Interview No. 105

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is known far and wide throughout Newgrounds as well as the rest of the Internet. His video game parodies have achieved him critical acclaim with his works with Metal Gear Awesome, PSP Squirrels, and Girlchan in Paradise. His other works include his voice acting ranging from Gameoverse, to the Press Start series, and to the video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. He is well recognized on YouTube for his two series being Sequelitis and Game Grumps. Today we welcome with open arms, @Egoraptor.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: I don't even remember how I found it, but I've been around since The Teletubbies assassin stuff. Before the portal. It was all strange and unlike television, like it felt subversive, and fresh. Like you couldn't get anything like this anywhere else. I think once the Portal existed I joined 'cause I wanted to review stuff, but secretly because I wanted to submit stuff. It took a while for me to finally do it, but I did!

Q: When did you get into animation?

A: I guess I was always into it... I made flipbooks when I was in my single digits. I think my first flipbook was from a cereal box, and I was just fucking amazed that you could do the stuff I saw on TV in this little booklet. I immediately grabbed a stack of post-it notes and flipbooked everywhere. Even in my text books... some of my sketchbooks have a flipbook in the corner. It was nuts.

Q: At what age were you introduced to video games and what video game inducted you so to speak?

A: I had video games since as long as I can remember. My Dad had an NES he got from buying a car and I used to ask him to beat the hard parts for me in Mario. He had a dingy basement we'd play Dr. Mario in all the time. I guess my whole life I just grew up playing them, but really, it wasn't until I saw a cosplay group of Jet Grind Radio where I was like "Woah." Like, this is a thing. This isn't just something my friends and I talked about. Something inside me clicked and I saved my money and bought a Dreamcast at a pawn shop, and Jet Grind Radio at Target. It was coincidentally the only Dreamcast game they had left. I was convinced it was destiny, or something. Once I started playing it, I just felt like something was right. I started thinking more and more about video games from that point on and didn't really look back.

Q: Your first movie would be the start of a groundbreaking series on the Internet and that would be Metal Gear Awesome. Where did the inspiration come for this and what all can you tell me about the process of bringing it together?

A: Well when I was younger I had a lot of self confidence issues (still do), but I always thought the thing I liked to do wasn't what I could make a living out of. I built up enough courage to say, you know what, I think I can make it at this voice acting thing, so I started practicing and doing lines for peoples' cartoons on Newgrounds. I got really addicted to doing a (really bad) Snake impression and I did it for a handful of movies, but then it "dried up" so to speak and I didn't get anymore roles. But I wanted more roles, so I wrote my own script. I wrote it in about 4 or 5 minutes, just banging on the keyboard a bunch of nonsense of how I remember the first hour or so of the game went. I did all the voices and felt satisfied, but for some reason got Kira Buckland to do the voice of Meryl... I guess I just really wanted her to sound feminine and didn't want to use my own voice for her. I think having had her do the voices for me drove me to want to make something out of it, so I mixed it together and trudged through Flash since all my friends were using it. I had no fucking clue what I was doing, but I managed, I guess. I just drew it all bad on purpose 'cause I guess that was the "style" of it, or something. I took a lot of inspiration from Homestar Runner's "The Yellow Dello" because it had a lot of off-model stuff, and I liked that. I thought it was funny. It took me a long time to finish because I kept putting it off, but once I finished it, all my friends urged me to release it on Newgrounds. I was really against it, I thought it would get blammed. It didn't really stack up to any other work on the site I liked, and I thought my humor was a little bit esoteric. Like who the fuck else would think this is funny but me and maybe a handful of other people? But the next day I got an IM, I think it was from Anigen, who told me it was on frontpage, and I was like, uh, what?

Q: Most of your movies are parodies, with the awesome tag. Thus adding your bizarre sense of humor. The pacing is fast and the timing is perfect. When it comes to writing a script for your Awesome Parodies, where do you begin and when do you know where to stop?

A: It's just a mess. I just think of something that makes me laugh and I just go. I stop when I feel like I delivered the joke enough. Metal Gear Awesome is special because it's just a timeline of the game, so it's not just a one-off joke. Sometimes I'll come up with an idea playing the game, or driving somewhere, or in the shower, I dunno. I just have to write it down right when I come up with it or else I'll forget it. lol I guess the ultimate answer is that I feel it out. It it seems like it works, I just do it, and see if it works.

Q: When did you meet Ed Glaser and how did you become a part of the Press Start series?

A: I don't remember exactly how our friendship started. I think he e-mailed me and asked me to be a voice for his film as the talking tree. I thought I did a good job but looking back it's atrocious. I couldn't pull off a deep voice to save my life. I guess he liked something about me 'cause he asked me again and again to do voices for his cartoons, and they're really pretty well written, so I kept doing it. I think what I like most about working on them is that he gives me a lot of freedom and often gives me different characters each time, so I don't stagnate. A lot of my favorite voices I have, I used in Press Start Adventures.

Q: Out of all your video game parodies, one of my all-time favorites has to be PSP Squirrels. Where did the inspiration for this come from? Also do you believe that emotions play a big role in making a parody?

A: Thanks man, I like that one too. When I was younger I wanted to ad-lib and practice voice acting to crack up my friends or whatever. AIM let you hit like, F9 or something, and then record a 10 second audio clip and send it in the chat window. I'm so sad they got rid of it because it was so amazingly fun. Anyway, sometimes I had some idea I wanted to run with that'd last longer than 10 seconds, so I'd open up a program and just run with it. PSP Squirrels was one of the billion of those I did, and I thought it was one of the best. Something about it called for me to put visuals to it, probably because it was based on such a visually memorable commercial. As far as emotions affecting me... I guess maybe. I don't consciously think about that stuff, like, when I hear an artist like "I tried to personify my anger in this piece" I don't really understand that. Whenever I try that it feels forced, because when I draw I don't really remain angry, or anything. lol. I start out angry and then I kinda forget about it and focus on drawing. I guess to me it's more about vision. There's something I want to convey, and I strive to do it.

Q: Girlchan in Paradise is in my opinion a very interesting parody on anime while at the same time being something cleverly written to still be an engaging little story. There was a lot that has gone into this series. Where did the idea come from? How did you form this team and what was the process all of you took into working on this series?

A: Girlchan stemmed from a skype conference in which we totally just made fun of anime. The first episode was pretty much verbatim the conversation.

Q: Out of all your works, one of my all-time favorites has to be 3rd Grade Transformers. The writing, the pacing, the characters, the dialogue, the animation, everything about it is perfect. It is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen on Newgrounds. What is your history with Transformers and your thoughts on the Michael Bay movies? How did the writing start for this? What was the process you took in animating it?

A: Hahaha wow, that's literally the first time I've ever heard that. Thanks man. I grew up watching Beast Wars and that's really my only childhood interaction with them, but I LOVED Beast Wars and I had a lot of toys from it. Whenever I visited the Newgrounds office Mindchamber's desk was covered in Transformers and it brought back a warm feeling in me, like it was so much fun to look at them and play with them and transform them. We all saw Transformers Revenge of the Fallen together at the office and afterwards we decided to do another Blamformers collab in-office. Most of them got canned but mine and Johnny Utah's were some of the only survivors. I just like, watched that movie and was like, wow, this is written by a 5 year old. The idea was instantaneous. HappyHarry really made it shine. I came up to his desk and said "I need like a school play old lady piano version of the transformers theme for my collab part" and in like 10 minutes, he barfed up these amazing like 5 or 6 different renditions of it, complete with flubs and crescendos and I was like... this is better than I could've ever imagined. Animating it was easy, because there was only one background. When I cut to the audience members, I had gotten so used to not doing backgrounds that I just made it black. Like I did NOT want to draw another background.

Q: Gameoverse is an interesting series you would be giving your contributions to. What can you tell me about working with RubberNinja. Also what input did you have in this series?

A: I love Game O Verse and I still say it's some of my best voicework ever. Ross has an uncanny talent at picking the best lines out of a bunch of takes. Like, without fail. He bounces scripts back and forth with me to tell him if I like them or not, but I always respect that it's his project and my advice is just that, advice.

Q: You would get to work with Ed Gould on his movie WTFuture. How did it feel getting to work with Ed and what are your thoughts on his passing?

A: Yeah Edd dying was a big bummer, he was a really cool dude and I think his situation humbled him to superhuman levels. He just asked me to do a voice and I did it, 'cause I really dug his comedy. We didn't talk much, but you can imagine I wish that went a little differently all things considered.

Q: Open Letter to Game Devs is an interesting and fast parody. Would this parody soon lead to the hilarious yet informative video game show Sequelitis? Also what all can you tell us about Sequelitis?

A: A little bit maybe, I like being critical of games in a subversive way. People seem to always just be like "ohh this game has bad graphics" or "they took out item mapping" or some shit but nobody is critical of the stuff that really makes a game bad.

Q: When AlmightyHans was here we talked about a collaboration entitled Contact. How did you get involved in this project and how did it feel working with these other artists?

A: It was just something silly Hans put together while we were all visiting the Newgrounds Office. I don't remember who wrote it aside from Hans but it was mostly just me doing a voice for it and laughing at the results. It really was funny.

Q: Alright, let me see if I got this. Egorapture is a movie telling people to stop bitching about others supposedly copying you? If not then could you give us some more background on this movie?

A: Hahaha well I think Spazkid was a bit tired of people telling him he was copying me. I think his style is really distinct and I thought his concept for the cartoon was funny since I've seen it happen a lot of times for other artists as well. I really don't get it sometimes. I didn't invent funny faces and yelling.

Q: How did you become involved in Ed Glaser's Space Ninja series?

A: Ed just asks me to do voices all the time. I like him so I have no problem saying yes, haha.

Q: As a voice actor what tips do you have to give to those who are looking to share their voices with the world?

A: Just do it, get it out there, record a demo, send it to folk. If you have nothing to show, nobody's going to care that you can do a great impression of Peter Griffin.

Q: You would be the voice of Dr. Bruce Banner in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. For those who don't know who Dr. Banner is, could you please tell them, also how did you come across getting this voice and what was it like to do it?

A: Banner is the alter ego of The Hulk. I got the role from entering an online voice contest they were having. I almost deleted the congratulations email... "You won!" How many times do you get that emailed to you a day in the form of spam? It was interesting, they flew me out to LA for the first time in my life and I got to record in a studio for the first time. I'm sure I was a wreck, they sent me the disc with all of my assets on it and I refuse to listen to it.

Q: You have also did voice work for the video game remake of Death Rally, as the character John Gore. How did you get this opportunity and what was it like working with these people? Also who is John Gore and how did you find the voice for him?

A: John Gore is a nice little piece of my voice past. These dudes over at Mountain Sheep were swell enough to ask me if I'd like to voice their surly main character. I totally said yes, I mean look at that game, it's beautiful, and it's an iPhone game! Finding the voice was easy. They wanted some kind of variant of my Awesome Snake voice, and that's one of my favorites to do. Funny story, doing Minigore was the first time I ever completely lost my voice. I went to bed that night and looked in the mirror, opened my mouth and nothing came out. I was pretty scared.

Q: When did you meet Doug Walker, also known as the Nostalgia Critic?

A: I met him at Shadocon in Tampa, Florida. Good times we've had that Doug and I. Good times.

Q: What can we expect from Egoraptor in the future?

A: Lots of cartoons and definitely more Game Grumps, that's for sure. Sequelitis galore... and hopefully some new long-form animations if I can ever muster up the courage to tackle those.

Despite this funny face yelling man's bizarre sense of humor, his animating, his timing, his pacing, all of these are perfect in many ways. His voice acting is quite top notch as well. Egoraptor like all who have crossed paths with The Interviewer was interesting to interview, but at the same time he comes off as just very plain. He is just like you or me. Yeah many others who have been interviewed have shown us their human sides, but Egoraptor seems to have two sides to him... one we see here and one we see through his works.

Interview No. 104

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest has been with us once before. Truthfully he was here when The Interviewer was just starting out. Since his last time here he has composed songs such as Winter at the Castle, The American Child, and has participated in the Represent A Country 7 [Contest] with his entry I'm Saving Her Life. He has also composed music for the Newgrounds collaboration entitled Redhand. Within this time he has been working on his project "Quest of Eve". He is once again @Bosa.

Q: We spoke about your musical creations. One thing we did not talk about though is how you discovered music and what inspired you to make it?

A: When I was three years old, I had a toy piano which I played with constantly every day. I so much enjoyed it that when I turned seven, I started playing on a larger keyboard and playing music that sounded good to me. I also seen a film about a blind boy who learned how to play piano and later became one of the leading pianists in the nation. That movie is what inspired me to really begin playing deeper into music.

Q: One song that I did not bring up would be entitled The Cottage. You said it was based off a book you wrote. What can you tell us about the book and how the song correlates with it?

A: Going back in time, aren't we? Well, it wasn't much of a book. It was more of a short story depicting a young woodcutter who lived out near the forest. He soon encounters a witch and must soon defeat her with the help of an imprisoned fairy. I focused the story towards a children audience. I actually vaguely remember expanding on the song a long time ago, but it's been so long that I've forgotten most of my innovative composition ideas from years ago.

Q: What was the Wise Words Competition?

A: It was an attempt to express the intellect and creative minds of Newgrounds by seeing who could come up with their own most profound and original quote. It was quite extraordinary to see what people came up with off the top of their heads, but the contest itself didn't expand quite as much as I would have liked. Still, I wouldn't mind hosting such a contest again in the future.

Q: When I speak with different musicians, one question I have for them is "what is in your opinion the definition of music". You had an interesting way of describing music. When asking for musicians for Quest of Eve you stated...

"When it comes time to create music, we intend to look beyond what we are expecting; to break through to the other side or to simply outdo what we first had in mind. What I've come to realize over this new age of music is that when we create a story, the music we choose will captivate the listeners and instill the inner beauty of our creations."

Do you still agree with this statement? Whatever your answer could you expand on it?

A: Yes. Basically, to put what I said in layman's terms: our goal as musicians should be to go beyond our own talent, or what we believe are our limitations. We must not restrict ourselves to what resources we possess or compositional ideas we have, instead we must take what we got and go beyond what we expect to accomplish. If you have a plan in mind for a song, and when you go to create that song, you should go way beyond your original plan and create something that instills your inimitable creations into the hearts of your listeners.

Q: When looking through your works, I never brought up your bluegrass works. The Babb Boys and The Working Man are two of them. How did you acquire the fascination with bluegrass?

A: I live in Tennessee. I grew up with bluegrass gospel, and I still love it. 'Nuff said.

Q: You also have a taste for the Celtic music as well. With Cronnin's Hornpipe, Miss Dumphy's Hornpipe, and one of my favorites by you, Rolling Waves. When were you introduced to the Celtic music and what about it appeals to you?

A: Where I live, we have a celtic festival once a year. I've only been to it once in my whole life, but the music and instruments that I was subjected to astounded me. The armor and weapons were cool, but the instruments (this is where I first witnessed someone playing a dulcimer in front of me) amazed me. The reason I was able to easily replicate the celtic instruments in my songs was because of that festival.

Q: The Beanstalk is truly an epic and serene piece. Where did the inspiration for this come from and what was the process in writing it?

A: I honestly don't remember much. I kinda wish I kept some documents or wrote down my creative thoughts back then; it's hard for me to remember things from so long ago. However, based on what little I do remember, I think I was inspired by King's Quest. In the game, you get to a point to where you must climb a beanstalk and slay a giant with a sling and stone (like David and Goliath). On the other hand, I may have been inspired by a story I used to read as a child called 'Jack and the Beanstalk.' I believe the latter is what I was inspired by the most, but my memory fails me these days unfortunately.

Q: We now come to a song that is a bit touchy and if you do not wish to answer I can understand. Pure of Heart. Who is Rachel, what can you tell us about her, and what came to be of this song?

A: I can't say much about Rachel, but this song was written for her. I can say that she loved it however. I've been told that 'Pure of Heart' and 'Your Prelude' are two of my most adored songs. It seems that when my songs are based upon real love, I get a better response. Quite intriguing.

Q: Winter at the Castle would be a new style for you. What new things did you experiment here that you haven't done in the past?

A: Angelic choir and disney-like music. I sorta introduced a medieval style in 'Princess Marion,' and in 'Winter at the Castle,' I expanded on that style. I really experimented on harp effects and boys choir, not to mention what more I could do with bells and metals. In 'A Young Mind,' you might say that I was experimenting heavily on bells, so I suppose I used that experimentation in this song as well.

Q: An uplifting fanfare of birth and life. We come to The American Child. I have reviewed it once already giving my thoughts and stating that it had hints to another song of yours The Last Game. What can you tell me about both of these songs? Am I seeing a subconscious correlation or am I imagining things. If so can you fill in the blanks?

A: Again, we go back in time. I actually didn't notice the similarities at first. I suppose that there is a subconscious memory of my past creations that may reappear from time to time in my more recent productions. I based 'American Child' on the feelings of a new life joining us in America. There is nothing more beautiful to me than knowing that life still continues to be born in a world that hates life. I do know for a fact what I based 'The Last Game' on however. I based that song on the NFL Superbowl I was watching (the same with Casted Life). Sorry if I disappointed you with such elementary inspiration.

Q: What is Represent A Country 7 [Contest] and what can you tell us about your entry I'm Saving Her Life?

A: It's a contest where you must represent a country of your choice and win by popular vote. You must create a song that will define the brilliance and intellectual superiority of your country. I chose the USA for obvious reasons, but also because I wanted to present the best country with the best music, haha. I based the song I made on some contemporary movies and video games that youth enjoy. Games like Mass Effect and Call of Duty, movies like Star Trek and Black Hawk Down both played a heavy role in its creation.

