Yeah, I guess I've never done this before but I've always wanted to. I like making Sound FX from scratch. So if you have an upcoming flash and findsounds.com isn't doing it for you, if you don't want to use the same effects that 20 flashes before you have used. I'm no sound engineer so I doubt I could really make the sound in your flash sparkle without the .fla so I'm counting on you for the most part that once I've given you the sound you wanted, you can make it a seamless effect in the flash. I'm more of a sound alchemist, who mixes in different sounds until I get the effect that sounds good. I have a good mic so don't worry about quality sounds.

It happens to all of us, don't deny. We get the latest NG news post from Tom and we try in vain to read what he has to say. We do it in vain because moments later we unleash our scratchy bitch selves onto our screens in a jealous rage over the cooler than cool pic that Tom has for an icon. As are all the BBS pics of the Administrators of this site, Tom's is custom made by JohnnyUtah in his usual steroid-spiked graphic novel style and it alone demands the respect of everyone on this site. The climate has come to the point that, if ever you see a profile picture like THAT, well that's a NG User to be feared and loved. Well gentlemen, let the conning begin.

Granted, you are the creator of your own profile pic, so it is entirely up to you want to be in keeping with the JohnnyUtah style of portrait, though I think that's one of the things that I think makes the badge what it is. (Note: There is one limitation to this and that is that you cannot use this picture for your BBS post since only your level icon is displayed there. That's the only drawback however)

There are three types of pictures we are aiming to create here. A Badge, a User Page Picture, and a Public Profile Image.

______________________________________
_________
1) Badge (Create this before you create the other two)

Download the meicon.fla (102kb) HERE to do it in flash (like it was meant to be done), or if you want to work in a drawing application (photoshop, MS Paint etc.) download the BACKGROUND IMAGE HERE and have your way with it.

For Flash Users.
So in creating your profile picture, you'll need a reference photo of you in the pose you want. Once you have that, import it to flash and put it in the layer put aside for it. I suggest offstage. Resize so that it's about twice as big as the stage. lock that layer. You can start your tracing over the picture using the layer above (by tracing, I don't mena rotoscoping, you should certain features follow some further advice to make it look right)

I'm sure JohnnyUtah used a tablet to draw these, and I have a tablet as well, but I settle for simple drawing with lines since my hands probably aren't as steady as his. Black Pencil, Size 1 for everything except for the torso and the hair that is not connected to the face (i.e bangs, side burns) which is size 2. Now I did not follow the style like I should have and realized too late that my head was far to boxy to emulate JU's style. The key is keep the the curves subtle and clean, getting the jaw right, and not letting the eye's or eyebrows get too powerful. Oh yea and big shoulders. I've provided both my picture and Tom's picture for reference. You can also keep the tone and brightness ratios the same even if you are a different skin color (just watch the color mixer to see the change in the brightness. Shape is more important here than shading, which you should use sparingly.

Once you are satisfied with the portrait, you can delete the photo of you, and you can resize it until it compares with the Tom picture. You can then move the new you into the frame until it looks good. Then go to to File>export image. Save it as a jpeg and make sure it matches the stage and not the minimum area required. Export it. Voila, that's your new 100 X 100 pixel Badge.

______________________________________
_________________________-

2) User Page Picture
These next two are easy to do.
Open up a new .fla (or new photoshop doc) and have the stage size to be 212 (width) by 159 (height) which is the size of all User Page Pictures. Set the background color to #25272D which is the color of your userspace. Goto File>Import. import your badge jpeg and put it in the center of the stage. Now you can export like that. And that's your User Page Picture

Note: You can also resize it so that it is 159 pixels X 159 pixels with a little distortion. The cleanest way to resize it is to open your badge .fla and select your badge image (frame, portrait, and beams) and turn it into a movie clip. Then copy and paste it into your new file. Go into the movie clip and clean away all the excess drawing not in the frame so you can resize it properly. Then resize it so that it's fits in the middle. (159 pixels tall and wide, so there should be 26.5 pixels of background visible on either side of the badge image). Now that's clean!

