More gems? More gems.

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...So I'm making another list of gems. Rejoice! I'll start off with ButzboPrud. He's got an awesome style and deserves more fans. Probably one of my favorite artists here on NG.

Also, Swaaaaag! :D

I'll be posting more gems here.

=== FUTURE PROJECTS ===

And that's how everything went quiet for a few years. I'd like to make up some lame excuse to justify for my inactivity, but I won't do that. Instead, I'll make note of everything I consider to be progress. The T-Shirt designs for example, or just about any project I got started on but never finished, the photoshops I made to impress people on the forums, and the rare occasions where I entered art competitions.

Being diagnosed with aspergers was a life-defining moment for me. From that moment forward, I tried to make sense of my life and took my observation skills to the next level. I made graphs and charts, often writing about problems I was facing in life. All of this served as a versatile tool to help me be more social and blend in with "normal people", but it proved to be quite useful in other areas of my life as well. I made lists of my favorite fictional characters and found out what they had in common, and by dissecting my favorite stories, I found out what made them so interesting. I once made a list of everything I've ever been passionate about, and noticed there are many ways to combine these things.

Of course I also checked a lot of content made by other people as well, but I discussed most of that in the Underdog phase already. Like I said before; all of these inspiration sources showed me glimpses of something much bigger. Something only I could create! I had no idea what this could be though, so I got stuck, until I had my great turning point. I rewatched Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni - with a couple of friends this time - and learned that Hinamizawa actually exists in real life. My mind was blown. This was the first time I heard about real life locations having been fictionalizated, and something inside me snapped. I got really obsessed with the little town of Shirakawa-go and had this amazing drive to do something similar. From that moment forward, my boring hometown was a huge source of inspiration for me.

About two years later I saw the Scott Pilgrim movie and started reading the comics. It was amazing how many references Bryan Lee 'O Malley managed to combine within his books, all the while telling the story of his life. The story was unlike anything I read before. It was silly, yet informative, containing some pretty cool life lessons. All the characters had interesting personalities, each with their own character developments. I also loved the atmosphere, slice of life aspects and the iconic drawing style. There's probably a lot more I could write about these comics. Scott Pilgrim has affected me on social and artistic levels. I decided to expand on my drawing style, and worked on a booktrailer for my buddy Writersblock. It got daily 3rd and a frontpage feature; the most succesful work yet!

So yeah, that's where I'm at right now. Most recently I've been reading The Last Call, by Vasilis Lolos. I bought it instantly after checking the first few pages of the first book. It has an undeniably awesome style. It was actually him - not Egoraptor, Oney, Adventure Time or Golden Boy -  which inspired me to get some extreme expressions going. Also, Catie Wayne's silly face challenge on youtube might have had something to do with this.

As for my workstyle, not much changed. Except I had been collecting images for reference, and this was quite useful! Later on though, I found myself needing images to "feel" a certain type of atmosphere I was trying to convey. Atmospheres, instead of styles or shapes! Also, I'm using one computer for both my art projects, audio projects and remaining hobbies. I'd like to create seperate work environments in my home, starting with a small art studio. I've been meaning to create my own comics, and I'd like to finally get started on that.

So, what's new? Where do things go from here? Recently I set up a tumblr account, so that's a good start. A generous person also gifted me his old Wacom Tablet and it's been pretty useful so far. But I would actually like to finish off by recommending a couple of things to myself. First of all; nothing good ever came from working without a concept idea. The only full-length music video I ever finished was Back To The Front by Kingbastard, but that's because I knew where it was heading from the start. Plus I promised to finish it, but look at how long it took me! Next; do commissions or enter a collab. I also have the know-how to organize a collab of my own, so I don't have to hold back anymore. Here's another one; upgrade to better software. I am currently working with Flash 8 and I feel like I'm missing out on some of the new options. Either way, it would be useful if I ever plan on hosting a collab. I might want to consider using After Effects as well. Other advice I'd like to give myself is to observe different animation aspects. If I want to get better drawing facial expressions, I should observe the works of Egoraptor, Oney or some other great artists here on Newgrounds. I've mentioned these before, but I should really observe Golden Boy and Adventure Time too. I might want to rewatch Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan and Great Teacher Onizuka for the same purposes. Dialogue is another aspect of animation I could really improve on. To be fair though, great dialogue is a rare find! Egoraptor's visuals and voice acting cover up for his awful script. Actual great dialogue doesn't need any of that fancy stuff. Great examples would be the works of Appsro, sexysexybicycle and LazyMuffin. Comics and movies are a great reference for dialogue as well. Lastly, I'd like to see myself get more creative with surroundings by adding loops. Admittedly, not every scene should have loops in them, but some of them can look very stiff without them, especially in a still scene. Waving hair, rustling leaves, bustling crowds, etcetera. It could really bring things alive!