Q: You are one who got to participate with a lot of creative people of Newgrounds in the movie Redhand. How did you come across this project and what was it like working on it?

A: With Quest of Eve, I was able to meet a lot of talented flash artists. One of them began working on their own project and of course my music for Quest of Eve was well known by the team. It was a matter of time before I began helping others on their own projects. I don't remember much, but I can say that 'Redhand' was a remarkable flash production and I truly enjoyed working on it.

Q: When we last spoke, Boutista Entertainment was just born and Quest of Eve was just getting on its feet. Where are both of these now?

A: I know you understand that I'm not saying anything about Quest of Eve at this moment, but I am entitled to say that Boutista Entertainment will be known as Kingdom Crown Entertainment in the future.

Q: Not all of your music can be found here on Newgrounds. Some of it is on Reverbnation. What can you tell us about Reverbnation?

A: I don't spend a lot of time on the site, so I'm not too familiar with the more recent features. But back in the day, I remember joining up simply because I may have been able to gain a profit from it. Also, me and MaestroRage were pretty tight back then and we both shared our own ideas -- Reverbnation was suggested to me by him.

Q: What can we expect from Bosa in the future?

A: You're definitely going to see more cinematic music. A lot of my future titles may be moving away from my style from long ago, but I hope that I'll make some good decisions when it comes to music. I may change it up from time to time, but Neo-Orchestral is going to be my more prominent genre.

Bosa was one of the musicians who introduced me to Newgrounds. With the varieties of his works he is certainly a fascinating fellow with a story to tell. He chooses to tell his stories through music and bears that you listen a while to the notes that he has brought to you. It was a pleasure to interview him again and to see him still hard at work on his creations truly does inspire me, and I hope it inspires the other creators here as well.

Interview No. 103

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is an interesting fellow. He been with Newgrounds for over 8 Years now and throughout that time he has become a forum regular and a regular of many chat services that Newgrounds has participated in. With the release of the Newgrounds Chat, he has become a Chat Moderator. He has an interesting story to tell of his experiences and life, he is @GoryBlizzard.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: I found NG through a friend at school and checked it out in March 2000--I was only in 4th grade back then. I would find myself back here on and off over the next 3 years to watch an occasional movie or play the occasional game, and this wasn't all that often. In October 2003, I started to develop a real addiction here and I started to actively seek out more games and movies on NG like a lot of other people in my school. I lurked the BBS for a while, and on November 21, 2003, I made a decision to join NG with QueerThugSmasher as my username. That didn't last long though, because I signed back in on December 24, 2003 and decided to change my username to GoryBlizzard instead. I have no plans to change my name ever again since GoryBlizzard has been my main online alias for a while.

Q: Your first post to the Newgrounds forum would be within the thread Morons should be Shot. What drew you to that thread?

A: Nothing significant. At the time, I was just 13, and on that day, I felt exhausted and even highly inebriated because I had a few drinks right after coming home from school. I was in the middle of writing a diary entry on Diaryland and I was googling images of guns to use in that post because I was in one of those moods where I felt like shooting someone. Anything even remotely shooting-related would have caught my attention at the time, and it just happened to be that thread. I posted that same image to the blog that I posted in the thread. Looking back at it now, I feel no pride--just regret. That first post should remain nothing more than a distant memory.

Q: When did you start drinking and why?

A: Time to go 17 years back in time all the way to 1995. I started drinking alcohol when I was 5 at a barbecue in my grandparents' backyard and only out of curiosity, with plenty of adults around. In my then-childish mind, I thought that if all the big old people around me are drinking beer, maybe if I had some, they would treat me with more respect. I asked my dad to open a can of Budweiser for me, and he did. Now, you'd think that at least one person would have a problem with a 5-year-old kid drinking a can of beer, but astonishingly, nobody came up to try to take my beer away. I vaguely remember this blonde lady talking about how cute it was to see me drinking, but that's it. I felt like I could handle the taste just fine.

For the rest of my childhood, I would have an occasional beer with my lunch or dinner whenever my parents bought a pack, and on some days I drank way too much. I started to become curious about liquor at one point, and when I was 8, I asked my mom if it was okay to have a little bit of their Stolichnaya vodka. Well, she did give me a little bit--not even a shot, and my palate just couldn't tolerate it well, but I continued to drink beer. I was 11 when I gave vodka another chance and my experience then wasn't as bad as last time, and later on I just started to drink it more and more. Eventually I started to drink different types of whiskey and rum as well. Before I knew it, I had a real drinking problem, and at such a young age too.

Most of the liquor I've drank throughout my life was around 80 to 101 proof, on average. I was never really into extremely high-proof liquor such as Bacardi 151, Devil's Springs vodka or higher. I'm also not big into absinthe or Sambuca. Starting to drink at an early age really sucks, because I'm paying the price with the way my health is now--just being constantly afraid of seizures and taking levetiracetam ER every 12 hours to suppress them. I hope to eventually be off my medication so that I can start drinking booze again, but that may take a long time--at least 7 years. I don't want my drinking days to be over permanently, but when I drink again, I'm only going to do it in extreme moderation.

Q: When Newgrounds member Livecorpse committed suicide Tom announced it in the thread LiveCorpse Suicide. You commented on this matter. I want to go through each thing one by one, first off how well did you know Livecorpse?

A: On a personal level, I didn't get to know Livecorpse very well. I talked to him on AIM a few times to give him some movie ideas, and he wasn't all that nice to me. The very first post I ever made was in one of his threads, and like everyone else, I had no idea what would eventually happen to him. The whole incident was tragic all around, and it happened less than a month after thecerealkiller died. I remember that being a big deal too at the time.

Q: This is a bit touchy to talk about so if you don't wish to answer then that's fine. In your post about Livecorpse's suicide attempt, you to spoke of your own suicide attempts. It's not an easy thing to think about or even to attempt, it can be a scary ordeal. How many times did you try to take your own life and why? Also what made you decide not to?

A: My previous suicide attempts are too touchy to even think about, let alone talk about. I wish I could go back in time, knowing everything that I know now, and undo the damage I did to myself.

Q: Still in the same thread you state that "there's no such thing as Heaven or Hell. It doesn't matter how you die when the fact of the matter is, in the end, you're dead." Where is your stance on religion? Are you an atheist, agnostic? Were you raised in a religious household and how did you come to drop your faith so to speak?

A: I'm an atheist, much to the chagrin of many of my extended family members. A few months after I was born, I was baptized as a Catholic, but that was my paternal grandmother's idea--she's still alive as of this writing and has always been highly religious. My parents were both raised in religious households, hated it and did me the favor of not raising me like their own parents did. So in short, no, I wasn't raised in a religious household. Just like a lot of other people, there were plenty of hardships in my life, but at least I can say that I never had to worry about waking up early every Sunday morning to go to church, being told to say prayers every night and so on. There's simply no empirical evidence that any higher being exists and until I'm proven wrong, I will stick to that. I consider myself highly tolerant of people with different religious backgrounds--in general, religion isn't really a big deal for me.

Q: You've been on Newgrounds since 2003. So you were around during a lot of interesting things happening on Newgrounds. Going through multiple redesigns and tweaks. What do you think of this redesign compared to the past redesigns?

A: I like this redesign quite a bit. I'm not sure why, but it's easy enough to navigate and I like that brown appears to be the main color (a departure from the preceding designs--all of which were black). Anything that is shit or reminds me of shit is good. I will say though that I miss the design from late 2004 to very early January 2006, before they replaced the header--that was my favorite one, and it looked especially good when the header was Halloween-themed. The 2007 redesign was also very good and it lasted much longer than I expected. As much as I like the current design, I'm not sure enough people are on the same page. A total redesign may have been too much to absorb too quickly for a lot of people. Stuff on the previous design could have been changed to reflect changing times and features could have been added without completely changing the basic layout.

Q: You were around during a time when the flash sites were practically at war with one another. AlbinoBlackSheep and Ebaumsworld being two. What can you tell us about this little historical nugget from your perspective?

A: Ebaumsworld was the site a lot of people here loved to hate (mainly for their content theft + watermarking), and I'll admit that I was no different. ABS wasn't well-regarded either, and in fact they stole a lot of NG's bandwidth at the time, which riled up the admins here. I never supported either of those sites to begin with, and of course I'm not going to start now. The YTMND raid on Ebaumsworld over that Lindsay Lohan pic in January 2006 sticks out in my mind because it was a good example of how pissed off people can get over stolen content. I never partook in the raid, but I watched from the sidelines.

Q: You are a member of the club here on Newgrounds for fans of Heavy Metal music, aptly named Metal Hell. When were you introduced to the Metal genre? How did you come to join this club?

A: I actually grew up mainly listening to classical music, but I liked some of the more popular metal bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Rush. Since my early childhood, I was a casual metal listener, but I never fully got into the genre until July 2004 when someone else on another forum posted a long list of recommended power metal bands, which I then thought I'd check out. I looked up Sonata Arctica and Rhapsody (later and now known as Rhapsody of Fire), and that pretty much changed the rest of my musical life. From there, I went on to explore the rest of power metal, as well as death metal, black metal, progressive metal, doom metal and so on. I was 14 back then, 22 now and it's nothing short of startling that my musical taste has changed so little over so long. Much of what I enjoyed listening to back then, I still love now, even as I continue to discover new bands. Just metal itself is a never-ending journey for me. It's not the only genre I listen to (I still love classical, plus prog rock, some guilty pleasures here and there), but frankly I rarely listen to much else. I gave nu-metal/aggressive rock/mallcore a chance, but none of it ever appealed to me for the most part.

I lurked Metal Hell for a while just to familiarize myself with the people that post there. I officially joined it on January 12, 2005 when I was still 14, almost 15. I haven't posted there much in a long time, and have taken long breaks in between posting from the very beginning, but that's because I'm busy with a lot of other things and haven't seen all that many breathtaking developments in the metal world lately. Since that time, I've met a lot of my favorite musicians (Ken Owen from Carcass, Muhammed Suicmez from Necrophagist and all of Suffocation to name some examples), went to some amazing shows, and frankly, it's a shame that I can't afford to go to more. I still treasure a lot of my memories from the shows I've already been to, and sometimes take out my old tickets to remind myself, "Fuck, that was such an amazing night." On top of that, I've also increased my metal T-shirt and CD collection. As I'm writing this, I'm listening to Hyperdrive by Devin Townsend. If anyone reading this is looking for a good song to have sex to, there you go.

Q: First off, who is this person? Second, many Newgrounds members are afraid to show their faces or would rather hold a bit of mystery to themselves, but not you. What makes you fearless to show yourself?

A: Wow...well, yeah, that's me all right. 2007 me though, not the 2012 me that almost everyone here is accustomed to by now. I was 17 back then and in the beginning stages of growing my hair long. Earlier that same month, I made the decision that I wanted to have long hair and was fucking sick of short hair, period. As time went by, my wish came true. Now I don't really look anything like I did during that time--I have much longer hair and a goatee now, plus sunglasses obviously, but lately I've been thinking about having another haircut since the way I look now turns off a lot of prospective employers. I just can't rule that out.

Also, I was indeed afraid to show myself on NG for a long time--I certainly didn't even consider doing it until March 2006. As time went on, I became more comfortable showing myself, but almost always in sunglasses which I wear most of the time IRL anyway (except when I'm asleep, in the shower or at a job interview). People often ask me why I wear sunglasses all the time, and the fact is because my eyes hurt and feel more sensitive when they're not on. Wearing sunglasses constantly greatly facilitates my ability to get things done. I don't care that I look like Neo, Slash, Howard Stern, MJ or whatever...I hear that a lot too.

Q: The Newgrounds Stickam Group Chat! would become a regular place for you to be at. A lot of drama and fun stories has been said to go on through there. What can you share with us from there?

A: We don't do much in Stickam except sit around for hours at a time, waiting for random people to come in and do flips.

I know this answer is going to disappoint a lot of people, but it's just the way it is. Sorry.

Q: One thing that happened in Stickam was that you shared some pictures with them. They would later be used in the thread rate my room newgrounds by GiantDouche. Why did you decide to take pictures of yourself naked and share them with Stickam? Also what are your thoughts on this thread?

A: I regret everything about that whole period of time. I regret taking those pics of myself to begin with and I regret sharing them. Back when I used to get drunk a lot, I would often take many more naked pictures of myself than I usually would. Now I no longer drink at all, so there you go.

Q: The Newgrounds Chat has been out for a good long time now. How did you become a Chat Moderator and what can you tell us about the job?

A: The chat was originally launched on April 1st. At first, I thought it would disappear right after April Fool's Day, and was surprised to still see it on the site on April 2nd. Since Stickam had already pretty much died by that point, I figured I'd start going to the NG Chat with more regularity during the day. Asandir and Bahamut were the most active mods back then. Both of them and the rest of the mods seemed competent, but they also missed a lot and I frequently found myself quietly working behind the scenes getting people banned or deleted based on chat conduct.

On May 23rd, Wade made a rare appearance in the room and announced to the room that he made me a chat mod. After talking to Wade briefly on AIM, the first thing I did was look over the ban list, which looked big at the time, and now it's more than twice as big as it was back then thanks to new troublemakers, and a large number of people circumventing their bans with alts. Since being modded, I've put a lot of time into cleaning up the chat as much as humanly possible--disrupting spammers, chronic RPers, underage users and generally disruptive idiots. Every day brings new challenges, but overall, I like to think that the chat is cleaner and more welcoming.

A lot of people have indicated since the chat's inception that they would love to become chat mods themselves. So for future mods, know this: there's a lot more to modding than you may realize. The two most important traits in chat mods (and all other mods) are level-headedness and reasonable intelligence. I'm not saying that most chat users are stupid (frankly, many are, but the same can be said for a lot of BBS users too), but many just don't have the right balance of these traits. As a chat mod, I've already dealt with just about everything. There are days when I don't have to ban anyone and others when I have to deal with a large number of lowlives. It is what it is and I'm constantly prepared for just about situation to come up. I've seen people devote 20+ accounts in a single day just for spamming the chat, and users as young as 6 or 7 in there. Once in a while, I have no problem recommending certain users for modship, but the number of people I've recommended to date remains very, very small.

There's no doubt that many people think I'm a strict mod, but overall I'm fair, and much more approachable than many people seem to think. If there's anything I want people to know, just don't fear me for no reason. Every time I ban someone, I take a screenshot or keep a relevant chat log for reference in case I need to spit it back at them, or if other mods or admins are interested in seeing them. People that PM me regarding their bans, acknowledging their wrongdoing and asking for second chances usually get them. My main objective is to make sure that people that come into the chat can have a decent or intelligent conversation without worrying about too much spam or clutter--that's not too much to ask, right? It doesn't matter if you're new or old. Usually when people try to have fun by way of RPing or just too much fucking around, the flow of the conversation gets ruined for everyone else discussing something serious. One thing I hear a lot is that I don't let people have fun...well, that's not really true. I only destroy your fun if it clearly gets in the way of other people's fun, and while you may not be aware of the serious collateral effects of what you're doing, I certainly am. If discussion isn't fun to you, and spam, RPing, randomness and general nonsense is fun, you're in the wrong place.

Q: You and I were talking before this interview and you brought up that you have epilepsy. For those who don't know what that is, could you tell them what it is and how you have coped with it these years?

A: A lot of people probably already know that epilepsy is associated with seizures. That's absolutely true.

There are many different types of epilepsy out there. Usually if you have at least two unprovoked seizures of any type, that's how you know you have some form of epilepsy. The type I have is Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy, or JME for short. I've had it since I was 14, but I didn't get the formal diagnosis until I was 22. JME is characterized by myoclonic seizures (basically when your body shakes involuntarily--it tends to happen a lot in the morning for many people) and tonic-clonic/grand mal seizures. A tonic-clonic seizure is exactly what most people think of when they hear the word "seizure": groaning, convulsing and going into unconsciousness for a while. I've had 9 tonic-clonic seizures so far. Every time I emerge from my postictal state, I feel confused with temporary amnesia, a fever that lasts less than an hour, a sore/bloody tongue as a result of biting it during the seizure, and petechiae (red/purple spots as a result of bursting capillaries) all over my face. It's really no fun at all waking up from a seizure.

I've had myoclonic seizures since I was 14. Often times, while I was in the shower or about to get up, my body would shake involuntarily, but my consciousness wouldn't be affected in any way. If I happened to be holding something during a myoclonic seizure, chances are high that I would probably drop it. This has happened a ton of times, with drinks, my phone and numerous other things...and like I said, mainly during the morning. I was also highly susceptible to myoclonic seizures after drinking way too fucking much. I even had one once while having sex...yeah, that's probably too much information for some people, but it's the truth. Over so many years, I never thought myoclonic seizures were that big of a deal, and didn't even mention them to my doctor. I didn't even recognize them as actual seizures for so long. I now know it was stupid of me to just ignore them.

The first time I ever had a tonic-clonic seizure was on the afternoon of July 25, 2010. I just remember getting swiped into the subway system, coming on the train, then I woke up lying down on a stretcher inside an ambulance all fucking confused. I really thought I was dreaming at the time, so I looked at my watch and reality started to sink in: this was no dream--this is really fucking happening. I started to think right then and there that I must have had a seizure, but why? Shortly after I was wheeled into the extremely crowded emergency room, after the nurse put the IV in, the doctor introduced herself and asked me, "Do you know why you're here?" I said, "Well, I'm guessing I had a seizure on the train," which she then said was right. She tried to convince me to get a lumbar puncture, and that seemed highly unnecessary...just a way to get more money off me. I was discharged from the hospital in the evening and spent a lot of time at home reflecting on the day's events, such as when will my next seizure be?

