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!

What a lovely surprise before the holidays, 10,000 people (or bots) who appreciate the work I put up on this website!  Super honored and i'll keep on making stuff for you.  Speaking of making stuff, I'm mostly active on the art portal these days, little gifs mostly, it's all i have time to make and i use it to let off steam.

As for games go, I'd say we're about 85% done with the 10th anniversary hd version of castle crashing the beard.  As with most projects, a simple idea ended up being a large ordeal.  It looks sharp though!  I'm hoping it will be done in the next few months. 

I take great pride in having my stuff make its home here, and only here. i purposely don't put stuff on youtube and i never will.

HI,

So rare i get to participate in an animated collab these days, more like 3 YEARS. Which kind of sucks considering it was my bread and butter for the early part of my animation career, guess its part of what happens as you get older and time is harder to come by!  Still though, it was nice to see this project come to a conclusion. Wasn't sure what to expect and at times i considered giving up on my part (it was only 4 seconds or so but still i'm just so rarely at my own computer).  

So if you haven't taken a look, please do, alot of people, new artists, legendary artists, old artists, artists ive collabed with many times in the past, etc worked on this. Its a nice little project. It was nice to be part of it, i dont usually care for video game related stuff. THANK YOU

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/698654

I was talking to someone graduating college in a matter of days the other day and he asked me if i had any advice or insight about the creative market after working in the field so long (15 years so far). Gave him kind of a meh answer at the time but its been on my mind alot lately and I figured i should jot it down before i forget my thoughts on it.
For a long time I've always felt i DIDNT have good advice.
I felt dumb / weird answering questions like that because its such an awkward confrontational question, and you feel a scorching amount of heat of not being able to give some steve jobs-level sage advice.
But after critical thought and soul searching, i've realized I CAN answer that question and actually SHOULD.
While I could pick MANY different angles, and turn this into a mini-autobiography the size of a small bible, i wont. Ill pick one.

I moved here to philadelphia, in 2010. I HATED philadelphia, i hated visiting here on field trips, i didnt particularly care for it during mod meet-ups and newgrounds events. It was just dirty, rude, and you can't buy beer from gas stations for some reason. Why would i possibly want to move there, and when i first did, i asked myself the same thing. I think over the years I came to the realization and the true value of surrounding yourself with people that support and elevate you. For me that was people like @TomFulp and @Afro-Ninja, and @The-Swain, and Stamper, and all the other people who brought out the best in me while i was here.

So i think my advice, is to seek out that same sort of company, it could be physically, by moving somewhere, could be virtually, by joining discord groups, or forums or communities (newgrounds is a good example) of people who bring out the best in you. I think then, you start to find purpose in your work and you feel better in your decision making processes as a result.

As with any piece of advice, its worth nothing if it was a one way channel, so i think its just as important to also give back that same support and love for the people in your industry.

Fast forward to today, i do actually love living in philadelphia, piss smell subway stations and all, and i think a large part of that was in part to the people i surrounded myself with.
In a nutshell, who knows where else i may end up, or even if i'll like wherever that city / town ends up being, as long as i surround myself with people who believe in what i do and challenge and elevate my creative visions, ill be OK, and you will too.

The End.
 

Ahoy,

I am kind of embarassed I've been gone so long and my last post was um last year around this time. I think the root of the matter is I'm in this vagabond stage of my life/career, I'm heavily into like the design side of the creative business but my mind is always active and thinking of stuff, game ideas what have you, but my time is so slim these days that the outlet for those is usually little gifs or an occasional small game.   In past years, I'd consider that a disappointment, and im sure to some of my fans it definitely is. But I think its par for where I'm at right now. 

That said, I am working on a game currently with the Pesto Force guy, and a few other people. Kind of happy with how its going and how quickly its coming together.  Its also a rare game where I'm publicly open about the WIP stuff, i'm usually kind of secretive, not because i think someone might 'steal' it, but because im not really comfortable showing unpolished ideas. But that game is actually just one big unapoligetic unpolished idea. Anyway, it should be done soonish. It may be unbalanced and kind of rough but thats okay i think.

As inactive as I've been, i do still follow the art scene, i quietly have the endless artist streams in the corner of my window as i work, and its kind of nice to see something come out of nothing and say hey i was there when it was just a sketch.  (Shadman's stuff comes to mind)

I'd like to continue doing that, I'm trying to find a 'regularly' scheduled art stream i can incorporate into my schedule, like knowing someone always is doing streams every tuesday or whatever. I'm a creature of habit and it'd be nice to follow streams that are consistent.  I wish newgrounds had like a blinking light or something next to a screename to denote they are streaming. Kind of how like the header of the site has this little streaming blurb when the office is streaming something. Something along those lines but on the user level would be cool, if doable.

so YEA. Have a good year.

L

Hello,

Long time no see! I promised myself I'd make more of a presence this year, so despite not feeling particularly great (seasonal depression is it called? is that a real thing?) i thought itd be good to say hello.

Last year was kind of quiet for me creatively here, couple reasons for that, professionally, I've been doing more front-end than animation/art, i kind of like it, not sure if i like it MORE, but its rewarding in its own way, and the turnaround times are tighter and ship out faster.  That said, I was short handed on my team for most of the year so there was no shortage in things to do myself. My commute to work was brutal, and the work was brutal, and while I learned alot, I had little time to dedicate to animation/game projects.

That said, I need to really put the pedal to the metal for a game for that Pixel Day event later this month. Didn't do as much work as I thought last week (i left my files at the office amongst other things) so got my work cut out for me. Still feel like its doable tho.

Thats all in a nutshell, I've been talking to more animators again, and starting to make other peoples work my business so hopefully that will inspire my own stuff. Ok thats all!  Glad things are moving in the right direction here at NG, youtube, well i wont even talk about that.

XOXOXO

Recently, BoMToons mentioned that Castle Crashing the Beard crossed the 1 million views mark here at newgrounds. That made me happy and boggled my mind because the game was just a poke at Tom. I guess it just goes to show that you can never really predict how people will recieve a game. Sometimes you work your ass off and it totally flops, and sometimes a dumb fun idea ends up being something well recieved.

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UPDATE - CONTEST OVER ------

- Winners posted here
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