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This is beyond any insult I know...

I don't really care who wins because I think they're all great flashes, I just love the festive spirit that's taken over Newgrounds. First Pico day, now the awards; It seems like a festival or celebration of some sort.

I'm probably the only one getting all weepy and sentimental though. You guys are all too manly for that, right?

This is, hands down, my favorite episode.

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Hurrah! After 4 months of being lazy I finally get something done! Go play it and let me know what you think of it!

Oh, and I changed my display pic too. Gotta show my support for the great Bouguereau!

I'm working on a sequel to Shen Long and I need some feedback: CLICK TO PLAY

Move with the mouse and use your tail to bat the enemies away from the tree. When they turn white, then allow them to go into the tree. The red ones will damage the tree and the white ones will heal it.

Basically I need to know the following:
-Are the controls good? (I got a lot of complaints last time)
-What framerate are you running at? (the number in the top right)
-What would you add? (Powerups, enemies, collectables)

Okay, I got this in a email and thought it was way too funny to pass up. Normally I don't resend this stuff, but...yeah...

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The next time someone asks you a dumb question wouldn't you like to respond like this.....

Yesterday I was buying a large bag of Purina dog chow for Athena the Wonder dog at Wal-Mart and was about to check out. A woman behind me asked if I had a dog. What did she think I had, an elephant? So since I'm retired, with little to do, on impulse, I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, and that I was starting the Purina Diet again. Although I probably shouldn't, because I'd ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms..

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story.) Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me. I told her no; I stepped off a curb to sniff an Irish Setter's ass and a car hit us both.

I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard!

WAL-MART won't let me shop there anymore.

Alright, I made a thread about this, but I think I need to be a bit more specific. I just got Swift 3D recently, and I'm going to try it out with a little short about a dancer in a music box that comes to life. Here's the model I made, but I need a song. Preferably, something that sounds like a music box, but darker. This song would be perfect, but I'm not a fan of the singing that starts up about 40 seconds in...

Any suggestions for the music? I'd like to use something from the Audio Portal, but other suggestions are welcome too...

Here's the latest interview from my Blog.

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Eighteen-year-old Josiah "Jazza" Brooks, creator of the Paladin series, has been animating since his first year of high school. Now, with five successful episodes and a game under his belt, he's ready to move on to new storylines and accomplishments. Here's how he got started and what he hopes for the future.

"After a school assignment to animate in power point, I was obsessed. Then a friend showed me flash and I haven't looked back since. I began submitting to sticksuicide.com until I discovered Newgrounds. NG was much harsher to win over the vast audience but after four or so years, I think I've gotten to a reasonable stage. :)"

After high school, Brooks has been able to make decent money doing what he loves, "I currently have the best amateur job in the world; graduated school last year and now I animate full time! I love it. I don't make BIG bucks, but enough to get by living at home with my parents XD lol. I have only been to high school, no college education so far. I plan to do some director's courses."

Brooks says that, while he enjoyed working on the series, he's glad he can move on to other storylines and ideas, "I was glad to move on from paladin and bring closure to it. Truth be told I sort of trapped myself by starting off with such a cliché plot. I tried desperately to worm out of it though the series and can only hope I improved the story. In the beginning I had no idea what would happen beyond the first episode! For the earlier episodes I came up with the story at the beginning of each episodes production. In the final 2 (4+5) I had it all planned and storyboarded."

"I think I'll give paladin a break for now. I DO have a really epic story for another time that uses the paladin story as a prologue of sorts, but I need to explore more genres and gain more experience before I try to push the same theme/genre again."

Paladin, the Game was a major achievement, and Brooks says his partner, Moonkey, was a driving force towards its completion, "I couldn't have asked for a better workmate! He's INCREDIBLE and we've overcome some massive obstacles in making the game, but I think it paid off. We both had so much fun bringing the Paladin game about we're already starting work on another game! (Completely different story and style to paladin.)"

As for the future, "I want to be a director, I love bringing things together, every piece of a work from music to credits. I think that's my passion more then animating, as animating has been my only available means to do so! I love telling stories. In ten years I see myself building a career directing. I know it'll be hard, but it's the kind of thing where I wont stop when it gets hard coz it just feels right for me... I might come back to animation one day, I've always had a soft spot for it."

Brooks leaves us with this thought, "The only thing I can encourage aspiring storytellers to do is practice every medium and explore your niche for means of expression and storytelling. My art teacher told me once that there's no point doing something unless it brings a positive message, so if you do this sort of thing for a living try and make it effect others for the better. I'm still working on it. :P"

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Check out the www.popethos.net news section for more interviews!

Here's the latest story from Pop Ethos. I've recently added an arcade, so if you'd like to see your game there let me know!

