Hey everyone, still keepin' productive. Gotta few things to plug, one which is a big deal for me and a few friends of mine actually...we started a podcast!

-The Toon Platoon Podcast-

Where myself, Chris Zito and Mike Ruocco get together and discuss various things in animation. We've often had conversations about the creative side of things for the animation world, anywhere from series to feature films and beyond...so I figured "hey, we're just as reputable or non-reputable as anyone else who can start a podcast! Let's do our own!" For our first episode we talked about what we consider to be strong main characters in animated series, a few examples being Flapjack, Chowder, Monkey D. Luffy, Sam & Max, Mulan and a few others here and there. Since it was our first, we more than likely had a few technical problems in recording, but hopefully whatever they might be I'll be made aware of in the feedback and can watch out for in our upcoming episodes, of which I have plenty of ideas for ;]

Check it out right here at the Toon Platoon Blogspot, hope you enjoy it!

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There Was This One Time is making good progress, I've been working on it for several hours straight during my Teusday Animation class to make sure time is set aside for it specifically every week. I finished up the dinky little one-shot assignment for another class of mine, the one I mentioned related to Parody Rangers. Due to the time constraints it just didn't end up being of the quality I wanted, so I probably won't be uploading that. It's nothing incredibly important anyway, so you guys aren't missing anything. Same subject as the Rangers though, I gotta get back to work on the Movie again soon, still a LONG way to go for Part 2. I gotta finish up a quick animation for a collab I'm part of too, but that shouldn't take too long. I'm just glad I'm constantly working on stuff, the break was fine but I really need to stay productive.

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Lastly, NG voice actress: Francine Louise (Dixie Kong & Female Pokemon Trainer in $00pah NiN10Doh!) is starting a collab related to the Legend of Zelda and is looking for people to join aboard. If you're interested, check out her blog page about it and ask her for details. Thanks :]

Also good luck to everyone competing in the Tank Awards!

Hey all. First off the typical stuff:

- Made a couple updates to the Parody Rangers Movie blog with lots of new screenshots, but nothing spoilerific. Check 'em out!
- If you're feeling generous please order a drawing comission from me...
so I can eat D: Orders can be made through Newgrounds if you don't have a DA account.

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ANYWAY, I've been keeping incredibly busy and I feel good that I'm being productive. Been workin' my ass off on the Rangers the Movie PART 2 since the X-Mas break, I'm already about three scenes (outta seven) into it, which would equate to what would be "Episode 2-1". I've been animating nearly every single day for at least a few hours, and over the last couple days alone I've really been crunching it.

Probably after I finish this next scene I'll be taking a short break, but not from animating! I'll be doing a quick one-shot animation as a class project for Digital Compositing, and it works out peferctly because I can make it work into the Rangers movie ;] You'll see what I mean, I think you'll enjoy it as its own stand-alone thing too. Along with that, I'll be doing a short piece for a collab an aqquaintence of mine invited me too. Should be fun, quick and easy to bust outta the way.

Also briefly speaking of collabs, since I might as well mention: I've been told that Brawl Taunts 3 will -probably- be out by mid-February. Don't quote me on it, but apparantly that's the supposed release date. I think only one of the "segments" has been fully animated by this point so I haven't gotta clue.

Oh and lastly, probably most importantly on my side of things, the animation process has begun on "There Was This One Time" starring the voice talents and writing styles of TeamFourStar. My class and teacher have shown a lot of interest in how it's gone from the early stages and I think the final product's gonna turn out really well for what'll be my first ground-up, original cartoon. Apparantly I got some damn good grades for my last semester overall and I don't wanna disappoint; I wanna go higher and higher with the stuff I'm working on and I think TWTOT will keep my track record going.

Hope y'all will look forward to what I've got in store over the next couple of months :]

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Oh and final note, I'll be at NYComiccon on Feb. 7th (Saturday) attending the FUNimation panel and the "Voice Actors in the City" panel. Only goin' for one day since I can't waste a ton of money this con specifically, plus there's not a ton that pertains to me offhand. If you're around, feel free to say hey :O

Latah!

