Hey Newgrounders,

So I've sort of set a goal for myself, to release one cartoon every month; I just wanted to get the general Newgrounds user's opinion on this. Is this too little, should I try to do one every two weeks, is it too many, will it be too much work and I wont be able to keep up? Now, these cartoons will probably consist mostly of additions to the Jimtopia series, but when I finish one of my longer cartoons that one will end up being the monthly one. Thanks for reading, and leave your thoughts on the subject below.

~Jimtopia

P.S. Finally got iChat working, so I can now talk to users who use AIM as well as MSN and Yahoo! Drop me a PM if you're interested.

You clicked here? Oh well, you asked for it...

I have run into a sort of dilemma regarding the sequel to "TV Rules the Nation" (now officially titled "I Am the Brainwasher"). I didn't realize when I started it, but seeing as I'm using Celarents style that he used for Future, my cartoon is going to be compared to his, and my cartoon isn't as good. To be honest I'm just worried that it will be horribly under appreciated just because it isn't as good. I didn't have this concern with TV Rules the Nation, because it was just different enough to be my own, but this one looks a lot like Celarents, and I mean a lot. I am putting a lot of work into I Am the Brainwasher, and I guess I'm just hoping that NG doesn't vote it badly because it's not as good as Celarents absolute perfection. *drools*

Also, if you're curious how far "I Am the Brainwasher" is, I'm about 2 minutes in. So 20% done.

In the world of college/personal life...

College is going pretty well, all my classes are going kind of slowly though, considering 90% of the class didn't even know what Flash was; so we have to start on Step 0 with Flash, and it's killing me. Our assignments require that you animate at 12 FPS, on a 700x350 stage, and it can only be 5-8 seconds long. We're not even allowed to use movie clips or tweening yet! Our first assignment was that we had to make a cartoon about Autumn with the above requirements. Here's what I came up with (it wuz rilly h4rd 2 do!). Classes aren't terrible though, other than our sucky restrictions, it's actually pretty fun. We do a lot of drawing and movie-watching.

Okay, enough talking about real life stuff. This isn't myspace after all.

In other cartoon related news...

I am now announcing another cartoon I have in the works entitled: Fizz... something or other... I haven't really thought through the title yet, but if any of you remember the terrible cartoon Fizz that I submitted way back in '06, I'm basically taking the character, making him have a body, arms, hands, eyes, legs, pants, shoes... you get the idea. Anyway, I'm redesigining him, getting him a voice actor, and putting him in a superhero role! It's going to be sweet! I've only got about a minute left to animate on it, but considering I'm also working on I Am the Brainwasher, it still is going to be awhile before it comes out.

Thanks for reading,
Jimtopia

I really wish I had something to update about, but I really don't.

So instead, here's what's been eating up my time lately. I discovered it from this online forum awhile back. Apprently the guys from MST3K got back together a couple of years ago and started doing this thing called RiffTrax. Basically they just watch newer movies and make fun of them in the same way they made fun of older movies. But for those of you die-hard MST3K fans who think it wouldn't be funny unless they're making fun of something older then you are, they do old movies too! I'm putting it here because, to be honest, it's really funny, and not terribly popular, it deserves more praise then it's got.

Here's some samples I found on Youtube.

Hope you enjoy them.

~Jimtopia

Let me just be blunt. I wont be submitting anything for awhile. For two main reasons:

1. I'm going to college.

2. All my ideas are big, and will require time.

Okay, so first off; headin' to college, it's pretty crazy to think about. It seems like just yesterday I was a freshmen in high school who barely new anything about flash, and now I'm off to go major in animation! Crazy how time flies. But I'm not here to bore you with my real life, just letting you know how it's going to affect my Newgrounds viewers.

Well, to be honest, you aren't going to see anything major from me for awhile. Maybe a Jim and Pals Short here or there, but what I really want to work on, is the epic sequal to TV Rules the Nation, currently entitled: "I am the Brainwasher." This one will use Daft Punk music as well. One neat thing about the song, and I hate to build hype so early on about this, but it's 10 minutes long, and I intend to make the flash that long. I have this all planned out, and I'm very aware of how big of a project that will be, but I'm confident that I can complete it. Don't get too excited though, I'm currently only done with about 30 seconds of it, and some of that still isn't done, but so far it looks and is animated at least 10 times better than TV Rules the Nation was. Here's a few screenshots from it.

