are so aligned to my type of crude humor.

As for myself, I was recently on a podcast, linke below. I'm usually wary of doing them because 1) i don't consider myself funny / entertaining and 2) i feel like i sound weird. Regardless, it was a pleasant episode. I think in hindsight I learned more about BoMToons / PestoForce than I originally knew walking into it, which is strange because we've worked on stuff for years and years. In regards to my artwork, I started feeling bummed out by the sheer speed and strength of the corona virus stuff on twitter, I tried to use muted words but for some reason virus, corona, corvid or any other combination dont even work. So i am deleting it for two weeks or however long this thing lasts, I feel better already.

I think its important to find the positives even in situations like this, so I'm looking at it less like a lockdown, but more of a creative sabbatical. Tune out the social media noise, tune out the bars.... tune out my travels...., and focus on just making stuff, like i did when i was in my late teens / early 20's back then.

See you around.

Podcast:

Chutney Glaze mention:

FlashGitz mention:

Hola,

im trying to make more of a habit of making posts atleast on a semi regular basis. It allows me to collect my thoughts better than a whatever character count that twitter has.

I recently flew back from Newfoundland & Labrador! Not many people go there during winter for some reason. But it was quite fun. I was in Helsinki around this time last year and there is something refreshing about visiting places when there’s hardly any tourists around. Newfies are very friendly people and I loved the reactions I got when I told people I was there on vacation. My cab on my way to my Airbnb at 1am when I arrived was like “you feeling ok friend? You take a wrong flight? What are you doing here on vacation in February?” I think in total 18 people asked me what the hell I was doing there. I mean I won’t lie, it was freezing. One day in particular it was super windy, like I was about to get blown away windy and I’m a chunky guy.

I liked it anyways, there’s something humbling about people who live in extreme climates and able to make it work (out of necessity or choice). A lot of people shared their photos of a crazy snow storm they had two weeks ago and how they coped with it. Dogs walking on rooftops etc.

ive begun to enjoy traveling alone lately, it lets me clear my thoughts and keep myself open to learning about others. I think at times I get obsessed with my career and what I expect from it (and inevitably burn out but that’s a different news post) so it’s nice to show up to something totally unknown at an ungodly hour and kinda wing it. I recommend it. I used to worry about coming off creepy by asking questions and being inquisitive to strangers and people I met at bars in different countries but I’m always surprised how welcome interpersonal conversation is. Sure, not every encounter I make new best friends but it’s just rewarding to dish it and then fuck off and carry on.

Some fotos below, also I’ll probably make something soon. Ciao!

not many people know where St. John’s is, I didn’t either tbh but I fly over it every time I go to Europe so I see it on my map and I figured one day I’d go there and last week was that day. only thing that sucks was the flights fly in and out at very inconvenient times. I flew in at 1am and flew home at 4am. Not ideal. I think this is based on air traffic.

many unique things about St. John’s. For one it’s got its own time zone. +1:30 from eastern time. It’s also quite colorful. The downtown rowhomes are required by the city to have a different color scheme than its neighbors. In my conversation with locals there’s a book you can pick colors from. Kinda neat.

there’s this hill overlooking the city and out into the Atlantic. It’s a hike on foot but worth the view. Luckily both times I went up I got a ride back. People were very friendly overall.

clean crisp air up here

newfoundland is most famous for the Newfoundland dog and the black Labrador we all love. lots of statues of em.

one of the highlights of my trip was walking to a small fishing village nearby, they are apparently really popular during the summer, I think the bar was expanding mode when I was there and they are known because they are the only place in the world that brews their beer from water from icebergs. Kind of underwhelming taste and kind of low in alcohol for my taste but atleast that’s checked off my list. The brewers were really friendly and they are doing some cool stuff there with local product and vegetation and icebergs apparently. I can see this place blowing up soon with the craft brew scene not slowing down.

i was supposed to go ice fishing on Saturday but it had to be canceled because of the insane winds. Oh well, that’s one of the things you need to be flexible with when traveling during extreme seasons in places like this I guess. Maybe next time! I’ll probably be back out again in early April. Back to work!

Happy Pixel Day 2020

Most of my work these days is exclusively pixel, so I had to make something for it. Actually I sort of did, it was a gif I had started early last year and then shit happened (see the commentary on the entry) and it was abandoned for awhile, then not abandoned, then abandoned, then unabandoned, etc. When 2020 kicked off, i decided to just push through and finish it with the goal of January 23 in mind. Sometimes you will find ways of surprising even yourself.

--------------------------------

Anyways, I'll use this opp to mention other stuff on my mind. BLIP, as stamper would say:

Don't sleep on these pixel artists!

I think one of the misconceptions of pixel art is that it all has to look like a nintendo game or something. There's some unique styles to pixel art (as with any art form), some use hard lines, some no outlines, some pillow shading, etc. Here's some people with different styles:

https://moawling.newgrounds.com/

https://amenduhh.newgrounds.com/

https://cobgoblin.newgrounds.com/

https://spacefader.newgrounds.com/

https://scepterdpinoy.newgrounds.com/

Saw a bump of new activity on the website and thought i'd dust off my userpage post and post a new one.

I've been mostly active on the art portal side of stuff. I don't have time for much these days but I still NEED my creative outlet to manifest itself in some way, so I've been making animated gifs. They are fun to make, they usually only take an hour or so and I can get my fix and still have a pulse in the community.

If you haven't got around to it, please do check out my latest art portal submissions. Let me know what you think, pound that like button or not, or whatever.

As I've said, i havent had time to really dive into my large projects, I will do at some point, that's my best outlook. I'm usually pretty good about replying to DM's and my social platforms outside of here are just twitter mostly. I use instagram, but mostly for my other hobby of finding weird drinks and visiting weird countries. I throw my art there too, but mostly its just cocktail art.

I forgot that NG has the ability to post WIP's to submissions, so with my latest gif (Bowser) i was able to show some of the construction of it. I'll continue to do so moving forward.

On a personal life note, I am still on my travel bullshit, i am roughly 4 years away from having visited every country in Europe. I'm pretty stoked and have become kind of obsessed about achieving that being so close, my next few stops include Ukraine, Macedonia, Malta and Estonia.

See u later!