Hey everyone, glad to see $00pah's been doin' so well. Thanks a bunch for the daily and weekly awards! I should point out the edit I made to the video description: To those of you with questions, I can assure you all of them can easily be answered in the scene selection. By clicking the "?" next to each scene's icon, an info-screen will pop-up showing who animated it, who wrote it, who did voices in it and what music was used in it. Richie and I worked hard on the menu to make sure that all of these typical questions could be easily answered, so give the scene select a gander for all of the answers you seek!

Also, those've you who're disappointed about the lack of easter eggs, you should know that I DID make a couple, but due to a bunch of factors they were eventually decided against being implemented. However, I put 'em both together into a quick file to see for those who might be interested. Check out the $00pah NiN10Doh! Easter Eggs, right here! The first was a quick joke Chris came up with about Stafy, while the second was based off a "review" Psy did on Sonic Chronicles a while back.

Lastly, just for the sake of mentioning, there were quite a few segments that were never completed or included for various reasons. Worth mentioning, Marcello (who was part of the previous NiN10Doh!) was a bit into the two-part Bomberman segment that involved White Bomber at an airport and trying to find a way to make his business meeting on time, which would've also involved Pommy & MAX. Cycon was also brought on board early on to do an "Earthbound meets South Park" two-part segment with Ness being assigned his "quest", then all four of the kids partway into the adventure of Mother 2. Due to Cel being incredibly busy with school and Cycon even more busy managing several businesses, the two couldn't make the deadline, however they put forth a ton of interest in the project and were very cool to be involved with either. So thanks both of you guys for giving it a shot and good luck in the future! There was also a Punch-Out! segment that WAS fully animated, but I decided to remove it due it...simply NOT being funny at all. Then lastly, I myself fully animated a Megaman Battle Network segment, which was to be included in the final product, however for personal reasons I decided to disinclude it. Hopefully you guys'll understand the changes and still enjoy the final version despite the missing pieces.

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Currently I'm still working on the Parody Rangers Movie, of which PART 2: "Planet Buut2dahed" is doing pretty well. I've gotten a decent amount of progress busted outta the way within the Christmas vacation and am still continuing to work on it now. Be sure to check out the blog for screenshots, I'll be adding plenty over the next couple months. Worth mentioning is that the Movie MAY end up having to be done in -4- parts instead of 3. I went back and removed a few things that I felt just...didn't need to be there, but even so PART 2 runs about 18 minutes alltogether. Don't quote me on it yet since I still have to work it out, but either case I -will- be finishing the movie in its entirety.

Also when school starts back up again, I'll be getting into the animation process of "There Was This One Time", my two minute 2nd year final project. I'll be working on it during my main animation class and that should be released around late-April to early-May.

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Then, as far as future projects go, I mentioned that I have a LOT in store. There's a big project in particular I'm getting really excited about. As stated before, $00pah NiN10Doh!'s my last video game parody and Parody Rangers will be my final parody/NG-centric cartoon. I'm sure I'll be submitting my future works to NG for you guys to check out in either case, but hopefully one of those projects will be going places far beyond just the interbutt. "There Was This One Time" will be my first fully original ground-up cartoon being submitted to NG for you guys to see, but $00pah NiN10Doh! introduced a few good people I'll be working with in the future on something even bigger...

$00pah was a great excercise for me as a director, overseeing production and animation by several partners in a larger-scale project, as opposed to going solo on Parody Rangers. I've gotta give everyone on board their props. A few of the collaborators such as Joey, the Zirbes Bros. and Dorn are artists that the NG community is very familiar with, a few of which are people I'm glad to've worked with as I've admired their work before -I- even touched Flash, so that was a big honor. Then Zach, who's been a longtime irl friend of mine from High School, was great to work with even on the first one. He works really hard and has a lot of aspirations just like I do. Currently he's working on a fully original cartoon called "Sunday Night Fun" which you guys'll hear more about from me later on ;]

Further still, are a quarter of folks who I'll be working very closely with on what I hope will be my biggest project yet!

