NEO-C PRODUCTIONS - Chris Niosi's Blog

2012 Begins + Balancing Act Released!

2012-01-02T04:09:00.000-08:00

Well here we are, 2012.

The "Year of the Doubleleven" was not completely what I expected, nor hoping it to be. I'm not usually the type to be a negative nancy about "Bluhhh this year sucked, hope the next one doesn't suck." if I had to wire down 2011 to one descriptive phrase, it'd be "I tried my best, but it wasn't good enough to so I have to try to do even better". That said, I don't think I'd wanna go back and do it all over again; I'm satisfied with what I have and I'm looking to this new year with a fresh outlook. I want to continue doing what I love and shoot for the god damn stars like a hopeless idiot drawing cartoon characters.

So! That shit outta the way, first order of business:

After a lot of self-debating and the acceptance of film festivals not happening any time this century, I've finally decided to put up "Balancing Act" online. For those of you who missed me posting endless vague info about it throughout the year and the one before it, this was my thesis film for the School of Visual Arts' graduating class of 2011. It's based on the very first series concept I ever made, dating as far back as when I was five years old, which I've developed for all of those year since then. This is the first complete product built from that concept and I spent the better part of an entire year making it. Any and all animation people that take a look at this, I'd greatly appreciate your feedback.

Second order of business: TOME Episode 02 "Mansion Midnight" is released.

I'm slowly but surely working my way through updating and refining the format of the show based on suggestions both from the Official Facebook Page as well as reviews on the Newgrounds submission. For this episode I focused primarily on fixing the "in-game fight scenes" using the sprite-style animations and the battle grid. Starting from Episode 03, I plan on updating all of the "talking avatars" as I call them, for all the conversational scenes. I'm hoping this series will continue to grow as it progresses, as I consider it an exercise in EVERYTHING I've ever done in the field of animation. Thanks everyone for the support and thoughts thus far. I'm aiming to try and get Episode 03 released by Valentine's Day.

Last but not least, I'm returning to one of my favorite conventions ever: MAGfest! This is their 10th year and they're continuing to get bigger and bigger, so I'm majorly excited to be coming back. I know for certain I'll be on the Blue Core Studios panel with Eddie Lebron and company on Friday from 2-3 PM in Panel Room 3 and then making the grand return to Wes Johnson's (of Skyrim fame) "Voice-A-Palooza" on Saturday from 5-7 PM in Panel Room 1. In between doing that, playing old arcade games, partying with TGWTG peeps and not dying of starvation, I'll also be filming Marc Swint's "Super Kirb Stomp II Turbo HD"...why? Because Marc enjoys making movies about me getting almost killed a million times and throwing me on the ground like a ragdoll. Can't wait to probably break every bone in my body!

So yeah, there's a bunch of stuff for ya. Gonna get back to work now. To everyone, I hope you all had a Happy New Year and here's to a great 2012. Ready? Go.

Holiday Updates!

2011-12-25T15:32:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everybody!

December was a bit of a rough month for me, but I got over the couple hurdles that popped up and got back into the holiday spirit just in time. Went to see TinTin with Mike Luckas a couple days ago, had a lovely Christmas Eve with one side of the family playing Apples to Apples (my Dad is a dirty cheater and won) and then had Christmas morning with another side of the family followed by a great dinner. Got one week left AND my birthday's comin' up!

Couple updates on things. First and most importantly, Martin "LittleKuriboh" Billany and Marianne Miller are doing a charity drive for the wonderful Dan Green. Here's a video explaining what the deal is behind "Card Games for Charity":

Martin and Marianne are holding a large assortment of great auctions for people to bid on with all donations going directly to Dan Green and his beautiful newborn twins. As someone who's met Dan Green before and can say he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, I'm personally paying contribution to this by offering an art commission as one of the auctions. If you're interested in bidding for mine, you can find it right here. The rest of the auctions (including the chance to get a Littlekuriboh-style personal song parody of your choice) can be found in the video description. Any and all donations to Dan would be appreciated, so anything you could offer even if it's only a couple dollars, you can send here.

In other news, I'm nearly finished with TOME Episode 02 and it will hopefully be finished in the next week before we say farewell to 2011. I've been making announcements on the Facebook page, but we have three very cool special guests joining us: Jon Jafari (creator of "JonTronShow" on normalboots.com), Lawrence Simpson (MasakoX, host of "AniFile") and Alison Fanelli (Ellen Hickle on "The Adventures of Pete & Pete) will be voicing new characters in the upcoming episode. Thank you all for the viewership and feedback on Episode 01. Starting from after Episode 02 I plan on making some changes to the presentation style of the show, but I also think that 02 has a much stronger and funner story than the pilot. Look forward to that very soon!

Also, I've continually forgot to mention, I've been doing some more voiceover stuff and just recently got into another anime series! "Bakuman", created by the writer/artist duo that made "Death Note" and "Hikaru no Go" is coming out from Media Blasters. Volume 1 has been released (with the first seven episodes) and Volume 2 is coming out early next year. I play Yujiro Hatori, one of the Editors as Shonen Jack. It's a big personal honor for me to be part of this show, since I was a fan of the original comic in college and never thought I'd have the opportunity to be part of it! All artists, especially those that have dabbled in comics, need to check this series out, as the hardship of the two main characters is definitely something you can relate to. Also fans of Berserk will recognize a LOT of the English dub cast.

Lastly, I plan on releasing "Balancing Act" to the public soon, more than likely it'll be up before the end of the year too...maybe even on my birthday. ;]

Hope everyone had a marvelous holiday, now I'm gonna go back to playing Frozen Can-...I mean work.

TOME Premiere + Become part of the TOME universe!

2011-11-18T22:19:00.000-08:00

Remember when I said it's the year of the Doubleven!?

Well if this doesn't prove it, I dunno WHAT will. My 111th submission to Newgrounds, on November 11th, 2011 at 11:11 AM, I've revived my first long-term animation project. Rebuilt from the ground up as an original series, TOME: Terrain of Magical Expertise, has its first episode out! As of this journal, we've got about 70000 views on the Newgrounds submission, over 1600 likes on the Facebook page and fans new and old supporting TOME: Terrain of Magical Expertise. Thank you guys, you're incredible!

