Hi there! It's Christmas, a good day to share some information about my whereabouts this month, stuff that I think are worth mentioning, as well as plans for 2025.

First of all, Merry Christmas and happy New Year! This has been one of the most stressful Decembers of my life, which is exactly why I felt horrible during the month's second half. I still do. And even then, despite that, this has been probably the most successful month on my NG so far.

Thank you so much for 100 followers, and thank you for my first (and hopefully not last) frontpage.

MY PLANS FOR 2025

The new year is upon as pretty soon, and I think now it's a good time to talk about what I'll work on in 2025.

First of all, January will hopefully be the release month for Astro Collab, which is developing slowly, but in a very promising direction. Thank you to all contributors, who submitted their bot, and I hope to see more!

As far as Newgrounds-specific activity goes, I don't have any more plans for now, which means things will stay mostly the same.

My New Year's Resolution is to finally come back to my Youtube channel. 2024 has been a very dry year in terms of content, both from me AND my Youtube mutuals. However, I finally feel confident enough to sit back and cook a long-awaited surprise for those who prefer my animated stories.

I'M ON BLUESKY

I made a Bluesky account a couple of weeks ago, but didn't feel like advertising it that much due to important Astro Collab news. The account is pretty much dormant, because the numbers are really low. But if you're interested, give it a follow, so I can have a reason to care about it.

My Bluesky is directly tied thematically to my NG stuff, but I might use it for my Youtube side as well, who knows.

And that pretty much does it. Again, merry Christmas and I hope you have a great New Year!

I'm taking a break from this, as well as other social media sites. I need some therapeutic time with my closest long-time friends to calm down and treat my obsession with trying to appeal to masses by chasing big numbers, that really took the enjoyment out of doing art. Yes, I am STILL butthurt over never getting a frontpage, and I really don't want that to be the case.

I will still visit to play Trivial Guesser dailies and for Astro Collab stuff, but I think that's about all I have for now in terms of art.

Anyway, peace. Remember to stay healthy, support your favourite artists, drink water and light up your room. And Merry Christmas.

APPLICATIONS CLOSED!

Thank you so much, everyone who applied for the collab! The collab has reached sizes beyond my expectations and it's all thanks to your support, wonderful bot artists and the Newgrounds community, that we're here today, standing with over 50 Astro artists, as well as lovely technical staff consisting of @TaigaFX, @RosesWolf and @ExplosivePickaxe!

Anyway, today is December 8th, and the application doc is now closed. Now it's the best time to pick up that pencil and start drawing your bot-sonas! Remember that the submission deadline is January 19, 2025, which is the day all bots should be finished and have valid names and descriptions!

Here, at the Astro Collab, we will make sure to bring you a great and polished interactive gallery experience for the entire community to enjoy!

BEFORE YOU READ - Original post

Today is December 1st, which means that applications for the collab will be open for just 1 MORE WEEK. Even though the group is pretty small compared to bigger collabs, I'm still super glad that those who joined gave my first collab a chance!

With the application deadline coming in a week, now it's a good time to talk about the submission deadline, which is the day we put the pencils down. You have time until:

JANUARY 19, 2025

That's 7 whole weeks to complete your bot-sonas! After that, the gallery will hopefully be finished and released as soon as it's ready. Make sure to stick around for more announcements to not miss out any news about delays or difficulties in the collab's BBS thread and my NG news page. The thread is where you can discuss the collab and learn more about it through a FAQ post.

Apply now!

While we're at it, I want to mention a couple of things I forgot about in the last post or weren't emphasized enough.

• Draw your bots on a 1000x1000 transparent canvas! - It allows us to maintain the bots in generally good quality. If your bot turned out blurry, it's not the end of the world, but please keep that in mind.
• Using other artists' OCs is allowed! But... - We allow other artists' OCs as well, but remember to credit their NG page! Try to avoid using OCs of people who can't be found on Newgrounds, I'm alright with it, but it just makes credit harder to handle.
• NG series bots are welcome! Similarly to the rule above, popular characters from NG media are allowed! When submitting, specify which series they are from.
• Everyone matters! If you feel like you're not astronomical enough for the Astro Collab, don't worry! Here, we believe that everybody counts! Whether you're scouted or not, popular or not, young or old, at the end of the day, we all wanna see wonderful bot-sonas. Even if you've never played the game, that's fine, all it takes is just awareness of the game!
• Remember to check the original post's rules!

