***UPDATE*** IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING E-MAIL PROBLEMS SEND YOUR E-MAIL TO:
NGSketchbook@gmail.com. I think the NG mail server had a brain fart. You can also PM me worst case scenario.

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I promised I would start this shit at the end of March and as we come to the last full week of March; off we go. This year there will be 200 pages sent out. If you are unfamiliar with the sketchbook tour you can look at last year's or you can also read through the FAQ below. Whether you are a newcomer or a returning artist, do give the FAQ a read-through as the process has been tweaked as a result of the mess that was last year when it filled up in like the first few hours.

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Instructions
1a - If you are a past sketchbook tour artist, its pretty easy. All you need to do is e-mail: SketchbookTour@newgrounds.com. Include your username either in the title or the body of your e-mail. You dont need to include your mailing address at this point. Just write a one liner expressing interest, or if it makes you feel better you can write your life story or something inspiring. E-mailing is easier to keep track of than the many PM's I get for other stuff so thats why theres a dedicated mailbox for this project this time around.

1b - If you are a NEW sketchbook tour artist, you also need to send a mail to: SketchbookTour@newgrounds.com. Include your username in the title or body of your email. You must also include one or two lines expressing why you'd like to be part of the sketchbook tour or what you think you have to offer to the project. You have to figure that I'll have to cut people eventually so try to make yourself look atleast semi-appealing or interested.

2 - Now you wait, I want to go through every request/userpage and screen through people so that it doesnt become an automated cold process. I'll drop you a pm requesting your mail info when the sign-up phase is over. Whether you are an old user or not, ill still request your mailing info because I never keep your info beyond the project. That'd be creepy.

Thats it. The first phase of the project is pretty simple. Future phases will be posted as we reach them.

The deadline to sign up for this year's sketchbook tour is April 12

It doesnt matter if you sign up now or later, as long as its before the deadline. I'll go through every user and then post a list of the lineup after the deadline is expired. Obviously I cant take everyone if its beyond 200, but I feel that 200 gives old and new people enough of a chance to be in this growing project.

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Here's an FAQ if you are new or dont remember what youre supposed to do.

Q: What is the SBT?
Its a project that started in 2006, where originally, pages from a sketchbook were sent all over the world. Yes thats snail mail. Artists recieve their page, draw whatever they want, throw it in an envelope and mail it back to sender. At the end of a long process of mail tag, the entries are consolidated into a Flash piece showcasing everyones work.

Q:Does it cost money to participate?
Yes and no. The project itself is free to anyone, wether you are an artist or not. All you need is the desire to create art. Once you get your page, you do have to mail it back. So that cost is one you will have to absorb. It's usually not terribly expensive to mail a sheet of paper. But in the past some people thought I had to pay postage. I pay for it to get it to you. YOU pay to mail it back.

Q:I dont want to disclose my mailing address, can I just draw something in Paint and email it?
Sorry, the whole point of this project is that its taking art back to the old school. Paper and pencil(or whatever medium you decide). It isnt the same if everyone just sits there and draws it on their tablet. If you are super concerned about your privacy then just dont participate

Q:When do I have to return my entry?
All instructions including address and deadline will be included with your page. Stay tuned, I'll remind you once we get to that point.

Q:I'm not an artist, I'm an actionscripter/bbs poster/moderator/whatever. but i enjoy drawing on paper, am I allowed to participate?
Yes, be sure to follow the instructions above if you are a newcomer. Failing to do so will get you put on the 'if there is enough space' column. This project is a high-demand annual project so naturally not everyone can be in it. SO it would make sense if you make an appealing case when you send over an e-mail.

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If you have any other questions, let me know either via PM or here on this post or through SketchbookTour@newgrounds.com

There is also a discussion thread setup in the art forum - here

After the release of Portal Defenders, I decided to take a break from Flash and goto some NG related events, two weekends ago I spent the weekend with Swain and a few other Florida goons for MegaCon and then i flew out to Amsterdam to host an Amsterdam meet last weekend. I had a chance to meet up with regulars from previous meet-ups like Luka and also get to meet fellow flash-crushes Catoblepas and W-P-S.
It was a great little meet and i came back with a greater drive to push towards new locales. So in an effort to put an exclamation point on shit, I'm going to wrap things up in Australia next month. Melbourne to be exact. It'll be April 16-20 and exact times and guest list and thread in the forums are to be forthcoming. If you happen to be around that part of the world and you have nothing to do, come on out say helloooo. More info on NG related events can be found on the NG FB events page. Theres alot of stuff going on over the summer including San Diego Comic Con in July, Philly Wizard World in late June, Montreal meet in early June, etc etc etc

Anywho heres a photo from Orlando and then Amsterdam as a prize for making it this far down my post.

