WHOOOA so much to talk about!

Let's get right to it. My biggest undertaking in animation production was just released this past Sunday, on September 1st. TOME Episode 08: Gemini Tournament Yin, the first part of a long-awaited part of the story I've been producing since the series premiered in 2011 almost two years ago now, is up on the official website for viewing in HD:

CLICK HERE TO VIEW /TOME EPISODE 08: GEMINI TOURNAMENT YIN/.

I have many, MANY people to thank. As always my great background artists Dave, Terrence and Jourdan for their design of the Tournament stadium and arena. Kajet for his kickin' music and Yoav for arranging a kick-ass rock version of the theme song for the ending credits. Liz for helping to fine-tune the script on this 23-minute monster. My stars, Anna, Casey and Martin for their fantastic performances, as well as Shady for recording on the ending credits song and hauling ass on the sound design under immense pressure. Mack for helping out on voice direction and the writing on Rockoon & Skeight's scene for this episode. My tremendous returning cast who all came together: Micah, Apphia, Sarah, Masako, Jontron, Psy, Andy, Kimlinh, Chris, Bosco, Edwyn and my very special guests for this episode: Kyle, Jackie, Kira and Cristina. Plus, my two very gracious auction winners Zack and Bradley, and Scott for spending several hours to help render the final HD video for your viewing pleasure...AND the attendees of AnimeNEXT and Kami-con 2013 for being the "audience" of the Gemini Tournament stadium.

WOW. Yeah so I get a lot of credit from people for this series being a "one-man-show" but this episode is the exact reason why I always combat that comment with "it wouldn't be a fraction as good as it could be with all the help and support I've got." Thank YOU to everyone who watched and enjoyed it. It means so much to me and I promise I'll continue to step it up on the next episode...and speaking of which, here's some good news for you. TOME Episode 09: Gemini Tournament Yang, is already a 3rd of the way fully animated! Since there were so many delays on behind-the-scenes stuff with Episode 08 and the Rockoon short (thanks for the front page, Newgrounds!) and the eventual launch of the website, I had a lot of time to get the jump on the next episode! The audio's been fully recorded and edited and I've got about 8 minutes already finished.

HOWEVER! Before that, I've got another new short to put out! This will be a new short that will release between Episodes 08 and 09...I'll keep the content a secret for now, but I think you'll enjoy it. I've just started on that this week and I'll try my absolute best to finish it within the month if possible. After that, I'll be getting right back to Episode 09. Another issue I'll address here, as there've been numerous people asking about how I'll be handling the release of TOME episodes AFTER premiering them on the website. Newgrounds will be where they hit second. As for YouTube, I'm concocting a new plan of action on releasing on that platform. I'll keep you posted when more details are available.

Lastly, we put out the "rock And roll" version of our theme song, "Battle On!" on the official TOME bandcamp! If you enjoyed it, pick it up!

Thanks folks, there's more to come!

HOO-BOY lots to talk about this time!

Okay, so! First and foremost, new content, since you guys and gals have been waiting patiently for MONTHS at this point. We have a new TOME short, called "Rockoon's Modern Strife"!

It was written by my good man, Deven Mack, the voice of Rockoon himself, who took a basic concept I had cooked up and ran with it. It also features the voices of Zach Holzman, Xander Mobus, Michael Johnston, David Smith, Liz Losey and Edward Bosco. The response has been good so far since it premiered, so I hope you all enjoy it!

Next, I'm sure you'll notice this short in question has yet to be submitted to Newgrounds or YouTube! The reason for this being, I've launched a new section of my website specifically for TOME! The new hub for the series is ChrisNiosi.com/TOME!

You can watch the video all about it, but to give just a quick summary: I've uploaded all 7 Episodes as well as all of the shorts (including this new one) to Blip.TV and have hosted them here on my new site! They've been updated to HD thanks to Swivel, and I've even gone back and touched up some things about the first two Episodes and the first short to make everything consistent. We also have an "About" page to introduce newcomers to the show, as well as a hub to all of the social media outlets for TOME-fan interaction.