City at Night

Skyscraper

Omnipresent Screen

I wish I could show you the movie, but I hate doing that, it just seems to detract from a flash when you finally watch it.

Anyway, one major change that I'm doing with this cartoon, is I'm making it entirely in Flash CS3 rather than KoolMoves (which is what I used for TV Rules the Nation). Also, I'm doing this on my laptop I got from my college, which is a Mac with lots of RAM and Gigahertz and stuff... yeah...

Anyway, keep checking for updates I am the Brainwasher isn't the only flash I'm working on... ;)

~Jimtopia

By the way, for any of you that think that I'm stealing Celarent's style or ripping him off or something, I talked to him about it, and he said it was fine.

Bye everyone, I'm heading on a vacation for a few days, wont be able to check my NG page for awhile! To keep you all occupied, I submitted a cartoon!

Jim and Pals Shorts: Episode 7

Hope you enjoy it, and see ya later!

~Jimtopia

EDIT (7/31/08): I got my own series page! Thanks so much Tom! ^_^

Oh man, it was a great time. First off, let me make a list of all the people I got too meet:

Tom Fulp
April Fulp
Anigen
RedMongoose
Egoraptor
Rubberninja
Rina-Chan
HansVanHarken
Funy-Mony
Kirbopher
Danomano
Super Flash Bros
Tomorrows Nobodies
Cycon
(If I'm missing anyone I'll add you later)

Okay so,

Day 1-

Day one was filled with dissapointment, and enjoyment. I spent most of the day missing out or giving up on going to certain panels; luckily today was the day that I got to meet Tom Fulp. It was awesome, and Tom is a very nice guy. April took a picture of me and my friend next to Tom (I'm on the right, and he's on the left). I ended up buying myself a NG shirt, since I've always wanted one but never felt like waiting for it to ship to me. I then spent a couple hours wandering the convention center, taking pictures of intriguing things, and figuring out my way around. I then went back to the booth to see if I could find any other Newgrounders, which, to my surprise, I saw/met Egoraptor (right) and RubberNinja (left)! We all talked for a few hours, until finally me and Junkdog decided it was time to head out.

Day 2-

Day two, the day of the fabled Castle Crashers/Newgrounds party, which was absolutely awesome! Not much point in talking about the convention today, basically I met Rina-Chan and gave Anigen some gum. Anyway, back to the party; I think most of us were under the impression that we were all heading to some random bar, so Tom led us all outside, and we walked like 5 or 6 blocks until we came to a big building. As we walked inside we were all filled with joy as we saw that this place was reserved just for Newgrounders! With free food and free drinks to boot! We spent quite awhile there, I got a good chance to talk to David (of Tomorrows Nobodies) and Cycon. They had Castle Crashers and Mario Kart Wii set up, but this turned into more of a social event, and we all just ended up chatting with our fellow NG'ers. It was great.

Day 3-

Day 3 was fairly dissapointing considering what I did the day before. I didn't get a chance to see any of the Newgrounders, I stopped by the booth a few times, but I just kept missing them, also I didn't have my camera; so there wasn't a whole lot to report on for Day 3.

Day 4-

Day 4 was quite fun, and it all started when Rina-Chan noticed me and Junkdog walking by. She offered to interview me for a Comic-Con-flash-artist-documentary-typ e-thing. I obliged, and it turned out to be more of an ordeal than I first thought it would be. I sat around with RubberNinja, Rina-Chan, Egoraptor, Anigen, and RedMongoose for awhile, until we all decided to do the interviews later, and instead went down to the exhibition hall. From there we all sort of separated, and I spent a few hours walking around with Egoraptor, RubberNinja, and Anigen. After that we all collected at the Newgrounds booth, and talked for quite some time. I noticed people starting to disperse, and so, after waiting for quite some time, I was pulled out of there by Junkdog who was quite tired from the days events and we walked back to the hostel we were staying at without getting a chance to say goodbye to anyone... if I have one regret for the entire trip, it was leaving then, because it looks like all the NG'ers headed out again afterwards, and I would have loved to have gone. So if any of you Newgrounders who I never got to say goodbye to are reading this; Goodbye! It was great meeting you all!!!

I already have my ticket for next year, and I hope to see you all again!