• Reasons To Create: Revival. I craved another project after being inactive for such a long time! Also, I was messing around with a new style and really wanted to put it to the test. It was still under development though. Daily mundane stuff also started to inspire me, so that was nice.
• Creative Developments: Eventually I realized my non-anime characters weren't capable of showing much emotion, so I expanded on my style and got rid of the vacant eyes. I also added more detail to their outfits and facial features, which gave them personality. Last but not least, I spent time on my backgrounds for once. I'm not sure whether I learned anything new there, but I did focus on the right things this time.
• Outcome: Not bad, my first frontpage feature! I previously thought that trailers didn't get much praise, so it was very surprising to see that happen. Each day of one month I would design a different character from the book, and the following month I would do the same, sketching one scene from the book a day, so I really took my time. It was pretty hard work afterwards though! I think I got the formula right this time, so I'll just have to keep at it.

"I think it's important to stay in touch with those sorts of people, if only for good company, or if for collaborative/motivational purposes. There are a couple of writers I'm attempting to stay in close contact with, specifically so we can motivate each other to achieve our goals."

- Writersblock

Don't hesitate to reach out to people you've never talked to. DanPaladin asked me one day if I'd like to make a game with him and now we have our own little empire.

- TomFulp

"Your favourite characters and stories that you parody now used to be just like you and getting out there. So go for it and don't care about what people think. The right people will dig your groove."

- WooleyWorld

"It's all about gaining a backlog of stuff that gets views, paying gigs, keeping the social collateral working in your favor. It can be hard to lose sight of your successes in the windowless room. that's why Pico Day."

- VicariousE

If you have the goal in mind, it doesn't matter what any of this other shit is; it will propel it towards there. You can't plot this out. All you know is that you have a destination that you're trying to aim for, and then everything you do (hopefully) will push you in that direction.

- RicePirate

    "I wanna be able to make stuff and not worry about the money that it costs to do it."

- Oney

"I can tell you why you feel like you had a crap year. Its because you were trying to make content for everyone but yourself. You were all so obessed with views and how many subscribers or followers it would get you, that you forgot to make something you genuinely cared about or were passionate about."

- Gerkinman

[INDEX]

1. A FRESH START
2. THE FIRST STRUGGLE
3. THE COMFORT ZONE
4. THE UNDERDOG
5. FUTURE PROJECTS

=== THE UNDERDOG ===

My buddy Wallpaperman got sick of flash at some point and stopped making videos. Solo projects weren't getting me anywhere, so I ventured to the Newgrounds BBS where I got more involved with the community. Eventually I joined the CTSG collab, which was being organized by Rig. Being real passionate about the project, I ended up directing the whole thing. Those were some unforseen leadership qualities there. Looking back now, I think everyone involved expected me to organize the next CTSG project instead of Rig, but I wasn't aware of this at the time. Seeing as my solo projects never worked out before, I didn't exactly overflow with the confidence needed to host anything like that on my own either.

I have only just started noticing this, but by attending The CTSG Collab, I revolutionized my own workstyle. CTSG was a feel-good project, and I wanted to replicate the atmosphere of those times by projecting it onto viewers through the selection menu. Putting my trust in musicians and fellow animators, we created something that succeedingly portrayed the exact mood. I had not realized until now, but this became an ongoing theme in my future projects. Also, preparation became of big importance to me. That's how I began collecting images for reference.

