Interview No. 79

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest has been here once before with The Forum Regulars interview. During this time he has hosted many different projects. From The Green Line Collab, Mario's Castle Collab, Official Redesign Bookies Thread!, and the Brown Paper Bag Mask Contest. As an Icon Moderator he started the Thumbnails for Charity. He is a force to be reckoned with on Newgrounds, he is none other than Travis.

Q: The last time we spoke it was in The Forum Regulars interview. For those who don't know though, how did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: I might as well just copy and paste my answer from last time for consistency.

Way back when the first Madness cartoon was a hot ticket on the internet, me and a friend were mesmerized by it. We found it on Funnyjunk.com and that just stuck with me because it was a great animation and for little kids, it was the violence that was the draw. Fast forward a few years down the road when Madness Apotheosis was released. I did a search on Madness, in Google, wanting to get some nostalgia and Newgrounds was the first link that popped up with a Madness Apotheosis. From there I was basically a lurker until the fated day last year in which I signed up.

Q: When you first signed up on Newgrounds you were under the name Liquify. What made you want to change your username?

A: I felt like Liquify was never "permanent." When I came up with the username, it was on the fly and while I love it, it just didn't feel like it was going to be my final username.

Travis feels permanent and "original" I guess you could say. It sort of stands out from other usernames beign that it is my actual name.

Q: When HeRetiK was here we talked about The Red Line collab. When Toast-Tony and Fifty-50 were both here we talked about The Green Line Collab. You were the mastermind behind this collaboration so what inspired you to start it and what was your experience in running it?

A: The Red Line Collab was the definite inspiration for this collab. Before starting the collab I also saw the Blue Line Collab, which was also inspired by the Red Line Collab. No offense to the people who participated in that or the guy who ran it, but the quality of the art was so awful I wanted to make my own.

I quickly learned early in my own collab that I was accepting lower quality stuff and after a little time I finally started cutting the bad and getting the great.

My overall experience running that collab was just getting to work with some of the Art Forum/Portal's greatest artists. They did a great job and if anything I was humble that I got such a good showing for not being a known artist.

Q: When I spoke with Fifty-50 about The Green Line Collab he stated this...

"at the end of the collab there was quite a scene if Cloudeater was allowed to be part of the co-authors. Liquify/Travis was quite annoyed with Cloudy for trivial reasons in my opinion."

Who is Cloudeater and what went wrong within the collaboration? Also were the reasons trivial?

A: Eh, I'd like to not comment on it. That was when I was still green on these forums... no pun intended. And I believe it's not worth commenting on.

Q: Mario's Castle Collab is a hilarious collection of shorts in tribute to Mario's Castle Calamity. This collaboration is yet again your idea. So what made you want to make a tribute to this flash and turn it into a collaboration? Also how is Mario's Castle Collab 2 coming along?

A: The setup of Mario's Castle Calamity is so perfect for a collaboration that I was really suprised it wasn't done before.

It's basically a bunch of skits with a common goal and the same setup each time. Why not have a bunch of people participate and make a few parts each rather than do the entire thing themselves?

Basically I have been more of a mentor/writer throughout the process. I have been really hard on quality control on each and I have wrote several skits for it. I also did a part that someone took and later "perfected."

The 2nd Castle Collab is coming along well. We are almost done. We just need a few more parts to come in that have been in development since the beginning. It's been a fun process and everything about this version is bigger and better.

Q: How did you become an Icon Moderator and do you enjoy being an Icon Moderator?

A: Simply enough, I just asked in the Icon Mod Crew forum.

Q: Thumbnails for Charity was an idea you had to help donate to the Child's Play Charity. For those who don't know, what is Thumbnails for Charity? How much money have you and the other Icon Moderators raised?

A: Thumbnails for Charity was an idea I had when Breast Cancer Awareness Month started. Basically for every icon we finished Newgrounds would donate a set amount of money to a charity.

I messaged Tom and he suggested the Child's Play charity and we went with it. I figured it would be something that we could really get a lot of people to help with and rally for charity while also knocking out a ton of icons.

I really want to thank Tom for allowing us to do it, it was really nice of him and it was just such a good feeling once we were done.

I also want to give a big thanks to Bahamut and Heinrich. They really helped to knock it out of the park.

Q: You are running Mario's Castle Collab 2, you're participating in the "I walked into the shop" collab, holding an Official Redesign Bookies Thread!, and your Brown Paper Bag Mask Contest came to an end. Doing all of this on Newgrounds it is amazing that you have any fuel left at all. Do you ever take a break?

A: Well I am just glad I took a gap year after high school. If I was in college right now, I think I would implode. I am currently holding a part time job and getting everything in order for college next year.

Needless to say I have been procrastinating on Mario's Castle Collab 2 a bit because I actually have a lot of bills to pay. Also... college is very expensive.

Q: When it comes to the admins here on Newgrounds you seem to have a close connection with them. Is this through the efforts you have put into Newgrounds, through Google+, both, or something else entirely?

A: Well I'd say I only know a handful of the admins.

I believe it's through the icon crew, Google+, and the fact that I actually met Luis.

I can't really speculate much because I don't really know how it all happened... if it even did haha.

Q: I asked if you wanted to be a Forum Moderator back in The Forum Regulars interview. During the time gap of that interview and now, has your thoughts changed on this subject?

A: Not much really. It's a lot of responsibility, but I guess I wouldn't mind being one and if I had the opportunity I would probably jump on it.

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

A: Well, I'll leave the mystery up to the people on whether or not I am being serious...

Luigi's Castle Collab

I have known Travis for quite sometime now. He truly is a force here on Newgrounds with the many different projects and collabs he runs. Last time we interviewed RicePirate who like Travis, is a very hard worker and can collaborate with just about anyone. If Travis and RicePirate were to ever team up on something, I bet that whatever it is, it would be sheer power.