☃

hey

So like a week ago I had nothing to work on and really wanted to make a music video so I churned this out in about a day (although I spent another two days fixing up the sloppy bits so it's not THAT impressive.) A lot of people really liked it and a lot of other people said it was stupid and not funny. BUT HEY COME ON I MADE IT FOR MY AMUSEMENT YOU ENTITLED PIECES A PIE. I had a real fun time making it, and I'm glad I was able to do a music video again 'cause I've wanted to get that out of my system for a while.

Other then that, I've been working on a couple of projects with my brother pjorg but he's mysteriously vanished off the face of the earth so those have been at a standstill.

To keep myself entertained I've been doing little animated doodles here and there and posting them on my twitter. Hey I'm one follower away from 200 so who knows IT COULD BE YOU.

If you aren't following me over there, here's what you've been missing out on:

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/90b73d52e87c8cafc8836fd2a6bf8171
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/c535b30ce24dda34305d6cd0c4858164
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/bf00754b90e86c410c6416636d8bc4f0
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/540181795c4746eacf0b3a4e6707ca19
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/c4e2b581edcbcfb56200d6532967baaf
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/dbc052b595c107afa9437a3b7fa55770

A lot of walk cycles, I know. (I love 'em)

If you've got any critiques or feedback I don't want to hear it. Unless it's positive. I have this new thing going where I only listen to things that boost my ego. It's worked out pretty well so far.

oh hey and I'm still poor, so if you want to pay me to animate something just shoot me a pm

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/13b6dffa3bd491117b959ccc57937712

If you missed it, I just released a new toon featuring the vocal talents of Apatheria. Check it out!

Coincidentally, I also turned 17 yesterday. FUN RIGHT? You know what would be a great gift? FRIENDS. Go leave a message or strike up some discussion in the comments section. It's always fun to read.

I know I usually do a big post talking about all my submissions from the last year, but I don't have a whole lot to talk about anymore with twitter and skype etc etc etc. BUT I still went through with the yearly portrait - and I put a little more time into it than years previous so maybe that'll make up for the brevity of this post.

Well that's it! I'm working on a bunch of new and exciting things, two of which are very behind-the-scenes-y projects. Stay tuned!

(my style changed a lot more than I'd realized. whoa!)

Hey friends

If you're following me on twitter or facebook, you may have heard I'm looking for work so I don't end up flipping burgers for the summer. If you want to help me out, I'm always willing to draw a picture an animate an icon if you have a few extra bucks. OR if you know where I can find some freelance work, just leave a comment below. So if you know a friend or you have some connections with people that might need a guy, put in a good word for your old pal Emrox and I'll give you an IOU high-five and smooch.

SOME OTHER STUFF THAT ISN'T AS IMPORTANT-

I haven't done a whole lot since my last update, BUT I did go to Pico Day back when that was relevant. I spent a while talkin to a lotta cool guys, notably Manly-Chicken, Brewster, Tom, Oney, BPremo, and Tyler among others. If you met me and I didn't say much, I apologize- I'm a bit of a shy person.

My brother Pjorg and I made a movie scientifically designed to be the funniest cartoon in history. He has braces, so with the filter it looks like he has holes in his teeth.

I also made a SICK ANIMATION VID TUTORIAL about smears, just because I hate seeing people that use 'em without knowing why.

Also in the pipeline is an awesome toon of epic proportions. It might just take up the next few months. 'CAUSE IT'S HUGE. Pjorg and I spent the whole last month just writing and refining the script, and we can safely say you're gonna blow a hole in your pants when you see this thing.

OKAY SO DON'T FORGET TO HELP ME FIND A JOB THANK YOU G'NIGHT!

Hey so first of all I made an original cartoon featuring the vocal talents of Odell Atkinson. Check that out.

If you've read any of my blog posts before, you're probably well aware of how I utterly despise Youtube for a variety of reasons. At the start of the year I decided to suck it up and make a new youtube account. After all, it'd been over a year since I last used my old one, and I'd improved quite a bit since then. Maybe I'd have better luck this time.