Well, I got my answer on December 5, 2010. That's right--I had another tonic-clonic seizure after drinking heavily and tripping on shrooms the night before. My brother was the only other one home and he called 911 to get me help. The cops and paramedics came into my apartment and I refused to be taken to the hospital, not wanting to deal with another high bill. The lead paramedic there tried to scare me into going to the hospital asking me to choose between a high hospital bill, or a $10,000 funeral bill. Yeah, that still didn't work. I remained firm in my decision and lucky me, because I didn't have another tonic-clonic seizure again for the entire year of 2011. However, on February 15, 2012, just 3 days after my 22nd birthday, I had another one. I saw a neurologist the day after my first seizure in July 2010 and went back to him after this most recent one. I also had a brain MRI without contrast in July 2010, which came back as normal with the only abnormality being a small arachnoid cyst. After this latest seizure, and given my medical history, he decided that it was time for me to be put on anticonvulsants, and he chose Keppra (levetiracetam) for me. It's generally well-tolerated and he started me off with 1,000 mg/day (each pill was 500 mg).

Despite now being on levetiracetam, I had a breakthrough tonic-clonic seizure on March 3rd and another on March 13th...which prompted him to increase my dose to 1,500 mg/day. My next one after that didn't happen until exactly 2 months later, on May 13th, then another on May 21st. I switched to another neurologist, who increased my daily dose to 2,000 mg/day. I'll skip through all of the others. My most recent seizure was on August 3rd and since then, I've been on 3,000 mg/day of levetiracetam ER. So far, so good. I'm just hoping I won't have to take Depakote (valproic acid) in the future, because although it's highly effective for my type of epilepsy, the side effects include weight gain, tremors, drowsiness and headaches. It's not nearly as well tolerated as levetiracetam.

I know not a lot of people here can relate to having any form of epilepsy, but I think it's important to educate people about it, and to show support for people that have it. It's really not easy to deal with, especially if you're young. I quit drinking alcohol because of it, and most people know how much people around my age love to drink. Epilepsy is always at the front of my mind, and why wouldn't it be? I have to take my meds once every 12 hours, and I can't put myself in situations that would be deadly in the event that I have a seizure.

Q: What parts of Newgrounds do you like the most and why? What parts of Newgrounds do you dislike the most and why?

A: The community represents both the best and worst parts of NG for me. There are some really cool people here that I love talking to now, and a lot of previously cool people I used to talk to a long time ago that I now miss. There are also a lot of people here that are nothing but trouble, and they don't deserve any attention from me.

Q: If you could change anything on Newgrounds, what would it be?

A: I would make sure that chat mods, like almost all other mods, have gold auras and the natural perks that come with them. I would also see to it that unverified users can't use the chat, and for the store to accept PayPal. There's more, but that's all I feel like saying for now.

Q: You have been here for nearly 9 years now. What experiences have you had since you've been here? What friends have you made? What have you learned?

A: I've seen a lot both good and bad, and I try to learn something new here every day. I started hosting and assisting with NYC meets annually beginning in 2010 (with initial planning in late 2009), and I hang out with certain NGers either individually or in small groups on occasion throughout every year. I've also attended meets both big and small in Chicago, Boston, Baltimore and Point Pleasant Beach. I've been previously invited to the NG office for Pico Day, and while I've been unable to make it so far, I definitely plan on going at some point in the future. All of my friends know who they are, especially if I talk to them on AIM, Facebook or Skype a lot, and the same can be said for a good number of people on Stickam and G+ too.

Q: What can we expect from GoryBlizzard in the future?

A: I'll continue to be a noticeable presence well into the foreseeable future. On the creative end, you may end up seeing some quality written work from me once the Writing Portal comes out. I'll start off by uploading some old stories and poetry I wrote a long time ago--completely unedited, just to remind myself how I've changed over the course of many years. Since I'm continuing to suffer from artistic regression, you probably won't see any future animations or art from me--the last time I even tried producing either was many years ago. I won't completely rule out future attempts, but don't count on it...I'm fucking old already. It's hard for older people to learn art if they didn't already pick up the talent when they were younger. I'm also thinking about hosting meets in other parts of NY and possibly other states, but that all depends on to what extent my financial situation improves.

GoryBlizzard is an interesting individual, there is no doubting this whatsoever. From his adolescence to where he is today, he has certainly shown what effect this site has on people. What this connection can do for one another. All I know is from research to posting, GoryBlizzard is not only a smart person, but a friend to many here - and it is easy to see why.

Interview No. 102

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest has gifted us with some beautiful scenes of cities and futuristic wonders. From Central Park, to River Bridge, and COTT: Tower. He has also shown his talents in animation with The Last Fight and The Last Fight: Final Ep. He is also responsible for the site's background that you are currently seeing at this time. He is @keepwalking.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: Well, I can say I found Newgrounds by accident. I was watching one particular flash animation "Shoo Fly" on another website, but it didn't have any music so the author included a link to the full version hosted here at Newgrounds. Then my curiosity did the rest. The main reason I joined was because I found, and still find Newgrounds one of the few websites that is so much dedicated to animation and games(and now illustration). It's truly one of the best websites to showcase your work, even if you are a begginer, or a profesional.

So having that in mind I decided to share with the community some bits of my humble flash animations, and even if some of the comments were harsh at the beggining, others were very supportive. It is a great place to get good feedback, and learn from your mistakes.

Q: When did you become introduced to art and what inspired you to create art?

A: I remember I started drawing as a hobby when I was 12 years old and started making war ships such as frigates and galleons. I can say that many of the problems I had back in my childhood pushed me to draw almost every day so this way I could keep myself away from bad stuff. Year by year I seeked more and more for my own charachters, landscapes, and stories. Eventually I healed up those injures and found inspiration in better things.

Q: Your first steps into the Art Forum would be with a thread entitled My new comic. What was your story here and why did you just stop working on it?

A: I was really curious about how people would react to one of my drawings here at Newgrounds, so I picked 2 comic sheets that were already inked and edited. The response from the users was great so that gave me a little more support to continue it. I stopped working on it becuase I found out comic wasn't my strongest style.

Q: XeNt - Anger and Xent - Love would be your first two movies here on Newgrounds. What can you tell me about the inspiration for both of these and what it was like to work on them?

A: Oh god!, not those movies haha!. On the first place those were done the same week I broke up with my girlfriend so I decided to portray a mixture of feelings on different short movies, the result was terrible in my opinion haha!, but at that moment I was really enjoying making them. I'm still surprised by the score and the amount of views they have...

Q: We now come to another duo by you, The Last Fight and The Last Fight: Final Ep. This mini-series would begin with a thread. How did we go from there to here?

A: I was exited about making a fight animation, so I decided to spend some time studying some fight scenes from different sources, I also wanted to add a strong plot to the hole series, didnt want to throw some random punches here and there.

Those movies took many months of hard work and concentration, specially the first one, since it was drawn with pencil frame by frame and then each frame edited in flash. I ended up making a semi-animated comic instead of a full animated movie. I concentrated so much on the story and the edition that I forgot to animate properly. Still proud of both works.

Q: We now come to what I believe is your best work, Luminiscense. We have a love story, that is to be continued. You said a lot of work went into this and it shows. Where did the idea for this movie come from and when can we expect to see the next part?

A: Luminicesne is indeed one of my best works. My idea here was to show how fragile things are in this world, and how can some events change our lives in a matter of seconds. I wanted to focus more in the final result of this movie, and make something unique even if it took me 1 year to finish it.

It was a great project that gave me the chance to learn how to tell a story with suspense and drama at the same time. Even if I still discover some mistakes(wich some of them were pointed out 1000 times by you guys), I am really happy of the final result. Seting up the style of the drawings, the enviorments, and the general esthetic of the movie were some of the things I most enjoyed, aswell as working with Chris and Jessi for the charachter voices.

The story is to be continued but I have posponed indefinetly due to my new work, wich is consuming most the time I had for animation. Hopefully I will find a way to have more time and make the next chapter.

Q: We now come to your artwork. The first piece I want to talk about is Central Park. You have an interesting style of showing off different structures and cities. As if we are in a perpetual sunset. You seem to enjoy playing with lighting and lights more than anything else. Would you agree to this or can you define your style or expand on this?

A: Central park was the second of a series of speedpaintings I was creating back in 2009 when I bought my first wacom tablet. I was just experimenting with light values and perspective more than anything else, imagine using a pencil or a pen for your entire life, and then having to transit to this device wich shows the result on a screen, I had to test lots of things before making full illustrations, and those speedpaintings were the result.

I also choosed to make cities because I used to make lots of them when I was a little kid, so why not bring some good memories. You got me there with the "Sunset" thing hehe, I have a weakness for sunsets, and I tend to avoid them in my works but I end up using them most of the time. The final impression is something I really value when I work, you will notice this in most of my paintings...

Q: Looking at minerva and DRONE42 you have two different ways of drawing people. What can you tell us about drawing humans and these two different approaches?

A: Minerva was like a second chance I gave to my comic/manga style, I didn't make more of these for the same reason I stoped making comic drawings a couple of years ago, I wasn't satisfied with the final result.

On the other hand Drone 42 was the first charachter work I made with my strongest style, that look good in most of the aspects. I figured out that painting was working better than drawing, and that Drone 42 showed much more original results than Minerva. Maybe in the future I will give a third chance to my comic style again...

Q: When the Newgrounds redesign came, we got fancy wall backgrounds for the different pages. The original basic wall was Tank Girl by Egoraptor. It would soon be changed to a bustling orange city. How were you approached to do the wall for Newgrounds? Also why did you go with this look?

A: When Tom told me what he wanted for the main wall of the site he showed me a picture of a city shown from a birds eye point of view. I liked his idea of a futuristic city and the point of view of the reference picture was pretty accurate, but I decided to make the city from a lower perspective mainly because it was going resmble better the old banner of the website and keep the identity of the comunity at the same time.

The color scheme was also a decition of Tom, and I completly agreed with him. The city, if you take a closer look, has a mixture of old, modern, and industrial looking buildings, some of them even have a military look aswell.

Q: In your own opinion, what would you say is the definition of art?

A: Art is the language of your soul.

Q: What can we expect from keepwalking in the future?

A: Many many more artwork and publishing coming!

keepwalking is truly a wonderful artist who has given us beautiful paintings and told us wonderful stories over time. I can only hope that he will continue to do more in the future. His background wall does seem to reflect Newgrounds old slogan which is "The Problems of the Future - Today!" in which case that is certainly quite kick ass.

Interview No. 101

Interview By: @The-Great-One

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Q: One of my favorites by you has to be When in Doubt. You said it was something to show your band mates. What was the process in writing and making this song? Also what did your band mates think of it?

A: The writing process for When In Doubt was actually quite a bit different for me than it was previously, as it's really the first metal/rock song that I included drums in. The drum track, as is blatantly obvious, was basically nothing more than a click track, as I was using a drum preset on the pedal I was using at the time (Digitech GNX3000, which is now deceased unfortunately... RIP), but it helped to fill in the song a little bit, which allowed me to give the song a bit more of a consistent theme.

In this case, I was shooting for some what of a eerie/suspenseful sound, which was something new for me, and personally, I think it turned out pretty well... save the boring drums.

And my band mates at the time, well, really, it ended up only being a drummer, because the other people who were going to be involved ended up bailing out... Well, the drummer loved it. I've jammed on and off with him for a couple years, and I'm generally the creative force behind the jams, I write music, bring it over, and we record or jam on top of it. I have 2 songs up currently that I wrote with him on the spot, being "The Unknown" and "Dreamcatcher".

I've actually been through a lot of potential band mates, none of them ever seem to work out, so I generally just do things solo now, save a collab here and there.

Q: Your first Classical piece to be submitted would be Castle. Why the urge to play around in Classical a bit?

A: Well, as mentioned before, I really do enjoy a lot of different types/styles of music, and classical is a big one for me, I love classic Beethoven, Bach, Chopin. I have an entire section in my personal playlist dedicated to classical piano pieces. So I guess it was inevitable that I'd eventually try write my own.

I'm also extremely fond of the piano as an instrument, I love the sounds it makes, I love how it makes them, and I love how diverse it can be. It's a beautiful instrument, and really the only reason I didn't learn piano growing up is because my family didn't have one that I could learn on. However, I now practice piano nearly every day in hopes that I can write better and better classical pieces and maybe even work my way up to play some of my favorite classics.

I also tend to include piano and orchestral elements in nearly everything I do, part of that could be my love for classical music, and I guess part of it could be due to my time in an orchestra in the past. Either way, I think classical instruments go well with pretty much everything. So it would only benefit me to learn to use them properly on their own as well.

Q: Who is your friend Abi? What was it like working with her in some cover songs?

A: Abi is actually a friend I met through another friend who I met in Highschool. The two are recently engaged and I spend nearly every Friday over at their place now for a retro gaming night, playing board games and oldschool video games.

Abi is actually classically trained on both the piano and vocals, and she was interested in doing the covers you mentioned, and I figured why not. For me, it was a bit of a break from my usual style, as none of the songs we covered are anything alike what I usually write, so it was a new experience for me. And despite her training, she has never actually written a song, or recorded before, so when I had her over to record the vocal parts (She also played the piano for "Into The West"), it was a new experience for her as well, as I had to coach her through the actual recording process. And as you can probably hear, she was quite nervous, as any first time recorder is.

In the end, it was a lot of fun, I got some experience out of my norm, and she recorded for the very first time.

Q: You seem to me as a drifting bard. For you would now jump into Trance with your song -Wait-. A fun little song and quite good for your first step into Trance. Why make this jump next?

A: Yes, yes I am. Really, it was only natural, as I've mentioned time and time again, I listen to practically everything, trance is no exception.

Really, I just like to keep things interesting, I don't like the notion of being a "one trick pony" so to speak. I may not be amazing in any one genre of music, but I like to think I'm pretty decent at a bunch instead. While metal/punk/rock was where I started, now, I don't think I'd say I'm specifically a metal artist, I try to divide my time between all sorts of different genres, just because it's what makes me happy, constantly trying new things, being able to come up with a song in multiple genres.

I really enjoy being able to sit down and think, "I'd like to write an upbeat trance tune" or, "Today sucked, I'm gonna write an angry metal song", and just.. go. It gives me countless ways to express myself, and really, that's what music is all about, is expression.

I've also recently taken a liking to what I call "Melodic Dubstep", I don't know if there's an official term for it or not, but either way, sometime in the near future, after I'm finished my album, I hope to start putting up songs along that line as well.

Q: Darker Than Black is an anime you would draw inspiration from for the song -Yin-. What about this scene and show brought out this song from you?

A: Darker Than Black was something my sister originally introduced me to, and for whatever reason, I have a great fondness for stoic characters, and Yin was such a character.

So not long after watching both seasons of the anime, I decided to try writing a song to a picture, extract the emotions I felt from the picture and make them audible. And seeing as it was fresh in my mind, I chose to write a song based on the picture of Yin, leaning on a piano in a seemingly empty (Save the piano) and darkened room.

Really, the picture really captured Yin's character perfectly to me, a blind girl, somewhere between human and artificial being, with a fairly depressing past. I don't want to spoil the show for those who have yet to watch it (Because you should... go watch it), so I won't go into much more detail... But the picture screamed all kinds of melancholy to me, which fit just perfectly with her character in the show. The piano was a bonus, in fact, the song she plays in the anime I am currently learning to play on my own piano.

But I digress, the feeling really was that of a lost soul struggling to find her place in the world, and most expressive form she had, was a song she played on a piano, and this really struck a chord with me. And personally, "Yin" is one of the songs I am most proud of, not only because it, to me, captures the feeling of the picture, but because it really does tell a story. Close your eyes, give it a listen, and write your story.

And to this day, Yin remains one of my favorite characters, and you'll often see me sporting her in my avatar/icon/signature on the Newgrounds forums.

Q: -This Is Why We're Here- is a small return to Heavy Metal. What can you tell us about this song and how you went about writing and playing it?

A: Yeah, "This Is Why We're Here" was my first time using EZDrummer, and as a result, in my opinion, is where my metal music started to really take off in terms of quality.

I can't stress enough how much drums influence and form a song, especially when speaking about metal, it's the driving force, and used properly, it can turn a below average song into and above average one. This song was the first time I had used this to my advantage. Not to say that I think the song without the drums would be awful, but it wouldn't be what it is without the more active drums keeping the track flowing.

This was also one of the songs that came as the result of the many jam sessions I had with the drummer I spoke of earlier. The version on Newgrounds has my version of the drums on it, not his, but the song itself was a direct result of my jams with him.

It is also one of the first (If not the first) metal songs in which I utilize a key change. It's something I've been trying to do more often, as it can really add to a song when done right.

Q: As a drifting bard you tend to have trouble staying in one spot for long, because we now move to Drum N Bass with the song -Dropped It, Sorry-. You said you were looking to make something more gritty and you certainly succeeded at that. Why go into Drum N Bass though when you could have done this with Heavy Metal?

A: Around the time that I uploaded "Dropped It, Sorry", I was actually struggling with my identity as a musician, I was disheartened that my metal songs were getting very little attention while my covers (28 Days Later in particular) and non metal songs seemed to experience so much more traffic. I actually went through a phase where I decided I would not bother writing metal anymore, it was so bad that at one point, I was so down that I nearly sold my guitars.

I did get over it, fortunately, I got it through my head that I shouldn't worry about the stats and just do what I want to do, and that ended up working a lot better for me in the end. I had also decided that my album, instead of only featuring a single genre like most artists, would feature 3 different genres, and possibly a couple that were mixed.