-Mike Ruocco I met as a suitemate in College for my first year at the School of Visual Arts. He's an absolute mastermind of animation trivia and know-how. The segments he did for $00pah NiN10Doh! aren't EVEN his best work; he's got skills that are outstanding and is incredibly good at traditional handrawn animation complete with good ol' paper and a lightbox. He's also got lots of animation projects in the works and I hope NG'll get to see 'em!

-David Smith was cool enough to seek ME out during production on the first NiN10Doh!, after which I was blown away by how smooth his character animation is. I was really excited to give him the two Starfox parts this time around, of which he exceeded my expectations on. He's an accomplished artist and director in his own, leading his own animation team at his art school down in Australia for a short film called "Begone, Little Wolf".

-Pierre Jackson, I swear to god I just kinda..."discovered" this dude on the portal one day, after seeing a work-in-progress animation he did of Kirby fighting King Dedede. I sought him out and invited him aboard $00pah, which he was all for, seriously. He was incredibly passionate and into the project, to where he completed his segments essentially before anyone else on board and constantly was checking up on how the progress was doing. His coloring and lineart is gorgeous and he did some of my favorite segments in the collab, along with the Starfox pieces.

-Cory Holmes was originally going to be on board the previous NiN10Doh! but sadly we had some technical difficulties. I wanted to try and find a way for him to be involved this time, which I'm glad an oppourtunity came up. Cory studies animation very closely, particularly the works of Don Bluth, which you may not be able to tell from his Warioware animation, but he goes absolutely NUTS on how many amazing drawings he does. He's also got a pilot episode for his own series in the works too!

All four of these fine fellows in particular I'll be doing some, hopefully, great stuff with in the future and I'm glad to've met them. They're some of the nicest people you'll ever meet, I can't emphasize that enough, are all incredibly talented. I think what we can accomplish together will really impress some folks out there :]

First off, I'm really sorry that $00pah NiN10Doh!'s been delayed so many times. I have everything I need to officially complete it, all I need is the right technical set-up and it'll be out as soon as I can add in the final few pieces it needs. It's absolutely amazing and I hope you'll enjoy it when it hits the portal!

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Hope everyone had an awesome holiday and continue to enjoy their vacation, if they happen to have one like myself and several friends. Got lots of time to work on my projects, currently with the goal of working on the Parody Rangers Movie at least once a day, for whatever amount of time. Plenty of other stuff in the works, but it's good to have focus with not much pressure for the time being.

In celebration of my 20th b-day, I worked on another gigantic picture, which I actually finished prior to the big TTA Cast poster, with a whole slew of familiar characters of mine on the cover. Folks from the more commonly-known Parody Rangers, TTA, GameSavers to smaller-scale stuff like my Blu-N-Grin and Savage Cabbage concepts, plus a few other random characters I threw in there for the hell of it. This picture doesn't have anywhere NEAR the amount of characters I've created throughout my lifetime, but I picked a good number of ones to draw for the poster and I'm glad with how it came out, kind of a throwback to the absolutely amazing 20th Anniversary Megaman poster from a while ago.

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Also for those who might be interested, the Fireball20xl.com podcast "Wha-Chow!" is back to being around, with myself being there since it started up again from Episode 63. A few members of the Parody Rangers cast are often included in the episode, as Psyguy (voice of Renaldo) is the host of the show. People seem to be entertained by all of us screwing around on Skype, since it's been doing well for the site, so give 'em a download if you're interested!

That'll do it for now, thanks for stickin' with me!

So Mike brought to my attention this week that apparantly I'm "Rated #3 on all of Newgrounds", to which I'm kinda disgusted since there're people much more deserving of being there. At the very least, it was for the original NiN10Doh! in which case the rating is shared between everyone else on the project. Hopefully $00pah NiN10Doh! will take its place so that folks like Zach, Dave, Richie and Dorn for instance can get their fair share of exposure.

