The gifts are all available now!

If you participated, you should find your gift at https://www.newgrounds.com/secret-santa/art/2023/member

For everyone else, you can go check out all the amazing art at https://www.newgrounds.com/secret-santa/art/2023/reveal

There were around 30 naughty people this year who did not get their gifts submitted on time.

We'll all be taking Christmas day off to enjoy with our families, but over the next few days we'll start assigning some backup santas to make sure everyone gets a gift.

Thanks to everyone who turned up and helped make this event so frikken awesome, and to all the helpers who handled questions and advice both here and on the Discord server. This event couldn't happen without you all!

Will make a better followup post later, when I'm not about to go to bed lol.

MERRY CRIMMAS EVERYONE!

Don't use the reserved URL, use your actual project URL for your details page

They don't have to be themed, just make sure you respecting anything the user put in their profile. If they imply they are excited about seeing someone in a christmas outfit, might be the way to go.

Secret Santas have been assigned. You should have a PM from i-bot with details.

There's been some confusion about how to submit this year, which makes sense since you art folks haven't been using the project system very long, so here's a few notes:

You can submit your gifts using the project system this year.

To do this, set up an art project like you normally would for any art. Instead of publishing it when you fill out the form, use the "Publish at" form to tell it to publish on Christmas morning (2023-12-25 at 00:00).

You can create your art project any time, you don't have to wait until christmas. Using the publish at form will keep it private inil christmas morning, at which point it will be submitted to the art portal.

Once you have a project, you can copy the URL and paste it on the Secret Santa submit page.

Don't add your secret user to the credits before Christmas. If you do, they will get early access and ruin the surprise.

You can still do a single image upload directly from your secret santa page like you did last year, if you don't want to make a project for some reason.

Where you using a template, or just the original default?

I've been clearing blocks from people who are showing skill growth, and who are close enough to making art that doesn't look extremely amatuer. You're not there yet my dude.

You need to show more technical skill. Your art currently looks like what I'd expect from a middle school student at best. It feels like you use the shape tool and add faces a lot, or rely on filters, etc. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but you're out here making a lot of noise about it, and that's how it is.

You are not at the threshold, so I didn't clear you. Easier to avoid having someone scout you and having to do this all over again.

Just wanting to put a reminder out there:

If you were just recently scouted, make sure you aren't just scouting anyone who asks in this thread. We'll be scrutinizing things pretty closely, and if we find that someone is scouting people who don't meet the art portal standards, just to let them into this event, you will lose your ability to scout, and possibly your scout status (which will remove you from this event).

If you don't know what any of this means, you should probably just not scout anyone until you've gotten familiar with our art community.

WHY DO YOU HATE CHRISTMAS?

Do you see a button at the bottom of the register page, or a message saying you must be scouted?

If you see the button, you are scouted, if not... you are not.

Throw some links to your art up here, so people can see your stuff!

The easiest way to tell is just go to the secret santa page. If you see the register button, you are scouted.

Outside of DeviantARt, the average person doesn't wanna draw furries. I stand by this! lol

We mean that this year, we are requiring that all participants have been scouted. Last year it was open to EVERYONE, and that got messy. If you are scouted on the art portal, you can join.

I was just looking at your art, and not seeing the 'scout user' button at all... you sure you're not scouted?

For all you unscouted users who have been uploading art to the Art Portal for a while now, feel free to drop some links in this thread. If your work falls within the NG Scouting guidelines, there's a good chance someone will find you and get you scouted!

Normally we frown on asking to be scouted, but I think we can stretch that rule just a bit in the spirit of the season. But let's just limit it to a single post of art links and not be obnoxious or we will have to enforce that rule.

Heck yeah, just keep making art and kickin' butt and I'm sure we'll see you next year.

You can submit any time before that, that is just the deadline.

Just to clarify what Xin is saying:

Last year we had a bunch of users sign up who had no real validation, and it ended up with a mix of people who weren't serious enough artists to actually make anything, as well as a bunch of users that ended up having their accounts deleted AFTER they were assigned to draw something.

This was the best way to make sure we're working with users who have shown dedication to making art, and have established that they are going to remain present on the site.

I can't be user of the year. I never have time to actually use the site.

That was a bit to read, but if the general gist is 'please add preloading', that is absolutely on my list. There are several QOL updates we'll be rolling out once I've dealt with all the current major bugs. Bear with us in the meantime.

If you wanna keyboard browse, the best way is click the image to go full-page, then you can use < & > to flip through, +/- to zoom, and arrow keys to move around when zoomed in

Shoulda called it "Pumpkin Spice Newgrounds". You woulda got mad clicks from all the suburban white ladies around here.

Actually, yeah. We should divert all funds to this!

Money Gang concept art:

I like the idea, and here's why.

There's literally like 500 people I would love to support on Patreon and similar services, but there's no fucking way I could ever afford that. I could pick one or two, but then I'm having to play favorites, or constantly keep on top of cancelling subscriptions to spread it all around. I'm just not gonna do that, and I know a lot of people that feel the same way.

Now, if I could donate to an entity that I would actually trust to get my money out to deserving creators, and those creators would also get more eyeballs on that entity, I'd probably not have as many reservations.

Might be worth also having donation tiers and asking artists to respect them. Let people contribute ANYTHING they can to the fund. 5 guys doing $20 might be an easier ask than 1 with $100 every month, but maybe you have to donate a minimum amount for a credit in the sponsored content.

You could also roll this out to some select streamers too, where you could use the fund to buy a sponsored shout-out on popular streams, either for NG as a whole, or to promote specific events, games, movies, etc.

There's definitely potential here.

You buying?

Blogs are a solid place for shitposting, and it keeps that stuff out of the general public areas. You can still be idiots with your buddies, and even self-moderate it! As for the people that want to have nice conversations, it's also a great tool. You can just block the trolls that typically sludge up the more wholesome threads.

We're likely going to be giving the blog system a big update in the near future to make them the go-to place for palling around, and the most prominent part of the community page.

We still want to foster that good ol' NG interaction as much as possible, but make it harder for the bad apples to spoil everything.

Just a quick update, it looks like all the substitute art has been finished! If you still haven't seen your gift, go check it out at https://www.newgrounds.com/secret-santa/art/2022/member

Godzilla collab when?