I've been really excited about doing this project and I'm glad you guys are enthusiastic about it. I have a LOT planned for the series already and am already working on the second episode, which I can hopefully (if all goes to plan) have out by the next month. I seriously wanna show my gratitude to the people who enjoy the new story I've been cooking up and who are either growing to love these characters all over again, or even for the first time. I've been using the Facebook page for getting feedback on what to adjust in future episodes of show and you've all been really helpful! To give something back to you guys, I've also prepared this:

This is in fact based on an idea from way back during the days of the original TvTome Adventures. On a message board I often frequented, people could paste sprites of their characters to be included as background characters in episodes of the show. I've decided to revive that concept as a way of including participation of the fans into the project to let them feel part of the experience! I'd love to expand out the population of TOME as far as possible, with all of you guys, the viewers and supporters. :]

TOME isn't the only egg in my basket though! 8-Bit Mickey and I are finishing up work on my other secret project that's been in the works the last couple months, "Frame-by-Frame" the animation review show! The first episode of that is looking really good so far, those of you who are big fans of animated series on Television will really get a kick out of it. Bigger than that, I'm goin' out west to visit Los Angeles for the first time! I'll be hangin' with a whole slew of talented people I've had the pleasure of working with the past several years, including the likes of Eddie Bosco, D-Mac, Kimlinh Tran and even Kira (who's just made her big move back to LA, congrats to her!), amongst MANY others. I'm really excited to be visiting and I'll be keeping busy for the week and a half I'll be there. Can't let you guys down. ;]

Seriously thank all of you guys again for all of the support and for continuing to stick with me. Keep watching!

New Project Announcement: TOME

2011-11-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

Well people, I think I've teased you all enough, so I'm finally revealed one of the big secret projects I've been cooking up for the past month or so. I've prepared two trailers, one an introduction and one an overview, for a new animation project...
TOME: Terrain of Magical Expertise.

So for those of you who aren't aware of the history behind this, at its core, TOME is a re-branding of the very first big Flash Movie project I ever did on Newgrounds, TvTome Adventures. Back when I was a teenager and really obsessed with "cyberpunk" stuff like Reboot, .hack// and MegaMan Battle Network, I created a series with characters all inspired by friends I'd made on the very first message board I ever posted on. The series, at the time, was using mostly ripped sprites from various video games edited to look like the characters I had designed, as well as some puppeted animation with graphics I had drawn myself.

My original plan from the beginning was that I had always wanted this concept to be a game. However, I had realized that I'm still far too inexperienced to know how to properly develop design for a full-fledged game and instead decided to try what led me to doing animation in the first place...producing it as a webseries! This new incarnation of TOME features all original content, including writing and animation from myself, some incredible music by Kajetokun (the "Over 9000" guy who's a VERY talented musician) as well as some beautiful artwork and backgrounds by Dave Smith (known for GG-Guys and his work on the NiN10Doh! collabs) and Fooly (who's been a longtime artist on Fireball20xl). This version will also be FULLY voiced, by a very stellar cast of actors I'm proud to work with. We even did a cheesy "Theme Song" performed by lead actor Blake Swift (Shadyvox) and myself. From the first episode I've completed thus far, the style of animation is a combination of traditional cinematics and "machinima"-like movements, in the sense that you're seeing the in-game engine of the TOME world with conversational and action sprites. This time however, everything is hand-drawn by myself and the small crew I'm working with, no edited sprites from pre-existing games, no ripped music, this is ALL us. The cast of characters have all been COMPLETELY updated or in some cases totally reimagined, especially the main group of five. Alpha and his friends are all really entertaining and fun from the response I've gotten behind the scenes, so I think you guys will really enjoy what I've done them all now.

The first episode is going to be an officially endorsed Newgrounds project, so major thanks to Tom Fulp, Mike Welsh and Mindchamber for the help. What I would LIKE to do with this project is produce one episode per month and have it be an on-going series, but that will all depend on how the reaction is to the first episode, so I'm depending on all of you to spread the word! I'm going to be premiering the first episode at Youmacon during the "Kirbopher Flashstravaganza" at 9 AM on Saturday. The first episode will then be viewable online for all to see hopefully the week after that and then I'm leaving it all up to you guys! If you were a fan of the original series and are excited about this new incarnation of "TTA", spread the word and support the project! I have a LOT of plans for some cool stuff to do with this series, including a way for people to have interaction with the world of TOME itself, but you'll have to stay tuned on that one. In the meantime, enjoy the trailers, hope to maybe see you at Youmacon and look forward to the first episode being posted this month!

Oh yeah and don't forget to like the official Facebook page! There's some neat stuff on there too. ;]

Kirb @ Youmacon 2011

2011-10-25T19:52:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! So I finally got the word from the con staff for when all of my events are gonna be next weekend during Youmacon 2011! Saturday's gonna be Kirbopher day, but I'll be doing a few things throughout the weekend. Here's a quick vidja EXPLAINING IT.

(My schedule for easy reference)
FRIDAY
LittleKuriboh Roast - Main Programming - 10 PM

SATURDAY
Kirbopher's Flashstravaganza - Panel Room 1 - 9 AM
Autographs - 11 AM
LittleKuriboh Movie Premiere - Main Programming - 1 PM
BALANCING ACT: Creating an Animated Short - Panel Room 2 - 3PM

Hope to see y'all there!

New Projects in the works!

2011-10-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

WHOA s'been way too long since I last did one of these.

I apologize for the silence on my end the past few months. I've been absolutely SWAMPED with projects and work; all of it is secret stuff I can't reveal until the time is right. What I'll start off with first and foremost since I was finally just announced, I'll be a guest at Youmacon this November! I'll be there alongside some fine folks I've had the pleasure of working with on my animations before, and even Pokemon from a couple years back! Waiting to hear details on a couple panels that I'm trying to set up, but I'll provide details as soon as I can.

I'm hoping that by the end of this month I'll have both of the two big personal projects done and able to be shown to the masses. That said, if I can get them done in time, I also plan on premiering them at Youmacon come November 3rd to the 6th, in which case if any of you guys can make it you're in for a real treat. I can give some basic information about the two projects to whet some appetites:

-The first project is one I'd thought of near the beginning of the year; a concept for an animation review show. Everyone and their mom's doing review shows these days, but I think this concept has a unique "hook" that everyone I've talked has had major positive response to so I'm confident people like this one. I'm thankful to say I have the help of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses' 8-Bit Mickey to help me with video editing while I provide the writing and animation.

-The second project is a...revamp, of sorts. That's probably giving far enough away as is. I was plotting trying to make this project into a game for a couple years after drawing up a whole truckload of character designs at SDCC a while back, but then put it on the backburner. After much deliberation I've decided to give it a shot as a webtoon. Admitedly, I'm not sure if people will "dig" this one as much, but I hope they do because I'd really like to continue the story of this one.

As of now, I'm over halfway finished with animating both of the first episodes of these projects. In my perfect world, I'd love to be able to produce an episode of both every month. That's a tall order, but I'll be measuring the response when they're both finished to see where to go from there. Last couple things, two characters I did a bunch of animations for on the upcoming "Skullgirls" game, Parasoul and Ms. Fortune have both been officially revealed! Search around and I'm sure you'll find some trailers and gameplay footage featuring their sexilicious moves that I helped contribute to these last couple months. Big hand to my fellow animators and clean-up artists that helped bring out the shine in these babes! I need to come up with a "schedule" for myself, but I'll also be going to New York Comiccon/Animefest this weekend bouncin' around doing a million things, I'm sure. Stop and say hi, if you see me!