🤖ATTENTION, ARTISTS FROM ALL CORNERS OF THE GALAXY!🤖

As you may know, The Game Awards are just around the corner, and what better way to celebrate it than through an art collab themed around one of the most surprisingly amazing games of the year - Astro Bot! Let's cheer for Playstation's little robotic wonder together!

For those who don't know, Astro Bot is a platforming game released this year for the PS5, which features a surprising lot of cameos from Playstation's 30-year long history in form of adorable bots dressed as all time favourites. And the idea of the little cameo bots are the main focus of this collab.

What to do?

You will be tasked to draw at least one "Astro bot" dressed like your OC, in a similar fashion to the bots in the game. That includes your OC's clothing and a wig. Here are all the game's bots as a general idea.

RULES

• Your bot has to be drawn on a transparent 1000x1000 background. If you wish to animate it, go ahead!
• When submitting your bot, name it in a way the in-game bots are named. Astro Bot doesn't refer to its cameo characters by name but rather by a short humorous description. Give your OC the most fitting funny name and description!
• Keep the entries rated E! If you have a more mature OC and you wish to submit it, tone it down, just like the game does with characters from M-rated games. I want the collab to be enjoyed by everyone!
• If you have a fursona, you can make an Astro Protogen! The more creative bots, the better!
• Discord is not required, but recommended. The project will be managed there.
• No AI.
• Not required, but if possible, draw your bot doing something that defines your OC, such as wielding a specific weapon or engaging in their favourite activity. It will make your bot sona feel more alive!

And that's it! All entries will hopefully be compiled within an interractive stylized gallery.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the collab's thread.

APPLY HERE!

I will message you shortly after with a Discord invite to the collab's server. Apply deadline is December 8th, 2024.

Submission deadline will be announced at a later time in this thread, as well as on my profile, so keep an eye on that!

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Aside from artists, I'm also looking for a programmer to discuss the gallery with, as well as a composer who's willing to provide a background song for the project. You don't have to apply through Forms, just PM me directly if you're interested, and we will discuss details. If you wish to help me manage the collab, let me know as well.

A bit late on this, but

If you want to know a bit more about me and my history with art and writing, you should totally check out my Q&A hosted by @Aalasteir, as well as interviews with other interesting users!

Big HELLO, Newgrounds! Or should I say... hello again.

I've been active here around 2 or 3 years ago, but I deleted my account back then to move on to discover myself and try my luck somewhere else. Quite obviously, I've been known as "DrSaturn" and I used to draw medieval fantasy stuff, that was moderately successful:

So, you might wonder, what did I do for all this time? Well, I haven't been active on many social media sites, because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to manage such a big undertaking. But in 2023, I've met a lot of wonderful art friends, that I shared my work with, and as recently as a couple of days ago, they encouraged me to open up an Insta page. And so I did.

However...

Despite doing pretty well on the site, I got banned after literal 5 DAYS, for the most bs reason, and I wish I was making that up. I was banned, because they thought I was "a fake account/bot, trying to mislead people and bypassing guidelines". My jaw dropped. Of course, I appealed immediately, but that just happened to seal my fate even further. With not even a chance of proving that I'm a real person, I was banned for pretty much no reason.

And that's why I got pissed and decided to come back to Newgrounds. I'm so done with these corporate shit social medias, I'm so done with Zuck, Elon and all this circus, man, I just wanna share my art with people who like art, bruh 😭

I think I owe Newgrounds a big apology now, despite all, I felt accepted here and it seems like I might find a better audience here, if people find my stuff interesting. Thanks for coming to my TED talk, I'll unpack my things, if you don't mind 😁💼