Another update for Phantom of the High School Puppet Theater. by A+B

Progress:

Intermission is finished.

I published Sophie

Unfortunately, PotHSPT (aka Dipthong 2) will not be finished by Halloween for various reasons, so I've delayed the album:

1- Production on Caught in the Act by @BeepBoxClock hasn't started yet, though it will be finished soon.

2- Trendbender will not be available at the moment. I'm still working something out.

3- Only the one album cover is currently finished. I still need to do a bunch of other art.

So here's the current plan.

All three remaining songs currently finished will be published on Newgrounds before Halloween. Caught in the Act will be finished first, then I'll draw all the remaining art.

Only after Trendbender is finished will I consider Dipthong 2 officially released.

In the meantime, here's the official album playlist:

Full Tracklist

1- hi (Welcome to the High School Puppet Theater)

2- Caught in the Act (Not done)

3- English, Sex, Politics (ESP)

4- Brent

5- Trendbender (a hole too big to fill right now)

6- Intermission

7- Bricked (I actually made two versions)

8- Sophie

9- Archdukes of the Machine

10- Lorelei (2022)

11- The Phantom

12- Triangulation

Hi. Quick update regarding Phantom of the High School Puppet Theater. by A+B

Progress

In addition to the 3 others I already released on Newgrounds (Brent, Lorelei, Archdukes of the Machine), I released two new tracks (hi, and ESP)

Four other tracks (Bricked, Sophie, The Phantom, Triangulation) are fully completed and ready to release.

Caught in the Act and Intermission, both by @BeepBoxClock, the second half, are still in progress.

Trendbender still needs vocals, and thus will be the last song to be completed.

I expect to finish the entire thing by the end of Halloween (October 31st). It's possible I haven't put all the pieces together by then, so it'll be out by early November at the latest.

PotHSPT will be available for free on YouTube, Newgrounds, and Bandcamp. I'm also compiling a ZIP folder of all the MP3s for a direct download.

Full Tracklist

1- hi (Welcome to the High School Puppet Theater)

2- Caught in the Act (Not done)

3- English, Sex, Politics (ESP)

4- Brent

5- Trendbender (Not done)

6- Intermission (Not done)

7- Bricked

8- Sophie

9- Archdukes of the Machine

10- Lorelei (2022)

11- The Phantom

12- Triangulation

Album Art

I also created an album cover. I had 4 covers sketched out, but this is the first one I finished.

Hi. Quick update on my upcoming A+B album Phantom of the High School Puppet Theater, aka Dipthong 2.

I temporarily put the album on hold so I can finish MADNESS: Operation X. Now I'm back to work and ready to get it done by Halloween. However, there's one big hurdle to overcome.

I need a vocalist/rapper:

One of the tracks, Trendbender has a set of written lyrics planned. and since I don't have the chops to sing or rap myself, I need a vocalist.

Theme: The song is performed from the perspective of the Trendbender itself, an all-knowing, somewhat sinister AI / robot who holds a high standard against content creators / web animators, namely those that follow existing trends and use cheap shortcuts because they think it will make them rich. Think of him as Satan, but for YouTubers.

Lyrics: Can be found here along with the instrumental to rap over.

Other things to note:

1. The tone should roughly resemble that of Eminem/Slim Shady (example: Without Me), but not explicitly sounding like him.
2. You don't need to do everything in one take. If you do one take, three takes, or splice them together, I don't mind, just as long as the mic quality is good, you're not clipping, and it suits the song, etc.
3. The entire song's length is 2 and a half minutes total, with a handful of pauses. (about 50-60 bars total)
4. I want the album done on Halloween (Oct 30th), so I recommend finishing it sometime before that (about October 27th, extended from the 24th).

If you're interested, message me here or on Discord with your demo-reel, rates, and other details you or I might need to know about. I'm willing to work with whatever you think is reasonable.

(Discord username: "anonymous_frog")

Happy belated Madness Day!

I may be one day overdue, but my Madness Day 2023 cartoon MADNESS: Operation X is finally finished, after an entire month in the pipeline. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I've worked myself to finish it.