First Film Festival!

2011-08-15T14:24:00.001-07:00

Balancing Act has been received into its first film festival! Tomorrow night, on Tuesday, August 16th at the Islip Arts Building of Ammerman Campus, Suffolk County Community College in Selden, NY...Balancing Act will be playing at the Suffolk County Student Film Festival at 6 PM alongside a slew of other great movies. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifIf you're a Long Islander and can make it out there tomorrow, please stop by to check out my biggest animation project to date! There will also be a Q&A panel afterward where you'll meet the film-makers, which I'll of course be a part of. All of the details can be found on their official Facebook page, check it!

https://www.facebook.com/StudentFilmFest

I'm also currently looking into doing some panels for screening Balancing Act, as well as showing the process of creating an animated short, at a few conventions. Nothing's been 100% set in stone just yet, but keep an eye out! In the meantime, I've still been doing lots of work for the Skullgirls project, which is continuing to get lots of great press and some of my animation can be spotted in recent videos of theirs. I've also been doing a LOT of writing and conceptualizing for some exciting original projects that a few of you out there may know some details about already. All of this is stuff I can't get too in-depth with just yet, but your patience will pay off! Lastly, big thanks again to everyone who supported Waltz of the Forest!

Exiting the Forest

2011-07-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

A whole lot can happen in 4 years.

I can't remember what originally compelled me to make the Rawest Forest music video. It was my final project for my Animation class in Senior year of High School, I had a week to do it, and for some reason I just up and felt like paying tribute to what is probably my favorite game of all time.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars has been a gigantic inspiration to me from the time when it was being talked about in gaming mags, to its initial release, to the decade long after it had come out, to even now. Doing the Rawest Forest animation was not simply my transitional piece from High School to College, it was something very personal and meaningful to me. After its takeoff, the fact that it's one of the first things that pops up when you Google-search "Mario RPG" is incredible to me. Everyone who's ever played the game has seen it and holds some level of appreciation for not just the video, but the song that Märta and XBrav had created.

I knew I wanted to do another Mario RPG music video, in the same spirit as I had done Rawest Forest 4 years ago: to mark my transition from College into the rest of my life...unfortunately the time frame for that has long-since passed as of 2 months ago, due to the song itself being finished very late in the mixing process. That aside though, I'm really happy with how it came out and I owe all of that to Psy for scoring the BGM, Shady for his rapping and mixing and even Musical Mike for lending his last-second element of awesomeness that is his opera singing. Special thanks as well to Mike Ruocco for engineering my recording session on the main vocals several months ago. I was considering taking a different pre-existing Mario RPG song and animating to it, but I'm glad the decision came to doing a song built from the ground up, plus people have a real affinity for the Forest Maze. ;]

I know to most people this is just "another video game Flash Movie" and I get that. For me, it was simply a personal venture. Between freelance work and everything else going on in my life, I wanted to make sure it was done quickly, so I set my aim on two weeks at the most. I certainly wouldn't call it a piece of "art", since I absolutely could've spent more time on it from a visuals standpoint. I almost wish I animated the full-length song, if only to throw more geeky references and tributes to the characters and worlds that made that game so special. All that aside, I'm content with it; proud too. Other people who had a real connection to this game like I did have gotten something out of it and that's what matters most to me here. To everyone that's been telling me about how much this video means to them personally, I truly thank you guys for that.

Also, worth addressing: No this is not my "final animation ever". Some people seemed to misinterpret the Author Comments on the video as this being my Newgrounds swan song. It isn't. I'm working on and developing SEVERAL projects right now, all of which are original concepts. Most of it is secretive, but in the near future I'll hopefully have something to show all of you guys. In the meantime though, I hope you all enjoy Waltz of the Forest!

Vaguey-McVaguesville

2011-06-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

ONE MONTH LATER.

I HAD A BABY no wait that's nine months. My mistake. Well I may not've had a child, but a LOT has happened in the time since graduation. The first week was a little hard. I went through all of the stereotypical post-college blues and was a bit unsure of everything. I didn't know what was gonna happen from there on, just tried to look around for a few things, most of which didn't seem like they were working out...then I struck GOLD.

I'm very honored to say I'm on board a very exciting project that's been making a bit of a splash in the video gaming world. Along with quite a few other artists I know and respect, I've been hired to work on the very awesome Skullgirls fighting game, designed by the equally awesome Alex Ahad. I've been working for the past month or so as a Character Animator and it's been quite a ride thus far. Very fun and simple, but still challenging. That's been going great thus far and I've been doing a lot of other stuff on the side, as well.

Voiceover has been getting more and more frequent for me in the last year and I've been doing a pretty good amount of professional work as of late! Most of the stuff I've been doing I can't go into too much detail, but I've booked my first pre-lay (where they animate to your voice) as a very cute character for a really endearing project. Been auditioning for and recording for a LOT of indie video games, which is always cool. Then, a gig that's been strange in concept but strangely fun, is dubbing for Turkish television shows for a studio called Everest in New Jersey. Thanks to the awesome, incredibly-talented Michele Knotz, I've started recording for a couple projects there in the last month. One of these projects in particular, I've recorded a LOT of material for and still have quite a bit to finish up in this next week, so I'm lookin' forward to that.

That said, I'm sad to also say I haven't been able to post a whole lot of material online for people to see, since many of the things I'm working on are secret, even the drawings in my sketchbook! Most of what I can show has been on my Tumblr, including one little side-venture that's always quick and easy to produce: music! Not sure where this spurt of Rareware nostalgia's come from, but I just recently wrote and performed a bunch of lyrical versions of tracks from the Banjo-Kazooie series. The first one is of an old song I did back in 2008, where I did an acapella cover of "Witchyworld" and then just a week ago did a vastly-improved version of it. Then followed a lyrical "Gobi's Valley" and then just a couple days ago, "Spiral Mountain", which I'm the most proud of.

Here's one of 'em, take a listen!

Lastly and most importantly, and this ties in with all the secretiveness going on, is that I've been doing a lot of personal creative works. Very happy to hear people are interested in Balancing Act, which I've been submitting to a bunch of festivals. No word on any of them yet, but of course I'll make an announcement when the time comes; most likely through my YouTube page that I'll been trying to make better use of lately. Also, I'm picking up where I left off on a TV series concept I've been developing for the last several years. I've written a pilot script that's currently being reviewed and fine-tuned, then I have a few plans of what I'll be doing next, but let's just say I'm counting my blessing for the people who believe in my work and that want to help me. If any of them are reading this, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Sort of related: I haven't talked much about this online, but I really, really think I wanna get out to California. If I can help it, I'd love to be out there within the year. I dunno if that's gonna happen, but I'm playing around with a few ideas and am in talks with a couple people. I realize all of this is very vague and I'm sorry I don't have much to show right now, but figured after staying quiet for a month I should give a proper update. Hope this whets a few peoples' appetites!

