I know I'm sooo late to posting this but I still wanted to get around to it eventually. Newgrounds meetup was so wicked crazy fun and I cant wait until next year! Here's the recap of the events from my perspective.
Early in the morning on the 29th I packed up my little bag of things for the day. I had all the essentials, including my official patented Newgrounds Toronto 2023 meetup sketchbook that I had hastily decorated the night before.
I went on a journey with my stickers LOL. I wanted to make some stickers to hand out for the event. I'd never made stickers before, but I just thought it'd be fun to share some art and just have something to give people, even if it was simple. But I was an idiot. I ordered them to pick up on Saturday morning at one place but it turned out they were closed on Saturdays so the night before I panic-e-mailed another place instead. The pick-up time was 10, and my train was leaving at 10:23. It was going to be tight but with an uber and a little luck I could make it.
Except nobody showed up to open the printing store until 10:25 lol. But whatever, I just had to change my plans a bit and catch the next train. It was also pouring rain in the morning so I bought a $17 umbrella from shoppers, along with some Clif bars for emergency nourishment. Because of the time constraints and such I was left with one option: to cut the stickers out on the train.
It went great. for the first stop. until the dreaded Blue Jays fans boarded. I felt like a freak with my big bag and my pair of scissors trying to cut them out as subtly and as out of the way as I could. I also realized ANOTHER problem which was that I had accidentally flipped the image on half of the stickers, so they were garbo. All that work and I only yielded like 30 stickers lol. Next year I'll plan ahead and make more guys!
I got my stickers cut out and by the time everything was said and done I got to Christie Pits park an hour early. Luckily, some other newgrounders were there early too! In fact a big group of them was under a pavillion with... what seemed to be mannequins?
I strut up all confident, trying to be brave and chill. I come up to some guy and I'm like "haha, Newgrounds? B)" and he said "what did you say?" and I said "...Newgrounds? :) " and he said "New WHAT?" and I said "...newgrounds.... :(" and he said he didn't know whatI was talking about and that he never heard of newgrounds and my worst nightmare of walking up to the wrong people came true.
Luckily I found @NothanyTPM who also seemed lost and we found the other people hanging out like @PhonographClock, and soon more started to filter in. @Wailer came in quick with a friendly and charismatic attitude that definitely eased my nerves a lot, and was super cool to talk to. @Krasis added a fun little doodle to my book too (should have given you some clay bc your 3D work is sick haha). @pahgawk also added a silly little drawing, and was really friendly and cool even though we didn't get to talk too much.
Up rolls @spicycoffee the LEGEND showed up in the most dapper of fits, outclassing all of us with her overwhelming amount of drip and swagger. She was so fun and friendly, an absolute goat bringing the best energy to the table. Plus her art is amazing, and she outclassed my lvl. 1 poosticker with her lvl 3464038 chad Newgrounds Canada themed sticker. SO SICK DUDE (Sidenote: Karaoke soon? >:)) Extremely powerful, but only made so powerful with the addition of @kmishama, because one person dressing up is fancy, but more than one is automatically a showstopper. Can't forget @Ryychii though, who was also DRESSED TO IMPRESS, but what was almost more impressive was his photography skills. Bro, I gotta thank you for real. I took no photos because my phone takes what I call dungeon photos. My camera somehow saps all the life and joy out of anything I take a picture of LOL. I'm thankful you were there capturing the memories for all of us!
@Maskscot and @PapyrusSemi also added doodles to my sketchbook. Then I got to talk to @coby, who made me a little starstruck with his amazing art. He also drew my oc tama in my sketchbook and it is such a cute fantastic drawing. I'm glad I am somewhat oblivious otherwise I would have lost my cool so many times with all the amazing artists and cool people I was meeting.
@vhsdreamland was my next stop, she was my favourite goth guy fr, and was handing out some sick as hell art. It was also really nice and a little relieving to see some other queer people there! I then got to chat with @Droid I mean ninjamufin99 I mean droid I mean ninjamuffin99 I mean dr-
Wandaboy took advantage of my bad memory and my stupidity (not my fault guys >:( ) and took 2 of my measley 30 stickers (jk bro you were super cool I wish I got to talk to you more!!!) and SWEET @Pollyanoid whos stuff is SICK, almost as sick as she is (IN THE HEAD!!! lol JK you know I mean the good sick) @ConnorGrail gave me a shweet little sticker of his avatar and drew me a funky little dinosaur wearing a tie. I appreciate your creativity almost as much as I appreciate your art in general :) @mr-johnson22, @KaneSucks, and @DemiFrog all signed my yearbook too. I also got to meet @snackers who made an absolutely fantastic sketch of the mechanic from his cartoon Lunar Kicks (which we later got to watch in the theater!!) I'm really thankful I was oblivious and unfamiliar with who he was when I was talking to him because I would have been too shell-shocked to sound like a normal person LOL. Dude your stuff is so cool, was an honour to meet you :)
Also someone drew something right below of a sad looking man with a Squidward nose looking up at Snackers' drawing. it says "Snackers is L" and nobody signed it. I think it was made by an apparition.
