Yup. This is going to be my shortest flash cartoon. Not in length, On An Island is just over three minutes but with CTF, I started two or three weeks ago really and I'm already nearing the half way point. Well, perhaps further, maybe not. I don't know. I still need to draw some characters, animate and lip sync. And lip syncing is a bitch my friends. I still need a voice for Nigel. I haven't received an audition I think could fit him. I know that I cannot be too picky because all my voice actors are doing this for free but I'd like to hear an actual Brit. I made a recording of myself saying the lines so I guess I'll continue my search in the following days and play it for anyone who wants to audition so they have an idea of what I want.

The first episode of many I plan on making will be very short. We see the main character in a bus, leaving the bus, a cafeteria, then a couple of other shots then a big monologue I recorded myself a while ago. I didn't know at the time that I would be going for internet voice actors. And since all of his movement is synced, I'm going to leave it the way it is. I'm very proud of the scene but it's a shame I have such talented VAs and each of them only says maybe three lines. Some say one or two. But that's just episode one mind you.

As with any flash I submit, I always wonder how it's going to be received. Everytime I've submited a flash, the score has jumped about .2 points. WHICH IS A BIG DEAL OK? lol. If I remember correctly, Trip Home got in at 3.48, Silent Protagonists got in at 3.68 and On an Island got in at 3.91. On An Island would've been daily feature. Had I not submitted it two hours before a little game called Newgrounds Rumble. Heard of it? But I am afraid of how this will be received. There will not be much story, just a short introduction in which a few characters speak. And then it's over. My tablet drawings definitely kickass compared to my old mouse drawings but I hope people see the style I'm trying to create. I hope a lot of things for this flash. Well, I should get back to actually making it. So thanks for reading but I'm all of cookies. How sad. That's not true actually, I'm eating the last one. Notice my sexy new banner? Yes that was the point of it. To be sexy. I made it in honor of my new flash which I've given most of my lazy summer days to. Ok now to think of something funny to end this post.

Thank you to all who've sent in auditions. It's been great listening to all the talented voice actors and each one of them has a different style of saying a line. I'm starting to narrow down who I'm going to pick as well. I need more auditions for Nigel though. He is an enthusiastic British lad with a quick way about him. I encourage anyone to audition! Tomorrow I plan to take a big break and go down to chapters and spend a chunk of time reading the new harry potter. If I hear another spoiler I will murder somebody. Huzzah!

Yup. Hopefully, I'll get some good audition files for my flash. It is now 8: 45 am and I've been up all night poking around the internet and working on ctf. I really hope that people on the VAC audition. I've been going back and checking all night but I guess everyone's asleep because it's getting no hits.

Well, I'm going to try and go to sleep now and wake up for 12 so that means a 3 hour nap. Here's a nice little picture of Evan fishing. The water was so plain at first. Not that it's spectacular now but I opened up the yuyu to study Adam Phillip's way of drawing water. I noticed that he makes his sparkle and upon zooming in, his little sparkles were simple pen brushes. So I did two sets up pen brushes and had them fade in and out of each othe. Like I said, nothing spectacular. But it certainly beat a boring old color anyday. Thanks Adam Phillips!

I think that would make a pretty funny Flash. Maybe I should add that to my to do list. Nah, I've got my hands full with flash right now. But honestly, I understand his popularity died out a couple years ago. And there will always be those who say he was always overrated. And now that I look back I can see what they're saying. Drawing wise at least. Of course a lot of them were just jealous anyway. What caused his immense popularity? I'm guessing it was due to the fact that his flashes were mostly pop culture parodies which people responded to. I mean, I was in high school and my entire class thought he was absolutely hilarious. People would be singing the chocobo song on a regular day basis. Hey, that's the reason I have it in my favorites.

But honestly, even flash authors who aren't that popular anymore still submit things every now and then. His last solo submission, Ark and Kerrigan Battle Rocks did not do very well. I didn't even know he submitted something new. I don't think it was even on the NG front page, I could be mistaken though. I guess he's somewhere playing World of Warcraft right now lol. So, I made the topic of my journal entry to discuss the life and death of the frog instead of my usual personal flash blather. So, thoughts on Joseph Blanchette. Did you like him? Yes, no, maybe so?