Just Graduated! + Balancing Act (trailer)

2011-05-13T13:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I did it folks. I graduated.

This week's been CRAZY. The Dusty Film & Animation Festival kicked off on Sunday night with the screening for all of our films. 4 straight hours of animated shorts by myself and my classmates played that night and it was a BIG hit. Many of which included some of these fine folks:

My film, "Balancing Act" was early on in the screening, #6 to be exact. Hundreds of people sitting in those seats finally got to see what I've been working on for not just a solid year...but in a way, what I've been working on for over a decade. Finally, my biggest project yet, a story I've been developing since I was in Elementary school, has made its first big step into the world. Here's the trailer for my thesis film: "Balancing Act"

I know I've been saying this on all of the last several blog posts, but huge thanks to EVERYONE who helped me with this. Everybody from my thesis adviser Richard Gorey, my classmates and teachers over the last 4 years, the folks that worked on the NiN10Doh! collabs who assisted with some clean-up, coloring and a LOT of backgrounds, my amazing cast of actors and sound designers and everyone who provided helpful feedback in making this thing come alive.

I also wanna congratulate everyone else who was part of my graduating year. You all did a fantastic job and we made a really strong year of students to represent SVA. In particular, BIG congrats to two of my best friends from school, Zach Bellissimo and Michael J. Ruocco (whom some of you know from their work on the first two NiN10Doh! collabs). The two of them tied for "Outstanding Traditional Animation" and Zach won "Best 2D Character Design" Dusty Awards on Tuesday night when the award show took place. MAJOR props to them, as well as Mirella Toncheva who won "Best Production Design" and Zack Williams who won "Outstanding Stop-Motion Animation" and "Best Stop-Motion Character" Design awards. You guys rock!

Yesterday we had the ceremony, took lotsa cheesy pictures, had one more party and headed our separate ways as graduates. Now it's time for the game to REALLY begin. I've got a LOT of things already on my plate, but I'm really excited to start working. I hope everyone who's reading this will stick with me and look forward to some of the stuff I have in store!

Lots of Videos + The End is Nigh!

2011-04-30T15:40:00.001-07:00

WHOA, what an April.

Okay so a TON has happened since the month started. Wow. As I'm typing this, I have one measly class left. Just gotta type up a report for Dave Levy's Career Strategy's class and I'm all done. My thesis, "Balancing Act" is all turned in and I'm set to premiere at the Dusty Film & Animation Festival on May 8th, at 7:30 PM in the SVA Theatre (333 West 23rd Street). I'm, as of this post, in the #6 on the list of about 40 animated films that will be screening that night, so I'm nervous to be so close to the beginning! But I'm also really excited. Those of you who are fans of the NiN10Doh! collabs will be happy to hear the likes of Zach Bellissimo and Michael J. Ruocco will also in the screening. They have some kick-ass films that I've seen first hand; in fact our entire graduating year has done an incredible job! Those who can make it to the screening are in for a real treat.

So lately I've been trying to make better use of my YouTube channel and I've been creating a few videos that some of you might enjoy. The first of which is a trip down memory lane with an old book I found huddled in my basement. BEFORE GO! GO! PARODY RANGERS, THERE WAS THIS:

This was a birthday present when I was 7 years old. An old company called "Chimeric" would take commissions for "publishing" custom-made picture books, with drawings done by kids, sent it, printed and hard-bound like this one. I "wrote" and "illustrated" (I use those words lightly, in this case) this short-story about the Power Rangers.

I also mentioned last post that my cousin Lucciana, who scored the music for my thesis film, was in my hometown here in Long Island to perform with her band "The Lucky Bastards" on April Fools Day in a local pub:

Then recently, on a complete whim of venting on my tumblr, I decided to record an audio-version of a rant I did called "Unwasted". Surprisingly, it got a lot of really positive response from people, which I was NOT expecting at all. Feel free to listen in and I hope you might take something away from it too!

Some of you guys may know I've had the pleasure of working with Mr. Mike Pollock, known for his illustrious voiceover work in NYC, but most particularly as Dr. Eggman from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Recently, he wrote an original song parody about the death of Elizabeth Taylor and the tales of her many husbands. I illustrated a video to go alongside it, which he was quite pleased with. I haven't done any typography animation in a few years now, but it was interesting experience to say the least:

Speaking of Mike, I've gotten the chance to do some more professional voicework as of late! I just got my first gig at Edge Studio, thanks to some help from the wonderful Mick Lauer of DotDotDot fame. Can't talk much about that one just yet, but it's a project I'm REALLY excited to be a part of. On that same note, another big project I'm majorly excited about is ReincarnatedParano's animation called "Monster Boy", in which I voice the character ironically named "Chris". She's just finished the animatic for it, which you can view here:

...now I know what you're all thinking, BUT...the truth is, Rebekka and I hadn't met before I auditioned for the part (thanks to being told by D-Mac about a month ago), although apparently I won it by a landslide. To be fair, I think I fit the part of a lanky, hoodie-wearing art student with a big nose and an attitude problem pretty well, don't you? But yeah, Rebekka worked really hard on this and I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished product! As you'll also hear in the animatic, it features the talents of Kira Buckland, Martin Billany, Blake Swift and Xander Mobus. Check it out!

That's about all I can think of, but DAMN that's a lot. I'll probably have a few more posts in the month of May, since I've got a lot planned to tackle once graduation is through. In the meantime, I hope you guys enjoy all this stuff! Latah!

Guess I'm the April Fool.

2011-04-03T00:14:00.000-07:00

Okay so I think I got my hopes up a little bit too high for 2011.

I went in being all like YEAH THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME THIS IS MY YEAR YEAH TOTALLY COOL and it's...not really turning out that way. At least not yet. I feel like if I can stick it out for just one more month, I can make it. The Dusty is coming up soon, "Balancing Act" is done and I just need to finish up April and then I just gotta hope that things will start to turn around with the release of my film.

Surprisingly, my Newgrounds love hasn't been neglected as of late. I have a few things in the works over the next month to keep me busy. With the start of the month, I've held my tradition of doing an April Fools flash movie in the form of Turbo: A Parody Rangers Flash Movie. Due to a very short amount of time I had to make this, it's very shoddily put together, but I'm glad I at least got it outta me. I planned it for a very long time and teased about it in "Kirb Stomp". Special thanks to all of the cast for coming back again for this quick bit. I've also got a typography animation I can hopefully do in this next week or so, plus maybe another little thing for LittleKuriboh. Then, if a certain someone finishes cutting together a song I'm working on with some friends, maybe even a new music video by the time I graduate. We shall see.