@exhaustrovert drew a little flower, @Soliloquous drew a silly funky goblin guy off the cuff, and @mikelzNG drew a funny smirking guy up to no good. Good stuff pals. I then go tot say hi to @brandybuizel, who I do admit I was a bit starstuck HAHA. Don't ask me why, he's kind of famous from hosting the animation jams last year, luckily for me he was THE friendliest and nicest dude, so approachable and easy to talk to. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me and draw in my sketchbook man :D
I officially ran out of stickers by this point and couldn't give one to @arkoirisangel so I drew her a pic instead. She was an absolute sweetheart and drew her character who is the ABSOLUTE CUTEST!!!! She and her buddy who I cant remember the username of cuz I'm a dumdum talked about Katamari for a little while which was fun! Then I got to hang out with @RohinFire and talk about one piece for a bit. (it is always nice to find another perosn who is caught up lol) He drew a sick spongebob in my book as well! I also got to meet @TomFulp who was really popular for some reason (JK I was pretty star struck too lol) Pretty wild to get to see the guyest guy that ever guyed in person, thanks so much for coming to the meetup!! Plus there was @ninjamuffin99 who I was also too star struck to be normal around but he drew a funnie tankman in my book regardless. but ninjamuffin99 IN MY DEFENSE my go to ice breaker is "lol what stuff do you make" but I already KNOW what you make >:( Stop being so famous its really hard on me jeez (In all serious I do wanna say I LOVED the music in lunar kicks and was surprised to see you did the music!! good shit my man.)
@POSTBOY drew me a Sanji drawing and I dodged another bullet of becoming a flabberhghasted baffoon thanks to mebeing oblivious that the person I was talking to makes and has worked on cool stuff. @punkape and @dinguscola drew some really cute drawings in my sketchbook and I LITERALLY IN REAL TIME RIGHT NOW realized Im stupid and snackers was the one who drew in my book again and did a sketch of me and now Im flabbergasted x 200 both at the art I had the honour of recieving but also how DUMB I AM like I deadass was like "haha snack :) who is snack :)" ITS SNACKERS IDIOT BOY (Thank you for your amazing art snackers and I'm sorry for my face blindness and bad memory LOL)
at some point I also got a drawing from @ZackBerw, @KewlSokudo and @crashtroid (who was really cool to talk to and worked very hard on his drawing in my sketchbook, also I just watched his music demo reel and its some darn good stuff :) ) and that's everyone who drew in my sketchbook at least. Others who didn't draw in it but I remember were @octopus58 and @Aaron-Long who I'm KICKING myself because I barely got to talk to him and didn't realize who he was until it was too late but DUDE I JUST WANNA SAY I LOVE YOUR STUFF I WISH I COULDA TOLD YOU IN PERSON AND I'M GLAD I GOT TO MEET YOU AND SAY HI and I also formally apologize for having a head full of doodoo feces. You're such a creative talented dude I hope I can be like you when Im all growed up
I'm sure there were more cool people I missed and I'll be kicking myself later, but I should get back to the event. After everyone showed up we were all talking, chatting, taking photos and exchanging art. It really was a great time. At around 4 we headed over to the theater in a mob of ne'er-do-wells and cracked jokes all along the way. Seeing "Newgrounds Animation" in big letters outside the theater was surreal. I lined up and got my widdle wristband and grabbed a brewski and some popcorn. Everyone chatted amongst each other in the theater before pulling out their 3DS' and playing some mario kart DS on DS download play. This was honestly a highlight for me. I was born in 2000 and my first ever console was a Nintendo DS. It has a special place in my heart. But its been a long time since I've seen someone pull out their DS for some gaming. I had a moment like that scene in Ratatouille when the mean critic man remembers his childhood. I was back playing Pokemon with my cousins in Nova Scotia over the Christmas break. I don;t know what it was about this meetup that felt so weirdly comforting to my inner child (I don't have a better way of putting it lol) It just really felt like I was going over to my cool cousin's house and he was showing me all his cool games and we were just kids so we didn't have any responsibilities other than play games and watch some cool cartoons.
Everyone was just so excited to be there. ninjamuffin99 started us out with some announcements and we got to watch it. I honestly got kind of emotional LOL it was just so wild getting to see so much creativity while being surrounded by so many creatives, even some of the ones who made the things we were watching! Everyone was laughing, and hollering, and just happy to be part of it all. Normally I don't want to go to a movie where people are screaming, but this was different. It was so welcome, just everyone cracking up and hyping up each cartoon, clapping after they all finished. It was so great.
It felt like it was over in 10 minutes. It was crazy how fast time flew by in there, and it was a little sad. After everyone headed to this bar that was playing anime stuff including ONE PIECE which was hypeee. But I was low on funds and didn't want to order food, plus it was hard to mingle with everyone at their own tables. I also had a 2 hour journey to get back home, so I decided to take off early despite the raging fomo. I'm also trying to be better about when I leave for things though, I tend to stay in Toronto until I decide "I wanna be home right now" except then I gotta bus 2 hours. So I'm trying to leave while there's still a bit of gas in the tank so to speak. Next year though, I definitely don't want to miss out on the after hangouts, so I think I'll stay with a friend in Toronto or book the next day off of work to recoop or something. (It didn't help that I had to be home for an 11-8 shift the next day LOL)
Finally I just want to say how cool it was to meet everyone, and how inspiring. Its been so long since I left an event feeling so rejuvenated, I felt excited like a little kid who just got to go to a theme park or something. Like, raw genuine excitement. It was so great to see what a good community of people was there. Newgrounds is my favourite site because to me it is a place that fosters and encourages creativity and everyone here cares about art. Going to the meetup only reinforced that thought.
Also apologies to anyone who followed me after and I just haven't posted anything LOL, I'm working on some stuff I can't share right now and I have been busy but I promise I won't let you down!
Anyways this took forever to type out LOL. BIG BIG BIG thanks to @ninjamuffin99 for hosting this. You're the GOAT.
Hope to see you guys next year!!
PS: If I forgot anyone PLEASE lmk and tell me what we talked about so I can put a face to a username :) There was a lot of people and I am VERY bad at names and faces LOL
