Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

This is a hobby project, if you are looking for paid work, turn back now.

So, I have a composer and a programmer lined up, and I also program. However, just a programmer or two and a musician can't make a game, we need some people to really make it come alive.

If you are an Artist looking to collab with us:

you have to either have some animation experience, or be able to draw characters very consistantly. As we're making games, we need our characters to move and be alive feeling. if you are new to animation, that's fine, we just need you to work on polishing that up so our project can look nice. If you have no experience but can draw consistently/well, just mention that, and say you're willing to learn, that's what the whole project is for, learning. We'll welcome you with open arms.

Send me an email at or PM me here on NG. Include a spritesheet or .Gif, or just some static art.

If you are aGame Designer looking to collab with us:

You'll be the one picking the elements of game play and the ideas behind what is going on. If you say you want a top down twin stick shooter where bunnies come out of the sides of the screen, well first we'll laugh, then we'll prototype it and see where it goes. You'll build the scenarios for what happens in the story, the dialogue, and the interactions. This is probably the most creatively challenging and team-focused piece of the team, you need to be able to be in constant contact with the team, and be able to explain to them either individually what you need done, or on a team level at our weekly meetings.

Send me an email at fdbxfrodo@gmail.com or PM me here on NG and as a way of testing how well you can describe game mechanics, in your application to the team, explain to me the feel of your favorite game, both mechanically and in terms of plot, and why it's so appealing to you. I want to know that you have good game feel, and can help us design a compelling story and mechanics, and this will show you understand those things. Even if this isn't your thing, we need a game designer either way, so don't be afraid to give it a shot, it is a learning project after all.

At 11/9/12 09:09 PM, Absinthe wrote:

At 11/9/12 02:10 PM, sweet21 wrote: Did more pose practice, mainly with the lazy guy pose.... Is it okay if I get this stuck in your head?

You're not getting any better, please try out posemaniacs and do the full minute pose to pose exercise.

This^
You have to work on poses and anatomy, then move to shading, coloring, and detail.
If you can't get the right shape and proportions, then you probably shouldn't be doing anything else.
As for your ADD type habit of jumping from thing to thing:
You can't do this for art, you have to commit to getting better or you never will. I imagine that nearly month long period you were gone you didn't accomplish much in the way of practice, and thus, you didn't get any better. Plan on spending time on practicing and studying the things you need to improve on, otherwise you just won't improve, this applies to piano, programming, art, japanese, anything that takes a reasonable amount of time.
However, I'm not an artist, I just browse this forum a lot.

On the topic of Japanese though, I am more experienced in that field. Here's a few things if you plan to continue studies in the language or the culture:
- ã'ªã'¿ã'¯ã¯ã<ã£ã"ã'^ããªã"ãEU'
- if you can't read that, you're already behind in your study, as hiragana and katakana should be learned immediately, as reading in the basic alphabets is more than required.
- don't learn the language expecting to move to japan, or to watch anime, or get in on "otaku" culture. In japan, otakus AREN'T cool. they're the opposite. That said, watching anime and playing games a bit isn't a bad thing, just don't be an otaku. don't expect moving there, because you need a job there to stay, and you have to stay for usually over 10 years to get citizenship.
- Take formal lessons, or find some constant way to make you study. This is really important, as with art, if you don't practice you won't ever get any better, trust me on this one. I've been in classes for 3 years and i still have a rough time with the basics of the language, and that's only in the formal style you'd be expected to use on the job in japan, let's not get started with the informal style of japanese.
- Don't take Japanese from anime. A lot of shounen anime and shoujo anime use either kid phrases, harsh terms, uncommon sentence structures, or much too informal japanese. Basically, it's a shithole, only good for people who already know a bit of japanese to learn a few key words like âEUä¸-ç*OEâEU or some other common word that just might not come up in a class or independent study.
- Learn kanji. As many and as quickly as you can. Learn 5-10 per day if you can. Kanji are the gateway to the japanese written language, by reading as few as 10 kanji in a 20 kanji sentence you could get the context. Basically, it enables you to skim read what you might otherwise have to guess at or not know how to read at all.

This post was going to be longer but I accidently clicked off the page. Sorry if I rambled, but Japanese and art are both hard and require dedication, and it seems like you need a kick in the right direction, basically you need to work harder to get better or learn how to do either properly, and in a lot of ways they share similarities in difficulty, especially if you learn wrong the first time.