______________________________________
____________________
3) Public Profile Image

Keep your badge .fla open. but save it under a different name so you have two copies of the same thing. The procedure is simple on the flash side. Simply delete the Sun beams layer and the frame layer, and then change the background color to #FFB60E.

Now you have to resize it to 46x46 pixels and save it as a .gif
(I recommend using photoshop to do this since the flash .gif export is pretty bad quality, to do that just save the public image as a jpeg export of flash, open it in photoshop, and then do the resizing and converting into a gif.)
Now you have an awesome image to go along with your posts and pms and such.

There you have it, have fun making people think you're important. Enjoy!

Everyone Should head on over and see what has been consuming oh so many of my nights for the past year. The most epic Soundboard ever devised (not saying much). This was truly my swan song for all things that are beneath in terms of my development in flash over the past few years. I wanted to end my exploits with a bang, the biggest family guy bang the internet has ever seen. I hope you all enjoy and please leave comments. I'm actually going to be updating this frequently, so I'll be reading your views for serious critiques.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
495891

Wow it's been awhile NG. Well the reason I haven't been posting that much of late is because I haven't been on NG or really thinking about NG for that matter. So there's your explanation. BUT WAIT !!!! THERE'S MORE!!!

Senior in high school + I care about my future + I've done well in school = Very Stressed Out Person Seeking to Get into a Good School.

So there you have it. I haven't really made much progress on my flashes since the summer, including with The Bohemian. That soon could change on December 10th if a certain letter grants a certain yours truly a certain type of early decision admission. Do not fear though my 14 fans on Newgrounds! For even if I don't get into college ED, Second semeste I'm doing an indpendent study on flash animation in which I've scheduled two flash animation to be written and animated for the final presentation at the end of the year. So you can at least expect that much. I don't know if that will leave me alot of time for the Bohemian but if it does please lick your chops because you might soon see my proudest moment come in the very near future.

And once I'm in college my friends, ah the skies the limit. Not to mention I won't be so reluctant as to give out personal info and so maybe you'll get to know me a little better (like you care).

I will detail my independent study later as it develops but I want to hint as the fact that one of the flashes is going to Teacher's Cake 2009. For those of you who don't know about the Teacher's Cake "series" please watch TEACHER'S CAKE 2008!!!!!!!!!!!!! and read the explanation of the Teacher's Cake project. However, this year will be different. I'll leave that as a surprise for now.

So until next time person who accidentally stumbled across this post, I leave you with this awesome video of a high school player making an absolutely Bullshit shot to win a basketball game.

.
/* */

<object width="500" height="300" id="obj_1222375731937"><param name="movie" value="http://avchapters.rumor.chatang o.com/
group"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"/><param name="AllowScriptAccess" VALUE="always"/><param name="AllowNetworking" VALUE="all"/><param name="AllowFullScreen" VALUE="true"/><param name="flashvars" value="cid=1222375731937"/><embed id="emb_1222375731937" src="http://avchapters.chatango.com/gr oup" width="500" height="300" wmode="transparent" allowScriptAccess="always" allowNetworking="all" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="cid=1222375731937"></embed>
</object><br>[ Copy this | Start New | Full Size ]

What did I tell you about setting release dates ekublai... tsk tsk...

Yes people, the sad news is, is that I'm am only 50 seconds into the song at the moment simply due to the pure time consuming effort I'm giving into every delicate frame of flash. It'll all be worth it in the end, Here's a partial screenshot to tide you over.

I confess myself... disappointed at the lackluster and lukewarm reception of my epic Teacher's Cake 2008, the 4th anniversary edition/remake of my classic "Teacher's Cake" (Would post the link but I can't find the obit). For those of you do not have enough flash taste to realize greatness when you see it please allow me to explain the grand, intricate, and ground breaking history of "Teacher's Cake".

Back in 2004 when I was still known by the name Mfprod, I made a short feature entitled "Teacher's Cake" a story about one child's failure to resist from eating the one thing that has divided families (See NG Secret #1), started wars

.
/* */
, and just plain made this about the greatest goldanged flash ever. And because it is so great and yet so underappreciated for its fabulous voice casting, witty dialogue, and satirical comment on today's society, I have made it my duty to better in every year and submit on the day of its first submission (and consequent blamming), being June 15. "Teacher's Cake 2009" has, despite this surprising reaction from the newgrounds community, been announced and is currently in production.

