First of all, I have a design on Threadless, so if you have an account please vote. It'd be very much appreciated.

2008 went by really slow for me. So much has changed, I feel like an entirely new person.

First of all, I turned 16 at the beginning of the year. This was very scary for me because I felt like I no longer had plenty of time to lay back and slowly hone my animation/art skills, and that I really needed to catch up with myself. Although I might not show it very much, I take that stuff very seriously. I immediately started to constantly draw everyday. I feel like while my animation hasn't gone very far, my art style has aged faster than it ever has.

Just compare my first solo project of the year to my last one.
I can hardly recognize the first one as something I drew.

Even though 2008 appears as my most productive year on Newgrounds, with more submissions than any other year, I don't feel like I've accomplished too much.

I'd like to give a HUGE thank you to everyone who supported Deathgore. Why I think Deathgore is one of the best things I've ever made is because it was a character that I created from scratch and expanded on. Although simple, the character Deathgore was one that I had been sketching in my notebooks and on desks for over a year.

It's lack of success at first was the main reason for my lack of inspiration. Even though Deathgore wasn't the cleanest thing ever created, I felt as though I had poured a part of me into that animation. For once it wasn't another Pokemon parody, or a short animation for a cheap laugh, it was a full animation that I created with nothing on a very old computer, without internet, in my room at our old house. I may not be the most talented animator and Deathgore might not have been executed the best way, it was my very first attempt at a full scale project with 100% original material.

And on the day it was submitted, it swept by without an award, and the only thing that was left behind from it's submission day was a couple of decent reviews and a bad score.

This led me to give up on animation for a long time. All of that energy transferred into art, and coincidentally the awaited arrival of CampNorth.tv came, and this distracted me for a while. My friend Nathan featured Deathgore on the first couple weeks of it's opening, and the feedback got me interested in going through with the sequel to Deathgore.

And then Deathgore hit the front page of Newgrounds.com. I don't know how it happened, and in the past I was tempted to PM Tom and just ask him how he came across it or why it was featured, because it just amazed me. It may not be "cool" to admit becoming giddy about something so silly, but I was. It was like opening that birthday gift that I never got, the one that had been in the back of my mind my entire life and I never realized how much it meant to be until I saw it before my very eyes.

Looking back on Deathgore now, even though it has been a short time, the execution of the animation seemed silly and unorderly. But the feedback was wonderful. Even the bad feedback. The bad feedback felt wonderful because someone had ACTUALLY watched a production of MINE and HATED it! I recieved actual HATE for something that was 100% mine, and it wasn't a parody or a cheap joke animation. It all felt glorious.

And the people who did love it- I don't know what they saw. When I watch Deathgore I feel like the mother of a deformed, retarded child who thinks that she'll be the only one who could ever love the face of such a creature.
But the people who truly liked it, and I mean TRULY understood the humor of the piece, I have forever grateful to you. There were people who I would show it to as I worked on it, and they would say things like, "oh, he's cute" or "haha it's gorey", but to actual understand it on the same level of humor as me is phenomenal to me.

So once again, HUGE thank you to for ALL the feedback concerning Deathgore.

And to all of the people who invited me into little collabs this year, thank you.
Thanks to everyone at Camp North.
Thanks to the people who ever looked at this shit.
Sorry to everyone on Sheezyart and Deviantart who used to watch me, I just haven't logged in either in a long time. :(

A few of my favorite animations from this year:
Collin & The Wishing Tree
Larvae
Madness: Bar Brawl
Bad Hair
I wish I were the Moon
Exporting Flash Movie (CN link, because I guess he deleted it on Newgrounds. :( )
Art in the Playground
The Headache
Dog Of Man
The Supernatural
ACML III: Bliss
Goerge
Bad Baby

That's everything I have to say about 2008. (If you still want to get in and Nathan and I's collab, you have until the 24th.

As a last note, I'd like to add about my fears of Deathgore 2. I feel like the people who liked Deathgore 1 aren't going to be very pleased with the way that DG2 is being carried out, thus far. Usually I try to be more subtle about things like that, but that's how I'm feeling. I'm sorry if you don't like the new approach or the new art style, but I'm just going about it the way I feel it should be.

Leaving off with a screen shot of DG2.

Peace!