I would like to thank

• @50Steaks for letting me use his track "Nevada"
• @RareKirby for stepping in at the last minute to do a couple of scenes (and also for giving me the opportunity to produce background art for two of his own animations)
• @Krinkels for creating the Madness Combat series and keeping a 20+ year fanbase going strong.
• Elon Musk, the richest Aspie in the world, for buying Twitter and taking me for a year-long ride, which in turn inspired this little short film.
• And to whoever put it up on the front page, (@TomFulp I presume). I think I've finally earned it this time.

Getting better at animation / Making bigger, better projects.

This is something I adressed a month ago, but I'd like to take the opportunity to explain further.

For the past year, aside from collabs, the only solo animations I've submitted to Newgrounds have been two dumb spam cartoons churned out in under a week, with Operation X serves as a turning point for me.

So what does the future hold for me?

- To start with, I'm going to continue getting better at animation, to be able to make stuff that's on par with some of my favourite artists and idols, notably ZekeySpaceyLizard ( Squaresville, Meat Grinder, etc.), Felix Colgrave (Double King, The Elephant's Garden, etc), and many others that I like that might clutter up this list.

(see my favourites and look at some of the better ones (See also: my animation watchlist)

-Expect a sparser upload schedule. Even my spammier cartoons should get a little bump in quality.

-I've gravitated towards making music videos, whether it be for other artists or my own A+B catalog. Operation X may technically count as one since I used the whole song, but I see the 50Steaks song more as a film score.

-Commercial work is a possibility, but unless I get better in the next few years, which might mean having to study in some boring classroom for 3 years, options are very limited. I'm mostly just building up experience at this point. Commissions may be possible in the near future, or maybe today if you complain hard enough and/or donate it to a random cause on my behalf.

- I'm still participating in collabs. I should be working on one for the Sega Saturn Collab.

-Revisiting old shit I made in previous years is unlikely, such as the 2020 Anonymous Frog series. If I ever do pick one up again, I'll let you know.

- No plans for Halloween, Christmas, or Valentine's Day.

- I'm working on two other major personal projects, after previously announcing three.

- Nothing left to say here, just a random shoutout. @dogmuth-behedog's stuff is great. When I get the chance, I'm totally stealing his artstyle to use in animation form.

Possibly 2, unfortunately.

I'm lucky that @Krinkels is also accepting entries submitted on the 23rd.

OPERATION X

MADNESS: Operation X, coming to Newgrounds for Madness Day 2023!

A 4 minute long hand-drawn (NOT using the assets) Madness Day cartoon

The mission: Stop X Corp from taking over Nevada!

Only 2 days left until Madness Day. Care for a cigarette?

Also a delay to the 23rd is very likely. I accidentally cut my hand and now I'm bleeding. May I literally put blood into this cartoon.

Somewhere in Nevada, a billionaire megalord gets hold of a dangerous superweapon. It's up to one lone grunt to put a stop to it.

Hello again. Might as well give you an update about my Madness Day cartoon.

So far it's about 69% complete. I'm doing a LOT of animation in this one. It's just over 4 minutes long.

In the mean-time, here are a couple of screenshots.

Again. September 22nd. Madness Day 2023. Only 2 weeks to go before this thing is released.

EDIT: 23rd possibly. I've slipped up a few times and might not be able to finish.

I. New Dipthong Album

Some time in June I announced a second Dipthong album under the A+B name. Since then, in between many other projects, some that released, some that hadn't, I've made a bunch of progress on Dipthong 2. It's a Halloween themed album, so expect a little bit of spookiness.

The full name of the album is Phantom of the High School Puppet Theater. so expect a little bit less spookiness.

The whole thing is set around one big theater performance featuring a diverse and unusual sounding "orchestra", the kind where one of the violinists brings a 909, two of the tuba players are ghosts, and the choir boys are generated via ChatGPT. Every single song has their own distinct personality.

So far, half of the songs are already complete, and a few more are already in production. Since making these tracks, I've managed to get my hands on FL Studio, so I'll be using that in the later stages of production.

Here's a small sample of what's already released on Newgrounds.

Phantom of the High School Puppet Theater is set to release some time in late October.

II. Tankman Triweekly

The July 2023 issue contains a review of the best movies of June 2023, and I only ended up reviewing half of them. I wanted to review the rest earlier this month, but never got around to it. Or the rest of the issue.

