It's been almost half a year since I needed to break up my studio before moving house and good gawd did I underestimate how intense those 6 months were going to be. But just now I flipped on my speakers again - celebrating with this incredible track by @SoTshu, by the way - and they never, ever sounded better <3

Still need to furnish the rest of the room and do some more sound treatment, but I finally have my own space back. I am going to music/voice act the fuck out of 2025.

Attention all contestants and other interested parties: final week until the VAC15 deadline! Hoping to see a lot more of your beautiful submissions come in, give us judges a run for our money!

Your favorite horned bog roll is back again with a new VA contest! #VAC15 is a Halloween themed, every VA for themselves affair, with cash prizes and of course Newgrounds fame to be won. Read about it here.

Show us what you gots, peeps.

For the past 12 years, this little spot served as my home studio:

I recorded drums, guitars, bass, pianos, sound effects and a whole slew of different vocals in here, both for music as well as for voice acting. And not half an hour ago, I finished work on the final project this particular set-up will ever produce. It was, as you can tell, in the middle of the living room, which caused more trouble than it was worth, and I'm glad to get rid of it. Even more so as we bought a new house, that's big enough for me to have my own room to put all this stuff in, and further improve on the audio quality!

It'll be a while before I'll have everything rebuilt though - my wife apparently doesn't think this is a high priority, go figure - so for the foreseeable future I won't be recording or producing anything. But I'll be sure to stick around and occupy my NG time with other activities. I'd say it's about time for another VA competition, for example...

Please stand by. Do not adjust your set. We'll be back.

<3 <3

After having spent over a decade trying to find musicians I could connect with over making the music I want to write, I've finally found a stable line-up and we'll be working on writing and perform a bunch of new material as soon as possible.

If you like music from bands like Helmet, Deftones, Whores, Rollins Band, and Wrong, please follow HORK to stay tuned for new tunes.

Here's a demo version of one of the songs that's gonna be in our first set:

Hope to see you at one of our shows, somehow, some day!

Cheers,

D

Haven't felt myself lately, or rather had enough of the parts of myself that have been getting in my way more and more. And as these things go, these feelings turned into a song before I knew it. Produce in its entirety over the span of about 11 days, here's what feels like it could be a turning point in life.

Enjoy

And so NYE rolls by again. Not the most productive year in terms of Newgrounds contributions, I must admit. Over the past years I've seen people at least a decade younger than me complaining how they were getting too old for this community, but on that I have to disagree - NG offers an incredibly broad spectrum of content for children of all ages. Because that's basically it; we're all kids lost in a world run by grown-ups who are in turn kids themselves, they just started taking themselves too seriously at some point.

Last year made this painfully clear for me. As part of my career plan (I can sound like a grown-up too, under pressure), I took a training in basic coaching skills. "Coaching is two people who don't have answers, and one of them gets paid not to." It teaches you how to ask the questions that allow people to find the solutions to their problems within themselves, rather than telling them what to do. It's also based on the fact that you need to be in touch with your inner workings: you can't coach people beyond where you've already been yourself. Contrary to all the education and trainings I've already taken part in, this one wasn't about sitting in class listening to someone talk all day. It was about taking a small bit of theory and putting it into practice, and just talk, talk, talk. And because we all needed guinea pigs, this meant half the time you'd be the coach, and the other half the one being coach. I like to quip my classmates were in luck, because I have problems up the wazoo. On the flip-side, though, that meant I was equally Lucky (ha!), as I got to explore parts of myself I never got to know. Stuff that's been in my way for over three decades now.

I ended up locking myself up in my friend's apartment for the better part of week with a notepad and a pen. For the first time ever, I took the time and opportunity to start digging into what moves me. How did I end up here? What's going on inside of me that causes me to make all these choices, both the good as well as the stupid ones? What makes me, well, me? I still don't have all the answers, but a lot of pieces of the puzzle have started falling into place. There's a Dutch saying that translates to "It's not about the marbles, it's about the game." That's not how I was raised. I never brought enough marbles home. This has caused me to evolve into a 42-year-old who constantly worries about all the stuff he hasn't done yet, or hasn't done well enough - all the marbles he didn't manage to win. It took me that long to turn around and look behind me, at the huge tank standing on the dresser in the corner of the room, filled to brim with marbles of all shapes, sizes and colors. I have always considered myself lucky in the sense that fortune smiles upon me in a lot of ways, hence the moniker. I never took the opportunity to actually feel lucky, to feel blessed with all the good things I have going on. All the stuff I achieved. I did that. And I'd do well to remind myself of this more often.