I did pretty well with my checklist. I finished the bonfire although it looks pretty simplistic and its obviously on a loop, I've decided not to care. hooha. I didn't finish the counselor's speech however this is the biggest monologue in the flash and I've already gotten through half of it which is fantastic. I animated the longest movieclip I've ever made tonight and it took me 4 hours non stop. That time gave me 20 seconds of actual flash. And the counselor's monologue is about 50 seconds long. It's cheesy but an important plot point even though the story he's telling isn't that intriguing, I tried to make the voice sound gripping and his movements interesting. I feel this works pretty well. Because the character is trying to impress the audience in the scene and I'm using him in hopes of impressing you. So once again I say hooha. It's looking pretty fucking good. So this is what I have left on my checklist:

half/1 Animate counselor speaking those lines.

And once that's done, there's gonna be a whole new checklist altogether and then another one and then another and then I'll lock myself away. Some place checklist free. Also, I've decided to cut episode 1 in two. So what would have been ep 1 what will be eps 1 and 2. The reason for this is twofold. I don't have to feel pressured to squeeze in character development before the ending and also people just like shorter flashes. Maybe it's an attention span thing. Which scares me because I hope they sit through my counselor's monologue >_>. Oh well, I'm content with my progression. And it's also weirdly comforting to know that I'm the only person I know who's awake right now. mmyes. I can go into any one of your rooms and strangle you. Take that for not liking long flashes.

-Aeonstars

I'm going to try and release my new flash before the end of summer. Meaning before i start school again on August 22nd. I haven't done much the last few days for it but I really wanna speed things up. I'm giving myself a goal and I want to reach it by the time I go to sleep tonight. That goal is to make the core of the campfire scene. This only makes sense to me by the way. So for myself, I'm gonna make a nice little checklist of what I need to do today and what I've done.

1/1 Finish counselor Dance.
0/1 Record lines. Make sure they're good.
0/1 Animate counselor speaking those lines.
0/1 Finish bonfire.

Before I go to sleep, I will post again and check the things I have completed. I want to complete it all. Well alrighty then, I'll get started now.

-Aeonstars

All the days are melting together. But that's summer for you. I'm still excited for my next flash although the novelty has worn off a little bit for me. Now I'm looking back at things I was super impressed with yesterday and asking myself if it's that good today. But that's the process. I didn't get much done today flash wise. I drew a certain character's head though which is pretty cool. I'm gonna do some more now.

At first I was so excited to get the ball rolling on this flash. I could go anywhere with it and I had a bunch of ideas which was making me pretty anxious to make it. But as I wrote an actual script, I found myself asking if it's interesting, is the pacing ok and are people gonna see it the way I want them to. I've never really done a flash like this. I've got confidence in my abilities though and I'm not going to pursue something that I know won't capture the eye. This flash is sort of like the Xin series. And I'm just hoping people get into it and see it that way. As I was looking at my sexy trees again, I decided to throw together a few pictures of grassy, outdoor areas I've drawn in flash and compared them. I've certainly improved. Mwaha. Goodnight or Good morning.

-Aeonstars

It's 4:53 am and now a Wednesday. of course, with the summer it doesn't matter what day it is anyway. I spent my tuesday drawing trees and a yellow school bus. When I noticed the redesign I threw together a cool header displaying my flash characters though. Oh, and I watched two episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Meridith Grey is a BITCH. Anyway, the new flash I'm working on is very different from anything else I've posted here on Newgrounds. It's more along the lines of things I've been wanting to do for quite some time. It's one of those ideas that gets stuck at the back of your head and you find yourself thinking about it for several days on end. Well, with my new purchased tablet, it's time to make even the most challenging ideas a reality. There's no feeling as rewarding as making a thought something concrete. But then again, it's not perfect, fast and simple. You can't just work for a day and make a dream project real. You can take steps forward in a day though. So by the time you get to the end, the feeling of realizing an idea sort of dies a little because along the way, you've made compromises and reviewed the content about a thousand times. Of course for me I'm talking about flash but I believe this applies to almost anything creative as well. But at the end, if you've managed to preserve some of that dreamy dream dream feeling, then it's pretty rewarding. I'm not trying to get all high and might or anything. I AM GOD.

