September 1st 2023

Check these songs out while you read:

Da Intro

Howdy and hello, folks, and welcome to the sixth monthly blog post. It’s officially been half a year of this mess!

And with that milestone comes a big shakeup - a reworked segment, and two new planned ones!!

Firstly, “Da Recap” will no longer be about things that I personally did but will be about sitewide events that happened in the previous month. I want to distance the blog from being about promoting me and my works (outside of a few personal tidbits in Da Rest) and to being more of a community-focused newsletter.

Next, the two new community-focused segments (gotta put my money where my mouth is)! The first is called “Da Mail” and will be a feature for messages submitted by readers. The second is called “Da People” and will be a short interview with a Newgrounds user. More details on both are below, so let’s get started!

Just as a disclaimer: I’ll only be showcasing submissions rated E or rated T. I have the M and A ratings turned off for my account, so if a user I showcase here has submissions with those ratings on their account, I may not know about it. Viewer discretion is advised and all that!

Da Recap

This segment is where I’ll be talking about cool stuff that happened in the past month here on Newgrounds!

The end of July saw the NG Toronto Meet ‘23, hosted by @ninjamuffin99, which you can read about here below courtesy of @TomFulp (and various others linked in Tom’s post). While I didn’t attend, it seemed like a ton of fun!

https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1526843

@Random-storykeeper posted the results for this year’s Art Inspired Music contest, so go check it out! There’s a lot of great music here!

https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1526849#bbspost27741529_post_text

The Newgrounds Summer Festival was last month, so check out the VODs on the NG Fests YouTube!

Content may not be suitable for all ages; viewer discretion is advised.

https://www.youtube.com/@NGFESTS

Robot Day was also this month, so be sure to check out some awesome robot submissions!

https://www.newgrounds.com/search/summary?tags=robotday2023&match=tags

Be sure to keep an eye on the Newgrounds Calendar for future events!

https://www.newgrounds.com/calendar/

Da Spotlight

“Da Spotlight” will be me going over three works and/or users from this month that especially stood out to me here on NG. It may be popular stuff that I want to celebrate even more, or it may be more lesser known things that I think need a bit more love. Who knows! Anyways, here’s da spotlights for this month.

Da first spotlight goes to @JanetKWallace, who has an incredible art style I’d describe as elegant and painterly. Her work reminds me of both stained glass and watercolor paintings, showing great command over both character portraits and the abstract (sometimes a combination of both). If this serene expressionism sounds interesting, please go give JanetKWallace’s full album a look!

Da second spotlight belongs to “Crystal” by @Kreagato! This song is so delightfully nostalgic in the sense that it reminds me of a song from the mid 2010s. A very fun and energetic tune, it’s hard to listen to Crystal without smiling once or twice. The piano that Krea uses is also wonderfully artificial; it adds a lot of personality to every track she uses it in. (Also congrats on 100 NG fans, Krea!!)

Da third and final spotlight goes to “Jack the Box Collab - DJ Mix,” a collab organized by @DJChidow! This collab is a nonstop groove from stop to finish, with each and every artist bringing their A-game to a solid hour of house jams. DJChidow mixed and transitioned everything live and in one take, and it’s glorious. I swear y’all, the NG Audio Collab center Discord is making magic, and DJChidow & co. are proof of that.

Da N00bz

This segment is meant to celebrate the cool new users to the site who are just getting started on here. Whether they’re completely new to creative expression, or experts that are only new to NG, anyone who’s started their account in the past two months is fair game >:D

First up we have @Roronarr who has an awesome art style! The scratchiness of it all reminds me of crayons in the best way possible. Their choice of colors makes their drawings pop very nicely, and their character designs are super on point. Welcome to Newgrounds, Roronarr!

Next up is @BreakBeatMDZ who uses incredibly striking colors and dynamic posing that really pops. His linework is also really varied, giving each piece a dynamic edge that feels simultaneously static and fluid. Welcome to Newgrounds, BreakBeatMDZ!

Da News

It’s time for da news! Here I’ll share some exciting or interesting news posts from around Newgrounds.

