Yes indeed, it is my birthday. Since I live by myself in Philadelphia, and have no friends here, I figured I'd tell Newgrounds. It's been an interesting year, and I've been very happy to have released two animations that I am extremely proud of. Many of my movies in the past were things done on a whim, with three or four hours put into them. On the flip side I've had a movie take over a year to complete. For me to have put out two movies that I'm happy with that didn't take forever to complete is a good feeling.

Since I still get gifts from the family, maybe I'll ask for a Penicorn. Or perhaps a sweet CC figure. I'm also considering picking up Borderlands. As for future projects, they're all still in the works, but with Grad school going full tilt, it's getting difficult to find the time to work on stuff. I have 2.5 projects in the mix, so I'll post more on that later.

As a gift to NG for my birthday, I decided to make a quick speed-paint. Took about an hour (which is speed for me). Now to go sit by myself in my empty apartment and cry until I fall asleep. Happy birthday.... to... me...............

Greetings Hebrews and Shebrews. For anyone who has noticed my absence in the last month, there's a reason for it. I moved to Philadelphia mid September (the 12th) to begin Grad school at Drexel University. Tonight is the first night since living here that I've had the internet. W00ty w00t~!

Here are some fun things that have happened since I've moved - My car broke down. My Hard Drive failed. I haven't had internet, even though it was "turned on" a week ago. I had packages that were sent to me that were never delivered, causing me to drive places with a car that doesn't work. While trying to fix my computer, I cut my finger, bleeding all over my motherboard, causing more damage. I caught AIDS. Well, I didn't get aids, but that's probably next.

That being said, I'm really enjoying my time here so far. My classes are cool, my peers are cool, and multiple faculty members/students are very aware of Tom/Other staff members/Newgrounds in general. I meant to show a picture of me with my NG certificate in this post, but I haven't received it, nor anything else from NG - which worries me. I updated my address a while ago, but I know how NG staff basically have to send things themselves so it probably takes some time. Anyways.

My hard drive is dead. I don't know how much can be recovered, nor when things can be recovered. Me being a digital media major means that fucking sucks. I have a replacement, and I backed up most of my stuff. BUT..... Outlaw pt.2 wasn't backed up. I have my fingers crossed that I can get that stuff restored, but who knows.... It's just one more slap to the face with a dong I've received while living here. Anyways, I bet this is bordering on the "tl;dr" length, so with in closing - here is my illustration that was rejected for the calendar contest. Enjoy, and I hope to return to contributing to NG soon.

Hey there Newgrounds. I've had a lot of spare time lately, and realized I hadn't submitted anything new to the Art Portal since it came out. I decided to make some Megaman fan art specifically so I could upload something. Since Megaman and Steampunk are two of the most exploited things in the world, I thought I'd combine the two to make me the coolest human being on the planet. Turns out I've been un-scouted for the second time though. I'm not sure how that keeps happening.

As for Po3, I've picked up a programmer and we're hard at work putting it together. It's coming along at a steady pace so we'll see how it plays out.

Sprites ftw

In other news, my room is infested with bees. I woke up today by getting stung on the foot. I'm kind of pissed about it. Needless to say, that bee is super dead, and the rest will join it in hell shortly.

Hello Newgrounders, how's it going? I thought I'd burn a front page post to update you all on my status these days. I've finally found a place to live in Philadelphia, and will be attending Drexel at the end of September. As that counts down, I've been laying the hammer down on the Po3 game. Sadly, I wasted so much time trying to find a place to live, and visiting other parts of the country that our programmer FrostedMuffins0 started school - and no longer has any free time at all to work on the game.

Most of the progress during the summer had been conceptual, and the sprites I had for it weren't up to snuff, so I rebooted the art style. It's currently almost 100% FBF animation. The link below will show you a combo attack, which will be one of hopefully a lot. There's plenty more sprites where that came from btw.

Combo #1

Dash and Run Sprites respectively
Dash
run

The main character may be familiar to you. If you are interested in becoming the programmer of this project, either shoot me a PM, leave a message here, or talk to me on AIM. The idea Frosted and I had come up with was very ambitious, so I need someone who knows his code, and has enough free time to bang out the code in the next month or two.