Same note, if all of the stars and planets allign just right, $00pah NiN10Doh! will be compiled, finished and out by some point next week. Supposedly I'll be getting the final pieces this weekend, after which I'll be going back to school for my final class before X-mas break to put everything together. The interface for this one will be MUCH more impressive, too. Richie designed a beautiful menu with an awesome scene selection that allows you to watch one specific segment of the movie if you choose to, and I've added detailed descriptions and info for each segment that shows who animated it, wrote it, voiced in it, the music tracks used in it and more. I'm really excited about this project coming out and I think you guys'll get a kick out of it or two.

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I've taken to heart what a lot of people have advised on here about simply doing projects and what not simply because it's fun and not for some higher purpose or personal gain or whatever. While I still have my obligations to things like the Parody Rangers Movie, I've been doing a bunch of new smaller projects for nothing anywhere close to sponsorships or even just respect.

I worked for 17 hours on the biggest art piece I've ever done, being a large poster with every single TTA character ever. Despite TTA's incredibly niche audience and unrespectable (not to mention mostly unwatchable) presentation style, I still have attachment to the story and characters even with no plans of using them in the future. I'm proud of how this picture came out and had a ball working on it, plus I think it'll make for a good portfolio addition.

In addition to that, I'm did a quick little movie that I won't be submitting to NG, which I'm sure a few people will be thankful for, but I've linked it here for those who might be interested. I animated a Christmas song done by the creators of Sailor Moon Abridged, the quality very limited since I didn't have a ton of time to work on it, but it's essentially a Christmas present for my girlfriend and her crew, all of which have now become friends that I'm really glad to've made. Sounds retarted? Sure is! And I couldn't give half a shit. The people I made it for loved it and that's all I need.

So there ya go. I'm not even gonna bother with any "oh this is a guilty pleasure I don't like to admit it" bullshit because I genuinely don't feel that way. Now that Christmas break has hit I'll be getting back to work on Rangers The Movie Part 2.

First off, those've you who might have some interest in this type of stuff, I'm now officially taking comissions on DeviantArt! If there're any NGers that possibly wanna order a drawing for the X-Mas season, but are without a DA account, feel free to message me over Newgrounds instead, the same rules apply.

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So I've been wondering this for a while; I think it's a subject folks on NG might be able to have a good understanding of so I thought it'd be interesting to ask here.

Over the Thanksgiving break I watched a whole slew of TTA episodes for old times' sake. Despite my feelings on the series NOW, I enjoyed them for what they are and accept TTA simply my being at that "skill level" at that point in time. In the midst of this, I asked a whole bunch of people on my DeviantArt journal what it was about TTA that people (who liked it) enjoyed -about- it. The overall answer I got from people was that they KNEW what it literally was, that being a sprite series with no voice acting, virtually no -real- animation, a shit-ton of reading and a storytelling style in the vein of Shonen Jump type of series (not to mention completely self-concious throwbacks to Megaman.EXE and .hack//), but what they enjoyed about it was the story and characters that I portrayed throughout the entire thing.

Now, TTA was simply one example in my OWN case, but prior to this I thought: should what you're into mark you as unintelligent? I don't think it should, but yet it seems to do so anyway. It goes a little bit back to the whole thing I spoke about before regarding fandom and fanbases for particular things, but that aspect aside, I think generally just what you're "into" is more the core of what I was questioning. This applies to ANYTHING, not simply my own work, or anyone else's work on Newgrounds. Think about it, let's say you like Dragonball Z or even Inuyasha for instance. Let's say you don't have to necassarily have "oh this is a guilty pleasure, I KNOW this is a stupid series" mentality and you genuinely appreciate them for what they are. If people considered more "artisitic" or something stupid like that would simply scoff at works such as that, does that make people who ARE into those types of things less credible?

On a higher scale than that, what if someone in charge of a well-known cartoon or a really successful animated film or something like that were to say they like something that other people in the business would normally thing is ridiculous? For instance, the Avatar creators being big anime fans, they mention specifically that they love Miyazaki's films and Gainax Studio's works. What if they said they liked something like Naruto for example? What if Bill Plympton or Mike Sporn and such independant animators said they liked Robot Chicken and Family Guy? Hell, what if Richard Williams gotta kick out of Epic Movie? (I'm throwing out fake examples, don't take ANY of those seriously.)