The newest Episodes and shorts will premiere FIRST on ChrisNiosi.com/TOME and will be in HD compared to anywhere else they'll be uploaded. Those of you who have followed the series and become a fan, I'd really appreciate it if you'd start watching the Episodes hosted on Blip; as it will allow for better ad support and can help the show grow. You're doing me a big favor; in fact you're doing ALL of your favorite content creators a big favor by watching their works without using ad-blockers. Keep that in mind. ;]

Last, but certainly not least, we have a new TOME Episode coming out very soon! The animation on the long-awaited Episode 08 is all finished and the Gemini Tournament is about to start! Before the Episode can be finished, however...there will be a special event announced within the next few days that involves you guys and gals. Stay tuned for details!

Meanwhile, enjoy the show and thanks so much for the support!

Hi. Hello. Yes, I'm alive.

I haven't done a formal update like this since the middle of April. The reason I was delaying for so long is because I was waiting for word on a certain announcement that was supposed to happen in May. It hasn't happened yet due to some delays out of my control, but I've been working my ass off in the meantime. I have a new site, for instance! Engineered by Marc Swint.

Been doing some freelance gigs here and there, as per the usual. I finished two more episodes of Game Boys for Brad Jones, "The Camping Trip" and "Carter's Alley" as well as a couple things for Weebl on HuHa TV. A couple weeks ago I also went to visit LA for a while. I had some great networking opportunities and met a lot of really talented folks who were gracious enough to give me some of their time. Nothing set in stone just yet, but there was a lot of enthusiasm towards the work I've done and the things I could offer, so hopefully I can finally make this move to the west coast sometime soon. I also went to AnimeExpo and met a lot of great people, from old friends I hadn't seen in person before to some brand new ones. Big thanks to Martin & Marianne for letting me stay in their humble abode for two weeks and letting me lend a hand to their booth during AX weekend. Also big thanks to Jaxxy, Tomar and Kaiji for the rides when I needed them. You guys are the best. <3

Some other notable highlights from the trip included being part of the Skullgirls Salty Cupcakes stream and finally meeting a lot of the game's crew, introducing Kajet (creator of the original "It's Over 9000!" video) to Chris Sabat while the fabric of space-time ripped apart, and watching Edwyn Tiong complete the Oro-chan special #2 challenge as he slowly lost sight of reality. It was somethin' else, I'll tell you what.

...aaaand back to TOME. So I've had a new short finished for at LEAST a month now, maybe longer. Prior to working on it I was making a ton of preparations for this announcement that still hasn't come yet, so I've had a lot of time on my hands to keep working on the series. Episode 08 is well beyond underway at this point and there'll be another announcement to come with that...everything just has to happen in a certain order for this all to work. I apologize to those who have been waiting so patiently. Much to my surprise, the official TOME Facebook page has reached past 8000 likes and the viewership is continuing to grow as time progresses. I am wholly appreciative of this and I hope that the things to come will help the series grow more and more as time goes on. There's PLENTY in the works and I'll try my best to make it all worth it.

Lastly, while we're on the TOME subject, I made a new shirt thanks to LevelUpStudios. Please pick one up, if you find it suits you! We also still have the Nylocke shirt for sale too.

Lotta stuff to talk about!

Still truckin' along on the same freelance gigs. Finished another episode of Game Boys: The Animated Series and working on another one for Brad. Doing various on-and-off things for three game projects and there's even more stuff down the pipeline. Tryin' to work hard!

On the TOME front, after a lovely week on Newgrounds' front page, Episode 07 is now on YouTube. I was SUPER nervous about this one, but it seems that people really enjoyed it! I'm SO proud of -everyone- who helped me make this Episode really special. All of the staff and cast and the special guests worked incredibly hard on this cartoon.

We've reached a milestone of 7500 likes on the official TOME Facebook; the audience keeps growing and growing! I'm in the process of working on something kinda cool that'll hopefully be a big step up for the show in terms of further growth. If all goes well I'll be able to unveil it by the end of this month or early May. Also, once that's been unveiled, most likely we'll be doing another special event contest for the upcoming Gemini Tournament episodes! I won't speak too soon about what the prize is, so sit tight for now.

One thing I CAN announce though, is that we're doing more commentaries! We did some audio commentaries for the first four episodes of TOME a while back, which you can listen to on my soundcloud. We've recorded new ones for Episodes 05, 06 and 07, the "pre-tournament arc" as I've been calling it. These commentaries feature some really cool conversations with the staff behind the show: the music composer, the background artists and the script supervisor. They'll be out next week, so keep it tuned!

Got more of a particular question for you all, this time around.