If I don't get any takers, or those interested only have a few games averaging 1.70 in the portal, I guess I'll have to put it on hold indefinitely. I'll still continue to work on it, as it's pretty fun to make the sprites. I'll just have to pull a Duke Nukem Forever. I'd hate to disappoint anyone expecting to play this, especially Tom, so I hope someone steps up to the plate.

In other news, I'd like to thank everyone who watched and reviewed Crotchless Chaps. I'm glad a majority of you liked it, even if it didn't satisfy you FBF-nazi's. Outlaw pt.2 is also still in development. I'm going to go drink some beer now - and with that, I leave you this.

Hey guys, just submitted Crotchless Chaps to the portal. It's been a bumpy ride with that one, which you can read about now if you'd like.

It started when I visited the NG Office a few months back. I was talking with members of the staff, and brought up how lip syncing sucked, and took forever. Stamper brought up how he just punched in the numbers to change the mouths, and I had no idea what he was talking about. When I looked into it further, I figured out that I had been lip syncing like a fucking idiot all this time, and there was a 100x faster/easier way. I won't even tell you how I used to do it because it'll make me look like a full blown retard.

Anyways, after that discovery, I wanted to try it out, so I threw this script together, and started animating thinking it was going to take a couple weeks. Triple that, and that's about how long it took to make. Add another week of working out all the bugs, and it's finally finished. After all the bullshit I went through to make this work, I might seriously consider never using flash again. Not even kidding. Thanks a lot to my buddy Nick Fox, MindChamber, JohnnyUtah, and Mike for taking time out of their day to help me out.

Anyways, hope you like it. Now its back to my other "real" projects. Shit.

My internet is going to be shut off any minute probably, so I thought I'd make a post while I can. It's been a while since my last, so I guess I've got a lot of stuff to discuss with you sexy people.

First off, the Art Portal is pimp. Check out my art if you'd like to get a small glimpse at what stuff I do. I only have character stuff up right now, but once I have the time (and the internet again some day), I'll upload some more in-depth artwork. I think its really cool to see what artists are capable on NG - to see if they can illustrate as well as animate. Granted a shitload of users see the portal as an opportunity to show off their furry fan-art, Sonic based characters, DBZ mash-ups, and pictures of drawings they made on lined paper using a 1 megapixel camera phone - it is still filled with a lot of talent. I'm excited to see how it evolves. (And for some reason I was scouted, and then unscouted, and then scouted again. No idea why.)

Power of 3 is going along great. FrostedMuffins and I have laid down an extremely solid design, and character art/animations are looking tighter and tighter. You should probably get a little bit excited, if only for the fact that Rig is making our music, and the coder of Red Baron and Da Pink Knight is throwing it together.

I visited the Newgrounds Office recently with Radioactive24, which he already posted about. It was a crazy place. We showed up at the door and Tom was there and told us to "Fuck off, you fucking losers. Just because you like my website doesn't mean you should bother us with your stupid shit."

Just kidding, Tom is the man. Very approachable and happy to shoot the shit, as well as Stamper who was kind enough to take time out of his schedule to chill on the roof. This was a planned visit, so to all you kiddies thinking its cool to just show up - don't. Even when it was planned they didn't have a lot of time to have us in their faces asking them about Keeblur 2. Bob kicked us out without a moments hesitation but as I looked back, I saw a tear in his eye. I didn't get to make it to Wizards of Might and Magic the Gathering Con, since I had to visit the family with the GF this past weekend, so I got to miss out on meeting most of the NG big-wigs. Maybe next time :*(

Finally, I'm still working on Outlaw pt2. It's going well, and to all the voice actors who sent me stuff, I haven't forgotten about you. I'm still finalizing things, and working on the Power of 3 game - as well as a secret project that will be released in the very near future. Here's what people are saying from the sneak peak.

Anigen- "This is so good I think I like men now."
My Mom - "Go to your room."

