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.
JT1
I agree that voiceover is the most overlooked part of animation. I think that the second is script writing. They are probably the two most important parts as well. You do a good job with both.