Anyway, about my new flash. You could've skipped the first paragraph. ahaha. I'm going to treat these blog entries as if I'm a famous movie or game maker and people are dying to know what I'm doing and how my projects are going. It's just funner that way - >_>. ...What I will divulge now about my new flash is that the main character is a young boy who is sent to summer camp unwillingly. During his stay there, he learns that perhaps not everything is as it appears to be and that the seemingly innocent camp may hold some dark secrets. No, the camp counselors aren't evil and eating the campers. I know that's where your head went right away. This flash isn't a comedy although it is funny. Any jokes it may have are few and far between. The story isn't going to be complex though but it will be interesting and mysterious. Even if it's funny. My tablet drawings are just like my drawings on paper. Very liney. Kind of like David Firth I'd say. I've got real problems leaving something plain. Like I said earlier, I drew trees today. Well two trees actually then I copied and pasted them (it looks convincing enough). All my copying and pasting work gave me a total of 15 extra seconds on the flash though. Just the bus driving past the trees. Which is a little annoying I can't deny. I'm very happy with my trees. They're super sexy. And that's exactly what you're going for isn't it?

I can't believe you've read this far. I think I'll give you a cookie or something. Give me your postal or zip code and I'll mail it as soon as I can. Maybe an oreo, maybe a dorito. I know.. doritos aren't cookies . They should be but I won't get into that now. No, that's for my next blog entry! You're excited, I can tell. I've included a picture of my sexy trees and the bus with the little boy. For the sake of being different and because I think it fits well, "Aeonstars Presents" pops up about thirty seconds into the cartoon. I've never done that before. I think it's awesome. I hope you like. It is now 5:33 am. I took 40 minutes to write this, well, I came in and out of it really. I watched this:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/388535

that is the single most greatest flash cartoon you will ever see. I think it woke up my neighbors. hmm. Here's to hoping I make this flash everything I want it to be. And here's to hoping that you don't have the attention span of a six year old and think that three paragraphs is a trilogy.

-Aeonstars

Hi, this is Aeonstars or Andre Szydlowski. I was given two names at birth. Either or really. I've been a hardcore newgrounds bum for about a good year and a half now even though I've been coming here for 7 years. I started experimenting with Flash 2 years ago and then I made MGS Trip Home with a buddy of mine, Tobromancer. Presently, I have 3 Flash cartoons on newgrounds, 2 of which have one daily awards. So that's just a little info about me. I don't expect anyone to read this really, else than people who know me personally. But I've never had a blog before and with newgrounds 2.0 (or maybe we should be calling it newergrounds.com..) I'm gonna keep a blog. So if in the future, any of you decide you like my flashes, you'll be able to read up on how I ended up making it. (yes, i know, all my blogs will have a total of 1 views.)

The newgrounds redesign has been long in the making and now it's finally here? Personally, I think the new features are fantastic. Newgrounds.com has always been one of the best places for content on the net and it doesn't get the fame it deserves. Perhaps websites like youtube.com are more popular because they have customized user pages. Now newgrounds has those as well, which I love. I hope the redesign throws a little more spotlight on NG and Mr. Tom Fulp. Of course, with any major change, there's always a little hesitation. I miss the old Newgrounds layout a little because it was so familiar. Here, I have to tale a second to think and try to find how to get to where i want. Of course, in very little time, we'll all get used to it and consider it better. Which it is quite frankly. The features speak for themselves. As soon as I saw we could make a header, I opened up Flash and threw all my characters together in front of Gary's Apartment. (Gary is the main character in The Silent Protagonists.) I put my logo in as well and in no time, I had made a kickass header which you can now see on my user page. Good job everyone behind newergrounds.com.

Lastly, I read a while ago that the redesign was going to have a search engine hand tailored for NG. Hopefully, this means that long forgotten flashes that dwell in the catacombs of newgrounds can be found a little easier. Personally, I do not think that I have not gotten the credit I deserve for my 3 cartoons but it's also frustrating to see the view count on something you've been working on for months suddenly freeze. Hopefully, this new system will fix that problem if only a little. Anyway, if you read this whole thing, then I'm grateful. You'll be seeing more of me soon!

-Aeonstars