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Strategy Game-maker Dmitry

Self taught programmer, and long time Flash enthusiast, twenty-two-year-old Russian Dmitry is well known for his creations. With a few widespread hits like Momentum Missile Mayhem, Quadrobarrel Defense, and StarCraft Flash Action, his place in the flash hall of fame has already been secured. He started flash when he was fifteen, but says his career in the flash industry didn't become serious until he released his first game.

"My first game was based on StarCraft sprites since I couldn't draw my own graphics. I called it StarCraft Flash Action (StarCraft FA) and it was released on newgrounds.com back in 2004. The game was relatively successful (I won daily feature) and that inspired me to go on. Next year I finished my first big project - StarCraft FA3, a tower defense game inspired by similar maps in WarCraft 3. The game scored quite well and I was offered a sponsorship by Armor Games (they had a different name back then). So from this moment I could get paid for making games, it was a very good motivation to keep working."

"At some point I realized that I had to stop using copyrighted graphics and names and move on to something I could really call my OWN game, so I found an artist. The first game we made together was Quadrobarrel Defense."

Dmitry says it's his own drive to create, and not the money, that keeps him going, "I enjoy making flash games so it's an entertainment for me. I'm working with an artist now so I don't need to steal sprites and textures any more. As for sounds - I have a HUGE library composed from various sources. :P"

"I can't really tell how long it took me to make any of my games since I don't work on them every day. Sometimes I get bored with the project or have some IRL problems and forget about flash for weeks and even months. Making games is not a job for me, its entertainment. (Although it is well paid. :P) If I start taking it as a job, just a way to earn money, I would not be enjoying it and would not make games that I like."

You wouldn't guess by the quality of his games, but Dmitry has had to learn as he goes. "I made my first games with almost no knowledge of Action Script. All the movements in SCFA 1 to 3 are based on Motion Tweens. There's nothing but hittests, IF's, and lots of variables. I improved a bit by the time I started working on SCFA5 but still did not know the basics of AS programming. There are no cycles, no functions..."

"By the time I finished Quadrobarrel Defense I realized that to move on to my next projects I had to learn something - so I bought a book. 'Macromedia Flash MX Game Design Demystified' by Jobe Makar. It is the best book about flash gamemaking in existence. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to make flash games. It requires some basic knowledge of programming in action script and general flash though."

As for the future, "My main goal at the moment is to improve my programming skills. And that can only be done by practice. I have a lot of projects in mind and the only thing that stands in the way is my lack of experience. As for whether I will or wont be making flash games in several years from now - I don't know. But I do know that I will be making something, I like to create. =)"

Be sure to check out Dmitry's Newgrounds Userpage!

Here's the latest article from Pop Ethos!

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Old School Meets New Wave

Nineteen-year-old Wisconsinite Grey Gerling isn't your typical flash animator. Exploding onto the flash scene just this year, introducing an interesting new style, he has already released 10 shorts and earned numerous awards for his work. Let's see how he got started.

"I'm a late comer to the flash community, I only got involved with it in the last year. I was always fascinated with animation since I was 5 or 6 really, things like Liquid TV rubbed off on me at that age and very probably set me on this course. I dabbled a lot with very primitive things when I was younger, but only picked it up seriously after the awfulness of film school drove me to teach myself how to animate in order to stay sane/survive there."

The main thing that sets his animations apart is his use of traditional art materials rather than digital vectors. Gerling says this evolved from a technical limitation, rather than any conscious decision. "Lack of access to technology when I was young and the fact that I'm rubbish with computers (save for editing software and some very basic knowledge of Flash). The advantage of paper, personally, is the freedom it grants me as I can't draw with computers to save my life, plus I'm not crazy about how my stuff looks done digitally. The main disadvantage here being the ungodly amount of time it takes to do everything by hand. But I find the commitment extremely rewarding in the end."

Gerling hopes to make a decent living from his work someday, but at the moment supports his schooling in other ways, "I'm employed at an office/work study job through the school, but in actuality, I spend all my time at the office working on various animation projects of my own rather than actually do any company work. Hooray! It's almost like I'm getting paid to animate."

"When I graduate (or sooner) I really want to start living off of my work, much the way HomestarRunner and others have done. I honestly want to be doing this the rest of my life. It was sort of my ambition from the very start, and nothing else gives me the satisfaction animating does."

And he's certainly on his way. Just recently Gerling revamped his website, and has plans for future additions. "It wasn't a huge change, but now everything is prettier and more detailed than it was before. I'll definitely be adding much more to the site including a games page, more content, better designs for certain pages, etc."

Gerling leaves us with this final thought. "I'd really like to thank Danielle for always encouraging me and for constantly believing in me. Also thanks to Patrick, Sulek, and Mike for supplying me with awesome tunes...In terms of advice, the surefire way to get out there and succeed is to be original and go with your gut. If something is heading in the right direction, you'll just know if you listen to your instincts. Don't let anyone else drag you down. And practice! Lots."

Be sure to check out Grey Gerling's website and Newgrounds userpage.

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Also visit Pop Ethos for more internet news!