If you're half my age or below and have made it this far into reading: congratulations, you have an admirable attention span, which seems to grow rarer and rarer as I grow older. And if you sometimes worry about whether you're doing yourself justice, whether you're doing the right this or doing it right, well, it won't get better or easier. At least, not by itself. You're going to have to put in some effort - but you don't have to do it alone. Find yourself someone who can ask you the questions that need to be asked, and answer them truthfully. If the questions are right, you might be amazed at the answers that present themselves.

You're never too old for anything. Not for this community, and especially not to learn. The last tattoo I got was of a tree - use your imagination, I drew it myself:

The same friend whose couch I crashed on once told me there's a Chinese proverb that translates to "The best moment to plant a tree is thirty years ago - the second best moment is now."

Plant that tree.

Thread new grounds.

Happy new year <3

I got interviewed by @Aalasteir for the @OffTheWallShow <3

Turns out I say 'uh' a lot when I do unscripted talks ><

Talking about @Hyptosis, @NickSenny, @VoicesByCorey, @JoshDytonVO, voice acting, music and trying to be a good person.

I was a little apprehensive about this at first, but Aalasteir turns out to be a really nice guy to talk to, and once I got going it was just very easy. Loved doing this, thanks for the opportunity everyone!

Enjoy my sexy voice (@CryNN's words, not mine) right here:

Last weekend I was reminded of how the LuckyDeeIndustries brand got started, well over a decade ago by now. My drive was to create a platform to expose the world at large to good music - or what I felt was good music anyway. Whether it was by my own creation or by that of others, I didn't really care. Of course I had plenty of plans, but as I am wont to do, too few of these plans were actually followed up on. Or, in some cases, they actually were, but the world appeared to be conspiring against me in seeing them come to fruition.

One of the songs that truly inspired me growing up was called 'Awake', by a band called Larve. Back when, some 25 years ago now, our national MTV copycat TMF would broadcast their show Wet & Wild one or two times a week, on weekdays at a time my parents expected me to be in bed. And with me being the obedient kid I was, I would tape the show on VHS and watch it the next day. I got my first taste of some incredible bands and songs thanks to that show, with special mention to Strife's 'Blistered', which we ended up playing a cover of with my previous band. Back then I never figured I'd be able to play that song, but hey, we fucking did it! God damn playing that drum fill halfway through the song...

Anyhow, for another fifteen years or so I kept on the look-out for that Larve song. It found its place into the soundtrack of my life, and I just needed to hear it again. Then, during one of my searches, I managed to find out the name of one of the band members, who went on to pursue a career in the creative arts. I got in touch with him, explained where I came from, and he was awesome enough to share the video with me, along with some other even lesser known material, and gave me his blessing to share this track with the world. And so I did:

Looking back, there's something inspirational in this, at least to myself. Putting in a decade and a half of effort and actually seeing it come to fruition. And still it seems I haven't learned my lesson yet. It's so easy to forget how gratifying it is to hang in there and carry your ideas on through the end. To set your goals and take concerted action to achieving them. I am now pushing 42, the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, and even though the answer's right there the question seems to efface itself time and time again.

So here I am, trying to remember the question. Trying not to fall asleep again while the answers are all swarming right within my grasp, if only I would have the wherewithal to wrap my fingers around them. A decade has already ceased to sound imposing, yet still I feel defeated having to wait a couple of months, weeks, days or even hours for gratification.

This makes me human, I guess, especially in today's instant world, but still... I want to stay awake. I want to remember what it is that keeps me going, whether it takes me five minutes or the rest of my life to get there. I want to make that song. I want to breathe life to that character. I want to see and feel it all. I can do this.

How about you?

In other news: I <3 @CryNN