TOME stuff! Episode 07 is about halfway done now. We've also got some completed scripts for a new short, as well as some upcoming Episodes as well. My goal is to finish up to Episode 10 within the end of this year. That said, onto the question...

What exactly would you like to see, if a game was made based on the world of TOME?

Now, what I mean by this is probably not what you're thinking. The most common comment I've received about people who really enjoy the show is that they wish TOME itself were a real game. Honestly; making an MMORPG/Social Networking game is NOT something I'm passionate about doing. However, I've wanted to make a game based on the -concept- of TOME since its earliest incarnation, all the way back in 2004. Even when I was conceptualizing this remake of the series only a few years ago, I originally wanted to do it as an updatable game, with each "Episode" of the show you're watching now being represented by a few levels and a couple boss fights. When I eventually realized it was more that I was trying to tell a story over trying to make a fun game, I scrapped the idea and just went with making a show instead.

So now, here we are, about a year and a half since TOME's first episode premiered. In the time I've been working since graduation, I've had the honor of being part of several video games like Skullgirls, Crisis Heart Brawlers and now Cryamore. Seeing how these large-scale projects all come together has been a great experience...and it's one that's made me become interested in wanting to REALLY try and create a TOME game. However, because the series as it stands right now is still very niche, I want to play this very carefully. I ask you, the audience, what you would like to see out of it?

To start with, I'm assuming people would still want to see/play with the characters from the show. However, another thing that ties into peoples' reasoning for wishing that TOME itself was a real virtual reality game, is that they want the ability to create their own characters. That by itself would probably be too ambitious of an undertaking, but would you be satisfied with just Alpha and the gang, or would you want there to be a customizable character to do with what you please and make your own experience? Further, what genre do you think would be the most appealing based on the concept? I've asked many friends and colleagues; the most general answer I've received overall is a side-scroller with RPG elements. Maybe something along the lines of the "Tales of" games, where the game it set up like an RPG, but Battle is done in real-time and your attacks are mapped to buttons and directions like Smash Brothers.

I have a lot of my own ideas, but I want to know what you guys and gals all think; not because I'm struggling for what to do, but because I want to do what YOU guys would be interested in and would want to have out of a game.

Leave a comment here, or on this post on the Official TOME Facebook page and share with me your thoughts!

Just a WEE BIT of an update!

So first off, Cryamore has not only been fully-funded, but over 400% funded from its original goal ($242,309 in total)! This amazing indie game created by the likes of Rob Porter, Alan Wansom and a whole host of other very talented folks, is not only gonna be playable on all major mobile devices, but all major CONSOLES as well! I wanna thank all of you who chipped in any amount of money to this project. We had a really fun celebratory stream last night with live music by Aivi Tran and lots of Q&amp;A from the crew. We're gonna strive to make this an AMAZING game!

On another note, while I'm not currently involved with Skullgirls, many of my friends and colleagues are, some of which have been hard at work animating and developing Squigly, the first of (hopefully many) DLC characters for the game! In just ONE DAY, they raised over $100,000 in order to complete her, and with a full month to go, your donations will help the team go on to create more and more awesome content! Show them your support!

Now, on to my own business! After two lovely screenings at Almacon and Kamicon, TOME Episode 06 was released to Newgrounds with a VERY warm welcome! It went straight to front page and was positively recieved beyond my wildest expectations! Thank you all for the kind reviews and I'm glad that everyone enjoyed it so much.

It's a tall order, but now that I know I've managed to top Episode 05, I need to do my absolute best to top 06! We're already working on the next one; the actors have been recorded, the audio's been mixed, all of the new character assets are drawn and I've begun animating the second scene. I'm very proud of this next one even just from a scripting standpoint (thanks to Liz for making it a very heartfelt story) and I'm gonna haul ass to make the animation reflect it. Keep it tuned to the official TOME Facebook page for details!

Back to work for me!

Happy Valentine's Day, folks!

I'm gonna be at Kami-con this weekend! Tomorrow night, Friday at 8 PM in the Ballroom, I'll be doing another "Flashstravaganza" panel where we'll be showcasing TOME Episode 06.

