Industry Sites & Blogs

I follow several sites and blogs on the internet. A couple of which have been mentioned on my previous post, being newgrounds.com and deviantart.com

DeviantArt is essentially a  free portfolio site for any and all artists. A user can post works of art, videos, photos, links, Html customizable journal entries, post in the forums, and critique works of art submitted by other users. But due to some licensing issues, the site refuses to host music, user made or otherwise.
DeviantArt is also a community, and often hold contests sponsored by big corporations and give out big prizes.
The number of users that utilize the site is immense. Art that is submitted is separated into two groups: Newly Submitted and Popular; In these two groups the art can be categorized into medium, and genre, and can be further broken down from there through several subcategories.
Due to the number of artists and incoming pieces, its nigh impossible to get any attention without resorting to buying ad space, or updating frequently to catch attention on the newly submitted page; Although, the least time and resource consuming way to gain attention is through word of mouth.

Newgrounds is much more niche than Deviantart. Its another free site whose users consists of Flash animators, programmers, musicians, and people who visit the site frequently to rate and vote on newly submitted flash animations - a key feature to the site. Newgrounds has a feed of incoming games and animations that the users can vote on, which either "Blams" (deletes the submission from the site) or raise its score which could potentially post the project on the site's front page; ensuring that every new project gets an even amount of attention
Newgrounds also has the same features as Deviantart, minus the customiz-ability of journal entries.

Newgrounds' Admins often sponsor or host contests with cash or prize rewards, as well as the users who want to get together and just collaborate. The site is very community driven, so long as one participates in the community (even minimally), it is not hard at all to get attention.
Newgrounds is built for its users, and promotes the best, or at least hard work, in the most user friendly way, which is a big plus for any aspiring artist.

Research Prosite/Wordpress

Between the two sites, Prosite and Wordpress, I chose Wordpress.

• A big choice behind my decision was the fact that if you wanted to use Prosite, you would have to pay a monthly fee to keep your site live, when I can go to numerous other sites to post my work/portfolio that happen to be free
• Wordpress also gives myself more control over the design of my site, but also simple to use a premade layout and design.
• I'm not worried about talent scouts or searching parties for my work. I'd rather just have a place place to archive my work, than pay money to show up in a search bar.
• I guess another decision factor is that I already have a Wordpress account haha

Hello. Nothing really much to say about me. But I suppose I can start off with some basics.

I am an aspiring animator and I have been animating since freshman year of high school. I have only one finished animation, which was completed my sophomore year of high school. It has been posted on Newgrounds.com, a tightly knit Flash community, and I received front page honors as well as a "Daily Second" Award from the site admins and users.
In between that time and now, I have started and stopped several animations, due to uncontrollable events and lack of resources; namely voice actors.

But a short term goal for myself is to start a flash series, and if it becomes popular or if people demand more from myself, its all a bonus.

As of long term goals, I want to start my own independent animation studio, under the same name as this blog. The name is inspired from my first 2 characters I have ever created way back in elementary school, in small episodic comics I made in my spare time. The two characters are the reason for where I am and who I am today.

This blog, I plan to use as a portfolio basically. Post finished works, give artist statements on them, etc. etc.
But I also want to use this site as an archive. There is nothing I love more than digging through old pieces of my favorite artists and gather inspiration from them. To know their roots and see how they developed. And if my dreams take me where I hope, maybe fans of my work will have plenty to dig through some day also.

I do have a separate art blog for my animation classes. I will be posting doodles and sketches on there, through out the semester. So be sure to check it out!
http://chaoschawley.wordpress.com/
I also have a deviant art, which is used for the same thing, but its a bit more expressive and informal.
http://wakman111.deviantart.com/