I met Lochie and Writersblock at the CTSG project, whom I worked together with for a couple of years to come. Working on PO3 with them was an interesting experience. Seeing as this was going to be a point-and-click game, I planned on adding in a lot of details. This was great practise when it came to designing locations and practicing texture details! A couple of months before that, I finished an old project called Back To The Front. Also good practice, as linework and textures were key elements to this monochrome animation. I should note that I made myself a custom color pallette around this time, and it very much complimented my work! Later on, my productivity on animations took a nosedive. During that time, I made a few t-shirt designs for fun, which again; was good practise in terms of textures, linework and coloring.

In terms of inspiration, there is way too much to mention. Some of my inspiration sources from the earlier periods vanished, while others joined my collective memory. Some of my favorite animations on Newgrounds included SpikeVallentine's Love Me Forever, rtil's Metropolis Circuit and Nightwayfarer's School 13. Though at this moment in time, observing flashes from Newgrounds didn't cut it anymore, so I tried learning from professionals instead. Anime's like Death Note, Higurashi, Paprika, Tekkonkinkreet and Air Gear were among my biggest sources of inspiration. You can really see the influence they had on The CTSG Collab and A Surgeon's Lament. FLCL, Soul-Eater and Sailor Moon were later on added to the list.  Mark Crilley's youtube channel was a great help too, and Junji Ito's horror manga rekindled a forgotten obsession of mine: Horror.

Those were all manga-related sources of inspiration, though anime never really dominated my style. I guess I have Mortalpoet to thank for that! Cartoons allowed for more individuality, and that really grabbed me. On Newgrounds, I loved the style, coloring and dialogue on sexysexybicycle's These Pancakes Are Tiny, Gonzossm's texture details, Catoblepas' smooth frame-by-frame work with ominous atmospheres and just about anything the Vad Flaaten Bros came up with. Then there's The Juice Joint by Sweetsweetback which features arrousing female characters plus overal wacky designs, BSMattW with his Bonus Stage series, The Flash Tub over at SomethingAwful, Sakupen's stuff, Appsro's humorous series over at Escapist Magazine, and of course there's much much more. Also I suddenly remembered Scarydoll's Los Dias Sin Dias, and could really appreciate the threatening yet touching atmosphere. Watching it still brings a tear to my eye. As for professional animations; I was always very fond of Tom & Jerry. I used watch the show and read the comics as a kid. Seeing as I sucked at writing scripts and dialogue, the non-verbal way of telling a story was very interesting to me. Although I hardly used it for reference, as my characters often had this stiff and vacant look about them. Anyway, I also liked the frame-by-frame work on these classic cartoons. Of course there were a lot of other inspiring cartoons from my childhood, such as Dexter's Lab and The Powerpuff Girls.

All of these inspirations sources were great and have influenced my work to some extent, but none of them had what was needed to affect my work on a big scale. In order to work on another project, I needed a purpose. I caught some glimpses of what it should be like, but I had had no sense of direction. It's all part of the next stage.

• Reasons To Create: There wasn't any reason for me to animate at all, but I did it anyway, because it made me feel productive. Also, I needed it to vent my inspiration. Most of the time, I had pictures on my mind that I would perfectly replicate; a pretty neat skill I acquired. Still, I didn't finish many projects; I could only find the drive when working alongside of other animators. I was well aware of this too.
• Creative Developments: A little bit of everything improved. Though I hadn't developed a style of my own yet, I did improve on linework, textures and coloring. I incorporated Photoshop to improve on my visuals too. Also, I stopped guessing about what everything looked like, and actually researched objects before I drew them. This is how I started collecting images for reference.
• Outcome: Overal, my animations improved, which raised the average score on my movies. I received some awards, but missed out on a few as well. I felt under-appreciated and concluded that there was still a lot for me to learn.

“Time spent creating is never time wasted; it’s all small steps towards being the best version of you. In the end you can either be known for what you liked or what you made.”

- TomFulp

"Honestly, when we were children we believed that anything is possible, and did not hesitate to act upon this belief – however hard it is for me to believe that now, I still hang on to that belief for dear life."

- Troisnyx

"I feel that content-creators need to put more effort into publishing and promoting their works, rather than just submitting and hoping for the best."