Here's a pick to wet your stuff. LOOK AT MY ART NOW

After many months of hard consideration, FrostedMuffins and myself decided to go with Rig as our team musician. The team goes as follows:

Artist: BiffTheTimid
Programmer: FrostedMuffins
Musician: Rig

To all those who expressed your interest, thanks a shitload. If it wasn't ^3, I'd have chosen most of you (not all, but most). I have other projects in mind that will require a musician, so you might be getting a PM from me soon.

Which brings me to project updates. I am currently working on two other animations, one of which is Outlaw pt. 2. Things are starting to really fall into place, so I will need voice actors. I have potentially 7 roles to fill, and if I don't have enough takers I'll just fill them myself. One of them is female, and one of them is a young boy (could also be female). So if you are interested, either drop a message below with a link to a demo reel, or PM me with one with the title (VOICE ACTING - NOT SEX) - I get so many sex requests I'll look over yours otherwise.

As for the ^3 project, things are going smooth. Character animations are being ironed out, and maybe you'll get to see them some day soon. I haven't told my team, but I'm changing the idea from what I had in my previous post to this:

You play as a guy with a Fedora with disembodied hands, who's one arm can turn into a mallet, and can turn his whole body into origami. He also has a baseball bat, and gets attacked by a soy based monster. And has a Rocket Crotch. You may ask, "BiffTheTimid, how did you come up with such an original idea all on your own?" To which I would have to reply, "White People, Black People." See the picture below.

(I drew this in 10 minutes. DONATE A WACOM TABLET TO ME, AND DONATE MONEY... AND SFIV)

ps. Don't donate stuff to me.
double ps. I didn't really change my game idea.

Hello Newgrounders. After a long and fantastical adventure, FrostedMuffins (who is also teamed with MindChamber) and I have decided to join up together to create a game for the Power of Three event. He is the co-creator of Da Pink Knight - an incredible game (so go play that shit, seriously, I'm not fucking around here. It has medals. Earn them.)

We both discussed an idea for what we could create, and have pretty much locked down the concept. However, before we go any further, we'll need a very talented musician to help us. The game is going to be very musically based (but an action game as well), and it is important we find someone versatile and can handle their shit. I received PM's of people interested a while ago, but I didn't get a chance to respond since I didn't have a partner yet. So if I didn't get back to you, feel free to leave me a link down below again. Look down below to see a character concept that I created. Chiggity Check it out.

On a completely unrelated note, The Street Fighter Collab is finally out. I have to say that it is definitely one of the best compilations of flash I've seen on Newgrounds. Even if you don't find it funny (which you will), at least appreciate all the hard work every single author put into it. I've got a part in it, so feel free to check it out. I'm not going to say which ones are my favorites, because a) that's kind of a dick thing to do and b) no one really cares anyways. Either way, go and watch that shit because it's hilarious. Yeah, I have the Yodelay-hee-hoo achievement. I didn't know I was going to get it. I just like clicking dicks on the screen.

GAME CONCEPT <Larger Version

I've been coming to Newgrounds for a very long time, and since I have very little going on today, I thought I might take some time to write about the evolution of this website and me along with it. This will probably turn into a ridiculously long and boring read, and will probably reach what I like to refer as the "Kirbopher-Length". If you don't want to read about Newgrounds, go watch this instead.

The very first thing that brought me to Newgrounds was Pico's School. At that time there wasn't a thing called the portal. It was just a collection of funny movies and games. To be honest, I can barely remember what the site looked like at the time. I enjoyed Pico's School a lot, and hadn't really experienced anything quite like it. I knew that flash existed, but I hadn't realized that you could do things like this with it. I then found out about other games featuring the Pico characters such as Nene's Interactive Suicide, and Pico Roulette. I loved that shit, so I decided to keep checking out the site for new stuff. Killing Celebrities was a great fun, as well as clubbing seals.

Since updates were rather slow, I'd check for new content every now and then. FDA (Fuck Dat' Ass) had some hilarious music videos, but made you take a quiz that you had to pass before you could watch the video (wtf?). Other games by Tom like Samurai Asshole kept me coming, but as with most other sites at the time, I would check it in passing.