I've also been doing a lot of voice-related stuff lately, which has been pretty fun. Mostly auditions for things, but a few projects I've been lucky enough to be cast in. One of these is being released right now, which I'm very honored to be a part of. Rhete has been working on an incredible 2-D shooting platformer game called "Hunters: Relic of Stars" that I voice a very cool character in. As of now, he hasn't shown up yet, but you can hear him in the game's kickass trailer.

The first few stages are released, so give 'em a go and I'm sure you'll enjoy it! Rhete did an outstanding job on the programming, making a truly fun old-school game that lovers of stuff like Metroid and Contra will really get a kick out of. Major props to D-Mac for the great casting and directing too. There's some wonderful voicework in there, not to mention AMAZING choices of music from the Audio Portal.

Thought I'd have more to talk about, but I guess not. Hopefully I'll have more blog posts this month though, I've been wiring down to only one a month lately and that's no good. Look forward to more!

Spring Breaking

2011-03-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

Haven't written one of these in a month.

A lot's happened, a LOT. Most of it's been stuff that's not warranted a blog post, however. There's been a ridiculous amount of change going on, but as I've often spoke of, I've been trying to deal with it the best I can through productiveness. To begin with, I'm on Spring Break right now but am I extremely close to finishing "Balancing Act". All of the character animation has been officially done for well over a week now. All that remains is the Background art, of which I'm starting to do some of myself now! I spent two days on a super-detailed one last week. I've also got some much needed help from Steve Bryant with a bunch of them. Scott Frerichs will be doing my Sound Effects design and Lucciana is nearly done with the final mastering of the music. Just about one month left now until we hand them in. Once I have these last few details finished, I'll be showing it to all of my classmates and basically ask them to nitpick the living crap out of it. That way I can take the remaining time I have left to fix up anything I can that's within my power.

This past weekend I took it a bit easy and didn't really do any work outside of some minor sketching. Martin Billany and Marianne Miller flew to NYC to spend "The Weekend of Kids WB nostalgia" with me. Saturday was the Pokemon-specific day, where we went to the Black & White Mall Tour with Michele Knotz and company. Martin also picked me up a copy of Pokemon: Black Version from England, so I got it two days earlier than the rest of the country, HA! Then Sunday was the Yu-Gi-Oh! specific day, where we went to see the ridiculously over-the-top 3D 10th Anniversary Movie for the series here in the city. Pathetically, I've now seen this Movie TWICE, because I went to the premiere a couple weeks ago since it was walking distance from my dorm. The flick itself aside, I DID manage to do some networking there, so that was pretty choice. Just saw Martin and Marianne off and they're on their way back to the airport now.

Anyway, so this weekend was MUCH needed for me between all of the major amounts of stress I've gone through. Long story short, let's just say 2011's not been off to such a great start like I imagined it would be, not just for me, but for several of my friends. That said, I'm not simply gonna sit and mope, especially over the break. I plan on spending some time working on a portfolio to submit to DreamWorks. Apparently they're conducting an internship program for storyboard artists and are specifically looking at people from my school. The portfolio's due around the same time my film has to be turned in, so I'll be giving them a whole bunch of material. If this works out, this'd be a good starting point for me if I plan on going to California someday to pursue my career. Maybe I'll post some of the required stuff online for you guys to see. In the meantime, check tumblr for more drawings I've been working on lately.

Balancing Act

2011-02-08T15:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I've been talking non-stop about my film for several months now.

In fact, it's been a whole year since I've technically begun production on it and wrote the very first draft of the script. I'm halfway through my fourth and final year at SVA now and already SO much has happened, but one thing that hasn't changed is that I've constantly been working. In fact, I'd say there's been maybe a total of about 10 days since the school year started that I haven't touched the film at all.

So first and foremost, the film is titled "Balancing Act", in reference to my philosophy on life. That meaning, everything in life is a constant balancing act of finding a middle road between one thing and another. The film runs a little over 6 minutes, is a 2D animation hand-drawn in Flash. The plot focuses on a group of friends who go out for lunch one day. While sitting down to eat, they get into a petty argument over practically nothing and some uncomfortableness is created between them. Suddenly, a group of villains attacks the park just across the street from the restaurant our heroes are at. They spring into action, but their quarreling carries over into the battle they've involved themselves in. It'll take the outside perspective of a fourth hero to show the trio of friends up on their stupid actions.

That's a very bare-bones description, but there's something deeper to it and I've only just realized that in the last couple weeks. The idea of the film is based on an animated series concept I've been developing for well over 10 years of my life. That said, I picked this film idea because I wouldn't expect anything less than the absolute BEST of my skill as an animation artist for the finished product. What is was that I've only just discovered about the film is that...no joke, it says a lot about my entire life. Not to get so "heavy" about it or anything, but it's true when I really sat down and looked at it. A bunch of friends getting into arguments over something stupid, misunderstandings brought about my clashing personalities, letting that stupid argument get in the way of more important matters and then finally someone on the outside, looking in, comes in and solves the problem, making the people arguing look like idiots...then they apply their lesson learned to the next time something comes up.

I've spent all 22 years of my life trying to find that middle road of socialization, that "Balancing Act" if you will, between being myself and being someone that is acceptable to society and, more important, people I care about. It's not a easy path to find and I'm still trying to stay on it as best as possible. All I know right now, is this animation embodies everything important to me and I'm really treating it with the utmost respect and passion. I can say even before it's fully finished that this is THE best piece of art, in any medium, I've ever made and I hope that will come across when it screens at the Dusty festival in another few months. Look forward to it!

(Background Artwork by Myself and Dave Smith)

I gotta Tumblr! + "Kirb Stomp"

2011-01-27T21:49:00.000-08:00

This week has been...somethin' else.

Lot of up's and down's, but I'm keeping busy and doing the best I can. First and foremost, "Kirb Stomp" is already finished and up. Thanks to ThisWeekInGeek for hosting the HD and we've also got an upload on YouTube for your convenience.

We also gotta Making Of/Gag Reel video that was finished soonafter, as well as a commentary in the can that will be up later on. Hope it gives y'all a chuckle or two, it was fun to make and we didn't take anything too seriously on it, so hopefully people won't read into it too far.

So I recently met Dan Meth at my class this past Monday, who's a really ol' school Flash Animator known for stuff like "The Meth Minute 39". I just so happened to make a Tumblr that day and he gave a big awesome introduction about how cool it is. That said, I'm gonna try and update my Tumblr at least once every day. If any of you guys reading this have one, follow me and help me get started!

I'm now officially 75% done with my thesis film! I just cut together a new animatic with all the fight scene animation and I've been showcasing it to a few of my colleagues...the reception is pretty damn good! I definitely think this is gonna be THE best piece of...hell, not even just animation, the best piece of ART I've ever produced in my life. I'm really putting everything I have into it and making it the absolute best it can be. I've got about two months left to finish everything. Wish me luck!