Then, on a lower scale, with all of us doing flash animation and lot of things here built on viewership and viewer response, what about the tastes of people who enjoy flashes of all types across the board? What's the problem with getting engaged in sprite movies for instance? Or much more often than that, thinking parodies, despite unoriginalities and what not, are humorous? Biggest example I've been conflicted about is Brawl Taunts for instance. The style of humor used in Brawl Taunts flat out ISN'T my thing at all, and yet hundreds of people enjoy it. There aren't any typical excuses to go against it, because even close friends of mine and people that I look up to and respect as well, find Brawl Taunts funny.

With this issue that's crossed my mind, take note that it's more about LIKING things I'm speaking of as opposed to people hating things. But the "hate" side of it comes more into play when people are berated and embarassed for liking something that other people, even a vast majority of people in some cases, DON'T think is artistic, original, credible or even simply "good" at all. Hell, in elementary and middle school, liking Pokemon for more than the YEAR it came out was practically considered a crime it seemed like. This issue doesn't even, nor should it, specifically apply to "kids", or "dumb people" or anything as unfair and close-minded as that.

Thoughts?

IMPORTANT NOTE: These are two CONCEPTS, they are NOT being officially made into movies. The point of this post is to hear feedback.

So VERY recently, like within the last month or so, two ideas for movies popped in my head. $00pah NiN10Doh! is my last video game parody and the Rangers Movie was, as I described my last "Newgrounds-oriented" movie...however, I think the meaning of that may change with these two ideas. More specifically, that entailed to those projects being the last of my blatantly unoriginal, "pure dumb entertainment" parody projects, specifically meant for the Newgrounds audience that enjoys that type of content. These two ideas on the other hand, are ABOUT Newgrounds and are a bit more aloof as opposed to an outright spoof of mainstream pre-existing material. Neither of these ideas have names, but this is what I've come up with so far:

IDEA 1 - Musical Collab: Some of you might know about my interests in the medleys of Nico Nico Douga; there's one in particular named "Kaiko" which runs about 11 minutes in length. The driving force behind this collab is essentially the entire thing being divided into parts either A) each time the medley switches to a different or B) every minute or so. I have interest in this one specifically because the songs that make up the Kaiko Medley have a bunch of songs that NGers would be familiar with, such as the Dragostea Din Tei by O-Zone, Rawest Forest by Märta, party 4u holy nite mix by Cranky and Southern Cross by 403. The collab and each segment related to it would be completely free-reign for people to animate whatever the would want, though the specific songs may tempt people to want to make segments about whatever the songs are in reference to as far as Newgrounds goes. So in that sense, it unfortunately borders on being a parody or drawing on other prexisting material anyhow.

IDEA 2 - Quiz Game: In my Banjo-Kazooie flashbacks, I was reminded of one of the most unique parts of the entire game, "Grunty's Furnace Fun", which was a board game with various types of spaces and different questions to answer depending on the space. My immediate idea was to make a Newgrounds version of this game, but coding it well would take too much effort and the questions would teeter between being too easy or too obscure (read: hard). My next stage of this concept, which I think is more interesting, having the same type of quiz game, but simply making a movie out of it starring a "team" of players to go across the board and answer each question. For some reason, Nalem, Chris Zito and possibly Tomamoto were the first people to pop into my head as the players of this game and the troubles they would go through. I thought this would be a cute tribute to everything I love about Newgrounds with lots of throwbacks and mentions to different things and movies around the site...however, that's the same negative strike Idea 1 has against it as well.

So there ya have it. Again, neither of these things are definitely being made, they're just ideas. This wouldn't detract from any of my other projects lined up, since I'm required to finish all of them for various reasons. However, both of these ideas sound incredibly fun to me and would really enjoy doing them. However, as per the questions I posed everyone in my last entry, I want them to have a purpose, whichever one people may or may not have more interest in than the other. I also want there to be some interest or approval from people for if they'd even be worth doing in the first place, specifically those in the community since they specifically entail this community. Thoughts?