Now, I generally just write what I feel like writing in the genre I feel like writing it, and try not to over think how people will receive it, instead worrying about what I think of it. It's a lot less stressful when you write music for yourself and damn the consequences. And I think a lot of people would prefer musicians write for themselves anyways, instead of trying to cater to a crowd that will always have haters in it no matter how hard you try. Write for yourself, bring it out from your very soul, and someone somewhere will inevitably enjoy it.

Q: What can you tell me about K-ON?

A: K-ON... Oh, K-ON... It's a great show, and even more so if you happen to be a musician. It's a slice of life style anime centered around a group of highschool girls who form a "light music club". There's no big dramatic plot line, not overarching conflict. It's just them enjoying highschool life while they can and working towards playing the big stage.

Aside from the show being horrendously adorable and quite funny at times, the struggle to move forward as musicians really struck a chord with me (Hur hur). Mostly because they started from nothing, you watched them grow and develop their skills, it wasn't one of those shows where you tune in and find everyone is already a pro. Being able to watch them grow as musicians and experience a lot of the kinds of mishaps and excitement that real musicians do made it greatly entertaining for me.

So much so, that I ended up covering 3 of the songs from the show: "Touched By An Angel", "Don't Say Lazy", and "No Thank You".

I'm a real sucker for pretty much anything that's more or less a motivational musician story, which I guess shouldn't come as a surprise.

Q: Your best work in Heavy Metal has to be -Stay Thy Hand-. You said a lot of time was spent on this song, so tell us the process from beginning to end.

A: "Stay Thy Hand" was the first time I had really put a lot of time into the drums for a metal song. While "When In Doubt" was the first time I had really started working on drums, "Stay Thy Hand" was the first time I had worked on drums, but then gone the extra mile to really seat them in the song.

I had also made a conscious decision with "Stay Thy Hand" to include a somewhat out of character break in the song, as well as utilize typical metal chugging, not as the breakdown, but as a main feature of the chorus.

On top of that, I had for the first time made use of "selective chugging" to give the breakdown a bit more kick. If you notice at 2:02 when the breakdown starts, it doesn't really sound all that powerful, there are a couple reasons for this, the first being that I'm only chugging on the octave, there is essentially only 1 note (In two different octaves) being hit on the guitar. The bass is using a broken up rhythm, and the drums are hitting a china. As opposed to 2:14, after the quick break, it sounds quite a bit heavier. The guitar is now hitting the same note as before as well as a 7th on the scale, the bass is now a steady consistent rhythm following the guitar, and the drums are now hitting a crash instead of a china.

It's small things like that-that I've been trying more and more to incorporate into my music. While by themselves, they seem insignificant, in the greater scheme of things, when all put together, it can make quite an impact.

On top of that, "Stay Thy Hand" is the first song where I've ever given the bass guitar the spot light, as you'll notice at 2:26, the melody is coming from the bass, not the guitar. That's also something I wish to do more of, is letting other instruments shine through instead of relying on the guitar at all times.

And while it's probably not noticeable at all, the "verse" (The first thing you hear after the acoustic intro), as I'll call it, makes use of a 5/4 time signature, which was also a first for me. This was not a conscious decision, oddly enough, I had just played the riff before recording, and thought it sounded cool... So I had tried to record it, and just couldn't get it to fit right. Which I later found out is because it wasn't in 4/4 time, but instead... 5/4. The rest of the song however, is in 4/4.

Q: Your best work in Trance has to be -Tick Tock-. Where did the inspiration come for this and what was the process in making it?

A: As implied by the name of the track, "Tick Tock" was actually inspired by a clock.

To be more exact, and more in depth, it was inspired by a song I had played on Osu!, which is a rhythm based music game, free for download on PC. I had been playing the game, and when people create beatmaps for the game, they are given the option to add custom sounds to the notes you hit while playing the game. The particular beatmap I was playing had the beginning of the song playing a "tick tock" type sound whenever you hit a note to the rhythm of the song. And I thought that sounded really cool, and wanted to try it for myself.

So.. I opened up FL Studio and started searching for a way to make my own "Tick Tock", and settled on using a side stick sample that comes with FL Studio, and pitch shifting it a bit to give it a tick tock sort of sound. And of course I couldn't just leave it at that, so I started mucking around on my keyboard to come up with a trance song to put around it, that would hopefully compliment the theme.

To go further, I also decided to, for the first time, actually include an arpeggio that plays through the majority of the song in the form of a sort of bell, which I had hand crafted in the Native Instruments VST Massive.

I also decided to break up the traditional template I had been using for trance and include a section where the bass took the spotlight, much as I did with "Stay Thy Hand". And it turns out this was a good decision, as people really seemed to love that section, and I've even had people ask me how I made the bass (Which I had also hand crafted in Massive).

Overall, I did a lot of new things with "Tick Tock" that I hadn't done before, and it helped me learn a bit about how to really push my music forward. Although I guess every song in the end is a learning experience, just depends on how far forward I push into new territory and ideas.

Q: When I interviewed the Audio Portal. You answered some of my questions in the open thread. Do you wish to expand on your answers?

A: Ha! I wasn't very informative back then, was I?

In any case, I'd just add that my definition of music is more an expression of your soul and experiences through life, you can't have music without emotion in my opinion. It's the same as any other form of art, you can't really do it and do well unless you're passionate about it. The best music comes from people who are willing to let it all out for the world to see.

And how I write music when I don't really have anything to inspire me... My answer there really isn't too far off. I generally just don't bother writing when I don't have any inspiration, but when I really want to get something down regardless of inspiration, what I do really isn't too far off from just mashing my face on my keyboard/fretboard until something nice comes out, and then I go from there.

Sometimes inspiration can strike when you hit a certain sequence of notes at random.

Q: When asked if musicians listen to their own music you had this to say...

"That said... I do listen to my own stuff every once in a while, but the majority of the time I do, it's generally because I want to come back to it and see what I could change to make it better"

What is it about each song that seems unfinished to you?

A: I'm a perfectionist, and my own worst critic, as many musicians are. It's pretty rare that I listen to my own music to enjoy it, because most of the time when I'm listening to my own music, all I can think about is what I could've done better or different.

Sometimes it'll be a certain sequence of notes, I'll hear fret noise, I'll hear a note I missed, or a slight hiccup in the timing, or I'll think something is too loud or not loud enough. I've noticed that I worry over a lot of things that no one else ever notices in my music, but that doesn't stop me from re-recording it until I'm satisfied... and if I notice something else later, I'll worry over that too, even if no one else even heard it.

There was one time, where I re-uploaded a song to newgrounds just because I wanted to fix the velocity of a single note.

In my mind, no song is ever finished, it can always be improved, which I guess is both a blessing and a curse.

Q: What can we expect from Back-From-Purgatory in the future?

A: Well, my album, "To The End Of The World" will be out later this year, and aside from that, as you mentioned, I'm kind of a drifting bard, so I can't really say what could happen in the future, as I'll likely just do whatever strikes my fancy at the time.

Hopefully though, it'll be more music that people can really enjoy!

Throughout this interview I reference Back-From-Purgatory as a drifting bard, and I stand by this statement. He simply drifts from one genre to the next, rarely ever staying in one spot. His range in his talents are both fun and diverse, with each song offering something new to it. He is truly an underrated musician here on Newgrounds and one who has had a lot to offer to us during his time here and hopefully a lot more to offer in the future. If you one day see Hip Hop and Jazz appear within his repertoire, don't be surprised, just embrace the delight your ears are about to receive.

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Interview No. 101

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is an underrated musician here on Newgrounds. From his works in the Heavy Metal genre with -Stay Thy Hand-, to Trance with -Tick Tock-, and even Drum N Bass with -Dropped It, Sorry-. He has defined himself in many different genres and continues to do so to this day. He is none other than @Back-From-Purgatory.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: I actually first found Newgrounds way back in Junior High School back around 2000-2002, somewhere in that time frame. Back then, it was cool to go on sites the teachers frowned upon, and back then Newgrounds was still more or less adult oriented. So naturally, I found out about the site through my friends who would bring up the site in on the PCs in the library of the school and they'd play a hentai game or something with the speakers turned up to see how fast a teacher would come shut them down. That's how I was introduced to the site.

As for why I joined, I actually can't recall the year I had first joined, but it was around the same time I found out about the site, and I think in the end, I joined up because I was just another angsty teenager and Newgrounds had a lot of outlets for rage in for forms of flash movies/games. I honestly don't remember when my first account was made, or what my username was back then... But I later signed up as my current alias of Back-From-Purgatory in 2004 to start submitting my music shortly after, as it was around this time that I really started to get into writing my own music, as terrible as it was, as it is with most starting musicians.

Q: How did you discover music and what inspired you to make music?

A: I've been around music my entire life, I had literally be introduced to music before I ever left my mothers stomach, as my dad used to play bass for a rock/country band. So naturally, when I started school, they had an option to sign up for band class in grade 5, so, that's exactly what I did. I started out playing the clarinet, and a year later moved onto tenor saxophone, and a year after that, I was tutoring people.

Unfortunately, in grade 8, my family up and moved, and the band program in my new school was extremely elementary compared to the national award winning orchestra I was playing in before. I was more experienced in music than the teacher was... So after a year of frustration there, I dropped band class and instead picked up my dads old bass guitar and started to teach myself bass, because my family couldn't afford to keep my tenor sax.

As for inspiration, it really came from a lot of places... I was fascinated by watching my dad play live, as much as I wasn't fond of the music he was playing, the idea of playing in front of an audience like that, sharing your soul, so to speak, was just something I wanted to experience for myself. And I had gotten a taste of this while playing in the orchestra, as we had played for national competitions in front of theaters full of people. It was exhilarating being able to share something that a group of people had put together, as well as play our own rendition of famous songs from movies or composers.

Q: When did you first pick up the guitar and how long have you been playing?

A: As mentioned above, I first picked up a bass guitar when I quit band class back when I started grade 9. I guess I would've been 15-16 at the time. In any case, I was in my rebellious stage as all teens go through, so I had picked up a bass guitar and started to teach myself to play rock/punk music. Stuff like AFI, Sum 41, Linkin Park, etc... A year after I started playing bass, I got kind of bored of playing a "support instrument" and opted to switch to a 6 string guitar, which I had got as a hand me down from my dad.

I then started the learning all over again, relearning songs I had learned on bass now on an electric guitar. I never took lessons, but I had the advantage of understanding music and rhythm from my time in the orchestra. And I've been playing and teaching myself guitar ever since, which would be somewhere in the ballpark of 10-11 years.

In the later part of those 10-11 years, I had actually started taking guitar lessons to try speed up my learning, and had intended to use it as a way to force myself to learn music theory as well so I could audition for a music course in college. However, I ended up being a better guitarist than my teacher, so I dropped the lessons a week or two later, and continued to just teach myself as best I could.

As a fun side note, the guitar I got as a hand me down from my dad 10-11 years ago... I still use that same guitar for most of my metal songs. I also now own a 7-string Ibanez, but most of my songs are written and performed on the 6 string that my dad gave me a decade ago.

Q: If I'm not mistaken you have a liking for Opera do you not?

A: I wouldn't say it's a genre I listen to a lot, but I do have a certain respect for it, yes. I'm very open to music, there's very little that I simply don't enjoy (Country being the one genre I simply can't stand).

But Opera music, you find a lot of unique story telling elements and themes that you don't generally find in most other styles of music, and listening to it from time to time helps to inspire me to find new ways of writing my own music.

Q: Discovering Electronic Music is a 1983 documentary, following how electronics influenced music creation. You stated in a thread the following...

"Is it wrong that I now understand how synth sounds are made better than I did before?"

What did you mean by saying that? What did you learn from this documentary that you didn't know or thought you knew?

A: Back then, I literally knew nothing about how electronic music was made, as it wasn't until around 2009 that I even attempted to make my own electronic music outside of short little songs I randomly threw together in my very early years. That video, while old, it clued me in on a lot of things I didn't realize before, like how oscillators work, or how certain wave forms emit certain types of sounds.

Really, I still can't say I'm all that knowledgeable of the more in dept workings of electronic music, but that post, that video triggered a few light bulbs in my head when thinking about electronic music. When I looked at my own synths after watching that, I started to understand how each knob would influence the sound that would come out when I hit a key on my keyboard.

There's really so much to learn about how synthesizers work, creating sounds from practically nothing, from a plain flat sine wave, into a fully fleshed out lead, bass, pad, or ambient texture. The possibilities really are endless, you're given a canvas of which to project sound and you can twist and shape that into practically anything you can imagine if you have the knowledge to do so.

Q: What was The Metal Collab?

A: One of the attempts for the metal artists of the Newgrounds Audio Portal to bring their talents together to create something worthy of notice. It's no secret that metal on newgrounds is largely overshadowed by other genres, and it wasn't any better back in 2009. It's actually something I'd love to see people do more often, as it gives metal artists a chance to shine, to steal the spotlight away from all the electronic music that usually dominates the charts.

Unfortunately, the collab never did actually finish, and just sort of slowly faded into the abyss, as a lot of collab attempts seem to do when involving so many people.

Recently, I had hosted the Metal Themed MAC (Monthly Audio Contest), with prizes provided by Mr. Tom Fulp himself. While certainly not the most active contest ever, it brought out some great talent, and those that won were featured on the front page of Newgrounds for a week as a result, which I hope inspired more metal artists to up their game and let people know they're there.

As a metal artist myself, I'd really love to see people who write metal really get some more exposure. Not just on Newgrounds, but everywhere. I find a lot of artists writing really great stuff are often overshadowed by generic garbage that you often hear on the radio.

Q: You talk a lot about different programs for making music. What programs would you recommend and not recommend and what do you use?

A: People do ask a lot about how they should get started with music, and often my first suggestion will be FL Studio, as it is arguably the easiest full featured DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) to pick up and learn. I find people often underestimate the program because of it's colorful and simple appearance. Honestly, it always has, and always will be my first suggestion for people looking to get into electronic music. It's a great program.

FL Studio is also my go to DAW for electronic and orchestral music, and I will often program MIDI parts for orchestral or electronic parts in FL Studio and later transfer them over to Reaper to record the guitar parts over top.

Alternatively, I have spent a little bit of time with Reason, which I would also recommend, although to more experienced artists, as it is a little less newbie friendly. Once used to it however, there's a lot of great stuff you can do with Reason, and the automation process in the program I find is leagues better than FL Studio.

In terms of recording, you'll often hear me throwing the name Reaper around, which in reality is also a full featured DAW, but personally, I prefer using it solely for the purpose of recording live instruments, as I find the MIDI interface to be fairly clunky and hard to use, so when I can, I try to avoid writing orchestral/electronic parts in Reaper.

Reaper is where I record pretty much anything that involves live instruments (I.E. Guitar, bass, vocals). The interface is sleek, and when not trying to fight with the MIDI interface, it works great for putting out metal I find. It also allows me to use my Line 6 POD X3 Live as a soundcard with puts a little less strain on my PC while recording.

People also often ask about free programs, to which my usual suggestions are LMMS (Linux MultiMedia Studio) for electronic music. It is MIDI based, so you can't expect any truly amazing sounds out of the program, and I personally found it a little hard to work with in comparison to FL Studio or Reason. But it is completely free, and it's a compromise like anything else.

I would also suggest Audacity for recording artists, it is what I used in my early years when recording my guitar. It has quite a few built in effects, including a nifty tempo changing effect that gives you the option to maintain the original pitch. Which I have made great use of while learning songs or trying to figure out notes while transcribing or working on a cover of a song.

Q: What can you tell me about the Underrated Audio Collab? Apparently a little drama was stirred up in there.

A: Yeah, that was one guys attempt to help get some underrated audio artists more exposure, and unfortunately, the very nature of the collab invited conflict of the "You're not underrated" variety. You see this sort of arguing on the forums all the time, people say someone is underrated then someone else gets upset and says they're not but "these guys are" or "I am".

It's an unfortunate and unavoidable side effect of creating a flash project that is based around underrated artists.

In the end, I'm still not entirely sure if the guy I had a little encounter with was just messing with me or if he was actually upset. But it turned out ok in the end and everyone went on their merry way. The flash was released and those included got a bit of extra exposure, which is something a musician can never get enough of. It's our lifeblood, the more exposure, the better!

Q: Your first submission to the Audio Portal would be entitled My first improv.. How did you record this song and looking back on it, are you still proud of it?

A: Oi... That brings back memories. Well, that song I actually recorded with Audacity (The free recording program I recommended earlier), as this was long before I ever got Reaper. Was also before I had any fancy equipment, I was recording using the built in distortion on my dinky little 25 watt Fender practice amp via a cheap USB mic that I just put on the ground in front of my amp while I played.

Looking back on it... I can hear the same style in "My First Improv" as I do in some of my later songs, just more polished and easier on the ears. I try not to regret anything I've uploaded or look back on it and wish I had never done it. Because after all, I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't written that stuff years ago. I like to look back on my old stuff and see how far I've come. It helps give a sense of progress, that I'm improving as time goes by. So while I won't say I'm overly proud, I will say that I'm glad to have done it and uploaded it.

And I hope in a few more years, I'll look back on what I'm doing now and see even more progress.

Q: Your first steps into FL Studio would be Prelude. Certainly a fitting title to dramatic opening. How was it working with this program for one of your first times. How long did it take you to make this song?

A: While I don't think Prelude was my very first song out of FL Studio, it was certainly one of the first songs I did using the program. And I can honestly say, at the time, FL Studio was over my head. Prelude, I basically found a few cool sounds, slapped them together in what I thought sounded like a decent song and uploaded it.

There was no automation, no dynamic range, no creating my own synths. Prelude is as simple as an FL Studio song could really be. But we all have to start somewhere, right?