Busy Weekend + KirbStomp Trailer

2011-01-20T19:45:00.000-08:00

I've not had ten seconds to stop and catch my breath ALL DAY until now.

MAGfest was an absolute blast, as expected. They keep gettin' bigger and better every single year and I love it. Next year they'll most likely be moving out of the Hilton hotel and into an equally bigger and better place to house everything. Notable things of the weekend were seeing friends of mine from the previous years such as Matt Mercer, Jon St. John, Dave Lister and a bunch of the crew from ThatGuyWithTheGlasses and as meeting some new people from the site, as well as the likes of Grant Kirkhope, Eddie LeBron, Wes Johnson and several others. Did a few panels, such as the "Voice-A-Palooza" which consisted of me doing a Woody Allen impression and the massive TGWTG panel even!

The biggest personal highlight of the con though was filming a live-action short film with my friend Marc Swint, my traveling-partner for the weekend, over the last two days of the convention. It is titled..."KirbStomp".

Marc pitched me this idea on the car ride there and I agreed. So we shot the whole thing in two nights and managed to pull it off. The plot? I go to MAGfest and the internet sends an brutal and dangerous assassin to kill me. As I run for my life, others try to stand in the way of this mysterious killer, but nothing can stop him! Will I come out alive? Find out in February when the film is finished.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT. I've had little time to rest this past week and won't have much time during the weekend either. I've just recorded two voice roles for a few of my friends' student films to be entered into the Dusty show in May, I've got like four to five more things to record for this weekend as well. Working on a contest entry for the MegaMan Tribute art-book by Udon, of which a few of my friends are doing entries for too and they're lookin' awesome! I've also got plenty of animation left to take care of, with only two more months left to finish everything in time for my thesis.

Wish me luck!

Year of the Doubleleven!

2011-01-11T10:46:00.000-08:00

It's January 11th, 2011...this marks the "Year of the Doubleleven!"

.:11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111:.

Why? Because I'm 22, two elevens. That's why! This is gonna be my year, to prove myself as both an artist and as an individual. I've only got 3 months or so left of college and a LOT to get situated by the time I graduate.

I've just come back from an amazing week in Vancouver as my birthday present, being able to see the ladyfriend and having my "calm before the storm" time until the semester starts...which it has! I've got three classes this semester one, notably of which is "Animation Career Development" with Dave Levy. All the while I'm still toiling away at my thesis film and making good progress. I've got a large amount of animation done and should be able to get everything finished in time. It will be screened at the Dusty film & animation festival on Mother's Day weekend, May 6th-10th in front of a huge audience at SVA's big theatre. Excited? Totally. Nervous? Incredibly. Doin' my best over here. I just cut together the final dialogue mix with my incredible cast of Chris Zito, Marianne Miller and most recently Micah Solusod. Plenty more to do, but seeing this particular film getting ever closer to completion is truly satisfying.

Meanwhile, NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power's on the front page of Newgrounds right now and doing pretty well for itself in the first two weeks or so. For those who might be interested, a guy I knew from The Fallout Shelter years back took a recording of the collab's premiere at AnimeEvolution and has now re-uploaded it for people to see. S'a little haphazardly screened as far as our technical setup went, but if you give it a look you'll see the work-in-progress cuts of the segments, including the unfortunately unfinished Donkey Kong/Punch-Out! segment animated by Michael J. Ruocco.

Gonna be taking a break from Newgrounds and internet projects for an indefinite while, since I've got a ton of bigger stuff to focus on, but hope you got a laugh or two and enjoyed the incredible animation the 64 crew put together.

Also on the subject of elevens, I'm really excited about "Inazuma Eleven" coming out in Europe at the end of this month and I'm totally importing the crap out of it. Earlier-mentioned ladyfriend has gotten me obsessed with it and I'll be happy to play the Soccer RPG game in English. I've not played Professor Layton, but Level-5 I trust is a pretty amazing game developer. If anyone else gets their hands on it at the end of the month, lemme know!

Last but certainly not least, while I'll be pulling back on the convention circuit a tad, I AM looking forward to returning to MAGfest this weekend. Last year it was one of the funnest times at a con I've ever had and should be just as fun this year, even without the same group of friends I went with prior. If you're going, try and find me and say hi!

S'all for now. Happy Year of the Doubleleven people!

Release of NiN10Doh!: To the 64th Power!

2010-12-29T11:47:00.000-08:00

Here it is people, a year and a half in the making.

NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power!
[Runtime: Approximately 18 Minutes]
1) May not run correctly on Google Chrome.
2) If given a blank screen, reload the Movie and it should work.
3) The full size of the collab is about 40MB being loaded.

The third, not to mention BIGGEST, installment to the NiN10Doh! Animation Collab series. This time featuring spoofs of Nintendo games such as the Mario Sports series, Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, F-Zero, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Bomberman, Mischief Makers and more! A huge collection of talented Animators, including favorites from the previous two collabs and several new ones added to the mix. Also features some special guest stars, including LittleKuriboh (Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged), HappyHarry (Saturday Morning Watchmen), Matt Mercer (There Will Be Brawl) and Kajetokun (It's Over 9000!).

Major apologies for this thing taking so ungodly long to be finished. No joke, I intended for this thing to be done around this time a year ago, as the material had been written and recorded in the Summer of '09. However, due to the MASSIVE crew of people on this independent project, there were several on board that got incredibly busy with freelance jobs, real life issues to contend with and far more than you'll ever need to know the details on. That said though, they all pulled through and came out with some superb animation and I hope the likes of Nintendo fans, the folks here at Newgrounds and animation-junkies will all get a kick out of this collaborative effort; there really is something for everyone!

So HUGE thanks to all of the Triple-A team of animators, artists and actors that helped me make this way overly-ambitious project come to life. Thanks as well to all the special guest animators and actors that were interested in joining the project. Thanks Richie for once again programming and designing the menu as well as making this whole thing tie together...and of course, big thanks to Tom and Mike from the Newgrounds crew for sponsoring and hosting this project, not to mention helping it work in the first place!

What to say this time? Well, I'm NOT gonna say "this is the final one we will ever make, ever." because that's what I said when $00pah NiN10Doh! was released...and what happened? I found these projects way too fun to just give up forever because of worthless naysayers that wanna piss on our parade. WILL we be doing another one after this? Who knows, life gets busy for us all...but hey, we'll talk.

________________________________________________________

So there ya have it.

Interesting to note on here, as well...the way we managed to put this whole thing together is pretty unheard of in the Flash Cartoon world. As with each increasingly gigantic collab, it wasn't humanly possible to put all of these segments into one .fla file. So, we had to make each segment a separate .swf and string them all together into a single window and tie it all together by some complex coding done by Richie Zirbes, once again topping himself on the amount of contribution he makes to these projects.