Within five hours of 'Let's Play Slendernam' being on youtube, I'd amassed around 2200 subscribers. Which was a great morale booster, 'cause I've seen a billion videos from people with hundreds of submissions celebrating "500 subs!" and here I had four times that on the first day. Now this cartoon, if you're unfamiliar, Isn't a video game parody by any means - in fact, I've never played the game in question. It was instead a parody of ten-year-old youtubers who do crappy let's plays fulla bad jokes and mic pops. Either way, this jab at youtube culture had gotten me another 2,000 followers ...on youtube. Excited to see I was finally accepted on the site that shuts down so many aspiring artists, I immediately began on my next cartoon.

Assuming the best of my viewers, I decided to make another parody about people on the internet who piss me off. This time it had nothing to do with youtube or video games, though. About a month later, I released Twitter Tag Team on youtube, a commentary on how typical it is to see people on twitter bashing people who are particularly popular to hate. In comparison to my last video, the response was a little underwhelming - It got me about 200 new subscribers.

Up until recently, I assumed this was just a fluke. Surely if I could get 2600 subscribers with one video, I could do it again, right? Riiight?

My latest cartoon has been on youtube for about six hours. So far it's gotten me -5 subscibers.

So with this, I've arrived at the conclusion that youtube just sucks. It seems like it doesn't really matter that I've gotten better at animating or comedic timing or anything. All that seems to matter right now is whether your movie is about pokemon or minecraft or skyrim or slender. And for someone like me, that means the only way to get popular is to sacrifice your artistic integrity, 'cause I haven't played any of those games.

Now I know this may sound like I'm just whining about not being famous on youtube or whatever, but there's something seriously corrupt about that site. So if you're the type of person who occasionally puts funny videos on his facebook wall, just remember to put up some original comedy every now and then. I don't wanna tell you what to like, but I can assure you that any artist feels way better about an original video getting 100k views than his video game parody getting a million. And if you're already one of these real popular guys, give a new and aspiring artist a "like" every now and then, 'cause it helps more than you'd imagine.

Despite all this, the response on NG has been pretty great so far. I love you guys <3

This year I'm moving on from newgrounds to finish my thirty-part youtube webseries featuring an all original cast of characters.

From left to right that's Croire, Turtleco, me, and McBinkles.

Hey and I made a new cartoon too. Here it is.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT FROM EMROX?

I don't know.

HEY PAL

A while ago I made a pretty sweet animation for NATA 2012. Didn't release it on NG 'till now, so everyone check it out if you haven't seen it already. I got to work with a lot of cool people, and it was a great way to add more VAs to my reservoir. Check 'em all out!

That's the only important thing though. If you care about personal ramblings, feel free to continue.

STUFF THAT HAPPENED SINCE MY LAST NEWS POST-
I won NATA
I got interviewed by the local NG interview-guy
I took part in the Flash Advent Calendar (mine's on the 20th)
I got a separate facebook account fer all you NG people
I did some more animation critiques
(By the way, if you want me to critique your animation, just shoot me a PM! I'm no professional, but I'm qualified enough to tell you why you suck.)

A lot of you guys have been asking me why I don't put my animated shit on youtube, and it's actually because I've tried youtube and just don't like it. It doesn't promote artists the way NG does and sorta makes you conform to this standard of crappy pokemon minecraft let's plays. More on that here. Hope y'all don't mind the word "retarded," because that's all anyone seems to get out of my rants.

I'll probably give youtube a second chance someday. Newgrounds still comes first though. And deviantart gets a kick in the shins. I think I mentioned that in the interview.

If you like to keep updated, check out my twitter. I usually post these things as they happen along with other little quips. quips is a cool word. quips quips quips quips

Actual comment:

Watch my NATA cartoon.

Hey guess what? I'm in the finals of nata. I didn't see this coming one bit.

This means I actually have a shot at WINNING, which would be a dream come true 'cause I probably won't be able to participate next year. Not only that, but I have a shot at being the youngest winner to date. The weird thing about it, though, is that if I lose, I won't ever be able to hold that title because my opponent and I are the same age.

Also I started a youtube channel that's being shared by me and a few other NATA regulars. The only thing on it right now is an hour of me critiquing entries to NMAE. (I'm a judge, by the way!)

Newgrounds Artists on youtube

BREAKING THE LAWS!!!

I'm sixteen now. Which means I can drive if I feel like applying for a license. Which I don't.

If you've been following my news posts for the last while, you may remember that I do those little "year in review" type things with all of my flash submissions when my special day rolls around, and I'm proud to say this year will be no exception. And if you actually bother to read the whole thing, thanks in advance.