- Dylan

[INDEX]

1. A FRESH START
2. THE FIRST STRUGGLE
3. THE COMFORT ZONE
4. THE UNDERDOG
5. FUTURE PROJECTS

=== THE COMFORT ZONE ===

Looking back now, I think I pretty much followed Wallpaperman everywhere. It was him who started obsessing over Vinnie Veritas back in the day, and from that moment forward, I starting taking notice of Vinnie's work. Next it was Wallpaperman again, who said he wanted to learn how to draw anime. When I heard that, I thought that was a great idea and decided on doing the same thing. Truth be told though, I worried about Wallpaperman's animation skills suddenly far exceeding mine.

Around this time, I signed up to Deviantart. There were lots of iconic artists out there, each with their own signature material. I soon noticed Vinnie Veritas being an active member on there, and he instantly became my rolemodel. I learned how to draw manga from some books I had bought, and my drawing skills took a huge leap forward. Mortalpoet was also very helpful when it came to drawing advice! I remember he encouraged me to step away from anime, as he liked my individual style - which was more cartoony. I'm not sure whether I had a consistant style of my own back then, but y'know. I didn't fully appreciate the beauty of Vector Art back then, and just wanted to explore. I sucked at writing comedy, so I mostly messed around doing music videos instead.

I gained some new inspiration sources around this time. For instance, I started watching several different animes. Some other Newgrounds artists suddenly caught my eye as well. Among these people were David Firth, NCH85, Lazymuffin, Sqeezy and Kingbastard. I also grew fond of surrealism, with Escher in particular. Observing the works of others, I tried to learn new things. Time spent drawing oekaki and Gaia Online avatars might have come in good practise too.

• Reasons To Create: Priority number one was to keep the quality of my flashes up with the standard of my internet buddies. Succeeding that, I explored my options while trying to gain a sense of individuality. I couldn't get over the fact that my solo projects were pointless, but collaborations were safe.
• Creative Developments: Learning how to draw anime taught me some basic human anatomy, and I improved drastically. Everything I made began with a sketch. I also used more interesting angles. It lacked refinement though: The colors were boring, the linework was sloppy, the textures were lacking and the backgrounds were lazy.
• Outcome: Many of my visual works in this period of time were the result of experimenting. I was productive, but my style was inconsistant. On top of that, I abandoned lots of solo projects and only ever worked on collaborations.

"Keeping certain assets for the sake of nostalgia is a really poor idea. It drags progression down for no good reason whatsoever."

- test-object

[INDEX]

1. A FRESH START
2. THE FIRST STRUGGLE
3. THE COMFORT ZONE
4. THE UNDERDOG
5. FUTURE PROJECTS

=== THE FIRST STRUGGLE ===

The reviewers however, thought otherwise. I received some pretty harsh comments! Most notably some people called my work "pointless", and in contemplation, I had to agree. Some others would mention the shitty quality of my toons, but I really didn't see anything wrong with them. Maybe I just didn't see any way to improve it, although I do remember being quite stubborn, thinking people were just being jealous of my work.

But not everyone on Newgrounds was out to demotivate me. I remember when someone taught me the basics of onion skins, and recommended me to start animating frame by frame. There was still a long way ahead of me, but it definitely was a step in the right direction! There was an an ambitious project I was working on called Sword Of Worldbounds, which was based on a story I was writing. Seeing as that flopped, I became aware of a harsh reality; my content wasn't worth watching.

My bad: Some people enjoyed watching my toons. People like Wallpaperman for instance. It was the mockery of my good old buddy here which pushed me over the edge. The scores on my Dragonball Future movies lowered the batting average on my profile, and that's how I decided to have my flashes deleted by Wade. In the meantime, the both of us collaborated a lot.

• Reasons To Create: Reviewers have mentioned the pointlesness of my creations, so I decided to prove myself and come up with better stuff. I pretty much gave up on doing parodies from that moment onward.
• Creative Developments: Frame By Frame animation became a frequent thing in my animations, and I applied weird shading techniques to my drawings which made everything look worse. Nothing else really changed though. My drawings were still looking very bad.
• Outcome: I did an ambitious project which I never got any recognition for. It became increasingly harder to work on solo projects.

"Animation can be a lot of trial and error - like, you try something out and you can't be afraid to start over or throw stuff away; That's what I've learned. You've got to be okay with throwing away a drawing even if you're super proud of it."