As for how long it took, I really couldn't say for sure, but I do remember that this was back before I actually bought FL Studio, so I was working with the demo version of the program, which did not allow you to save a project to work on it later. So I likely spent no more than 2 hours on the song. And regardless of the actual time it took, I guarantee it took longer than it should have considering what the song contained.

Q: Eternal Beginning gives us some more guitar work from you. When it comes to writing music, how do you go about writing music. Could you use this song as a demonstration?

A: Eternal Beginning was actually one of my more progressive songs back then, and I think it'd serve as a great example for how I generally write music.

First and foremost, you'll notice that most of my music tends to progress along, I don't often write stuff that is very vocal friendly, so I make up for it by writing songs that move along as a story would. There will be soft sections, melodic sections, heavy sections, and occasionally chaotic sections. I strive to keep my music moving forward, instead of revisiting themes and passages constantly as you would hear in a typical mainstream rock song where the structure is basically intro, verse, chorus, verse, break, chorus, outro (Which variations of course).

I believe that if someone is going to revisit a melody or theme of a song, that melody/theme should be interesting enough that people will want to hear it again. Otherwise, it's better that you push the song forward and introduce a new "section" as I call them, like a movie pushes a narrative forward from one scene to the next.

Unfortunately, this can be hard to do than you'd think, and it doesn't always work out. I often find myself struggling to come up with a new section for a song after I feel I've sort of played out a climax in the previous section. It's a trap I often lay for myself, is building, building, and building, only to find that once it reaches a climax, I don't know how to follow it up. Which is why I often use a section based writing style, the song will shift moods and continue to move forward instead of trying to really elaborate on a section that would only end up causing the song to sound redundant.

It's a complicated process, as any musician can tell you. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes what sounds awful to me will sound amazing to others. And on top of that, you are your own worst critic, I'll find myself trashing ideas that others will later say they loved and I should have kept working on.

Overall though, I truly believe music needs to come from somewhere, from emotions, from an experience in your life, not from a textbook about music theory, or a shallow song about something you've never experienced yourself. The most powerful and moving music comes straight from the soul, and I prefer to keep writing my music with this in mind. I try not to force myself to come up with something "just because".

Q: Back From Purgatory was said to be an intro to an album. It works as a great intro theme for you though. What made you want to plan an album though and how come the album was not released?

A: Actually, there's a funny story behind that song.

Originally, that was the outro solo of a song I was writing about a friends World of Warcraft character, a troll warrior to be exact. Unfortunately, this section sounded completely out of character compared to the rest of the song, but I thought it sounded cool, so cut it off the tail end of the song and decided to use it for an album I was trying to work on at the time.

The album, as you mentioned, never saw the light of day, in the end, I wasn't confident that I had the talent or the right material at the time to put out anything of any real worth, so I had opted to scrap the idea of an album until later down the road.

And here... 5 years later, I am actually working on a full length album, which I have titled "To The End Of The World", that will feature metal, orchestral, and trance/electronic music. I'm confident enough in myself now that I can put something out that people will enjoy, and people have shown interest via preorders of said album. I have a couple previews up on my profile of songs that will be on it.

I don't have an exact release date for it yet, but it will be out before the year is done, and I'll be posting updates on my progress along the way.

Unfortunately... The song "Back From Purgatory" will not be making an appearance on the album.

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[ Index Page | Special Theme | Official Thread ]

Interview No. 100

Interview By: @The-Great-One

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Welcome to the 100th Interview Extravaganza! I highly suggest you go back and read Part 1 if you haven't already. There is a lot to go through here and you certainly don't want to miss a single word of the stories and creativity behind these two artists.

Q: The movie My New Grounds would be a parody version of the HP commercials going around at the time. You two would make your very own versions with MarcyVF's New Grounds coming out first, followed by TommyVF's New Grounds. Why did you wait an entire year before doing yours Tommy? Also did you both consider doing one together instead of separate?

A:

TommyVF: First of all, I didn't wait a year! We made them pretty much simultaneously! Markus submitted his late December 2007, and I submitted mine right after new year's. I waited for some days to have a chance of winning a better award, I think. Dunno. And no, we never considered making one for both. Maybe that would've been fun, but we didn't want to be like one mutant organism, I guess. :) You know, like we were in mom's stomach. Belly. I mean womb.

COREY HOLLAND did the voices for the movies, and I always thought Marcy's was coolest. Anyways, it wasn't really original, but I'd say it was a nice experience. Yep. Was that an interesting sentence?

MarcyVF: Oh man, another example I was really stupid at the time: I wasn't aware of, untill now, (YES NOW!) that the style was a parody of the HP commercials. I just literally copied Allen Awesome's layout, man I feel so bad right now. I didn't even record the voices, I got Corey Holland (best voice actor ever) to do it for me. That's a little embarrassing. I also remember Allen Awesome humorously saying to me something like "You bumped me off frontpage, haha!", and I learned a new expression and felt really cool. Looking at the movie now, and the reviews, I feel really bad for copying Allen Awesome's flash, and the movie provoked disgust as I watch my awkward and unconfident hand movements and my arrogant, wannabe script. Tommy seems more humble. Maybe?

Holy shoosh. It's so super very funny how unaware we were at the time of what was happening around us, and of the trends that were around and why we were doing what we did. We basically just copied and mimicked others and "jumped on bandwagons". This reminds me that a cetrain Newgrounds user even PMed me with a long blog post he was planning on posting about artists like me and Tommy who were just "jumping on bandwagons" to gain cheap fame. Luckily, we talked him out of it and figured we had some things in common. HOHOHO, I bet you wonder who this user may be.

Oh, and the reason we didn't do one for the both of us is because I was first and we're two people.

Q: When it comes to animation, I believe your best work absolutely has to be Snowmen. The animation and art in this is simply breathtaking, it is not only humorous, but at the same time heart-warming as well. What all can you tell us about the creation of this movie as well as winning the award it did?

A:

TommyVF: We disagree that Snowmen is our best animation, but thanks for believing so! Spend It Wisely, you see, was a much larger project with more planning and thinking. And the very animation work in Snowmen is a lot more messy. Snowmen was mostly made for the Christmas spirit, and we wanted to do some snowmen-killing stuff. When we did the animation, we were really excited about character movement and things that Nogfish was doing (again, check him out!), so we emphasized cartoonish human animation. I agree that it ended up as a fairly nice thing, though. Probably one of our best animations... Thank you. :) It was exciting to create the whole thing, too, and Markus started the whole thing. Because it was whole thing. Which was whole. The thing. He did the spying and the fighting, and I loved the wackiness and followed him. I did the ending and added more scenes, and we didn't always have much time. But it was awesome winning a prize, and I'm glad people liked it. I've also heard that the ending with that baby has made lots of boys and girls out there cry their livers up and down, so that's really touchy and cool. I appreciate your appreciation. Maybe Justin Bieber watched it, even.

We also made an extended version for a Norwegian cultural arrangement/competition. Where I did all the music because we wanted to make most of the sound ourselves. The song in the fighting sequence is not something I'm very proud of, by the way! I made it by mixing random loops etc I found in Logic, the music program. Really random loops, that I randomly picked out from the list. So it was kind of a joke song, but we used it because we didn't have anything better to use. (I'd say we had, but I was young.)

MarcyVF: First, thanks for the love! Appreciate it. I so think Tommy is exaggerating a little here, as animation-wise Snowman is simply a little more spectacular than Spend It Wisely. Anyways, what Tommy says here is mostly true.

Q: TripleBits has you two working with SimonG once again. You have stated it as "A bunch of unfinished projects from the northern trio." I remember submitting this into the Newgrounds Treasure Hunt one year, because despite it being unfinished it is still quite funny. Why were these unfinished and why were they just thrown together?

A:

TommyVF: Wow, thanks for submitting it to the treasure hunt! Yes, TripleBits was something we had wanted to do for quite a long time. But the project itself went fast. It was inspired by Yotam Perel's (very radically great guy!) TidBitz, which was "a couple of shorts that were too short to be submitted to Newgrounds alone." This idea came from Wonchop's Tidbits, which was the same thing. Wonchop was first. Yotam Perel was second. And we were third!

They were unfinished because we had too many ideas and not enough time. You know, life. They were just thrown together because that was the easiest thing to do. You know, time.

MarcyVF: Thanks for the love once again, appreciate it. I'm Markus Vad Flaaten, and I approve this message, what Tommy just said.

Q: Life in Portal: Madness gave you both the chance to work with Yotam Perel, a.k.a. LazyMuffin and Egoraptor as well as other big artists such as HappyHarry, eddsworld, and Appsro. How did it feel to work with these different artists on this one project?

A:

TommyVF: To be honest, I didn't do anything at all. Markus recorded his own voice plus my voice, and I don't even know why. So I don't really feel like I've worked with any of them, though we've collaborated with Yotam after that project. And he's still really amazing. Sorry!

MarcyVF: Haha, um. Yeah. It was more a collaboration between everyone and Appsro. I don't think anybody had much contact with people other than Appsro. Unless I've been left behind. It was, unfortunately, not such a spectacular experience, and I didn't feel close to any of the big names. It was fun to brag about though. So fun.

Q: One of the strangest collaborations I have ever seen has to be Spend It Wisely. The bizarre nature of these characters, the animation, the writing, everything. Where did this idea spawn from and what was the process of it coming together?

A:

TommyVF: Just to get this straight: Me and my brother agree that this is the project we are most happy with. If you wanna watch our best stuff as of now, then watch Spend It Wisely! Please. DO IT!!!!11

The origins of this tale is actually a one-page comic we made for fun. It was called "Caz & P", and had 12 square pictures. Markus filled the first square, and I did the second, he the third, and so on. The concept was to not plan anything. I didn't know what Markus wanted to happen, and he didn't know what I was going to draw. There were two main characters: A guy with a cassette (audio tape) for a head (Caz), and one with a pear for a head (P). The heads were as large as their bodies, and their bodies looked like kid bodies. They didn't have eyes or facial details. The first square had them both standing next to eachother, and then they were talking and one of them god kidnapped by a giant flower. Basically.

Anyways, this comic was hanging on our wall, and I thought the characters were so cool that we ought to make an animation with them. So I told Markus and we started to script. The story was mainly my idea, and most of the scenes and ideas spawned when we were about to sleep. We wrote down a lot of ideas, both random and specific, big and small. And then we chose the best ideas and wrote a script with lines for each character. 75% of our ideas never made it into the animation!, by the way! We also planned what kind of music we wanted, what kind of backgrounds, what kind of drawing style and stuff. The thing we decided last was the ending.

We then contacted the three best voice actors we knew: Yotam Perel, Corey Holland and Aras Afsaji, a childhood friend. The three of them really did a great job, and it took them many months of updating and redoing and fixing and tweaking to get it all done. Their result was really hilarious and contained a lot of improvisation and different voice versions to choose from. We animated the whole movie simultaneously while mailing back and forth. Once we got some voice files, we animated and lip-synced the parts we could.

These things happened quite simultaneously, by the way. Don't be tricked by the paragraphs.

We also contacted Simon, a bropal from our neighborhood, to make some backgrounds. We asked him because we wanted some help, and because we wanted him to be a part of it. I made most of the music in Logic by recording guitar and keyboards and mixing and tweaking loops. Markus made one song, I think, and daddy recorded some bluesy B3 organ stuff for us. Because we're not that skilled.

Then we composited it all in After Effects, adding text, transitions, explosions and shaking, as well as color corrections, fading and extra stuff. We also added the stop-motion sequences, and some random trippy footage for the experimental fairy part.

And then we submitted it to Newground and Vimeo and Youtube, and it's now our most viewed and commented animation with almost 300 000 views. Thanks, folks!

A very sad fun fact about this animation is that we tried to submit it to the Amandus Festival (a Norwegian national youth movie festival/awards thingy) twice. This year and 2011. But in 2011 we were one day late by sending it in, and this year the animation was too long. Relevant fact: In 2010 we won the Best Animation Award on the Amandus Festival with "Snowmen". So yeah. Do the math. Lol. :)

Fun fact #2: The three voicers, YOTAM, COREY and ARAS, kept working with us professionally and paid on some freelance cartoon work we got into last summer. So their free work paid off in the long run, kind of. They're all very talented, versatile, funny, creative and cooperative voice actors, by the way. Give 'em a call.

MarcyVF: I've corrected Tommy on some areas of his answers, otherwise it's all true. This was Tommy's baby. He pushed this project along and initiated the whole thing. We did some pretty cool scripting and had some fun happy times on the bus to school. We were trying our best not to make a Chowder copy as we were, and have always kind of been a little anxious about trying not to steal other people's styles as we tend to become very very inspired. Like in MarcyVF's New Grounds - Allan Awesome, TwinBits - Yotam Perel/Wonchop, Snowmen - Nogfish, and also because of the bandwagon-PM mentioned earlier. Don't get me wrong, I think I've got some relatively original work as well, like Comeback Campnorth, Skater V2, Please Don't Mute Me!, Sugar Rush (Hi guys) and The Murderer.

Q: Recently, Edd Gould a.k.a. eddsworld. You two have been known to work with him, what can you tell us about Edd that I might not have known or others?

A:

TommyVF: I'm sorry, but I don't think we ever talked to Edd. We've watched his animations regularly, and were big fans, and we hear from many people that he was a great guy. But, as I said, the Life In The Portal collaboration didn't bring us closer to the other voice actors there, including Edd. I'm really impressed by the way his friends handled his passing, and I wish the people who loved him the most the very best! Rest in peace, bro.

MarcyVF: Unfortunately, we never got to work with Edd before his passing, so I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about him that you don't know. We were big fans, and I remember he was one of the first to make me use that v-mouth (http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wBxDmjZxxL0/0.jpg) sometimes. I was inspired by his simple faces and characters. It was really depressing to hear about his departing, and it made me think of this whole internet animation community thing. Although I didn't know him, I sure bet he was a fine young bloke, and the whole Eddsworld Legacy is just pure awesomeness.

Q: What advice do you have to give to those looking to get into animation?

A:

TommyVF: It kind of depends on what kind of animation, and what you wanna do with it... But, hmm... First advice, maybe: You have to like it! If you don't really want to spend hours and hours drawing the same characters, new backgrounds or whatever you want, you shouldn't do it. Animation can be a pain in the buttox for some people, and it requires patience. At least for me, who use my hands to draw.

Second advice, maybe: It takes a lot of time to learn Flash and to find your own style. Buy a cheap Wacom Bamboo tablet and download Flash. We learned Flash mostly by ourselves, and it was not a fast process! So again, be patient...

How to download Flash? Lol I don't know. I use a Mac, I don't know computer stuff.

A third advice is to watch animations, cartoons, movies, read comics and maybe even books. And all kinds of art. Depending on what you want to do, this will inspire you and hopefully keep your ideas fresh. Listen to music and animate what comes to mind!

Fourth advice: You can always do better! When you watch your animations, think of things that could be done different or better. Never stop learning lessons from others and yourself, and take critique and feedback.

If you want to make a living out of it, though, you should create as many ambitious, original, freestyle animations as you can, as well as having profiles all over the net. Getting the first paid jobs can be really hard, though, as it often depends on personal relations rather than being on Twitter and stuff. Check out sites like Wooshii, or just make small animations for free for people you know. Like intros, ads, conference videos, entertainment for weddings, or just whatever you can. Or make a simple series on Youtube and get some hundred thousand views every month. And get a sponsor or something? Don't know how that works, lol!

MarcyVF: To get where me and my brother are now, based on our story and our experience?

Thing number one: Suck it in! MMH! Watch loads and loads of cartoons or animations you like. Whatever you find inspiring, touching, interesting or amusing, just suck it all in and let it become a part of you. Listen to music if you love music, talk to people if you love that. You know. Yeah. Um, just fill your head with inspiration from wherever.

Thing number two: Puke it all out again! If you wanna be good at it, you just need to stop working out, stop dating, and stop doing homework and eating or whatever you may come up with doing, and just animate or draw all day long. That was a joke. But time is needed. Oh gah, I'm so cliché it hurts my back. Man! But really, use your inspiration and try to make something new. Wow, who am I to give you this advice?

Thing number three: Copy. Then try to be original. My hard theory is that copying is learning, and the best way of learning. As we copy reality and learn from it and understand how reality work, only then can cartoonish exaggeration and juiciness like that commence. By bending the original copy. I loved Nogfish's style so much I copied it for a period, then I tried to bend it to my own. That was hard, though, but I think it's the way to go for most new learners who aren't contemporary artist who aim on creating a new art form every other day.

Thing number four: Get Flash or ToonBoom or something. I think ToonBoom is pretty rad, but never tried it.

Thing number five: I guess keep failing and stay hungry stay foolish and all that.

Q: With this redesign, there are many more options for collaboration than ever before. What advice can you give to those who are looking to start a collab or looking to join a collab?

A:

TommyVF: Leading a collab? Remember that you don't have to accept all the crappy bits you may receive, as you're actually in charge. Don't be afraid to give critique. Participating in a collab? Make your part unique and complete, make it stand out. And I'm not saying all this because I'm good at it. I'm not.

When I cooperate with, say, Markus and Simon, we communicate personally all the time, so it's a different process. It's really important, though, that if you're a leader, you shouldn't let anyone mess with your vision or idea for the project or the final outcome. Be a dictator, because then it turns out the best. The more different opinions trying to fuse, the higher the chance for a not so polished, thorough and nice outcome. In my opinion.

MarcyVF: On the One Layer Collab, I was, as I've said, a stupid little boy. Anyways, my best advice is do your best and try to stick out. Don't make a collab entry that looks a bit like someone else's. :) Tommy's dictatorship theory of creative process is my choice too. If you have a good idea, don't let anyone hurt it, haha. If you believe in your idea, just go with that 100 % instead of some other idea 50 %. Now I'm being a little bit cocky maybe, but if you see the horizon (a stunning result being possible) nobody else can sail for that exact same horizon, cause it's all in your head. At least that's my experience: the best things are made when a product is built as close as possible to the polished main idea. Something like that.