* Ive also FINALLY completed the London Meet VI photo hub. I was missing a few mugshots and photos but now they are all there and you can browse through all 340+ photos of the event including Luka's video at the end.

CIAO.

I couldnt think of a cute title for this post, probably cause im so sleepy. Anyway what was originally going to be a week long mini-project, grew into a 5 month affair, has finallly reached its clitoral climax.

Portal Defenders

The basic concept of this game stemmed back when Castle Crashers came out, we thought (me and BoMToons) wouldnt it be fun to use the little characters in the intro and make something with them. So we had initially just had these two characters beating up these random characters and so then one thing lead to another, and every round of characters we'd finish we'd step back and say, oh you cant have a newgrounds based game without a cameo by Glaiel, then BoM would come back and be like well if youre going to have him then you must include Psychogoldfish.. etc

This went on for about 5 months... its actually been a cool experience atleast for me, cause i never realized just how much inspiration and content this site has to draw from. I mean even popular flash movies/games aside, the personalities that troll/spam/work this place are like the perfect catalyst of inspiration.

That being said, go check it out. Its got alot of cool little suprises and NG/Psychogoldfish has been gracious in allowing us to flagship the achievement system. So any achievements you gain are logged and you should see them on the movie page when you come back to it.

I ran across an interesting blog this morning that I thought would be worth sharing. Basically its a blog that decomposes title sequences from all sorts of movies. Some of them come with pretty cool comments and challenges that they faced while making it.

I think that particularly here on NG, most animators are still a couple light years away from really striving to make their whole movie, a package. Its probably really tempting to just tween in your Arial credits and get to the juicy bits of your movie and/or you've already labored so hard on the other stuff that you dont have time/cant be bothered to get a decent set of titling to go with it.

But I think in the case of the title sequence, you are literally giving people the first impression and it would be nice to really engage your audience at that time because more likely than not, you have the most undivided attention you'll get, in the first 15 seconds or so of loading up your movie. Anyway , its a fun blog, and all the title sequences can be seen in HD so its fun if youre into that sort of thing. Even if youre not, and just need some ideas on interesting ways to handle the title sequence of your own up and coming movie.

Linky McLink

MegaCon Feb 27 - March 1
Location: Orlando, FL

From the upper east coast we wind our way down south. I dont have a great deal of info on this yet, but the word on the streeetz is that The-Swain and a few other Florida folks are going to have a NG-themed booth. I *might* be able to show up. Its going to be cutting it close but I figure if Swain and Ego do a terrible job, i'll just goto Disney World.

Amsterdam Meet-up March 5-8
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

This is kind of spur of the moment and mostly because im still high from the fumes of the London meetup earlier this month(no pun intended?). I thought it'd be fun to try one in Amsterdam. I have a few people who will be turning up and in all likelihood it will be similar to how the first London meet started off, where it was a very small group 'hanging out'. Believe it or not once upon a time London meet was only like 12 people. Not the 60+ that showed up this past outting. I've never been to Amsterdam anyway. ALSO worth mentioning is that Luka has been documenting all the european meetups so far and so he will be joining me on this outting as well. All this heavy effort to capture things on video by Nathan and Luka will merge at some point to create a really grand and true representation of the global power of the site, aka itll be fucking cool.

Montreal Meet June 5th - 7th 18+ only
Location: Montreal, Canadaaaa

One of the most entertaining meet-ups of the year. I think they are on their fourth(?) one, this one is run by fellow mod poxpower. There is apparently a beer festival going on during this particular meet-up which can only sweeten the deal further. This meet has gotten consistently bigger, it wouldnt suprise me if it reaches a suprising number this time around. Regardless, if youre canadian (or not ) and in the area then you should make an effort to get out there.