Martin "Littlekuriboh" Billany will be there, and I'll be around for some of his panels as well! In fact, depending on how things go, if you show up to our panels over the weekend, you might get the chance to have your voice heard IN an upcoming TOME Episode. You'll have to be there to find out. ;]

I'm already working on TOME Episode 07 as well, with a bunch of animation already finished on some of the new characters and almost all of the actors have already been recorded. Episode 06 is all done and ready to go, so I might even get to release it over the weekend if I have internet access. The Nylocke Theme Song will also be put up on Bandcamp for download! Keep an eye on my twitter for details.

After the screening at Almacon last weekend, Liz suggested to make a little video for newcomers that might be interested in getting into the series, or if they wanna introduce their friends to it. So I made this little "About TOME" video, graciously narrated by Edwyn Tiong.

Oh and also, Cryamore is confirmed for mobile support! Thank you everyone SO much who donated. There's still plenty of time to contribute and plenty more awards to unlock!

So happy Valentine's Day everybody...this was my present this year. Thanks Liz.

Oh what's that? It's been a month and literally a million things have happened? Yeah, good. Okay.

Where to start...well I've finished the commission for good mister Brad Jones the Cinema Snob, which I mentioned last post. "GAME BOYS: The Animated Series" is the project he's started up, which I've been hired on board as the animator, with characters designs by Andrew Dickman. It's a cartoon spin on an ol' movie that Brad filmed a while back with his friends. If you're a fan of THE SNOB then I hope you'll enjoy!

I also got the chance to work with longtime Newgrounds artist Jonti "TheWeebl" Picking! "Sexual Marmite" is a sequel to his hit music video "Babies", which I animated for him, along with the valuable assistance of Dave Smith of the TOME/NiN10Doh! Collab crew!

I also did a quick bit of animation for HuHaTV's "Wobble Box" skit show on YouTube, thanks to Weebl again. This was actually very fun to do. I decided to get a little experimental with it since the clip was so short, so I threw in a combination of photographic reference for a more realistic style, as well as trying to emulate Zeurel's insane lipsynching skills.

SPEAKING OF, I've had the pleasure of working with Josh "Zeurel" Palmer recently too, on the Nylocke music video for TOME Episode 06 coming out soon! He did some guest animation for me that turned out really funny. Huge, HUUUGE thanks to the five amazing winners of our cameo event auctions. I was absolutely blown away by the amounts of money people were bidding on to be part of my stupid cartoon. It means a lot to me that people genuinely love the show and are that dedicated. I really hope everyone will like Episode 06; I'm very happy with how it's turning out so far and working hard to finish it in time for AlmaCon next weekend!

On that note, here's my Schedule for AlmaCon in Alma, MI on the weekend of Feb 8th to the 10th:

-Friday, Feb 8th
6:00 PM - Balancing Act: Creating an Animated Short
8:00 PM - How Not to be an Internet Celebrity (with LittleKuriboh)
11:00 PM - Tales of Con Horror (18+)
-Saturday, Feb 9th
11:00 AM - Kirbopher Storytime
1:30 PM - Charity Auction (with LittleKuriboh)
8:00 PM - Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged (with LittleKuriboh)
9:00 PM - Kirbopher's Flashstravaganza (Premiere of TOME Episode 06!)
11:00 PM - Voice Actors 18+ Panel
-Sunday, Feb 10th
11:30 AM - Kirbopher Q&A

I'll be hanging around all weekend with Martin, Cyberlink and Liz, and other guests include the likes of Chris Sabat and Eric Vale of DBZ and One Piece fame. If you're gonna be there, stop by and say hi! Don't miss TOME Episode 06, which will be featuring two special guests Jessi "Nowacking" Nowack and Mike "OneKids" Hecht as the voices of two new characters!

Oh and one last thing! I've had the privilege of working on several really cool video games since I got out of college, including Skullgirls, which just raised nearly $80,000 for Breast Cancer Research, as well as Crisis Heart Brawlers: Clash at Otakon, which is kicking back into production!

Most recently however, I've been brought onto ANOTHER really awesome independent game project called "Cryamore", which is currently finishing up its first week with a kickstarter campaign that'll be going on until the end of this month. Currently it's pushed WELL beyond its intial goal of $60,000 and at the time of this post has reached $100,000 in backing! If we can double that amount in the time we have left, there's a very good chance it will be funded to get on major platforms like the Wii U. I'm working on the game as a character animator, as well as the voice/casting director. The game is an Action-RPG inspired by the likes of Zelda, MegaMan, Secret of Mana and general Steampunk awesomeness. It'll be featuring the voices of Erica Mendez, Kimlinh Tran and Marianne Miller as the three lead characters. Check out the kickstarter video for more details!