Also, on the subject of if we're doing a 4th NiN10Doh! collab, here's the deal. I DO have some material written and people interested on the team is doing another one, however, there's many things that would prevent it from happening...one of those reasons is no longer the words of trolls who have some sort of single-minded view of me and my fellow animators that've been doing this collabs for the last couple years. To them I can say, fuck off. As far as what's preventing it, obviously we'd need to see if it were up for being sponsored again by Newgrounds as with the previous ones, as well as if free time even allows for both myself and the other animators. Truthfully, I'd MUCH more prefer to have a steady job of some kind, or freelance, anything that will start a path to lead me into the industry after I graduate in May. I'm still working on my thesis film of course and that has to be done by April, so that's getting my foremost attention. I'm not completely clear on what'll happen when I get outta school, but if it were up to me I'd prefer it not be "MAN, I HAVE SO MUCH FREE TIME! LET'S DO ANOTHER ONE!". But hey, if time permits, we'll do it. IF so, I can assure it'll be of a much smaller scale compared to this last one, so that it doesn't take a year and a half to be finished. Probably WAY smaller of a crew and not near-20 minutes. So yeah!

Hope you all enjoyed it and here's to a Happy New Year!

Help me out! Vote 5 for the "Bonne Hydra!"

2010-11-30T13:42:00.000-08:00

First and foremost, I need your support!

Vote 5 on my entry in the MegaMan Legends 3 Boss Design contest! We're being given the chance to create a Mecha for the Bonne Family (some of the bad guys of the MegaMan Legends) to use in a battle during the game. Five finalists will be selected from Capcom's Development Room forums, both the Japanese and American boards. The 10 finalists in total will be judged by the team creating MegaMan Legends 3 and one of them will get to be included IN the game itself as a real boss fight! I worked really hard on my entry, "The Bonne Hydra" and MegaMan Legends has been one of the most influential games to me since I was a kid. I really care about that series and especially this 3rd one coming up. Please show your support and vote 5 on my entry so I'll have a shot at winning! I'd be incredibly grateful to anyone willing to help me out. :]

Now that that's outta the way, I've already gotta get back to work! Even on Thanksgiving I've been going gung-ho on finishing my thesis film. I've finished all of the animation for 1 of the 7 total scenes and have handed it off to be colored, of which I have Audrey Kare and Cory Holmes to gimme a hand while I continue animating. This year's been a rough ride, an emotiona roller coaster if you will. I'm really not sure of a lot of things, including that's gonna happen after I graduate. Right now the main thing I'm focusing on it making sure I finish this cartoon to the absolute fullest of my ability and hope that things will work themselves out. We've got about 3 weeks left of class now until Christmas vacation and I'll be going to visit Vancouver again in the first week of January, all the while -still- working on my film. I'm working ahead of schedule, but I've got SO much to do that I can't let up.

In between working on the film, going to class and socializing, I've been catching on a few games as well as re-watching old shows that were a big influence to me. Donkey Kong Country Return's been an amazing trip down memory lane and I LOVE what Retro Studios did with it. Meanwhile, ever since I came back to school I've re-watched all of YuYu Hakusho, BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad and most recently, Speedgrapher. All of these shows are what I love most about animated series; they all have some of the best character dialogue and interactions I've ever seen and I always finish the shows taking away something. J.G. Quintel's "The Regular Show" is the same way, which I've also been keeping up with and I think it just finished its first season, so here's hoping it continues to strive for Cartoon Network.

Now, back to the grindstone!

Made a lil' birdhouse in my soul.

2010-11-12T16:43:00.000-08:00

That song's been stuck in my damn head for days.

Anyway, still workin' my ass off over here. I handed in another updated to Animatic of my thesis film to the committee at school just earlier today. I've finished all of my key drawings and have officially moved on to in-betweens. Audrey Kare did a fine job on redlining the keys and will be helping out with color later on in production. On backgrounds I've got Dave Smith, as well as Bam Macek and John Komar. I'm really proud of how this film's turning out so far and I've managed to keep up a pretty good production schedule for the last few months. Still got a LOT more to do, so let's hope I can pull this thing off...

NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power is beginning to reach the end of its production. As of right now, I'm expecting the last couple segments to be sent to me within the next week, while Cory Holmes is working on the credits sequence and Richie Zirbes is handling the coding to make everything tie itself together. Every time another piece of animation arrives, I get reminded of how excited I really am about this project. All of the response to the material's been great and people are laughin' their asses off, so we're definitely doing something right.

I went to Youmacon for Halloween weekend this year. First time going to that convention, but it was definitely a blast. Lots of memories made and pictures and video taken (yet to be posted though). Martin invited me into the Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged panel, which involved a really emotional group hug, a smiley face being drawn on all our hands with a sharpie and singing an in-character version of "Don't Stop Believin'". Yeah it was pretty intense. NPC will probably be my last con of the year, since then we have Christmas vacation and I may be goin' back up to Vancouver before school starts again. Might have a few cons next year, we shall see.

Back to work for me, fare thee well.

Whudda Rush!

2010-10-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

Oh god it's been like a month since I last did one of these.

So much has been going on I can barely even remember it all. Class has been a lotta fun and thankfully not SO much full of work that I'm still able to get animation on my film done. I'm currently doing key drawings for it, with redlining by Audrey and some background work by Dave Smith. Might need some more help, so I'll make posts about that later on. Meantime, I've also been working on a pitchbook for Jim Arnoff's class for Animation Career Development, as well conducting interviews for school, including one with Jay Snyder of Edgestudio and "The Regular Show" creator JG Quintel. The interviews were both a lotta fun and I'm putting everything I've got into the pitchbook.

I'm working just about EVERY day on my film, with the exception of last Saturday and Sunday night, being too exhausted from New York ComicCon/AnimeFest after getting back those two days. What a weekend that was, seriously. I know people had their complaints and troubles with the two cons being fused together, but I have never more enjoyed NYCC or NYAF than this weekend. So many groups of friends all there, Mike Luckas with his Artist Alley table, LOTS of people from my school all over the place, some actors I've worked with such as Lucien Dodge, Dave Lister and his friends, the One Piece Podcast crew and the amazing Uncle Yo! who not only got me my badge for the weekend, but gave a great performance along with Kroze, who also was cool enough to get me in on an interview with Bruce Timm for ComicsOnline. The biggest highlight for me was the Capcom panel where Megaman Legends 3 was given lots of new details (look for me in the corner of the panel room in that video!) and I had the esteemed honor of speaking with Keiji Inafune, one of the minds behind Megaman's creation. It was unforgettable, especially speaking in Japanese for a couple sentences; can hardly believe I pulled THAT off. So yeah, incredible weekend.

