So guys 'n gals,
it’s been a while, huh? sorry for the silence these last few months, super busy stuff from me all around. the big one is that I just moved to Los Angeles (Burbank specifically), literally got here three days ago. took a two week long road-trip with some friends to get here, which is why my ‘year in review’ is coming so late.
I moved here as part of a school program that places me in LA for a semester while I find an internship. I’m really excited for it, and I’m sending out a bunch of emails now, looking for places to work. I’ve got a few that I’m already heavily considering, but we’ll see how she goes.
any recommendations on studios/food/bars/etc. from local newgrounders?
I’ve basically got the semester to decide if the LA life is for me, and once I graduate this spring I’ll decide where I want to live and work.
2014 glance-over
2014 was a fantastic year for me here. at the beginning of 2014 I posted about ditching youtube, and I couldn’t be happier with my decision. solely newgrounds for my main publishing has worked out fantastically. still keeping my tumblr & vimeo up to date, but NG is really my home as far as my works go.
I started the year with ALZ for the stencyl jam, which ended up going kind-of-semi-viral and got posted all over the place online. Places like The Verge and The (french) Huffington Post and Hyperallergic all wrote articles about the piece, which became my most viewed project ever. I’m still riding the tail-end of the project’s effects, and I can’t really believe how much it did for me.
Then I entered NATA, placed fourth overall. I made a few pieces that I’m really proud of, in particular spider bite movie, the red snow, and voicemail. I didn’t win, but those films all really helped me find the best photoshop workflow for myself. hopefully I’ll have time to enter again this year.
I also started messing around with submitting gifs to the art portal, a few of my favorite pieces from the year are elephant abstract, ∆ll the pretty ladies, and dysmporphia, which earned me my first front page slot for an art piece.
I also finally (almost) finished my thesis film, which I’m now doing the whole festival-submission song and dance for. Looking forward to trying out that line of publishing as compared to the online showcase. it’s weird not being able to publicly showcase the piece here until later in the year, though. it’ll be almost 1.5 years after work started on the piece before I’ll be able to share it with you guys. sorry!
pretty solid year in my opinion.
loves,
dylan
TomFulp
You had an amazing year! You brought great artistry to everything you made and it was exciting to see ALZ generate so much buzz around the web. It's so satisfying when everything falls into place; the Stencyl Jam was intended to encourage people to try and make games for the first time, you actually went and made a game for the first time and your game was a hit!
If you're looking for festival info, @elementalbadger put together a nice write-up:
http://www.glasanimation.com/2014/04/25/guide-to-animation-festivals/
She's also launching a US animation festival that I'm really excited about! NG is planning to be a sponsor so there will be more news on that as things progress.
dylan
thanks Tom! it was definitely an all around great year for a lot of people here on NG. glad to be a part of it.
and her list is awesome, I'll definitely have to start going down it one-by-one as each festival opens up.