"So, there was this one time...when a Bat, a Rhino, a Ferret and an old man...all got together and played a card game."

"There Was This One Time" has been fully storyboarded and most of the dialogue, voiced by the talented likes of TeamFourStar, has been recorded so that I can start cutting the audio together. "THAT MONGOOSE!!" was also kind enough to provide musical arrangement for the BGM, which was awesome. I can't wait to start working on this cartoon, though this one will require patience. I'll be doing an animatic for it by the end of 2008 and will be working on the actual animation up until when it's due at the end of the school year in late April-early May. Either case, I hope this one will impress some of my peers who're used to a lot of the same typical crap from me. There's a higher chance of it NOT impressing anyone, but since it's a school project anyway, I have "nothing to lose" in that respect. It's been really fun putting this together, even at such an early stage. If anything, this probably won't even get front page, which I'm actually fine with.

Other news, been taking a slight break from any Rangers work, but I'll be getting back to it and hopefully getting a lot done over Christmas vacation. The beginning of "Part 2" is actually one of my favorite scenes in the movie. $00pah NiN10Doh!'s still coming along; I'm waiting for about four more segments, two of which are long enough to be spread across the movie and the other two are very detailed in animation. Richie did some sexilicious menu design, but the actionscript can't quite be worked on until I get everything else that I need, so I'm back to playin' the waiting game a little.

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So I'm curious on others' thoughts on I guess what would be considered two types of "indulgence"...as "bad" as they can get on a community as small-scale as a bunch of people on the internet doing flash animation. Specifically: Fandom & Money.

I've grown to be bitter towards fandom and what it represents in all aspects, through a bunch of different things. People, for whatever reason, seem to have this idea that "ever since [I] got a fanbase" of some kind that now suddenly I think I'm "hot shit", when the reality is I hate the very concept of a fanbase for anything. Anime fans in particular will be familiar with how often an annoying fanbase for a good show, or at least a half-decent show that gets more flack than it may deserve, will completely "ruin" the experience for them. For myself, I try to NOT let factors such as that destroy the enjoyment I get out of something, despite it being REALLY difficult in some cases...and that in itself proves the point of it being something that spoils the enjoyment. People seem to have a low tolerance for that and soon the fun is dead.

Yet, this applies much differently to "the little guys" like all of us on Newgrounds who submit cartoons. Thanks to the magical interbutt, ANYONE can garner people who enjoy what they do, because now a billion people can see it. Outside of just flash animation, friends of mine who create other mediums such as video parodies, after gaining some amount of success, will bring up "their fans" as a factor of some kind, positively or negatively depending on the subject. When I met Erin Fitzgerald at SDCC, she described Danny Antonucci creating Ed, Edd & Eddy COMPLETELY for himself. The cast will often suggest such-and-such ideas to give something to the fans, but his mentality is that, for instance, if all of the VAs were to come back and do another season of the show for Cartoon Network, it would be because he genuinely WANTS to do it and for no other reason. Period. A lot of people would consider this an "assholish" thing to do, but at the same time, it's respectable.

Everyone seems to assume that when you "get a fanbase", your head swells to the size of a fucking planet and suddenly it becomes all about that and that alone. For those who see past this and disregard fandom as a big deal, what's the next not-so-good thing that becomes a motive? Deniro.

Now THIS one coming from me is obviously going to look extremely hypocritical, so bear with me. EmRat made a VERY good point to me that I agreed with whole-heartedly...yet I have no ROOM to agree with it. That being, outright parody cartoons shouldn't be eligable for cash prizes or sponsorships, if anything the purely original animation works of people on NG should be the ones in the limelight for that. Thankfully, this goes both ways anyhow since some of the best purely original flashes on here have gotten their dues. However, since this applies to me too, a ton of the NON-original stuff brings people to NG front page because of their pure "dumb" entertainment value, like Parody Rangers and what not. Logically it makes sense, but it's also not entirely fair either.