At 12/24/12 01:14 PM, Mabelma wrote: Gone and done some more work on that little self portrait :)

And yes, I love me some gifs:
http://picasion.com/pic62/9f6ba885334571edc786533bfa228aa3.g if

Wow, by eye just looking between the pictures it doesn't seem that drastic. That self portrait has improved much more than I thought. Keep up the good work :D

At 12/24/12 05:40 AM, Tomsan wrote:

At 12/23/12 11:13 PM, bilznatch wrote: Poorly.
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/fbf27788256bdd783a758fa4 57d4e36f
Everytime I draw something, I wonder why I draw at all.
Luckily I have friends who can draw for me! :3
I like coloring though, it's fun :D Coloring makes me feel like a little kid again!

its better to upload the pic in the thread instead of linking. the pic is a bit simple but okay. I dont really know what to critic. try using thinner lines, and zoom out more.

what does bilznatch reference to? in my language I read this as ass-cunt lol

That's a terrible translation lol... and Nothing really...
Also I just really don't have anything for you to critique on, the lines would be thinner if I wanted to bother. I just thought it was funny what it looked like if I did do anything. I don't understand profile really.

Poorly.
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/fbf27788256bdd783a758fa4 57d4e36f
Everytime I draw something, I wonder why I draw at all.
Luckily I have friends who can draw for me! :3
I like coloring though, it's fun :D Coloring makes me feel like a little kid again!

At 12/23/12 08:55 PM, Mabelma wrote: I think I'm finally getting somewhere, any comments?

See, this is rougher, but already the pieces are better, shaping and placement.

At 12/23/12 06:52 PM, Mabelma wrote: I keep trying to fix things, I've even redone the initial sketch but I just can't get things to look fine. Every time I go back to fix something I just fuck it up more. Some help would truly be appreciated.

Lips need to be wider, they go further across the face than that, nose needs bigger nostrils. Those two things really wear down on your picture so far. The nose is a little oddly set in the drawing, and the top of it should be a little more to the left, but the bottom is in the right position. Left jaw line is a little off based on the sideburns, and the eye lids need to be a little more prominent. I think those are the things you are seeing that make the picture look a little off. The shapes are generally alright from what I can tell, but certain things are just off enough to be... Ehh, unnatural looking. Anywho, I'm not an artist, but that's what it looks like are a bit off.

Reminds me of waking mars. ALOT.

At 12/17/12 10:35 AM, toonicom wrote: Looking at just your code, you can use more practice. Learn how to break some of the methods into smaller ones. You are doing a lot of work all at once.

Everyone could use more practice, that's what my entire post was about... I want to push myself to make better things, even if they're only going to circulate between me and the artist, or close friends. If I wanted to make code that was better for something that simple, I'd start a programming thread and get people to help me. That code is old as well, and I still plan on working toward cleaner code, I never claimed to be good, or an expert, only slightly capable.

At 12/16/12 05:49 PM, Izzy-A wrote:

At 12/16/12 04:52 PM, bilznatch wrote:

At 12/16/12 08:45 AM, Template88 wrote: bump and +respect for laying it out how it is and not being an asshole about your request. I dont think you are going to be able to find somebody else who is committed to you and your work without having had some accomplishments or some sort of friendship first. Good luck though.

Thanks for the bump. I'm not expecting too much out of this post, but I have to start somewhere. I know NG is full of talent, so I thought it would be a great first step.

you should practice more until you're more confident in your coding skills then start making a game, post a progress of it and artists will want to join if it has good gameplay.

Oh my coding skills are fine for platformers, side scrolling stuff, top down RPG style stuff. I can code more than just point and clicks easily. I plan on making a lot of stuff, but I want to get someone willing to do art before going into making an engine so I don't end up with another Aetherion, without any art, and I just abandon a bunch of game engines...

At 12/16/12 08:45 AM, Template88 wrote: bump and +respect for laying it out how it is and not being an asshole about your request. I dont think you are going to be able to find somebody else who is committed to you and your work without having had some accomplishments or some sort of friendship first. Good luck though.

Thanks for the bump. I'm not expecting too much out of this post, but I have to start somewhere. I know NG is full of talent, so I thought it would be a great first step.

Well, I need a long term artist. I don't do flash games, but I'm working on some independent projects and I'm terrible at art. I don't plan on selling my creations, so I can't pay you. But if you want to possibly make a fun game, and be proud that you took part in it, post on here.

Aside from that basic request for an artist, here is a bit of side information:
- I'm not a great programmer, so I plan on making projects so I can grow as a programmer, and as a (hopefully) future game developer.
- I don't care what style you do your art in. Do it in pen, pencil, Photoshop, Gimp, I don't mind, if you do it in a physical medium you'll need a scanner though. I can (try to) do traces and coloring, I'm just not good at the basics.
- My first project, titled "Aetherion", is rather bereft of art, and while I have basic mechanics down for a simple point and click game, I want to move on to a bigger project with more mechanics, and I know I'm capable. If you want to check that project out, here is a download link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?b0f1nftb00nm487 (no viruses I promise, anyone that wants to scan it go right ahead.)
And here's the source:
http://pastebin.com/SWGWy9A1

This project, and my further projects will be done in VB.Net (Hate if you want, as this is a "noob" language, but I plan to move onto JAVA and C++ at some point, but I know very little in those languages, and I can always convert to them later.)

Further editing may be done.