There's also a bunch of stuff that I wanted to report on, but for various reasons, I had to cut them out.

Seems to be impossible these days to publish 100% factual news without causing at least some divide.

So far it's a low priority for me.

III. New Animation

This is something I've seriously struggled with in 2023. Outside of collaborative works, nothing I have publicly released represents my current skill level. I expect this to change some-time in the near future.

Out of three animations I'm currently working on, my focus is now on a Madness Day animation.

I originally started this project in July, but didn't really make any progress until after Clock Day.

I've settled on @50Steaks's song Nevada as the primary musical score. It may already be over a year old, but it's still a perfect fit for what I'm going for.

Do check out the rest of his music here, such as music based on the other 49 states of America.

The animation might be a little unpolished, but I'd like to focus more on lighting + staging as opposed to trying to get the cleanest lines or the smoothest movement.

Special thanks to @CartoonChill for giving a little bit of insight regarding finishing animations under tight deadlines, and their experience making Legend Of The Ancient Relic, a 5 minute short film, in 1 month. Let's just say I'm now in a similar situation.

You can check their video out here:

IV. Free Downloads

I also want to remind everyone here that my entire catalogue of solo work, whether it's through Newgrounds, Bandcamp, directly off Google Drive, or shared by someone else, are free to download for everyone. No need to torrent or charge $5 for early access or none of that shit. Just add it to your computer or put in your own projects.

Do note, if you do use it in a music video or something like that, do let me know. I want to see it.

If you have any questions, or would like to chat, etc. you might want to put that on hold, as I can only afford 5 seconds of your time until further notice.

This isn't true. This is impossible. It seems in his anger, he deleted the flash.

You might want to hear Dick Nick's take on this.

Hi. I skipped Pico and Piconjo Days, almost looks like I completely abandoned making anything that isn't the odd shitpost or collaboration. Lost all my ambition. Spent half the year slacking off doing something else. You name it. Despite all those odds, I am still grateful for reaching 400 followers on this beloved site even with all the odds stacked against me.

So, where does the future hold for an old frog like me?

Power Star Reanimated

@PowerStarReanim is a full-scale collab that aims to reanimate the entire Power Star series by @D-Sun. It was originally started by @Recorped and his friends, but over time, I ended up taking over the whole project.

We released Part 1 on March 10th (Mario Day), starting out with just 8 people. We're all very grateful for all the feedback we've received from the community.

I ended up rushing my one scene throughout February to March and edited all the scenes together.

We're already working on Part 2. As of today, all 22 scenes are taken and four have been finished. Join the official Discord server for updates. Or wait until Part 3 is available. You do you.

Special thanks to @jediwarriormike for finishing his scene early and @Str45x for his immense deciation to the collab.

Dipthong + Other music

On April 16th I formed the music duo A+B (@Anonymous-Frog + @BeepBoxClock), and released Dipthong, our debut album featuring both beeps and bloops from @BeepBoxClock and my own experimental sample-fests.

You can listen to it here or download it for free:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFq_kmjrYsw

NEWGROUNDS | GOOGLE DRIVE | BANDCAMP (May or may not be reliable for this type of project)

My pride in making this is mixed. On one hand, I rushed it together in just under 2 weeks from primarily one or two sample sources at a time, but on the other hand, it was something I've never tried before. I plan to turn Dipthong into an entire series of albums, each installment bringing something new to the table.

I'm working on a second Dipthong album to be released later this year, which I promise will be better and much more substantial than its predecessor.

I'm also considering splitting it into separate "discs" so it can be easily distributed on Discord.

(Free users can upload up to 25MB, enough to fit 6-7 tracks. For comparison, the original Dipthong is 44MB)

In addition, I'm working on a Jingle Bells cover for the Christmas in July collab by @MasterHand4444 (MH4). It's about 80% complete right now.

Other Unnamed/Unrevealed Projects

I had this idea for a short film for quite some time, which I've storyboarded 10-15% of and produced a small portion of the soundtrack. May release sometime in 2024.

I may also make a couple of music videos. Either it's from the Dipthong catalog or whatever else I can get my hands on, depending on whether I have time.

A third SteakClock/BB10 game may be created for Clock Day.

That's all for now.

bye.