But despite how I agree with it, again, I have no room to say anything because I AM one of those people getting paid for making parody cartoons and am locked into finishing them until probably next Summer. I can comfort myself with my future original projects, plus that WHAT I'm using the "earnings" for what I'd consider just causes like paying for tuition and funding original cartoons instead of doing crap like Rangers until the end of time...but I can't help but be bothered by it. I think a lot of people on NG from all over the spectrum may have thought about this at some point. A lot of people I've spoken to hate how it's become, if not about a fanbase, the possibly more so about the money. Then at the same time, a few OTHER people I've spoken to about this; people who generally look down upon things like video game parodies, have even told me outright that if they were in my position, offered a good sum of dough to produce a "crappy" unoriginal movie, they wouldn't pass it up in a million years.

The biggest instance where that hit me was when I had gotten an idea a month ago or so, JUST an idea mind you, of making a "TTA OVA" that was essentially the first three episodes of my old TTA series, redone, fully animated and voice acted, much better dialogue and overall concepts, almost like as if it were a pilot episode (since I think in SOME aspects TTA could be done as a real cartoon, but I don't see myself doing it). The problem is, it would be a TON of work to do for an unseeable amount of time and probably wouldn't be sponsorship-worthy, so with no "profit" to come of it, it's a project that wouldn't be worth doing, no matter how much fun it would be...and that's just it. The fact that now "profit" HAS become something important to me is actually a bit unsettling. It's like I can't have outright fun with doing a cartoon no matter what the case. Do a parody and you get looked down upon, do an original cartoon and you'll feel creatively satisfied, but will be taking risks with it after all of your hard work.

Even with GameSavers as a project I'm looking forward to the most, I'm still even taking a risk with that. Like what if I DO end up producing a full pilot that I work on for a full year with everyone on board, it ends up being really impressive...but nothing comes of it? Since it's such a long way's off, I can't worry about it for now, but it's still something worth considering.

For any of you guys who've ever wondered about these two specific things, or even had any experiences such as this or otherwise, please let me know your thoughts here.

Voice Acting is one of my favorite aspects of the animation process, one I feel that's overlooked and sometimes overwrought by people. Granted, I'm prone to getting a bit too in-depth when it comes to the voiceover world. Trust me, I'm a freak when it comes to that. I'll hear a noise and I'll be like "Oh that's so-and-so" and 99.9% of the time turn out to be right. It's scary.

Casting cartoons that I make, regardless of what it is, is one of the funnest parts for me, but it's gotten to the point where I have to stop myself and accomplish that process more professionally NOW than I did before. I'm really lucky to have such a HUGE cast of really good VAs from all over the map, from sites I've been to, to places like the VAA and VAC, to even the ol' Tubb. There were times back in Middle School even, yeah THAT long ago, where I thought about if my cartoons would be casted with nothing but full-fledged pros in the business. I still do from time to time. For a time I was intrigued withing nothing BUT Anime Voice Actors, and granted, still am because I think there's a select few of them all over the map who do stellar performances. Despite this, nothing replaces the pre-lay Cartoon Voice Actors that've have all along. In fact I think Tom Kenny was the first of them where I would constantly point the 7 or so characters he'd play in every show on Nick and CN.

When I had the pleasure of meeting Erin Fitzgerald at San Diego Comic-con last summer, I was actually more impressed than I expected to be. You'd think, with the world of "let's get movie stars and A-list people etc." for CGi-movie about talking animals #59047, that they just come in, they record, they're done. It's true, in a lotta cases, but certainly not this one. Erin really understood the entire process of creating an episode, of Ed, Edd & Eddy for instance, front to back. That and people like her who play multiple characters in a single cartoon (or video game, or anime) and make you believe, vocally or otherwise, that those are two or three or hell, maybe even TEN completely -different- characters. There are only a few people in the business who REALLY know how to do that, a few of which don't even work anymore, which saddens me. Either case, that was a great experience and Erin offered a ton of good advice when I met her. Not to mention, I gotta pretty decent impression of what creator Danny Antonucci is like. Dunno if THAT meeting will ever happen, but man.

