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Hey, guys! I'm currently putting together a 2d Side Scrolling Action RPG game that will be published on the Android and the Iphone. I am looking for a concept artist that can assist me in creating the looks of the main characters.

Premise of Game:

âEUoeMaxisâEU is a 2D Platform Action Adventure RPG game in which you play the role of Maxis, a teenager driven from his home village when its inhabitants become addicted to a mind-enhancing, sympathy-killing goo-like substance called âEUoeTerraginâEU, developed and produced by Maxis's own Teacher! Join Maxis on a journey of discovery as he explores the world outside of his village; a futuristic world filled with strange floating islands, half-robotic beasts, wizards, mad scientists, zombies and monsters, and just brimming with mystery and conspiracy.

Message me for more information about the game!

I use a Dell Inspiron N7010 with 6 gigs ram and a 2.67 GHz processor with flash.

It works pretty well, but as the file size gets bigger saving files can take a LOOONG TIME!!

At 5/10/12 03:31 AM, Lazereye57 wrote: I have been a huge fan of animation and drawing techniques for the last 6 years and is quite fascinated and interested in it. Although i have been wanting to learn to draw and animate for i loooong time, i have never had the time because of a lot of personal problems the last 4 years.

I'm 20 years old atm and have been thinking of applying for various animation studies both in my own country (Norway) but also in other country's through organizations like Across the Pond. But i am not sure if animation studies is were we actually LEARN various drawing techniques and to animate or if it is to improve and perfect the skills you have from before (which i don't have). Or if it is both depending on what university i apply to.

I am also aware that many animators learn to draw and animate at a very early stage. So is the fact that im 20 gona make it harder for me to learn these things that to many is kinda basic?

I would appreciate any info/tips/advice in these things i could get from the animators here on NG :D (also i apologize if my english grammar seems a bit of :P)

As far as teaching an old dog new tricks, you're NEVER TOO OLD to learn something new! In fact, if you give it a chance, teaching yourself something new will revive that inner child that we all kind of forget when we get older. If you give it a chance, you will be brought up to speed in no time, so no need to worry about that.

I'm only just getting into drawing and animation and have to say my skills are looking quite nice:

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/5880c48fc85d25d8e252d75e 37160089

(sample of my work, made this week)

I only just started drawing and animating within the past month, but since I've had a LOT of time on my hands I've been improving rapidly.

I'm 19.

As far as the classes go, check the school's website and their course catalog that you're interested in, they usually have a description along with the name of the class where they talk about what the class entails, and what kind of skill prerequisites are recommended.

Good luck!

It really depends on your goals. I'm actually going the same route, as I'm making my own animations and getting really into it for the first time. I decided against going to college because I don't really care to be hired by major companies, and would rather develop my own content from the comfort of my own home. Now, this will mean that you'll have to supplement your income by working in something unrelated, but if you would rather be an independent artist with more control over your animations, you don't need college, just a LOT of time to read and chill and animate :] I believe better animators come out of this type of experience (self-teaching), but that's just me. That being said, you could fore-go college entirely and if you're REALLLY REALLY GOOD can still get hired by a company.

Depends on preference. But good luck!

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1204483

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/5880c48fc85d25d8e252d75e 37160089, here's a new one!

hah shit, a bg probably would've made this easier to understand, sorry folks. Pretend there's a bg moving and two branches he swings from!

At 5/11/12 03:06 AM, Monsie wrote: I think it looks pretty good for what's there. It happens very quickly so I don't have a lot of advice to give, but one thing I would say to pay attention to is the guy's momentum when he swings around the branch. In real life he would probably swing very fast as he swings under it and then gradually slow until he reaches the 12 o'clock position, then gravity would make his swing speed up again as he comes down past 1, 2, 3 o'clock, etc.

It looks right now like your guy moves quickly through the bottom of his swing then kind of pauses around 10 o'clock, but then picks up speed again before reaching the 12 position. It's hard to explain, but if you watch a gymnast swinging the same way you'll be able to see where the swing moves quickly and where it slows down.