And though again this response from NG has my analysts baffled, we are going to try to figure out what could've possibly gone wrong to not make this flash #1 all time. See you Next Year!

Along with the time benefits associated with second-semester seniority, I'm going to be able to churn stuff at an even faster pace next year since it's going to be part of my yearlong independent study of flash animation. The request for a teacher sponsor still hasn't been made yet, and there's still the bureaucracy to go through, but don't be surprised if you see me waving the NG flag a lot in '09. It will possibly mean I could actually accomplish one of my dreams of either an adaption of "wish you were here" or "piano man" We'll see. and of course I also want to make an animated in flash that will win the best animated short oscar. I reachin' high guys! All for you! Updates later on other stuff. Patience now.

I decided to stay away from the flash and zazzle this time for my post and just go out an say it without images or links or anything *winces*. Anyway, so I decided I'm goin to do something that will not only help your everyday flash artist get better, but also help me along with my flash The Bohemian. Hopefully, this will also allow The Bohemian to come out on the promised date of august 25th (I can hear your laughing).

My storyboard tutorial idea came to me while I was working on it actually, in fact right after i began working on it. The bohemian has been coming along by crawls and tiptoed steps, the vastness of the animation job to come is intimidating for a single artist enough as it stands, to face it will be overwhelming but fun. So to help me overcome this, I decided a storyboard was in order though I had all the angles clearly in my mind. I cannot run the risk of forgetting or running into issues that my mind could not foresee. Then I started getting distracted again and thinking about how a lot of flash artists out there aren't getting the attention their skill/story telling skill deserves. I think for the most part flash animation is currently done in a really off the cuff manner. Most people either start with just a script or nothing but the idea in their heads and start animating.

you will notice when people do this the end result is that the animator doesn't care about the progression of the flash, and even the animation quality starts to drop near the end, all because the animator is starting to hate this project that suddenly seems as though it was a bad idea from the beginning. I think story-boarding totally changes this mindset because with organization comes commitment, and care follows after. So this tutorial will focus on the logistics of storyboarding ,its purpose (or you could read this speech), and will also include other flash tips that relate to making a flash like "Put sponsor logos in preloader" or "when you can see the moon through the window on a low angle shot don't be a dumbass and make it visible on a high angle shot" that's just common sense.

I also think storyboarding is fun...... I promised I wouldn't do this but..........................

Rocko's Modern Life and THE BEST EXAMPLE OF GENIUS STORYBOARDING EVER!!!!!!

Alright, so yeah, most of you who haven't been hanging around the General, Flash, Art, and Politics forums probably are wondering where I've been. I mean com'on, ekublai you haven't submitted anything since Sept (even further back if you don't count the graphic novels) . Don't tell me you've thrown in the towel ekublai?

Actually no, no I haven't, in fact, I've been really active on NG overall, probably more active than I've ever been on here. And I'm not just posting on the forums either. I'm deeply investing my time right now into THE FAMILY GUY SOUNDBOARD3, and occasionally I will do a frame for the Bohemian, which is most likely going to lead me into (gasp dare I say it? '09!?!?!?!) But seriously, I'm working my rear end off right now, trying to get what I would call my first Epic pieces out. Unfortunately I'm a perfectionist (or I'm always making really sucky 1st drafts) and my stuff is taking longer and longer to get just right. It'll all be worth it in the end. At the bottom of the page you'll see the last screenshot that I'll be posting on Newgrounds for a while of a scene from The Bohemian. I just hope I'll be able to last to get to the end. (At least get it done before college).

But in case you haven't seen some of the small stuff I've done. Goto
WISHBONE CH. 3
One hour fbf collab way back in april
50 Frames collab 2 (first part)

In the forums I've

Drawn an Awesome Rendition of the opening shot from Waterlollies
Made Myself an Art Thread
AND I MADE A VIDEO ON YOUTUBE IN SUPPORT OF JOE BIDEN'S CAMPAIGN!

So that's basically about it. More news (more?) later.