- jessejayjones

"typically when I feel creative or I want to do something, it's because I want to communicate something. One of the most common things that kills my motivation is when I ask myself, "Who am I communicating to?""

- Kwing

"Here is what I have learned:
good story + bad graphics + short duration = success.
bad story + good graphics + long duration = failure."

- GregoryShitcock

[INDEX]

1. A FRESH START
2. THE FIRST STRUGGLE
3. THE COMFORT ZONE
4. THE UNDERDOG
5. FUTURE PROJECTS

The other day I came across The Interview Codex by Deathink and The-Great-One, where I picked up on a random interview to read. I ended up reading Hikarian's story. The interview covered a lot of topics and it inspired me to read about her creative process. I went to bed that night, thinking about my own animations. After realizing I've been here for over 10 years, I started wondering about my personal developments. There may not be a lot of projects to show for it, but there's definitely been progress, and my style has developed dramatically over time. I decided to put all of that in perspective over a couple of days.This is however by no means an autobiography. I'm writing this so that I may uncover my strengths and weaknesses.

Each of these blog entries discuss the following topics:

1. Reasons To Create (Philosophy, Motivation & Inspiration)
2. Creative Developments (Visual Style, Skills & Habits)
3. Outcome (Experience, Dedication, Achievements & Continuity)

=== A FRESH START ===

When I just discovered the internet, DragonballZ was probably my favorite show. Through a search engine that wasn't google, I used to look for websites about the series. This is how I first stumbled across pixelated animated gifs, taken from videogames. They fascinated me thoroughly! I was hoping to make something like that myself using MS paint, but of course that didn't work. I did play around with RPG Maker though, making sprite sheets that would be animated within the software. Also, - inspired by the animations I had seen on Newgrounds - I made a frame by frame movie once, using stick figures I drew in MS Paint, and then dragged those images into Windows Movie Maker. Those were my very first attempts at animation. When I showed this to my causins, they had a chuckle. That's when they introduced me to Flash.

I picked up flash pretty quickly, though there was a lot for me to learn. For instance, I didn't know what layers were, so my first project was a huge ass animation - complete with backgrounds - using only one layer. It contained very badly drawn videogame characters from Super Smash Bros and some very crude humor. I made everything up as I went along. From what I remember, it was mostly inspired by the Arfenhouse series. It got blammed twice.

But then I learned about Layers and Symbols, and that's how I started on Dragonball Future. I drew an original character in the style of Dragonball, and had him avenge an alien species for destroying his planet. Three episodes made it through the portal. I thought I was doing pretty well!

• Reasons To Create: I had no reason to create anything at this point, but submitting stuff on the internet was oddly addicting somehow. My biggest inspiration sources were DragonballZ, videogames and flashes made by other Newgrounders.
• Creative Developments: I was lacking in every aspect. My visual style was odd and unpredictable, I was limited to the standard color pallette, and I didn't even know what Frame By Frame meant.
• Outcome: I got some flashes to pass judgment and made friends with some of the helpful reviewers. I had a lot of fun, and wanted to continue doing this.

Newgrounds is the alpha and omega of my heart, and all that I could ever hope to want from an unlike community. Free of the shackles of political correctness, and of big buck productions that saturate western media today.

- VicariousE

"I published New Ground from my parents' basement in Perkasie, PA, sending sporadic issues to around 100 members of a club on Prodigy. I was 13 at the time, which explains why I have so much faith in today's thirteen year olds."

- TomFulp

"I know that Jobs told the world that flash sucks, but he is dead, and his idiocy should die with him."

- fuckoffasshole

"So much awesome on Newgrounds... I could literally login everyday for the rest of my life and find at least one more talented person to fav..."

- CrabbWalker

"Newgrounds as a brand is associated with some really strong and respectable stances on creator's rights in light of how youtube and other platforms treat people, because Tom has always been a creator who runs a website for other creators as opposed to a businessman running a service marketed to creators. Tom wouldn't sell NG any more than he could sell a childhood pet."

- FUNKbrs

[INDEX]  

1. A FRESH START
2. THE FIRST STRUGGLE
3. THE COMFORT ZONE
4. THE UNDERDOG
5. FUTURE PROJECTS

I'll just start another list of gems to get myself motivated.