Lol I guess I should mention he's actually swinging from two branches. I totally get what you're saying, but he's actually supposed to be swinging from one branch by his arms and then grabbing the second one and swinging by his feet. It's not drawn in so I guess that wouldn't be self-explanatory.

At 5/10/12 01:15 PM, Genwhite240 wrote:

Very nice! The animation all the way up to the landing after the swing looks very good; the secondary animation is quite impressive as well. My one suggestion for now would be to change his angle when he lands after the swing to be angled back. There is a lot of force in swinging around, so having him land straight down wouldn't look quite right.

Carry on, this looks good!

Thanks mate! Really appreciate the feedback, and now that I look at it you're totally right! Will be making some improvements for sure.

Hey guys! i'm working on my first ever flash movie, and it's turning out to be pretty good! Here is a little bit of the main character jumping from a branch, swinging on one by hands, doing a back-flip into swinging on another branch ( by his legs! ), until he finally lands! Let me know what you think!

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/c4a098ddd91bf7f1a333a3fa 80f7aba2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlK2vWCVE3w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=_Vk0lP c1B5I

Second one is a pretty goo shot at 0:10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRSg2zH7RF4

This was going to be for the movie I'm making, but since I'm scrapping it (since my skills have improved) I now consider it a learning experience. Check check it out!

Placenta.

Wow, thanks for the great info, man! :] I'll definitely take all of that into consideration.

Okay, so I've been checking this one out. It looks pretty promising and here's a sample of it as well.

Mic on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones-Yeti-USB-Microphone/d p/B002VA464S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333329667&sr=8-1

Song sample by some cool folks ( props to them )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3uCl-b0vm4&feature=related

Hey guys! I'm thinking about trying some voice acting but my Mic sounds like POO. Any suggestions for an amateur microphone used strictly for doing voice overs? Thanks!

Good idea! Thank you!

wrong forum, my apologies.

Hi guys. I wrote an article for my blog and I wanted to share it with you guys here. I feel like it's relevant for new people getting into the hobby of game design and the business of it. NO IDEA where to put it in the forum without people being pissed off about it, so I put it in the general forum. Any ideas? Or should I just leave it out of newgrounds?

So you post in general forum? There is a flash forum you know? Also not sure if it's welcome there either, probably not.

Moving it to Writing forum, sorry, I'm new to the forums.

At 2 minutes ago, Ragnarokia wrote:

At 12 seconds ago, Nosajtevol wrote: Hey guys! I just started a blog about people's passions and stuff, and I think this article is very relevant to beginner flash users and game developers, and just hobbyists in general.

So you post in general forum? There is a flash forum you know? Also not sure if it's welcome there either, probably not.

Hmm, yea, not sure either. I figured if it's just general I could post it here. Anyway it's just an article, it can't be too bad. If people have a big problem with it I will take it down.

Hey guys! I just started a blog about people's passions and stuff, and I think this article is very relevant to beginner flash users and game developers, and just hobbyists in general. It's my feelings about how people should learn how to do things not by tutorials, but by trial and error. In this entry I talk about my first video game. Anyway, check it out if you're a noob like me!

This article in the context of my blog

Click the link to go to my blog, or just read onnyway, if you don't want to go out of Newgrounds! Enjoy!
______

How I plan to make my first video game.

(And how to get anything done ever, without prior experience.)

So, today I decided to stop chit-chatting about my passion, and to just go ahead and fucking do it. I decided to start making a Flash Video Game.

What's funny about this is that I have pretty much zero real experience using Flash, except messing around a bit when I was like 12 years old. This is going to be my first Flash Game when I end up finishing it.

So how does one go about doing something that supposedly requires so many years of previous experience, and even think about pulling it off greatly? I think I talked about this in one of my old posts :] here, though by no means do you need to go there if you don't want to. I will tell you my philosophy right now about how I am going to succeed in creating a full fledged video game, with little to no experience making one.

It's a little process called: Trial and Error.