Heya kids! First off, Psy was kind enough to put the movie on the tubb. Sadly we STILL couldn't have it be one video, mainly because of the 10-minute rule. Sucks, I know. For those who prefer to watch stuffage on this site, it's there officially. I doubt people will be respectful enough to not put the video up on duplicate accounts, but at least it's there under the people who actually worked on it. The MUCH higher quality movies will always remain here at NG though, no doubt.

Check it.
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Now onto new matters. As I've stated, $00pah NiN10Doh! will be my final video game parody and Parody Rangers: THE MOVIE upon it's absolute completion will be my final "Newgrounds-audience" cartoon. This certainly doesn't spell the end of my time as an animator, between schoolwork and other personal projects I have planned and beyond. I've got plenty of things rolling around, several of which I've been working on for quite a while. I'm hoping this will interest those of every spectrum, between those who already enjoy the stuff I do now, as well as people who DON'T enjoy it, because I think the latter will finally breathe a sigh of relief knowing that I AM capable of original work...or not give a shit! More likely that, but either case I've been wanting to do this for a while, so here's a couple previews of the things I have in store. Take note that a few of these have temporary titles:

"There Was This One Time..." - My final film for this year, my sophomore year, at the School of Visual Arts. My fine friends at TeamFourStar, who are known for doing Dragonball Z Abridged, are all incredibly talented at improv and voiceover. Essentially, I came up with a concept of a bunch of characters playing a card game in a basement and created animal characters (plus an old man) based around my favorite voice of each member's vocal range. We got together one night and came up with the script, which I'll soon be storyboarding over the next couple of days in fact. It's a short one, about two minutes or so.

"Savage Cabbage" - A concept about an escaped psychopath girl who meets a little boy that ran away from home. "Milton" befriends the savage girl, then in a quick outing finds the name "Cabbage" for her. Right now I only have the two characters, with some basic "events" laid out for them. I may save them for another final project for school if I can come up with something more specific to happen to them, but I really like the dynamic for the two of them and wanna make use of it down the line.

"Onei"- This one may never see the light of day, but I've got a billion ideas for it. Long story short, it's a video game concept that takes place on a planet made up completely of places I've been to in my dreams, in some cases multiple times. It stars four characters, each of which kind of represent a different genre of video game and they quest together around this planet as the plot unfolds. I came up with the idea for this one YEARS ago, but put it under the rug after reality scolded me on how difficult the gaming industry is to break into. I remembered the concept over the summer one day during work, pulled up a text file and "reinvisioned" everything, which was a lotta fun. I thought about the same route Tom & Dan took with Castle Crashers, but even -that- would be ridiculously hard. Who knows.

"Game Savers" - Now this one I'm incredibly excited about; it's actually what I'm aiming to set-up for with Parody Rangers: THE MOVIE's completion. Meaning, I'm saving up for a pilot episode budget. It's my idea of a Nick/CN age-range cartoon, based on this stupid thing me and my best friend did back years ago during elementary school where we made nonsensical plots using various action figures, plushes and other toys of the like. I adapted a bunch of the "story arcs" we came up with and made different episode ideas out of them, as well as adapting the personalities we gave the different characters and making them into something new. The series itself is a story about two supervillains who, in the climax of an epic battle, realize that they're terrible people and must repent! How? They enroll into a police force and have wacky adventures in their city, while 'collecting' other colorful creatures and such who eventually join the team.

"???" - I'm not gonna go into this one too deep, but long story short, I've been developing this one for over 10 years of my life, before anything else. I've put my heart and soul into every ounce of the storyline and every character, hell I even "sacrificed" a Christmas with my present being the copyright of all of the material, but still continue to work on it to this day. Being just vague enough, it's basically my answer to the question of "What happens if one day, you woke up and you had superpowers?"

These're just a few of them, the ones I'm the most serious about right now. I'm still bound to finishing the collab and the Rangers Movie, but I've got plenty in store and I hope you guys'll all be there to see it.