**please note that any and all spelling/grammar errors in this post are my fault and will be corrected upon noticing**

~Jimtopia

By request of EvilEgg I'll be writing up a little convention report when I get back. If you care to hear about my experiences, check out my profile on Wednesday July 30th.

First things, first, new cartoon in the portal!

Jim Day 08

Jim Day is the celebration of my main character, "Jim's" birthday. This year he turned three years old, so I made a neat little cartoon, it's about 1 minute and 10 seconds excluding the credits, and hopefully you'll get a chuckle out of it. Big thanks to rabidsquirl for getting his lines in so promptly.

In other news, I head off to San Diego in 3 days or so, I'm pretty excited, and hopefully I'll be able to meet all of the fellow NG artists that are going. I took a look at the list of events going on, and I filled up my whole schedule in about 20 minutes, I doubt I'll get to see everything I want to see, but you never know!

Also, by request of EvilEgg I'll be writing up a little convention report when I get back. If you care to hear about my experiences, check out my profile on July 29th.

See ya some other time NG!

~Jimtopia

EDIT (7/21/08): I'm going to be flying all day tomorrow, so I probably wont be able to check my NG account.

In 2006, when I first heard about Newgrounds from a good friend of mine, I took a look around the site and I thought: "This is something I'd like to be apart of." This was only a few months after I'd learned how to animate, and I was fairly worried when I submitted my first cartoon, Stuck in the Desert. At the time I was pretty proud of this cartoon, it was the first one I made that actually used backgrounds, all my others were just the characters floating in white nothingness, kind of like Brawl Taunts.

Surprisingly the first thing I ever submitted passed, and needless to say, I was elated and inspired. All the nice reviews made me want to submit more of my work, and work harder on my new animations, which I did. It was nice to have constructive criticism and praise for my work (something I never got when I made cartoons solely for my family's entertainment).

One thing I always sort of prided myself in though was the use of my own original characters, simple though they may be. The star of this original cast of characters being "Jim." A 9-shaped human-like chibi sort of figure. Now, ever since some of my earliest cartoons, I've had people tell me that they "like Jim, but think he could use an update graphically." Now, way back when I made my first few submissions, I honestly couldn't animate a more advanced character without it either looking choppy, or getting to confusing to keep track of all the layers; now I don't update him just because I like the simplicity of him, which is hard for some people to understand.

To this day, I still get people sending me messages and a few reviews telling me I need to update Jim, and to each one I say no and tell them what I just told you here. He is not meant to be an advanced looking character with tons of detail, he's supposed to be simple and silly. Although I did cave in and get him a voice actor, I have still kept him mouthless. This is for two reasons. Reason one being that in Koolmoves (the program in which I animate) timing up mouths is a much harder process than in flash. Reason two being that it seems like (with him being such a simple character) the constant movement of a mouth would detract from the slight body language, and eye movement he uses to convey emotion.

Now let me just clear up something quickly. I can draw and animate a lot better than I could when Jim was made! Some people seem to think that chibi style simple characters are the peak of my drawing ability, which is a fairly understandable assumption I suppose considering somewhere around 80% of my cartoons involve Jim and crew, but just for the record, I can in fact draw a lot better than that now. I have yet to release any of my "well-drawn" cartoons to NG because, to be perfectly honest, none of them are done. I always start them off with a lot of gusto, but start to lose steam at about the 2 minute mark. I do intend to finish them at some point, but for now they're kind of on the backburner while I work on Jim's Time Cartoon Part 1.

I suppose the whole point of this is: If you see a Jim cartoon in the portal, please don't downvote it because the characters are simple or because they don't have mouths, that's how they're supposed to be! I'm perfectly fine with constructive criticism to help me make it funnier, and if you don't like the cartoons, that's okay, I am just sick of people telling me to update him or add a mouth when he isn't supposed to have one and doesn't need one. Also, please don't make fun of me for "not being able to draw well" because I can, I merely choose not to for those cartoons, and someday you guys will see my well-drawn cartoons and characters.

Thanks for Reading,
~Jimtopia

Heya guys,

I just wanted to say thanks to all the nice reviews/votes/feedback I got on Jim and Pals Shorts Episode 6! It's really nice when a cartoon is generally well received, and almost getting in the top 10 of the week was cool. As a little side note, if you like that, that's very similar to what my new cartoon is going to be like.

~Jimtopia