Q: How has your time on Newgrounds affected you as a person and a creator?

A:

TommyVF: This was answered in part in the first question, but Newgrounds has been very important for us. It has probably shaped our humor and animation, storytelling and drawing style. The different artist and the multitude of series and ideas has fueled our creativity and motivated us in many ways. Until we got to work with animation professionally! Newgrounds has also given us a vast number of viewers, a whole lot of feedback, many great friends, and of course a nice place to hang out with other creative Flash nerds. Which is a positive description of Newgrounders.

MarcyVF: It has affected me greatly, of course, it was the first thing that showed to me that this animation thing I'd been doing was a global thing that people around the world could show interest in. As we dived into the Newgrounds community, and didn't know of or care to join any other communities like YouTube, DeviantArt, Vimeo or Dribbble (before Campnorth, haha), our humour, drawing and animation style, evry freaking thing, it changed according to our Newgrounds community. Our whole basis for developing a real skill within animation was formed in the community. We learned to be confident about our ideas, that somehow you could make money out of it, and that great people with pretty pretty voices and proficient proficient skills were right around the corner ready to collaborate! THANKS, NEWGROUNDS! We would like to kiss Newgrounds on the mouth for it helping us become what we are today. Giggle.

Q: What can we expect from the Vad Flaaten Bros. in the future?

A:

TommyVF: We're going to London in September to study! A Bachelor in Animation and Illustration at Kingston University. So we will probably produce a lot more, since it's what we learn at school. Right now we're kind of working on a secret, silly series with random stuff in it. Maybe an episode of that is around the corner? WHO KNOWS? Not this guy.

MarcyVF: My little brother is being weird again. Luckily this is the final question. YEAH UM we've been working a lot the past years, and trying out other things (check out our Dribbble/Vimeo), so sorry for that. The pressure I felt when I got my first encouraging review as a 13 year-old Newgrounder, I still kind of feel today. Which is funny. And also touching. I've tried 3D, design, motion graphics and filming, but stupid animation is still my passion. Anyways, we'd like to get back to silly stupid random characters, and we're even planning a silly stupid random series. Oh man. That's it for now, folks. If you read all this, I feel sorry for you.

TommyVF: Though I was being silly, we are actually taking a BA in Illustration & Animation at Kingston Uni starting september the 17th. And yeah, you shouldn't read all this. At least not this. This. This. This. THHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Patience is a virtue, this is very true seeing how this one interview took three months to do. Tommy and Markus are both very funny people and it shows in their answers. However they are serious about their works and have fun with it more than anything else. These two were simply a delight to interview and seeing as how they were requested a good bit I wanted to save them for the 100th and I am certainly glad I did. They're works range from bizarre to beautiful both at the same time. A set of twins, different mindsets, and overall artistic majesty and wonderful comedic timing.

So number 100. I was asked by some people if this is where I should call it an end. To be of no more. I myself wondered if I should either stop doing The Interviewer at this point or pass it down to someone else to run, and slowly yet surely drift away into the shadows. Yeah, yeah, I know, cut the melodramatic crap. Throughout this time of waiting for Tommy and Markus to respond to my questions, I slowly got the itch to start doing interviews again and I can't wait to keep going. I have a long list of suggestions and as long as I have my fuel source by my side I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. We've hit 100... so let's hit 100 more.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Interview No. 100

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today is a special day. The 100th Interview. Come a long way since 2009. It doesn't seem like a long time either. A lot of these interviews I feel as if it were yesterday when I wrote them. We last celebrated our 50th Interview with @Monocrom and since then we have grown. There have been others who have joined in with The Interviewer such as @NekoMika and @Atlas. @Asandir became inspired to do his own interviewing overtime.

For the 60th Interview I was privileged enough to interview @eddsworld a.k.a. Edd Gould. He passed away recently and he is missed by many here on Newgrounds. Around the same time, the man who pretty much introduced me to Newgrounds, @Randy-Solem also passed away. So it has been some sad times. The Interviewer keeps on going though, with more stories to tell and more underrated individuals to find.

Such as the 70th Interview where I interviewed @Jimtopia who not only has a series here on Newgrounds featuring his characters, but he is probably one, very few of you have heard of. The 80th Interview brought us a dark visionary @MOC-Productions with his Madness Day contribution as well as his take on what a sequel to The Dark Knight would have been like. The 90th Interview would feature a group of Newgrounds musicians who make commercial music for games, movies, and television. They were The Symphony of Specters.

I also got to go a bit deeper when I spoke with @AlmightyHans and Robert Hays. The other members of The Interviewer sat down with big Newgrounds names such as @JeremyLokken and @Afro-Ninja. This is simply just scratching the surface of what has been done since Interview No. 50.

Today though we come to No. 100 and today's guests are certainly not unknown here on Newgrounds. Their works include Check This Out!, The Murderer, Snowmen, and Spend It Wisely. They are two brothers who have been drawing and animating practically their entire lives. They are @TommyVF and @MarcyVF, Tommy Vad Flaaten and Markus Vad Flaaten, The Vad Flaaten Brothers.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Today is a special day. The 100th Interview. Come a long way since 2009. It doesn't seem like a long time either. A lot of these interviews I feel as if it were yesterday when I wrote them. We last celebrated our 50th Interview with Monocrom and since then we have grown. There have been others who have joined in with The Interviewer such as SCTE3 and J-Rex. Asandir became inspired to do his own interviewing overtime.

For the 60th Interview I was privileged enough to interview eddsworld a.k.a. Edd Gould. He passed away recently and he is missed by many here on Newgrounds. Around the same time, the man who pretty much introduced me to Newgrounds, Randy-Solem also passed away. So it has been some sad times. The Interviewer keeps on going though, with more stories to tell and more underrated individuals to find.

Such as the 70th Interview where I interviewed Jimtopia who not only has a series here on Newgrounds featuring his characters, but he is probably one, very few of you have heard of. The 80th Interview brought us a dark visionary MOC-Productions with his Madness Day contribution as well as his take on what a sequel to The Dark Knight would have been like. The 90th Interview would feature a group of Newgrounds musicians who make commercial music for games, movies, and television. They were The Symphony of Specters.

I also got to go a bit deeper when I spoke with AlmightyHans and Robert Hays. The other members of The Interviewer sat down with big Newgrounds names such as JeremyLokken and Afro-Ninja. This is simply just scratching the surface of what has been done since Interview No. 50.

Today though we come to No. 100 and today's guests are certainly not unknown here on Newgrounds. Their works include Check This Out!, The Murderer, Snowmen, and Spend It Wisely. They are two brothers who have been drawing and animating practically their entire lives. They are TommyVF and MarcyVF, Tommy Vad Flaaten and Markus Vad Flaaten, The Vad Flaaten Brothers.

ANSWERS WILL BE POSTED BENEATH THE _A:_ DUE TO TWO PEOPLE BEING INTERVIEWED PERSON ANSWERING WILL BE NOTED AS SO.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A:

TommyVF: Since my brother and I have been drawing all our lives, and got introduced to Flash by our father when we were seven or eight, we got in touch with Mr. Internet pretty quickly. At first we just played and watched Flash games and movies (or random, interactive stuff) on freeonlinegames.com, as well as other pages. That was the site that pointed us at Newgrounds, where we found the authors of the Flash-products became much more visible. And Newgrounds really seemed like a cool place for newcomers, with lots of different people (or different kinds of nerds) in a vibrant community, as well as an exciting site with plenty of colorful, weird and fun elements (like the Flash portal, forums, co-authoring (awesome!), diverse front page, author news, voting, reviews, awards, categories <3). So we embraced it! Submitted crappy crap, got our first goofy, long review, voted and got to know more people. We also had some profile on Deviantart.com, and later campnorth.tv (come back, pl0x), and other sites at different times. But we really appreciated Newgrounds as 13-year-olds because it was new and huge and exciting and gave us our first real self-promoting opportunities. Like choosing the double-ended-CAPS, fashionable "TommY" instead of "Tommy" in TommyVF, and getting to know that "Marcy" is a girls name. It was our first impression/encounter of/with many things.

MarcyVF: But as I'd been on the web for a while, and been watching and playing stuff on Newgrounds, one day I just kind of realized that I could submit MY stuff to this very site. That made me insanely excited. Our dad had a policy that we had to ask him for permission to get an account on a web site, I think. Or at least that was my notion. For some reason we followed the age restriction of 13 on the website, and when I was 13 I got an account. And it was also my belief that all "C" characters in were pronounced "K" in English, so when I chose my really hip and cool fictional nickname Marky, I simply located any K and made it a C because that's what I knew about English. Yep. I wonder if some people actually thought I was a girl when reading my username. Giggle giggle. Anyways, my first submission got blammed. Didn't really notice that, as my brain was at the time severely underdeveloped. But the whole review thing and people who were older than me telling me "please make more!!!!!" and stuff like that, they somehow motivated me more than anybody else. I kind of felt a pressure, which was weird. So I quit Newgrounds. Just kidding. But the question was WHY did I join! And that was because I wanted fame. Wow.

Also, Marcy is not my name. My name is Markus.

Q: You two are brothers, twin brothers to be in fact. Which on of you is older and what can you tell us about growing up as twins?

A:

TommyVF: It started when the sperm met the egg and fused into a zygote. Then, instead of dividing and growing into a person, that cell divided itself into two separate zygotes. Those two zygotes then started to divide and grow, until two individuals were created. That means me and my brother are identical twins with the same DNA, legal human clones! Since the zygote simply split, and we were created at the same time, neither is older. But I, Tommy, was born four minutes before Markus, after having his ass on my head for nine months. Such a lovely experience.

Growing up as twins was, has been, and is, really awesome and motivating, thought we haven't experienced anything else. We've lived together and shared interests and thoughts throughout our childhood. And it has probably/hopefully fueled our creativity, because we've often had many of the same ideas. It's also pretty cool (I think) to have an automatic friend. Though not all twins are friends. We also fight a lot and kill each other. Evry day I'm killin'-in'.

We're also gay.

MarcyVF: Everything Tommy said is wrong. Even though the zygote split at the same time and all that, my part of the zygote still separated from his part a little earlier. Sorry, that's just the facts.

Growing up as twins is, was, has always been, and will always be, a horrible experience. As the responsible older brother, he's the parasite, the bad copy who merely sucks the goo of life out of me. Pretty painful. No really, Tommy is a very frustrating little human, but at least, as I'm the original copy, he's not as frustrating as me. No really, he is a very frustrating little human, but we have in some or many ways a very unique relationship. The one I feel the most at home with, still the one I love being away from the most. That sounds weird? GOOD!

Q: When did you two get into art and animation?

A:

TommyVF: Since we were babies, we've been drawing characters, places and comics. We made comic books and invented worlds and stories as kids, and got introduced to FLASH when we were around 7 or 8. Our dad is a graphic designer and used it to create tiny web ads for houses, and he thought we might like it. But our dad showed us some basics of Flash, then we learned more and more ourselves. We've never really took any good tutorials for animation or drawing in the program, so I don't know if we suck at Flash. We got some tips from other animators, though. Also, I use Flash CS3, which is kind of an old version! Funnech!

We didn't use other programs until we met Simon, who made us utilize Photoshop, After Effects and Cinema 4D. Utilize is a funny word.

MarcyVF: Um, yeah, we draw. We drew so much our mom almost shot us down with a crossbow because there were drawings everywhere. I remember dad told me once, ONCE, and he even tells me he can't remember, but still I think I recall it (not very clearly though), that when I was crying or sulking/moping/(weird translation of the Norwegian verb furte') one time because of a drawing or something I can't fully remember, he told me that I was best at drawing or that a drawing I had just drawn was better than Tommy's. But you know what, I probably heard wrong cause he would never say that and I realize now that it all sounds ridiculously fabricated. Anyways, we just always drew, at school, at home, with and without each other and with friends, and started doing it digitally when we got hold of Flash, which our dad showed us. We basically mimicked everything around us. What I mean by that is when I saw cartoons and films on TV, we would watch them again and again and again and remember how they were. Some Looney Toons VHSs we watched a ton of times and even stopped in the midst of, then slowly forwarded/backwarded (or whatever it's called when you wind the VHS thing) it, and saw that the characters were warped and stuff when moving fast. FUN! So, whenever we started drawing or animating, it was our own memory that supported us with ideas as we drew computer game comics a lot. This changed a little with age, though, we got a weird and sudden interest in violence for example. Just because.

Q: Judging by your early works, you both seem to like skateboarding. What can you tell us about skateboarding and why you would make many different animations about it?

A:

TommyVF: WE PLAYED TONY HAWKS PRO SKATER 4! And 2, before that. But THPS4 came free with our eMacs, and the sound effects, animation and gameplay had a great influence. As well as all the other games, like Driver, Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Monkey Shines (old!), Boom (old!), Total Annihilation, and of course the dangerously lousy Runescape. Just kidding. We didn't play Runescape when we were that little, and it was more a social thing. We play it now, though. Brilliant game. Anyways, the concept of skateboarding had been fascinating to us, because of all the tricks and all the visual stuff surrounding it all. Kind of... We've also had a skateboarding period, where we learned to jump/ollie. I only performed a pop shove it once, by accident. On a cat. We use our longboards from time to time, though. But not really.

MarcyVF: Yeah, computer games influenced us greatly. We stole the sounds and put stick men on skateboards. Motion tweening stick men rolling on skateboard was super easy to animate and just the most brilliant and genius concept. Those old THPS4 sound effects are still the best I have, and I use them. We did skate a little in our spare time, as we suddenly got a big interest in it. Like all our weird little new hobbies, our parents provided us with motivation and did what they could. Tommy says a lot of weird stuff in his answer to this one. Wow.

Q: There would be a club here entitled -Skate Flash Club-. It would be the first time you two would work together in the movie Skate Flash Collab 2. What was the experience like working with a group of others as well as your brother?

A:

TommyVF: The Skate Flash Club was overall a really fun experience, because we talked everyday, joking and showing each other skateboard and animation stuff. It was our first time talking in a forum, so we enjoyed it. I think we learned a lot, too, and we participated in two collaborations, which I think made us improve as animators.

Another forum that we joined after this, was the forum Ultimate Pwnage, created by Tyler "Nogfish" Naugle, an animator which we really love. He has superb skills and an awesome cartoonish style. We also collaborated on that forum, joking, talking and making quick birthday collabs for every little user. We got to know a lot of people from around the globe, and probably improved our English abilities, too.

MarcyVF: Oh yeah, wow. The Skate Flash Club was completely awesome. Our first web community thing, where we talked to people in a forum for real. Was a little weird as we weren't that good in English amongst other things. I remember I wanted a forum signature, but kept uploading the same picture in every forum post because that's what I thought other people did to get the signature image. What a moron people must've thought I was. And this wasn't our first time animating together, just our first collaboration online. Anyways, just to clarify: I did a lot of idiot things on the internet when I was young. Looking back now, I honestly think there should be an age restriction of 16 for expressing yourself on the web. (Joke.) Lol. Example: when Luis didn't like the new style of Johny Magic, I got a tantrum. Read Luis's comment here And my hatred here I can't believe it's just 4 years ago. I still say incredibly stupid things, but at least not so everyone can see. Sorry Luis.

Q: What can you tell us about TWINTRASH?

A:

TommyVF: We can tell you that many people think we call ourselves that! But we don't. TwinTrash is a series we made for animation we did together, plus other random stuff. It was originally meant for smaller, weirder projects, and we tried out some new ideas and brought some "guest authors" with us on the way. We had always wanted to make a series together. RWD (Radical Wrong Doers) was also something we were digging at the time, so the whole thing was really inspired by that. Submitting "quality spam", kind of. We also numbered the submissions 001, 002 and so on, to make it look mass produced and cool. Which is kind of silly, but it was fun to have a series going on and try to create colorful and diverse animations.

The most popular TwinTrash-submittions were Runner I and Runner II, which in my opinion shouldn't have been a part of TwinTrash at all, because the project was a lot more special and planned than the others. The runner "technique" was also heavily inspired (if not taken) from an animator/illustrator called MRAW on Newgrounds, Jack Dubben, which we knew from the Skate Flash Club forum. Just check out his "SillyStopSkateMation" movies! Long time ago, though.

MarcyVF: I can tell you what Tommy said, and that our associates over at Aschehoug publishing calls us Twintrash. Though it was never our trademark or our clan name. It has nothing to do with Tommy's full given name being Tommy Vad Twintrash Flaaten.

Q: Check This Out! is a hilarious three part stunt movie. You two would work on this with SimonG. What can you tell us about Simon and working on him on this movie?

A:

TommyVF: Simon is our bropal for life. We had never met other Norwegians that shared our visual interests, so we showed him Apple and Flash while he showed us Photoshop and design. So we became friends and started to make Flash together, like "Dreams", "Daydreams", "Comeback Campnorth" and "Check This Out!". We were mostly just fooling around and having fun, and it was and is super awesome to work with him. We used some automated speech website for the voices, so it turned out really silly. Simon is so cool. And lol, why are you calling it a stunt movie? You're actually making it sound like a good product. When it was just a childish and random animation. Thanks!

MarcyVF: We fell in love with Simon in the summer of 2008, we spent a lot of time together. One of us usually animated, while the two others played Skate or something. It was real fun, and I remember Simon being really self-conscious about his animation. When we came to his part of Check This Out, he always were like "awh, yeah and then it's my crappy part" and he gave us that deeply-in-love-with-you face, if you know what I mean. Okay, that final part was not entirely true. But for example, he made me animate a silhouette falling down some stairs, and my shot at it really sucked. We probably didn't tell him how we secretly admired his cinematic timing and cutting, and his Disney-ish drawing style.