That's not even everything this time, but it's all I've got to share, so stay tuned for more awesome stuff coming soon!

WHELP, 2013'S OFF TO A PRETTY DAMN GOOD START FOR ME.

First off, MAGfest was awesome and it was great seeing everybody. It was another great year and tons of fun was had. Tons of great people I got to see again, and meet for the first time, including a bunch of gracious fans (thanks guys)! Played a whole bunch'a games throughout the weekend and was present alongside the BlueCoreStudios folks for three successful screenings of the Sonic film, which I voiced an E-Robot and a certain red guy in. I also had the honor of doing a Voice Acting Panel alongside Duke Nukem, the Sniper, Sheogorath, Moira Brown and Colin Moriarty where we re-enacted the first 20 minutes of Pulp Fiction and then improv'd a video game called "GO FUCK YOURSELF." I was a Robo-Hamster who got shoved up Jon St. John's ass...just watch the video.

SO I'M BACK. I hit the ground running with a ton of work on several different projects. One of which I can finally announce: I'm workin' on a little somethin' for the Cinema Snob, featuring character designs by the lovely and talented Andrew Dickman. "GAME BOYS: The Animated Series". Not sure just yet on a release date, but it's close to being finished, so stay tuned to Brad's pages for details!

On the TOME front, there's a LOT goin' on! First off, we're havin' a little contest!

Long-story short, there are a set of auctions going on throughout the course of January where people can bid to have themselves (or a character of theirs) make a cameo appearance during the music video of Nylocke's Theme Song, which will be part of the upcoming Episode 06. At the time of this blog being posted, we're on our third of five auctions. If you're interested, visit the TOME Facebook page for details!

I'm working as hard as I can this month to finish TOME Episode 06 on time to be shown in its completed form during AlmaCon and Kami-Con this February. We're close to about 3/4's done with the entire thing, so if I keep up this pace between everything else I'm doing, I SHOULD be able to pull it off.

Also, know what'd be really cool? If you voted for me to win a Shorty Award.

Literally all you gotta do is go to the site and tweet "I nominate @Kirbopher for a Shorty Award in #webshow because..." and then type something nice about TOME. I'd appreciate it. <3

Lastly, I've got one more project in the works that's SUPER secret right now, but if it comes to fruition it could mean really good things for me. Fingers crossed I don't squander the opportunity; I'm gonna give it my all.

Stick with me folks, lotsa good stuff to come this year. Here's to a great 2013!

Almost ready to say goodbye to 2012!

I hope everyone had a Happy Holiday and a great year. I think it turned out pretty well, all things considered! There's further heights I want to climb to in 2013, but I'm satisfied with everything I managed to do in the last twelve months. Hopefully you guys are too, and look forward to what else I've got in store!

Before we say Happy Birthday to me on the 31st and goodbye to December, I managed to put out a new TOME short called "Minigame Madness" which I'm quite proud of. It takes place between Episodes 05 and 06, but holds up pretty well on its own as a fun little venture. I wanted to do something centralized on Flamegirl, so Liz and I came up with a fun little side-story involving her and her friends, as well as a few clever or not-so-clever app games. We JUST managed to hit 6000 likes on the official TOME Facebook page, so thank you everyone for your support. I hope you guys enjoyed the short and it ties you over for a bit until we get Episode 06 done. It's a bit over halfway finished and I'll be pulling major crunch-time on it throughout January.

HOWEVER, my first order of business with January is going back to my favorite convention, MAGfest! I'll be heading out there with the folks from BlueCoreStudios who'll be premiering their Sonic the Hedgehog feature film starring Jaleel White as the voice of Sonic! I did some work on the movie as well, so keep an ear out for me if you're at the screening! I'll also be there for my 3rd "Voice-A-Palooza" panel, hosted by Wes Johnson (voice of many characters in the Elder Scrolls series) where we'll be improv'ing a video game concept created by you, the audience! There's also gonna be a TON of super-talented Newgrounds & YouTube animators who'll be there, all of which I'm looking forward to seeing! As I've often said, there's not another con that's filled with more pure unbridled fun than MAGfest.

That's about all I've got for now, but once again: Happy Holidays to all and a very Happy New Year to everyone who's followed and supported me this past year!