Newgrounds Art Showcase

I have slowly begun to become a more involved member of the Newgrounds community. For this reason, I think it would be appropriate to give props to some of the most popular artists that upload their work to the art portal, as well as some of my personal favorites.

To start off, I think I pretty much have to talk about JohnnyUtah. After joining the Newgrounds staff in 2006, JohnnyUtah (Jeff Bandelin) gained widespread attention for his Tankmen animations, based on the universe of the soldier in the NG logo. His animations are recognizable by their strong art and his unique, action-heroesque voice. Currently, he is the primary staff artist at Newgrounds, and when he's not making animations, he's doing stuff like this:

by the way: click to enlarge

Wenart's work satisfies a primal dragonlust that I do my very best to keep under wraps in my daily interactions. Wenart is an Indonesian illustrator who uploads primarily high fantasy stuff, as well as some non-fantasy commissioned pieces. His illustrations range from pseudo-chibi cartoons to semi-realistic with a Chinese accent. It's hard to pick a single piece that embodies his style, but here's a good example of something more on the realistic side of the spectrum.

Lenkobiscuit is a an animator/artist, sort of like JohnnyUtah, but with a greater emphasis on art than animation, though his hipsterween flash makes for a good, animated exhibition of what he can do. As is common on NG, many of his works are videogame related, but two major factors put Lenko above the rest: 1. The faintness -not absence- of black lines, and 2. The apparently random gesture strokes that come together to make distinct textures and shading. This one doesn't really show of the textures, but it is pretty rad:

DirkErik-Schulz is an artist with a knack for bastardized classical cartoon style. After seeing his name next to one of his illustrations, anything else of his needs no attribution. This example may drastic, but it seems appropriate to caricature this artist's work.

Dommi-fresh, oh man. Talk about spooky stuff. Dommi-fresh is an illustrator that works mostly with pen and watercolor and makes some of the darkest stuff you can find that's still well accessible. His almost unanimously angry characters are sure to sate any latent gothic affinity that you may possess. Out of his 167 uploaded images, I chose this, as it seemed a fitting middle-ground.



This post is already too large, but I cannot leave out GlassBomb, a seriously talented 15-year-old that puts me to shame. His style needs some refinement, but he is definitely the kind of guy to keep an eye on. His characters are pretty Tim Burton-y;


Super, hope you like those guys as much as I do, and be sure to pay them a few clicks.

-Daniel