@Certly is working on an animated music video!

https://certly.newgrounds.com/news/post/1377526

@Random-storykeeper posted a personal retrospective on this year’s Art Inspired Music contest!

https://random-storykeeper.newgrounds.com/news/post/1377869

@themefinland shared a very useful guide regarding how to make it as a private commission artist! (Even if you aren’t, there is still some great advice in here, so check it out!)

https://themefinland.newgrounds.com/news/post/1378677

@AhWham got User of the Day on August 11th! Huge congrats, man!

https://ahwham.newgrounds.com/news/post/1379860

@Wriizzy thinks all of y’all should include Super Smash Bros. Brawl sfx in your fight animations…someone get this man a TRUE

https://wriizzy.newgrounds.com/news/post/1379964

Da Mail

This segment allows you to share your voice personally here on the Frontpage Blog. Whether it’s shower thoughts, self-promotion, questions for me, something you think I should feature, or literally anything else - as long as it’s SFW I might feature it here! Simply PM me with the subject line “FP Blog Mail” to send your message.

I reserve the right to refuse to feature any message. Messages with profanity will be censored. Abusive messages will be reported to site administration.

Seems like the mailbox is empty this month…

Da People

This is a segment where I send some interview questions to a cool NG user and showcase their answers!

This month, I interviewed longtime friend of the blog @duimaurisfootball!

What are the main inspirations you draw from in your work?

oh gosh, i could go on forever i think. the most obvious influence is certainly modern LISA spriting, which is basically just cartoony exaggeration with an emphasis on weird colors and shapes. the other influence i can really pin down is flash games, particularly EYEZMAZE, Nitrome, and Hamumu. i wouldn't say they really influenced my style so much as the way i conceptualize things.

How did you discover Newgrounds?

Christian "MH4" Sasser encouraged me to make an account because of all the art i posted (and continue to post) in a mutual discord server. man am i glad he did because this site is super duper awesome!!

What’s your favorite thing you’ve submitted to Newgrounds?

holy moly this is a hard one, there's so frickin' many to pick from... but after much indecision i've gotta say blood menace. it's just so... my style, the character, composition, colors, everything about it. i especially love the background. my other pick would've been rocks and rocks and rocks, for mostly the same reasons.

What’s your favorite color?

orange. originally i took that position because nobody else said orange was their favorite so i could be special or whatever, but it's really grown on me to a point where that's just my honest stance. yellow orange is better than red orange.

What’s your LEAST favorite color?

red. i don't hate it, in fact i really love it, but out of the colors that come to mind, red just sticks out as a little overhyped?? i guess?? it's great for shading and whatnot but i dunno, just doesn't stick with me.

Editor's note: dui was actually the one to suggest this question to use in interviews!

Give a shoutout to one Newgrounds user!

@Flying3ggplant. very fun cartoony style!

What’s your message to the NG community?

i PROMISE im gonna start talking more on the forums and stuff!!! i will!!! all i have to do is

Da Rest

Here’s your friendly reminder to help me celebrate FNF’s 3rd anniversary with the NEWGROUNDS VS. BOYFRIEND COLLAB!!! Everyone is welcome to join by lending their voice and I seriously encourage you (yes, you) to join, but we also seriously need musicians to make tracks to go with those voices. Full details and guidelines are in the BBS post!

Also, in personal news my 21st birthday is a few days away and holy cow I’m not ready for it rofl, though I’ll blog about that when the time comes. Also also, seeing as how what will likely be my hardest semester of undergrad college has started recently, don’t expect all that many new tracks from me in the coming months (outside of NG VS. BF work). It is what it is!!

And quick note - today is Bandcamp Friday, which means Bandcamp musicians will make more money from your purchases! Last BC Friday I posted some suggestions for cool music to support, so go peep that for some tasty recommendations. Musicians, feel free to plug your Bandcamps in the comments and remember to make your own posts about this!

That’s it for this month’s frontpage blog! Thanks as always for reading. This month’s blog felt a little disjointed in my head so hopefully this all comes across as coherent to y’all lol. See you next month! And remember to join NG VS BF please!!!