Then the portal came into existence. That shit changed the rules of the game. Anyone could post their animations, and slowly but surely people started to turn out some incredible stuff. If you haven't seen movies like Big Black Guy Named Ben, Star Wars Lo Mein, Barnyard Shenanigans, or Blundercats, you're a fucking dickhead. Things like Final Task and Heroes of Cybertron changed my perspective on shit. Also, looking back, I have no idea why, but ABC's made me laugh until I cried.

However, one of the greatest movies I had ever seen on Newgrounds at the time was Keeblur. Though it might not quite live up to today's standards, it still stands as an epic comedy. My buddies and I watched it so many times I could easily quote the entire thing. That movie made me want to learn how to use flash, and that same week I downloaded a free trial and started learning all I could. Later I would see screenshots for Keeblur 2, and they looked fucking sick. Sadly.... I have yet to see the follow up.

Newgrounds continued to evolve. The Front page became more coherent and unified. Flash became more cutting edge, and began to truly resemble more mainstream, big budget animation. More and more classics came out. With the community growing, spam started to become a regular occurrence, and the Clock Crew came into existence. It was actually one of them that made me make my first ever movie on NG. I left a review on a movie called Birdy, and shortly after, the creator messaged me calling me a "fag", or something along those lines, and that I should learn to make flash. I said I could make a movie in two days that scored higher than his. And while I was successful, that movie I made fucking suuuuuckssssss. Even to the standards of the time. In the future, I would go on to make a few Clock Day movies, on a different account. Anyone know what they are?

Not too much longer after that, the movie Genryu's Blade came out. I still think that is one of the greatest animations I've seen, and while it's no longer on Newgrounds (I think the animator got sued), you can still find it on the internet somewhere. That movie inspired me to create animation that is worthwhile, and not just in passing. Another favorite of mine, The Steven Segal Show (also no longer on newgrounds) cemented that ideal.

As the years passed I made a few animations here and there. Nothing special, but in my mind I was biding my time until I could solidify an idea that I would hopefully turn into the greatest animation ever. I wanted that spot on the front page, and though it seemed unattainable, I knew some day it would happen. That day did eventually come, with Random Eye Madness. It was a class project, and looking back, the project that took a month at the time would probably take me a weekend now a days. It's nothing special, but I learned a lot.

The following year I made a few other random projects, all the while biding my time until I was ready to start making my "serious" movie. One was a class project, one took an evening, and the other took a weekend. I made the front page with V-dub Spoof, which again, isn't that great but was fun to make.

Later in the year, I began to notice a growing trend. That trend was "poorly animated video-game parodies". It had been around for a long time, but never had it been as popular as it was then. I thought it'd be a good time to poke fun at them, and started animating How to Succeed on Newgrounds during my spare time in class. I even did some of the audio recording there, which in retrospect is pretty funny. After a few days of work I finished it, and released it in the morning. I went to class, and later that night I returned to see that it was on the front page, and had a ridiculously high score. That's always a huge surprise, especially when you think it's going to be blammed. I had also been working on a serious film in class, and that had been a good break from all the hard work. Later the following year I released Outlaw pt.1 to mixed reviews, which which was major disappointment after I had spent a year (on and off) working on it.

As all this happened, I think the largest change in Newgrounds since the introduction to the portal came into effect. Newgrounds gave its users an opinion.

With the introduction of user pages, users could now give their opinion on anything. Before, the only way you could get to know an artist was through their reviews, and their animations (or the Forums, but I rarely went there). With the introduction to user pages, people had a voice. Sometimes that voice was ugly, obnoxious, or spiteful. Sometimes it was inspirational, or insightful. Either way, it opened the floodgates, and has begun to facilitate countless debates on all things Newgrounds, as well as the world in general. It's interesting to see a community that both bites and embraces the hand that feeds.