Q: One of my favorites by you two has to be The Murderer. You stated that the inspiration came from Newgrounds member tinytim for showing you the song. The story you told with it though is quite amazing. When it came to working on this how did you draw the visuals that you saw from this song?

A:

TommyVF: Thanks so much for still liking our older work. I think Markus got the song from tinytim, and we loved it. We might have watched the music video, too, but Markus wanted to make something else. I don't know who came up with the idea, but Markus did most of the work. So he probably got the idea, too. Yes, I had to mimic his character, but it was a fun little thing. We still listen to the song.

MarcyVF: First, Thanks for the love! Though I first couldn't take seriously that you thought The Murderer was one of your favorites, I now see that it's kind of good story-wise, still super simple, but one of our more short story-ish animations. About drawing out from a song and the sounds in it, that's basically something we've always loved doing. Music is one art form we love even more than animation, and using songs in our animations can really fuel the whole process increeeeedibly! Apart from my girlfriend, music is what inspires me most. I love it when I can make an animation respond to every movement in the music or sound design. That's something called fun.

Q: The Bible in 05.30, shows pretty much the Holy Bible in five minutes and thirty seconds with not only comedic flair, but some beautiful artistic moments in it as well. What inspired you to tell this story and do it within this short period of time?

A:

TommyVF: I don't know how common the practice of Christian confirmation is in other countries, but, as you can read here, confimation in Norway is a very social and nice event. My brother and I were asked to create some kind of animation for the "ceremony", which normally contained entertainment and other stuff. So we decided to make the story of the Bible into a short cartoon, and it was shown in the church during the confirmation. Me and my brother are Christians, by the way. Like, crazy ones. With swords.

Like Justin Bieber.

MarcyVF: Like Tommy says, we made this on our Christian confirmation show thing in our local church. I got the idea, yeah, and like Tommy mentioned, Justin Bieber's beliefs are the only thing about him I like. Just to clarify, kay? Giggle.

Maybe I'm joking to much here. And maybe it's not funny in any way, so sorry. But my Christian beliefs are something I've wanted to portray or convey somehow through animation for a long time. It's kind of hard, as I think many Christian-themed movies and animations are so insanely crappy or cheesy that it embarrasses me. Still, I have a couple of ideas up my sleeve which I aim to make happen sometime, as the opportunity to at least put a smile on someone's face because of something I've made that has to do with God, is an opportunity I'm thankful of, and really want to use.

And in case someone's curious about our Christianity: Yes, we pray. No, we're not creationists. Yes, we try to read the Bible. No, we don't over-interpret verses. Yes, we attend(ed) this pentecostal church (before London): http://www.pinsekirkenbetel.no Who's in the house? JC. Yo tell me who's in the house? JC.

Q: What can you tell me about The One Layer Collab thread and the movie The One Layer Collab?

A:

TommyVF: Markus made the collab and the thread.

MarcyVF: What a weird project and a weird time. Funny to read how I talk like a horrible teacher in the author comments. And you can see in the thread that I'm becoming arrogant about Skater V2 already. Oh boy! Everyone who participated here were either better than me in English or older than me. It was a horrible amount of work. And I remember one funny story!

Funny story time: When I was compiling the collab, looking through parts and putting them all together, I looked at Timmy The Wing's second appearance in the collab while my mom was in the room. In the part, a man takes off his hat while we only see his shadow. And the shadow of his head without the hat looks like a penis, then we see it's a weird little camel on his head, not a penis. I was not aware of this, as I was really stupid at the time, and just thought it was a random animation of a guy with a camel under his hat. My mom, however, saw this short and then silently said behind me "It... looked... like a penis." I was really surprised and answered "No no no, it's just supposed to look like the shadow of his weird camel head".

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Interview No. 99

Interview By: The-Great-One

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Q: For those just getting into art, what advice would you have for them?

A:

Flowers10: Well, that depends on why you started arting in the first place. For those who want to create pretty pictures, i'd say : look at your work in a critical way, practice what your bad at. if you cant draw hands, draw a 1000 hands, and they will improve. Don't draw the same thing/theme all the time, you need to experiment to improve and get outside your comfort zone.

Oh and pick up some art books. But if you'd just like to have fun, try to improve its allot a fun

Lucky: Well... its... Don't! Or if you do, make sure you know all the bad sides of art before you keep going! Including lack of job security, insane time schedules, not seeing sunlight, dark eye shadows, losing friends from lack of contact with the social world... you're still with me?

GREAT! Because if you're fine with all that being an artist is AWESOMEEEE!

My biggest advice is to do a LOT of life drawing and a lot less copying of things that are famous like anime or scot pilgrim or whatever's popular right now. I think personal style comes with time and not trying to MAKE it come to you. I've stayed up late nights depressed that my drawing is horrible and nothing special and that's the worst feeling you can have, so DON'T! If you ever feel like you haven't found yourself EXPLORE! Look at real life, look at other artists, not to copy them but ask yourself why their work is so appealing and try to capture that aspect! Every once in a while someone will come along and tell you you've got a great style , but when you've found yourself you'll know! I still haven't completely found myself, but i'm getting closer to where I want to be. The more personal I make my work and the more vulnerable I feel making it the better it turns out for me. And good luck, it's a struggle, but with great rewards in the end!

Morthagg: Practice, obviously. If you want to be as versatile and open to learning as possible, try to understand realism and relatively correct anatomy before you start clinging to one (cartoonish) style, because it will misshape your other styles. Welcome criticism. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Think about a medium (paint, realistic digital painting, pencil, ink, ..) that you think you would suck at and then just try it out until you find a way to make it work. In other words: confront your problems, don't ignore them (this is one I'm still learning myself). Oh, and don't be afraid to imitate and learn from others. Just make sure to move on at a certain point.

Luwano: art101.newgrounds.com has a lot of useful tutorials to get started. When you have done some of the practices, you should post some of your work in the art forum (actually post it in the thread rather than just posting a link to it) and above all, be patient. Don't expect people come running, the forum is slow at times and sometimes people just can't add anything interesting to the piece. Just keep submitting art and somebody will respond. I also recommend asking specific question rather than just "check out my art".

Accept critiques. There are good ones and bad ones, but you won't get anywhere if you can't take criticism. Don't take it personal, they talk about your art, not you. If people are just rude and are not giving advice, you should just ignore them.

Follow advice. People are not giving you tips because they are bored, but (in 95 out of 100 cases) because they think that's what you really need and what can help you improve.

Practice a lot.... and I mean A LOT. And when you have done a lot, do more. Don't be as lazy as I am, seriously.

ZaneZansorrow: Learn the basics from your art classes, if you are not attending art class and looking at Newgrounds for guidance for art then follow and read Art101 http://art101.newgrounds.com/news/post/269181 If you are feeling like being a better artist through photoshop then ctrl+paint is also great on teaching how to use photoshop's tool to its fullest http://www.ctrlpaint.com/

Q: If you could change one thing about the Art Portal, what would it be and why?

A:

Flowers10: I'd make it a requirement that all pictures must have dicks in them. No, I really don't know.

Lucky: I'd make the thumbs smaller and display more art on the art portal page, because i'm too lazy to scroll trough 15 pages and enjoy artsites who have tiny image previews because if a 40*40 preview can grab me, the art's gotta be awesome!

Morthagg: I honestly can't think of any intelligent adjustments to make.

Luwano: I wish more users would actually check the art portal and vote on art. It's already considered a success if a drawing that is not frontpaged reaches 100 votes. That would not even get a flash through judgment and even worse, some pieces don't even get 20 votes. Unfortunately I don't know how to achieve this, maybe this interview helps already.

ZaneZansorrow: I would change how voting on an artwork would also give experience points.

Q: Flowers10 - One piece by you that fascinates me is entitled selfportrait. What can you tell me about the Self-portrait Collab and your contribution?

A: It's a picture of me that i drew. JQB organized the Self-portrait Collab, and since he's the best artist on newgrounds i wanted to contribute to some of his work. Instead of making a normal kind of portrait i choose to make orgasm of colors with my sexy face in the middle!

Q: Flowers10 - Another piece that intrigues me is War. Could you tell us what World War II pic it was you found, describe the picture and what inspired you to draw it?

A: Almost everyday i take a minute and search the interwebz for inspiring pictures.

I stumbled on a thread filled with WWII pictures, there were some blood gushing in there. And the one i drew was the one that caught my attention the most. The scene is so dramatic the way the officer is holding the capitative head whilst pointing the a gun at it, It really makes you question if the nazi were actual humans?

Q: Morthagg - A piece by you is entitled Markerface. You say it is based off of you, but it's not a self portrait. Also you state that you were trying out your kiddie markers. What gave you the inspiration to draw yourself and use kiddie markers?

A: The only reason I drew 'myself' in that drawing is because I needed a basic human face reference and mine was quite readily available. I used markers because I felt I sucked at using colour and I don't like using something as irreversible as a thick marker, so I wanted to confront myself and make something that was a bit out of my 'comfort zone'.

Q: Morthagg - One of my favorite pieces by you is Nightly scene. You said it was for a background for an animation. What was this animation and what was the inspiration or the goal set in mind for the animation?

A: That's really one of your favourites? :D How odd. I made the thing in like 15 minutes almost 5 years ago or something. I was in my first year of studying Animation and the assignment was to make a storyboard, model sheets, and backgrounds for a story we came up with ourselves, based on something the teachers gave us. I wrote a story about a cricket and a sparrow that fell in love against the wishes of either's family, some kind of animal-ish Romeo and Juliet. Since this was early in the year we didn't yet need to make a completed animation out of it, and Nightly Scene is just one of the backgrounds I made.

Q: Lucky - A lot of your artwork has a very interesting caricature style to it. Where did you adapt this style from and what twists do you add to yours?

A: Oh idk, i used to do caricatures on the street, not for a company or anything I just put 2 chairs in the middle of the street and offered caricatures to people , i really love drawing faces and expressions and so I try to add as much expressions into my drawings because I think that's the best way to make the drawing feel more personal to me. I love minimal lifework so i spent a lot of time trying make characters with as few lines as possible, I'm out of that phase now , but I think even subconsciously I still want to show the most in a character with the fewest amount of lines possible!

Q: Lucky - A Bear fighting a squid is quite possibly the funniest yet most badass piece I've seen. How did this friend request come about and what possessed you to bring it to life?

A: It was a fun request from a friend and I thought why not have fun with it?? It took me way to long to make, but looking back it was a loot of fun! It's one of those I cant believe I did that pieces. I really really love making drawings on topics that make me laugh or happy just thinking about, and when i get the feeling of a connection deeper than just a drawing with something it usually succeeds much more than i originally tought it could! Same as my submission for the comic jam this year!

Q: ZaneZansorrow - Cat Knight is an interesting and adorable piece. You describe it as a cat and his knight companion. Where did the idea for this come from and what was the process in making it?

A: The idea just pop in when I was tired on what I was currently arting on and I need to get my creativity flowing. So I decided I wanted to art a cat, then I wanted to do more (the best part in art for me is the urge to do more then what you originally intended), so I added a knight because I love armor. Went about creating this in a casual manner on whether this will turn out good or bad because I started by an eye for the cat and work around from there. I even painted it straight from color because on how fast I want to get the creative flow flowing. Evidently whats done is done, and I was happy enough to even put in the art portal.

Q: ZaneZansorrow - My favorite piece by you has to be Desolate Light Consumer. I feel that there is an interesting story to tell about this piece, would you care to share it with us?

A: The Desolate Ligh Consumer was a piece for the Art Forum's COW (Creature Of the Week)(the theme was exoskeleton) which isn't really a weekly thing anymore but oh well. I started this piece right after I finish another COW (the theme was volcano dweller) so I was already feeling kind of exhausted but I still want to do it because of the theme. Dinosaur pop up in my head but I want the creature to look unique so I slap in some extra stuff like small hands attach to the side of the head and reptilian feeling to it. Did it by painting grayscale then slaping it with a blue gradient then add in colors to give it the right attention.

Q: Luwano - An interesting art form that I have forgotten about that you have refreshed my memory with is in the piece Show me some scraperfoil!. For those who don't know, could you explain scraperfoil and why you wanted to make one?

A: Scraperfoil is the name for those kids toys where you scratch black color off a shiny or coloful background along given guidelines, to receive a fancy picture. Of course that's not real art, but fun. When I was practicing basic forms, I got bored by the repetitive process, so instead I added a black layer above a colorful layer and erased the black to receive a drawing, similar to those scraperfoil toys. It's basically just a form of shading called "scribbling", but it helped me to keep on practicing. I even started an activity thread (http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1181899) based on the idea a long time ago, it never really took off though. lol

Q: Luwano - Green Flash is a pretty piece, made for The Friday Flood. It tells a small little story with footprints leading to the ocean, with a broken heart and "Dear John" written in the hand. An interesting tale to tell, but one I would like to know more about from the story teller. What all can you tell us about this piece?

A: "Dear John letters" is a term used for letters women write to their boyfriends or husbands to break up with them in their absence. So the message of the writing in the sand along with the footprints that lead to the water should suggest, that the woman committed suicide. There are more hints at death in the picture, like the skull face in the moon. Actually, I was testing out composition with this one mainly, thus the elongated format and the transition from more or less light at the bottom to dark at the top. I made some mistakes in the drawing which the reviewers pointed out, so I learned a thing or two from this pic overall.

Q: What can we expect from the Art Portal and Art Forum in the near future?

A:

Flowers10: Dicks, lots of them.

Lucky: Well I haven't submitted in a while , but I'm making a comic at spikescomic.com and have been making it for the past 13 weeks, the stage height is huge thats why i cant make it fit in the art portal, BUT you can expect a lot of production art from my personal projects!:3

Morthagg: Artsy things, hopefully. And probably a healthy bit of bickering and trolling.

Luwano: There are some art collabs yet to be released and I hope we can also team up for some more of those in the future. For the Art Portal, I think Robot Day will be a huge thing again. I can't wait to see what people like keepwalking, Nekow, Mindchamber and all the other great artists around will come up with.

ZaneZansorrow: The art forum will get my personnal art thread bump daily with work in progress (oh look it's bump now) and me participating on the Epic Battle Fantasy fan art collab (if given enough participation and find someone who know how to use flash to put the pictures together) plus I might do some critiques if I can think of any that fits for the right art. The art portal will be seeing my favorite finish pieces, friday floods (because I will participate to flood that portal), and many things that relate to the art forum and Newgrounds.

When it comes to art, I must say that I have learned more than what I thought. Is it subjective? Absolutely. Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Yes. Overall though, creativity and creation is something that takes skill to learn and master. From what I have seen in this interview and these artists works I truly do believe that there is no such thing as talent when it comes to making art... it is something that takes time and dedication, more than probably most people think.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Interview No. 99

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Special Thanks to @liljim without whom this interview would not be possible.

For those of you who read the Interview with the Audio Portal: Defining Music, we learned what defines music and why people make it by asking esteemed members of the Audio Portal and Audio Forum. Today we're going to be doing it again except this time we'll be looking at a topic more controversial than that of music, I am of course speaking of art.

I decided to question the Art Forum on what the definition of art is. You can read their responses within this thread. So you can gather a wider scope if you want one.

The following artists I have decided to ask further questions on the subject. They are @Flowers10, @Lucky, @Morthagg, @Luwano, and @ZaneZansorrow. These are the fine artists of the Newgrounds Art Portal and they are here to define art and share their stories with us.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

ANSWERS WILL BE POSTED BENEATH THE _A:_ DUE TO TWO PEOPLE BEING INTERVIEWED PERSON ANSWERING WILL BE NOTED AS SO.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A:

Flowers10: As a kid I used to watch silly movies and play adult games (even tough i wasn't 18!) on newgrounds. Some years later i joined the website in a quest to get on the frontpage with my art. Which i was successful in btw, twice!

Lucky: I found it... i think when I was 13, about 10 years ago and I just loved the cartoons on it back then, the clock stuff, the matrix has you, the madness/stick/games were all loads of fun!

Morthagg: I guess the first time I came to newgrounds was around 2005-2006, when a friend showed me Retarded Animal Babies on here, which we used to quote from a lot during our D&D sessions. I never really got into the website then though, and kind of forgot about it until my little brother (Breaktroll here) started spending a lot of time on it. He was also the reason I joined, by bugging me to make a profile and start my own art thread. So I did!

Luwano: I once found Newgrounds while looking for flash games. It was one of the older versions in the year 2000 or 2001, I played the Police Bike game for a while and unfortunately couldn't find the site again when I looked for it some days later, because I didn't remember which search term led me there.

At the end of 2002, someone showed me the game "Bloody Rage" shortly after it's release and after that I discovered many funny toons and games on the site and got hooked. Since then I was checking Newgrounds more or less regularly, but only the frontpage and the collections really.

Chluaid's first Brackenwood movies made me sign up in 2004 then. Because they made me really understand the scope of NG and the portal. I wanted to be a part of that somehow.

ZaneZansorrow: I find Newgrounds when I was a middle schooler, me and my brother was at my friend's house and my brother was looking at metal gear awesome and I notice that he was laughing pretty hard. He show it to me and I laugh my ass off at the piss joke. Skipping to my sophomore year in high school, I recently finish playing Castle Crasher on my friend's Xbox and I was getting pretty tired achievement hunting through my friend's games, so I was exploring through for some addicting games to play online. Eventually I made it to Newgrounds and notice the medal system, made an account so that I can get the medals.

Q: When did you first become introduced to art and in what form?