Put a group of monkeys in a room with a typewriter and eventually: voila, Shakespeare. Thankfully, if you can probably read this, you're a human, which means you have reasoning skills unrivaled by any other animal on the planet, though I know, monkeys are pretty smart. If you can't figure out something that is designed to be intuitive (Like Adobe Flash) after playing around with it for a good while, well, you probably aren't human or have a learning disability. I guess you can exempt me because I've had a little experience playing around with it as a kid, but for the most part, every single thing that I'm doing I'm learning on the spot and as I go. I'm on a mental adventure, so to speak, starting off as a naive child and hoping I make it through whole in the end.

This is why, to be successful, one must be healthy. Healthiness = adaptable, I've learned.

From my research, pretty much everyone that was successful learned the valuable skill of adaptability, and I realize that anyone that was successful in getting anything done or finishing a product ( a business, a blog, art or anything else ), didn't give up when their initial formula for success failed. They just changed their formula a little bit to adapt to the fluctuation, and continued on. This is what we must do. We must constantly just tweak and fix ourselves to adapt to the world's demands, not the other way around.

Take a successful business for example. Facebook. I'm sure everyone here has seen the Facebook movie, and if you haven't, do it! It's a good flick! Well basically Mark Zuckerberg and friends started out with a really rough copy of what Facebook would be. Over time, they didn't just sit around and wait for other people to jump on their bandwagon and joing them, but kept changing and tweaking "The Facebook" to appeal to the user more and more, until it became what it is today, "Facebook" as we know it, now. Yesterday it was different than it is today, and tomorrow they'll add some feature or take something away, constantly tweaking till they meet perfection (which will never happen). For my video game, I plan to apply the same method, but not only to my game, but to my own learning process as well..

You see, I start off knowing nothing, but with a small goal in mind ( draw a character ), I will figure it out. (Oh, there's the brush tool. What if I..... Oh my god... I just drew a fucking FACE!). Over time I create more and more, and without looking at a single silly tutorial online where others spout their own unique methods onto you, as if they're the only ways to do things, I've created an entire character from scratch. I've even made it rigged so that I can move the character's limbs around with a tool I've discovered called the "Inverse-Kinematics" tool. Damn, I already SOUND like a pro!

So let's talk more about my project and what I'm doing. I have a simple, yet still slightly ambitious goal in mind: Create a platform game that's fun to play that will get front paged on Newgrounds.com, where I hope to submit it once it's finished. I have no real experience with making video games, and will learn how to do it as I go. I will scrape my knees and constantly make mistakes, but as I recover from those mistakes, I will eventually succeed in my endeavor. I don't know coding, but when I need to learn how to make the character move with the arrow keys, I will figure it out by trying different things, and build myself up as I go. When I finish the game, I will be looked at as someone with experience, even though I wasn't taught how to do this by ANYONE!!!

And you can do this too, with whatever you do. As long as you don't kill yourself in the process. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but I'm going to go ahead and guess that what you're trying to do isn't very life threatening (but I suppose you could be trying to learn how to climb cliff sides without gear... crazies.)

So long story short, if you want to get something amazing done, set a goal of what you want it to be like and just do it! Don't provide some sort of long term outline of how it will be created if you don't have any experience in doing things. Create your own unique style of doing things by trial and error. Persevere, and have fun while making mistakes and figuring things out. As soon as you make a mistake, you'll be like, "Ahh, so that's how that works."

MAKING MISTAKES IS THE NUMBER 1 COMPLETE AND BEST WAY EVER TO LEARN.... EVER!!!! So go out there and don't be afraid to make them. Make them over and over again, and learn from them. Over time (and not too long probably) you'll become a pro. Pros aren't taught, they're self-taught. How do you expect to become a master of something if someone else holds your hand through something. People typically aren't good at their trade straight out of college, but become good at them after years of doing the job that they get after college, college ending up not having been much of a factor for their success (except the fact that maybe college landed them the job in the first place).

So go out their, skin your knees, and persevere. In a few years time, you will have succeeded in your endeavors, and became an effing pro at what you do.

Hell, if monkeys can do it, so can you ;]