I've seen Newgrounds evolve for the better over the ten odd years I've been coming here (I joined much later than I started being a regular). There used to not be a blue or green shade for portal entries. A very high score was once considered to be in the 4.15-4.25 range, which has inflated to 4.35-4.45 or so. The front page now has separate categories for both movies and games (which wasn't the case back in the day). There is a thriving audio portal that has an incredible pool of free music to choose from. Newgrounds now shares ad revenue which should be interesting to see how it works out in the long run. The search function actually works now. I have recieved the front page 5 times now, and I still document each one with a screen shot. It's still just as exciting as the first time.

I'm sure there are plenty of influences I'm leaving out. I still quote College University in my daily life, Tomorrows Nobodies is still great (especially the older ones), and if I got into all the serious cartoons I liked my character limit would run out. Everything that has come out on Newgrounds has influenced me in some way, and will continue to do so for as long as the site exists.

I will continue to create animations, and have several in production currently. More information on that will come once they start to resemble a coherent movie. So for all of you who enjoyed Pico Epsilon, I'm very grateful that you enjoyed it. For all of you who thought it sucked, if you gave me legitimate criticism, I respectfully listened to it. For all of you who thought Nene looked a bit manly, I agree and will fix it some time (I promise I know how to draw women). For those who hated the >9000 reference, I had no idea people would like it that much. There will be more serious movies from me, and I hope they surpass Epsilons quality. Since I don't have less than a month to meet a deadline, I imagine it will.

I hope you've enjoyed this retrospective. I know it's long as shit, but like I said at the top, I don't have much going on today, and thought at least someone would find it interesting. The times seem to be changing. More attention is being paid to original movies, while popular video-game parody series aren't immediately making it to the Top 50. To the people who have recently joined Newgrounds, I hope you don't take for granted how good it is now. And who knows what is to come. Maybe a "sent messages" section in the inbox? CRAZY!!!

I finally got "Pico Epsilon" posted in the portal. I didn't decide to actually make a movie until halfway through March, and worked on it pretty steadily. I got about half-way through when all of a sudden Flash (CS3) would keep crashing whenever I opened the file. Luckily I make back-ups so I didn't lose everything, but without getting too technical, I needed to fix whatever was causing the crash, or I'd be screwed.

I spent about a week trying to figure that out before I started to lose hope. After a lot of researching, I couldn't find any way to fix it. I asked around to people on NG, and everyone was very helpful, but I still couldn't get the damn file to open. I went through the "good" copy frame by frame to see what was creating the crash. After about another three days, I found out it was a motion-guide in one of the scenes that somehow corrupted the file.

I removed it and made a new one, and BOOYAH, it worked. I went back into full production, and animated my ass off. I've spent full days animating, and thought I was on a great pace to make it on time for Pico Day. Annnnnnnd then it became corrupt again. So rather than waste any time researching the problem, I just went throught he movie frame by frame again to get it fixed. Sadly, by the time I found it, I was way behind schedual. I've spent the last three days getting everything working and stable. It's now almost 6am, because I was determined not to sleep until I got it to work.

So it's finally finished, and I can rest easy. I hope that even though it's a few days late, it's still considered for the collection, and I really really really fucking hope people enjoy it, because I'd hate to have busted my ass only to underwhelm people. I'll probably update this post in the morning when I've gotten some much needed sleep. 'Night.

_______

After getting some sleep, and being able to see the light of day again, I've returned to see a warm reception to the flash. Thank you all for the comments and reviews, and I'll try to respond to as much as I can.

Some fun facts about making the movie

Show's that I've watched while animating:
Family Guy Seasons 3, 4, 5, & 6
Arrested Development Seasons 2 & 3
The Office Seasons 3 & 4
Venture Brothers Seasons 1 & 2
Robot Chicken Season 3
South Park Season 11

Movies I watched:
Unforgiven
The Man Who Wasn't There
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Open Range
How Stella Got Her Groove Back

EXTRA FUN FACTS

Frame Rate: 24 fps
Scenes: 107
Frames: No Idea
Objects: Around 600 (some were scenes within scenes, etc.)
Times The Movie Corrupted: Twice
Days Spent Trying to fix it: Around 13-15
40's Drank While animating: 1
Times I hit Ctrl-z: 25,000,000
Does anyone actually care about those mundane details?