A:

Flowers10: I have been drawing and painting on all and everything since childhood, so i really don't know.

Lucky: I've always had art in my life, I suppose I just never noticed it until i started pursuing it as a carreer. But my father was a painter and loved crafting so art came into my life quite early on. I just never chose to pursue it at that point.

Morthagg: Hm, let's see. My parents had a couple art books lying around, and since I was a young child I spend a lot of time with my nose in one or the other. They were of the big, more classical masters, like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens, .. Actually, Rubens was my favourite when I was a child, his fleshy women and biblical scenes could really capture my attention and make me want to try the same. He was one of the influences that made me want to be a classical artist too, and reintroduce realism and little fat flying angels into modern art. That didn't quite happen, but I'm okay with that. I also read a heap of comics, if that counts.

Luwano: I used to draw as a kid, like most people. But I haven't picked up a pen really until I became more involved in the Newgrounds art forum. I can honestly say, I have learned everything that I know now, from the art forum regulars' tips and helpful links.

ZaneZansorrow: I was first introduced to art when I was 6 and my dad had these attach green white papers; me, my brother, and my sister doodle all over those with crayons and pencils. The things that came in my mind when doodling those were video games and anime.

Q: What first inspired you to create art?

A:

Flowers10: I'm very competitive. I couldn't take it if other kids would get attention if they made pretty drawings,I always had to make a better drawing. This might also be one of my biggest motivations to draw, because whenever im not drawing there's someone els who is, and he might be getting better than me.

Lucky: I've always had art in my life, I suppose I just never noticed it until i started pursuing it as a carreer. But my father was a painter and loved crafting so art came into my life quite early on. I just never chose to pursue it at that point.

Morthagg: Well.. First of all I don't really like calling the stuff I make art, because it has very little to do with art. I just draw.

But err, no sematics. I honestly wasn't really 'inspired', it was more of an itch I needed to scratch. It's an enormous cliché, but I've been drawing ever since I could hold a pencil and I never really stopped, or started. I was just something I did, something that defined me as a person, since 'drawing' was the first thing that popped into most people's heads when they saw me. There were a lot of influences but one of my biggest must be the Belgian comics, specifically "Suske & Wiske", which showed itself a lot in my early drawings. I remember drawing comics in preschool, even. When I was young I used to think drawing comics wasn't honourable enough as a profession (see the: "I want to introduce fat angels in art again"-stuff), but I obviously changed my mind, having started my own webcomic and all. In fact, I'm really getting into graphic novels and other comics now, which are huuuge inspirations.

Luwano: It's a long story, I hope you don't mind. The inspiration came from a webcomic called "Savage Chickens" actually. The creator Doug Savage, wanted to become a cartoonist as a kid, but as he grew up he stopped drawing and found himself in a monotonous job. On a bad day at work he started drawing chickens on a post-it note and the creative outlet made him feel better. I, myself, could identify with that story, because I was studying maths at that time and that's kinda monotonous too. So I went to the most creative site I could think of, Newgrounds. I haven't noticed the art portal before, but there I found Sabtastic's Art. I initially fell in love with "Nighthawk Nanabush" (http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/sabtastic/ni ghthawk-nanabush) and one of her other pieces mentioned the "Level's Collab" in the art forum. I went there to check it out and there was so much creativity and fun stuff going on, so I felt like it was the right place to revive my own creativity.

ZaneZansorrow: Encouragement that the things that I drew look cool and nice, classmates and teachers always did say the things I drew look nice.

Q: What is in your opinion, the definition of art?

A:

Flowers10: An act of emotion.

Lucky: To me it's the equivalent of talking about something that happened to you in real life to a bunch of friends. But using drawings, which can have a lot more detail, a lot more mood, a lot more emotions which can be portrayed as opposed to if you just verbally described what happened.

Morthagg: Oh dear. Not this question. I really, really don't like this question, and this is going to make me ramble. WARNING: rambling ahead, it's going to sound retarded and I suggest not reading it, honestly.

An attempt to put it simply: Art is what 'they' say art is. Getting taught art history and silly stuff like that has lead me to believe the definition of art is not 'different for every person' or 'something that appeals to you' or whatever, but simply what is being called art at this moment, or what is made by a recognised artist. What is Art fluctuates over the years, seeing how many artists were only discovered after they were six feet under, but one thing is certain: it is divided into streams that reflect a certain state of mind of a culture in a certain time, and constantly reflects on itself in following periods. (ß THIS IS KIND OF MY DEFINITION, I guess)

It might have to do with my difference in language, but Art with the big A is not really for anyone to simply choose based on their own preferences of aesthetics. I get a serious case of the shits when people still get 'angry' over a piece of modernist art made 50 years ago, yelling THIS AINT ART. Shaddap. Yes it is. That doesn't mean it's suddenly wonderful or beautiful or priceless. Not at all. Art can be absolute crap and not appeal to you at all. Doesn't make it any less Art though. But that aside, there is still art with the little a. The one you find appealing, that speaks to you, that you think deserves more of a pedestal than anything modern, and that is completely fine. Lots and lots of art with a little 'a' has eventually made it into the Art-league, by people who were willing to stand by their tastes and push them further, as long as it has certain aspects that make it a reflection of it's time in some significant way. Also there is art that is kind of a combination of the two that is actually recognised art but on a smaller scale and those artists might not make the history books unless in a paragraph about a larger stream of art linked to a cultural overtone of a certain period oh god why are you making me do this I'm going to shut up now

Luwano: I can't answer that question properly. Even if you narrow it down to visual art in form of traditional or digital drawings, there is so much variation that I can't think of a coherent definition. Some hints however are the skills of the artist behind it, the thought he put into it and the effort it took.

ZaneZansorrow: The definition of art to me is........

{X}= The form of media use

{Y}= The Concept and a bunch of fancy literature words

{X}+{Y}=Art

Q: The Art Forum was introduced on September 15th, 2006. There you would all have your own Art Threads, Flowers Art*, Morthagg makes things., Lucky's Art stuff, Zanezansorrow's Personal Art Thread, and Luwano learned a little lot!. What is the purpose of having an art thread in your own words and how much experience do you think you have acquired since making your thread?

A:

Flowers10: At first the purpose of my art thread was to show off my art, and maybe get scouted. Over time it became somewhat of a progress chart, i often find myself looking back at my old work and seeing how much i progressed makes me happy. Its also a great way to generate criticism, which is very important for an artist trying to improve.

Lucky: Well documenting progress for the most part, to keep the art growing and to see improvement over time of your art can be really satisfying. Having people give feedback on your art is great and to that extend you can meet a great number of people who are into the same type of art as you which is a great plus. Also if you have art on your site that can go down, if one year you decide to stop the hosting but the art thread's art stays there forever(or until NG goes down) so it's perfect to use to look back like an old sketchbook!

Morthagg: An art thread is in my opinion a wonderful way of getting feedback and making a little real-time timeline of how you progress and how you use the feedback you get. I have no doubt that many people will progress, having a wide arrangement of opinions ready. I have made some pretty okay things because of Newgrounds' feedback in my art thread and new things I saw here, but honestly I don't think I myself have progressed much. I'm afraid I'm already kind of rusted stuck in my drawing habits. Maybe I have mostly learned to try new things.

Luwano: The purpose of an art thread is to have your art in one place. It's a good way to get better at drawing, because most of the times, other users will post useful tips and pointers for you. You are supposed to post works in progress there and ask if you need advice on anything. The reason why it should happen in one thread is, that visitors can see your progress, they can see what you have done before and how you have improved over time. When you spread your art over several individual threads, people will start to repeat themselves, because they don't know what you can do already.

I personally, could literally not draw at all before. So everything I can draw now is owed to all the other talented artists in the forums. I think I acquired a good amount of experience with drawing generally since I started the thread, although I kind of stopped doing regular practices and avoided anatomy for quite some time. I think I could easily be better if I made more use of my art thread and other people's advice. Shame on me! lol

ZaneZansorrow: The names of the art thread comes by as personal choice, makes art threads uniques (even though there is a limit on how irrelevant you can be on naming an art thread, at least having the user's name on it would be relevant enough but it really doesn't matter unless it clearly stated that the user's art is stuffed in that thread). I gotten many experience from my art thread, not only my art thread but other people's art thread too. The critiques, advice, and discussion carried out in those threads can help.

Q: The Art Portal was introduced on June 3rd, 2009. It was something that was hinted at for a good long time. What was your first impression regarding this new portal?

A:

Flowers10: I HAD TO GET ON THE FRONTPAGE!

Lucky: I wasn't all too impressed at first in all honesty. Not that there wasn't amazing art, there was! It was the fact that people upvoted tits and violence(same as the early times of the flash portal) and quality art seemed to get low score just because it didn't contain nipples or there wasn't a chick with a gun in it. But as the years progress I think users have matured more and more and the art portal these days seems to be quite lovely and filled with a variety of different styles and subject matters!

Morthagg: Um. I wasn't here yet in 2009, I'm a pretty new member. I joined early 2011, so I pretty much don't know any different. Ha, I feel like such a noob now. Still happy it's there though!

Luwano: I only realized there was an Art Portal, about half a year after its introduction and I was totally impressed by it. I used to check every single art piece that was submitted, sometimes catching up on 4 or 5 pages of the portal a day. I don't do that anymore, but I still enjoy a lot of art every day.

ZaneZansorrow: I didn't notice that the art portal was a new implement until somebody told me lol.

Q: What is The Friday Flood?

A:

Flowers10: The friday flood is a (mostly) monthly event where artists are evoked to draw a pictures within the borders of a theme. The pictures are all posted on the same time with the same thumbnail, flooding the art portal. After the portal is flooded the artists will begin to write critics on all of the participating pictures. it's lots a fun!

Lucky: It's when we make a drawing for a specific theme for friday and we flood the portal with it.. right? I've never done one *ashamed face*

Morthagg: I never joined one, but as far as I know it's a thing that goes on the first Friday of every month. There is a theme given, and people make drawings according to it. They insert the avatar given with the thread into their drawing, make it their image's thumbnail, try to post their pictures in the art portal at the same time, and thus flood the portal with the same looking thumbnails. It's a pretty cool idea and I really want to join one one time. If uh, they still do it because I'm a little confused.

Luwano: The "Flood the Portal Friday" is an activity in the art forum. The idea is to flood the art portal with the exact same thumbnail at the same time with drawings about a certain theme, like "Dinosaurs" or "Green" and add a certain tag to the submission. The theme can be interpreted as loosely or strict as they want. After the flood has happened people are supposed to review each other's submissions. TurkeyOnAStick just took that concept to a new level and turned it into a cool contest about M and A rated art with an emphasis on realistic anatomy, where people also flood the portal with the same thumbnail and hopefully many users review them. It's called "M&A Monday" (http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1305136). Two artists and two reviewers have the chance to win a prize then.

ZaneZansorrow: It's a monthly event to flood the art portal with identical thumbnails based on the theme the artist have to art. It all in good fun and hopefully one day we will flood that first page in the latest art. All we need is more participating artists.

Q: When it comes to your art, where do you begin? How does the creative process start and when does the creation become finished?

A:

Flowers10: First thing i do is take lots of drugs, Lots! This will allow me to generate some crazy ideas, and after the drugs have worked out(drawing on drugs doesn't work for me lol) I will make a sketch. Once my fingers start swelling or a headache starts to come up after some hours of drawing in photoshop i will call it done. But ideally an artwork is never finished there's always things you could improve on it or change.

Lucky: Oh its pretty straight forward

1: Idea

2: Procrastination

3: Anger from procrastination

4: Rough sketch

5: Frustration that I can't get it perfect

6: Incredible joy when inking it

7: The feeling of satisfaction from getting it done

9:Rinse and repeat!

Morthagg: Ow. Um. I have a serious problem with finishing things, so that part of the creative process often kind of.. fails. I have a better chance of finishing things when I do an assignment or a commission, because that thing simply has to get done. If I make something for myself it often stays in the sketchy stage, or I call it finished when I come at a point where I'm simply scared to f-ck it up if I work on it any further. Mostly the things I make are just sketches, loose drawings. When I make someting 'real', it often starts with me seeing other art and getting inspired/wanting to learn, but I have noticed I make my best work when I work for someone or something else. I made some of my best work for contests on Newgrounds here, for instance.

Luwano: Wherever inspiration comes from. Most of the times, I draw stuff for a collab or activity on Newgrounds, so the basic idea comes form there. After that I just sketch out some ideas I can come up with, IF I can come up with something. To be honest, my creations are finished by the deadline of the projects most of the time. I am procrastinating too much usually. Many others may know this problem too. :P

ZaneZansorrow: I begin arting in many different ways, it all depends on what exactly I'm arting. I usually tend to grayscale paint then give it color or gradient the grayscale then give it color. I might approach things with texture brushes with odd forms and silhouettes for scenary and creatures. I might manipulate an old art I did and paint over it. I might do line art and then give it grayscale shading and paint with colors. I might color straight from colors in order to get a mood first. I usually call things finish when I ran out of ideas on how to continue the art, I post work in progress in my art thread to see what feedback I can get to improve it better.

Q: When we spoke with different members of The Graffiti Crew here on Newgrounds, I asked them why they use the world as their easel. Would you say there is a difference between graffiti art and more of what can be called traditional art, or is graffiti just another form? Whatever your answer could you please tell us why?

A:

Flowers10: I think graffiti is just another art form, but is a whole different experience than all other forms.I used to do graffiti some years ago, but i stopped because i like to sleep at night, and if my mom ever found out i would be fucked since she's a police detective. It was fun though seeing your name every day when biking to school, and thats what graffiti is about in my opinion: seeing and being seen. Once you start writing graffiti you will notice graffiti allot more, and you will start to remember the tags. I began to notice the big names and looked up to these figures, they motivated me to write more.

Lucky: I love graffiti art, I have great respect for the artists who practise it, I don't know how they can do it knowing that some old people can come by, call it a travesty and replace the drawing you spend 4 weeks on with a white wall. They take such risks and extremes with their art and get little respect outside the art world, i truly admire their passion for it. When I was younger I used to do graffiti art, but every time i did something that took more than a week i'd come back and it'd be covered with tags. I don't think I'm EXTREME enough to call myself a graffiti artist, but it in no way is less hard or lesser than traditional art. It in fact is harder than most art, because not only do you have to make it look good, but you have to make it look good while on top of a building at night looking out for police to not arrest you for vandalizing... Beat that DaVinchi!

Morthagg: Ah. Well, for anyone who read my art-ramblings, I think graffiti can play an important role in the Big Art because it does (wilfully or not) show the state of mind of a certain generation, and that combined with the nature of graffiti being quite independent and anti-authority makes for a pretty interesting medium that can have a large influence. The fact that it's really close to the public and seldom pretentious only adds to that. In that sense I think it is different from more traditional art, although the painting of walls can be done in a very traditional way, too. Depends on what's being made, I guess.

Luwano: Actually, I think graffiti is a form of traditional art even though it's a relatively young form of art. It's a lot more traditional than digital art for sure. You don't have the possibility of unlimited "undo" with traditional mediums and especially with graffiti, you can not save your progress and continue with it later. You have to know your medium and use it the right way to get the desired result. That's something I profoundly respect.

ZaneZansorrow: There a Graffiti Crew in NG? Cool, I say graffiti and tradititional art feels about the same, I just wonder if the graffiti that is being done is legal. lol.

Q: What programs or tools do you use to create your art?

A:

Flowers10: I like to use watercolors when I paint traditionally, I use photoshop to paint digitally, stencils and markers for graffiti, pencil fine liner and eraser for sketching, and leather paint and permanent marker for customizing shoes.

Lucky: I use a few programs, i used to be all about sketchbook pro, because i love the brushes. But i'm trying to use photoshop for most of my lineart because it takes up less ram.

Basically

Alias Sketchbook pro - high lag, high ram usage, but great brushes

Photoshop CS3 - good ram usage, good brushes, stable

Flash CS3 - great ram usage, crappy brushes, unstable BUT has its perks

Morthagg: Mostly pencil, marker, pen and paper, but otherwise photoshop, or a combination. And a little watercolour too.

Luwano: I use a small Wacom Bamboo tablet. It doesn't have a "Fun" or "Pen" or something in its name, because it's such an old model. I almost always use GIMP for drawings, but I did use Inkscape and Flash once or twice.

ZaneZansorrow: I use photoshop cs3 the most, but I also gotten photoshop element 7 and corel painter for use too.

Q: Is there any other artist or person you look to as a guide or mentor?

A:

Flowers10: I'm 100% self taught, but there are some artist that really inspired me. Take for instance the renaissance masters, they lived hundreds of years ago and reached a level of realism in there paintings that most artist today haven't reached yet.

Lucky: Al Hirshfield and Hank Ketcham. For their linear, use of space, composition, simplistic yet highly detailed depiction of a scene and for their fun styles I absolutely adore their works!

Morthagg: Hm. Not really. Many people have influenced me in some way, if not all people. The folks I worked with in a certain Belgian Animation studio did guide me in some sense, since I got a better idea of what I can and want to do in my later work-life, and made me realise I kind of don't feel comfortable in my school. Pretty important.

Luwano: ReNaeNae helped me a lot through my early time on Newgrounds. I was a real noob, like most people who post in the forum for the first time. And she was also hosting or co-hosting most of the collaborations I took part so far, which made me feel like a part of the community. There are many artists that I admire too, but I don't want to start naming them all, because I would most likely forget some. Generally, most of the art forum regulars are always there with advice when I need it.

ZaneZansorrow: The art mods like Ornery, turkeyonastick, renaenae, the art regs that post and review in NG, the arts that I fave in NG and Deviantart. These things are huge benefactors on how I improve.

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