So let's just jump right in here...

The Madman. I hardly participate in NG holiday contests anymore, but this time around I had the idea, nothing to work on, and a neat song I wanted to animate. Since then, I've improved quite a bit, but I still think it's kinda cute.

Bits I still love:
+ That first bit with the chin-ups
+ All of those run cycles

Bits I'd do differently:
- That one mourner has a weird hand. I have no idea why I drew it like that.
- That thing where all the graves are goin' by shoulda sped up a lot more

Trigger-Treat was a game by Manly-Chicken that I did the art for. Blame everything else on him.

Bits I still love:
+ The main character sprites

Bits I'd do differently:
- Those cutscenes. Ugggghghhhh.

(Then somewhere around here I got my username changed from Elfman-Rox)

I Can't Afford a Wheelchair is my most viewed submission to date, and is still one of my all-time favorites. I, like many other artists, hate just about everything they've ever created once it's done and released, but for some reason I still like this one. Maybe I need another year. Even though it's not much, I learned a ton about game design while making this. I really need to learn to program better, 'cause creating a game on my own was a lot of fun, and I want to do it again sometime.

Bits I still love:
+ The cutscene-text system
+ The cutscene progression/skip system
+ The art style/animation
+ That poster in the back that randomly changes
+ The whole game, really

Bits I'd do differently:
- The boss's skin blends in with the background on some monitors. BUT HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?
- I still have no idea how to save data

The 3 Day Flash Pass reached completion at the end of March. The whole "3-day" thing is a bit of a misnomer as after all the animation was finished, it took half a year to find someone willing to score the whole thing, and after that I ran into a ton of issues with the scene selection page. Thank god for Mike Breed, 'cause without him, this may very well have been delayed another couple a years.

Bits I still love:
+ The team
+ The menus
+ The combination of all of the different styles

Bits I'd do differently:
- I never found a good balance between audio quality and file size, which really sucks 'cause the score is amazing

Mark loses it. Not too much to say about this one; it is what it is.

Bits I still love:
+ All the colors worked really well together
+ The combination of the fbf & tweenin'
+ CHRIS

Flipped was my first entry to NATA 2012. It was a change of pace, as it was my first non-comedy movie in about two years. It's okay.

Bits I still love:
+ The 2.5d backgrounds. TOOK FOREVER BY THE WAY.

Bits I'll hate forever:
- The whole story is very ehhhhhh.... . The theme inspired the presentation of the movie, but the actual story came second, which is kinda backwards, and made the movie feel a little bit empty.
- The sands of time paradox - If you were to flip the sands of time, you'd immediately reverse direction and flip it right back, which sorta makes the whole "backwards story" thing illogical

My next NATA entry was a fun style to animate in, and was also pretty fun to write. It's also probably my best-animated movie to date.

Bits I still love:
+ The pseudo-3d again
+ The syncing of the voices with the soundtrack
+ The art & color
+ MAN THAT ONE BIT WHERE HE PUTS THE CIGARETTE IN HIS MOUTH LOOKS SO LEGIT

Bits I lose sleep over every night:
- The title
- That bit where he puts the folder down looks so freakin' choppy
- The lighting is a little inconsistent

Plunge n' Lunge was created in three days for the Seventh NG game jam. It was a pleasure to work on.

Bits I still love:
+ The whole experience of making it
+ The team
+ The soaring animation

Bits that will haunt me forevermore:
- The swimming animation looks bad when you're going really fast. Ergh.

Partners in Crime was done in a similar style to my last NATA entry, but this time was more oriented towards action scenes, which is something that I tend to avoid. An all-action movie was a fun way to tackle that.

Bits I still love:
+ The mouse :D
+ The explosion scene
+ All that "multiple shots at once" stuff. Can't remember what it's called
+ Best freakin' credits sequence ever

Bits that I've contemplated suicide over:
- The elevator falls faster than the safe- something I didn't notice at the time and a million people had to tell me in the reviews
- The blandness of the backgrounds

That brings us to today, where I have yet to release my last NATA animation (which, for the record, is complete) but I can't until I fix some video issues. Stay tuned for that, and another cartoon just around the corner, which will be my first comedy in a while.

Seeya next year, ya goofs!

TL;DR get out

(and yes I did another portrait)