So first thing's first, apparently it's been 6 months since I've made a news post, so there's quite a bit to catch up on ;3
First of all, I recenlty released a new cartoon for Christmas, The Fight Before Christmas. I started animating it last year but for whatever reason I never finished. I finished it this year though, and to make sure I finished it in time for Christmas, I skipped out on a Halloween animation and finished it in November. I did start working on a Halloween cartoon though and even got the whole thing storyboarded and did a few backgrounds, so it'll probably be out next year though I'm not entierly sure. I do like it still so I want to get ti done eventually. Anyways, so far the Fight Before Christmas has just over 500 views here which feels like very little to me for Newgrounds anyways. It got 6th place, but I really feel it was deserving of an award. It would've been nice to get an award on my last solo submission for the year but eh, whatever, I can't really complain because the rest of the year has been pretty good for me, exposure-wise.
All right, so stuff that's happened since my last news post. Uh, apparently I teased an image of something for Robot Day. Well, obvioulsy that project did not come out on Robot Day, in fact I didn't get any work done on it except for the script. This is because I was thinking the concept would be 3 to 5 minutes and I could probably get it done in time, but by the looks of the script it'll be closer to 10 minutes so I don't know when I'll have the time to get to it, maybe next Robot Day.
On the Fourth of July I uploaded a teaser for episode 6 of FrogMan the Series. It got 2nd place, which was honestly a surprise, it wasn't even a low scoring day either. It currently has nearly 1800 views, which is pretty okay for a teaser. I'm proud of the quality 'cause it's a huge step up from episode 5 which came out over 2 years ago. I worked on episode 6 for a good bit before working on it on-and-off and then stopping work on it altogether to work on other stuff, but currently I have over a minute of it animated with nearly 3 minutes storyboarded. Once I finish the big project I'm working on now, all of my time will go toward working on episode 6 and getting it out in 2015. I want to be able to get at least 3 episodes out a year in the future. That would be great. I'm thinking after episode 6 is done I'll take some time off to work on some other projects, or just jump right into episode 7 to finally get this trilogy done. I'm very indecisive. I want to get the first season done soon though.
Next up on the last day of August I released FUCK ORIGINALITY, a short that turned out and was recived surprisngly well, a lot better than I would have thought. I was thinking it'd be controversial and people wouldn't get it and would hate me but no, the exact opposite happened. The short satirizes myself and internet animators in general who make nothing but parodies because that's what people watch. I made it 'cause I keep seeing people say how they don't like how there's so many parodies and there's no original content anymore but yet when somone does release something original, it gets barely any views because people only watch the stuff they're familiar with. I guess controversy gets veiws too, 'cause with a title of "Fuck Originality" it got over 3000 viws, a pretty decent score, and daily 4th, and there was even some discussion of the topic in the reviews. This was definitely the short that gave me the most surprises this year. I really like this short too; it's got some really nice subtle animations and I think the writing is my best yet.
Then in October to be ironic and complete the meta joke in Fuck Originality, I released a shitty Zelda parody. I thought it was funny but idk, maybe I just got tired of it from spending so much time animating it. A lot of people didn't seem to get the joke either. I guess that's what I get for basing an animation off of an Easteregg in a single videogame. SORRY I COULDN'T BE RELEVANT. It's like all of my other parodies, based on an experience I had with the game, but of course people don't see it as that, they see it as something they're supposed to relate to. Ranting aside, it currently has over 1700 views and got 5th place which is surprising considering the shitty reception. This one seems really underrated to me though 'cause look at how good it looks! There so much animation and the colors and shading look really good. And no one fucking cared. I honestly think this cartoon has the most poses out of all my cartoons. Still it wasn't a huge waste of time though, it makes a good portfolio piece for people who DO care about visuals, and it only took about a week to animate. Also I think I'm mostly done with parodies at this point. I was going to make a bunch of them because they do get more views, and therefore more money, but I've stopped caring about making money on my webtoons. I was going to make a Watch Dogs parody in November, but yeah, I didn't feel like it. I'd rather make original content, even if no one watches it ;3
And then in November I was part of the Thanksgiving Collab (renamed because there was only 3 entries finished :/) with a short I started last year for Thanksgiving, and finished up this year. I like this short because it was fun animating the Indian's head getting crushed by the turkey's kick, heh. The rest of the collab was pretty cool too. It even got 4th place! Not a lot of views though...
And then I released the Fight Before Christmas, I said this as the first thing. GO WATCH IT.
And finally the last thing on my profile for the year is the Sketch Collab 2014. The collab turned out great. It's alwasy cool to see so many people come together and bring their own unique styles into something. I did my part back in June or something, so this thing's been in the making for a while.
So yeah, there's been a few things I started this year that weren't finished and probably WON'T be finished, like my NATA animation for this year, heh. All my time is now going into working on FrogMan and Pico in hopes to get it done in time for Pico Day 2015. I'm certain I can get it done in time. Next year seems to be the perfect time to release it anyways because Newgrounds is turning 20 (as am I) so it should serve as a great birthday gift to the site I love so much ;3.
I've started doing production blogs on FrogMan and Pico so people can keep track of my progress. The first one can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Ubvn0osls
I also uploaded my new animation reel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWbB3uhyZt0) I've definitely improved over the year. What do you guy's think? ;3
This year was pretty good. I got 6 awards for my own stuff and then another 6 for collabs and stuff, AND everything else I uploaded got runnerup, which I keep forgetting. My two big hits of the year were definitely Fuck Originality and Earthbound- The Trees. The former getting over 3k views and the latter getting double that AND front-paged. Both pretty high quality pieces too. The year even ends with me reaching 50 fans. A big thanks to megadrivesonic for being #50!
Well, I'm certainly looking forward to 2015. I don't know what it'll bring, but I'm definitely going to be trying to release the things I should've been working on for the past few years!
EDIT: Another last minute surprise:
Tom is a great guy :3