Wizard Con Philadelphia June 19-21
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A booth in Philly, imagine that. Shenanigans to follow the con.

San Diego Comic Con 2009 | July 23-26
Location: San Diego, CA

This is another event that isnt necessarily a meet-up, however it always draws out a large number of Newgrounds who's-who. This event has huge numbers of other people to elbow through but all in all it is actually quite fun and San Diego is always sunny and pleasant unlike London. Theres some special newgrounds related events being brainstormed. It should be fun and its an opportunity to meet some of the staff

Penny Arcade Expo 2009 | Sept 4th - 6th
Location: Seattle, WA

Another west coast event. This one way up in the corner of the country. I'm going to actually make an effort to go this year. I've been told its the cooler, less crowded cousin of Comic Con. Like comic con, this event is more about mingling than an actual 'meet-up' but its a good opportunity to catch some of the staff, particularly if you snoozed on comic con in San Diego

Denver meet-up | Sept 25-27th
Location: Denver, Colorado

There has been a few attempts at trying to bring NG to the Midwest and all of them had fallen short in the past. This year PsychoGoldfish is taking matters into his own hands and syncing a meet-up with the Great American Beer Festival in an effort to attract the interest of users like me I'm sure.
This is a promising event, with a couple of staff members showing up in addition to other NG users who live nearby and have the misfortune of living in some of the most boring parts of the country :D

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Thats all for now, I will likely revise that list as i get more info.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone that made it out. It's been a great testament to the community appeal that newgrounds has and how unique our community is in comparison with other copycat sites like youtube etc.

i had wanted to make it my effort to go and atleast get a handshake in to everyone to personally thank them for coming over. I dont believe i got to everyone but know that i did intend to and will probably be more aggressive about meeting that goal next time around.

Its kind of humbling to think that this all started off as a simple flash regs lounge gathering 2 years ago, with just me and mogly in a hotel room and getting together with a handful of people over at namco. Fast forward two years and now we've got like 50+ users come out and show their support for the site. From well known personalities to lurkers and new users alike.

I'll be using this week to coordinate getting peoples photos and trying to make some sort of photo narative of the whole ordeal.

I do want to send out a special thanks to Tom and his staff for making the trip out. I have gotten nothing but praise and positive feedback for how awesome it was for users to have gotten a chance to meet you all. Well I missed my flight so I'm actually spending my birthday in this hotel room but oh well, if anything its a good opportunity to catch my breath from the whole thing. I'd be annoyed but in reality I feel like my birthday party spanned almost 5 days and for that I have nothing to be upset about.

'Cheers'

-Luisssss

I was going to make a front page post but considering Tom already stole my thunder, I wont.

I'm on my way out to the airport now, I have no idea if I'll be able to update the hub page from London. So if I dont and you want to go or are planning on going, then just show up. You dont need to be invited or whatever. More likely than not you will need to walk over to Namco rather than the London Eye. Its supposed to be raining and so we dont have folks standing in the rain we will head over to Namco. Theres a map below for your reference. If you are running late, then you should also just head straight to Namco. If you neeed my mobile number over in the uk just PM me.

See yaaa

-L

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Where:London Eye, London, England
When: Saturday January 17th, 2009 at 1pm / 13:00

Well I wanted to release this on Dec 31st, but I hit a few snags and bumps so It was a few days late. BUT it is done finally. Im sure I speak for the rest of the people that helped me to say it was REALLY fun dealing with 100+ entries. And by fun i mean laborous.

All in all, I'm glad to be done with the tour in a fairly timely fashion and hope you find 5 mins to go look at what everyones done. I've gotten a few people ask me, why the NG staff wasnt in this particular tour, well i think that it actually shows more of the community spirit when its the community gathering up and giving back to Newgrounds rather than the other way around. So yeah, thats all folks!

SUPER CONVENIENT LINK HERE

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Also the sketchbook tour shirt for 08 will be in the NG store in about another week and a half so yeaaaaa

?!?

I managed to get this little animation done cause i was feeling the spirit of the holidayssss

Thank you ng for a great year and all that. I truly am thankful for the opportunity to have gotten to work with/interact/spam with so many more folks this year, its been fun.

I'm going to go chug some eggnogfish now.

CIAO

Retro X-mas