In between work and conventions (Youmacon is my next one coming at the end of the month) I'm glad to say I'm getting out more than a couple times a week. Doing this thesis film is fun but it's good to just have a social life. despite the expensiveness and annoyances of college, this is one thing I'm happy to have. For Newgrounders, I know a lotta people are wondering about NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power. The short answer is, it's on hold until the last remaining animators finish their stuff. I've got about 3 segments left to get before it's all done and then Richie and I will hopefully be putting it together. I was hoping it'd be out shortly after I got back from AnimeEvolution, but we've got lives to tend to in between this project, so you're gonna have to wait a bit longer. Sorry 'bout that.

Now In Session.

2010-09-17T09:38:00.001-07:00

S'been about two weeks so far...

Moved back into the city, got my cramped little dorm room with all my crap together and ready to take on the world...or something. I'm lucky that I've only got about two days of class (3 classes in total) and the rest of the time is spent doing thesis stuff. My first this year was with Rob Dress, who's worked on TONS of stuff and teaches "Creating Memorable Animated Characters", which I'm taking alongside Zach Bellissimo 'cuz I JUST CAN'T GET RIDDA 'DAT BUM. My other main class is "Animation Law & Career Development" taught by Jim Arnoff; this one EVERYBODY in the graduating year is taking, so you can bet there's a lotta people in the classroom. Both teachers are esteemed gentlemen and I really feel like I'm getting a lot out of my last year so far, even from this first week and a half of class.

While NOT doing class-related stuff, I've been animating my ass off on my thesis film. The thing's rounded out to be around 6-7 minutes in total (with credits) and I'm hoping to finish all of the rough animation by the end of September. Most of the production time will be spent doing the final, cleaned-up animation, of which I'm happy to say I've got Dave Smith and Audrey Kare helping me out with. I've got until April, so let's hope I can pull this bad boy off in between homework and what-not...speaking of, as I type this, I'm just about to rush off to an interview at Edgestudio for an assignment. Wish me luck!

What I love most about living in NYC again is that, as lame as this kinda sounds, I feel like I truly have a regular social-life of some kind. I get out on a constant basis, exercising (...sorta), surrounded by good pals and overall staying very productive on everything. There's the whole...money thing, but hopefully some freelance gigs coming up will change that, if they don't run me dry on top of the others stuff I'm doing. Oy. What can ya do.

Stay with me, folks!

Summer comes to a close...

2010-08-27T11:36:00.001-07:00

Less than two weeks 'til I go back to school...

I move back to NYC the weekend of the 4th and have my first class on the 8th of September. I've only got a few classes for the Fall semester, so 2 days during the week of classes and the rest of the time off...of which will be spent doing thesis work. I've just finished going through a re-write of the script, re-did the storyboard and am recording some new dialogue with my actors, Corey Holland and Chris Zito (as well as myself) for the animatic. My next deadline to turn material in is September 10th and I've got plenty to get done within that time frame...

Good news and bad news about NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power. Certain segments and new job opportunities for many of the artists on board the project are making the animation process a bit longer than I had hoped. We're in the middle of doing compiling regardless though, since Richie Zirbes and the crew at the Newgrounds office have come up with a brilliant scheme to have the entire collab be one submission for the site instead of having to slice it up into two parts. The overwhelmingly good response from the people who were at the preview screening let me hope that you guys will hang on for a bit longer.

I'm really hoping to put a cap on the new collab soon because it looks like I'm gonna have one the busiest years of my life as far as work goes. I've cleared my plate with side projects for a good while, but there's a good chance my thesis won't be my only workload. I'm happy to say I've gotten more job offerings in a row in this last month than I ever have, so I may be doing some freelance stuff in conjunction with what I'm already doing. It'll be a doozy, but if it's any help to pay for next semester's tuition, I'll take what I can get. There may be some other BIG opportunities waiting for me next year if I can stay on top, so here's hopin' for that too.

I also wanna start using my blog for discussion on different aspects of making cartoons. I just had an interesting discussion with a few friends regarding the use of backstories in animation and I wanted to try making a post about it, but wanted to gather more info. Stuff like that. Maybe if I can come up with some neat topics I'll try and do some of that in the future.

Oh Canadaaaa...

2010-08-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

So, I freaking love Canada so much. Seriously.

First off, AnimeEvolution was one of the best conventions I've ever been to. It had absolutely everything I love about these things in surplus, there was no negativity in the air whatsoever. Good friends, really nice fans, talented artists, hilarious actors and other guests, incredibly fun panels. My god. I had some great moments on the panels I went to and was a part of as well. Did a dramatic reading with LittleKuriboh and the gang from TeamFourStar early on Saturday and the +18 panel we did late that same night was also a blast...and I was delightfully surprised that I was actually kinda funny during it, from what I was told (I thought I was gonna be the most boring). There's probably videos of the panels on YouTube if ya look for 'em.

The highlight of the weekend however, was the preview screening for NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power. I could NOT believe my eyes seeing such a gigantic line of people waiting to be let into the panel room where we would be screening it. Despite the fact that we had to re-set up all of the chairs in the room (due to a dance happening prior to the screening in that room), we had to wait for the video projector to be given to us all the way from another building AND we had difficulties setting the damn thing up to work with my laptop...we had a room filled with probably two to three HUNDRED people. I managed to talk for 20 years (finally, that use came in handy) and kept the audience entertained until we were in business. On top of that, it wasn't even full-screen, let alone FINISHED since the animation is still being worked on for several segments of the project...they loved it. They were dyin' and I had a bunch'a people rushing up to myself and Audrey talking about how much they enjoyed it (and my other works)...even signed a couple autographs in the process!

So yeah, I'm really excited for the final version to be released, hopefully by the end of this month. I'm glad everyone who showed up enjoyed it and laughed so hard at our stupid jokes about how funny it is that mushrooms don't make people grow taller in real life. Hurr hurr hurr. There's a distinct possibility of the project having to be split up into two Parts that will be on the front page both at once, since apparently the Newgrounds office's most powerful computer doesn't have the power to withstand all of the drawings in these segments in one Flash file. Props to Richie and the crew for tryin' to pull it off the day before I left. We'll see what happens.

ANYWAY, been spending a couple days after, still in Canada. Got toured around a million places in beautiful Vancouver city, took a billion pictures of said million places. This entire city is so incredibly inspiring. No joke, I've suddenly come up with so many concepts for my animation and game ideas, it feels great. I think I definitely needed this break to get myself prepped up for thesis year. Re-writing my script a bit and shortening the length of my film after some not-so-great feedback on the animatic. Watched some positively influential stuff to help me out, including the Scott Pilgrim Movie, which I totally enjoyed (not more than the comic, but enjoyed incredibly anyhow), also I really liked the animated short...and stuff. Feelin' better than I have all Summer...and this Summer's been pretty damn good.

Still plenty to come. Stay with me, folks.

The Return to Otakon.

2010-08-03T08:37:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was QUITE a ride.

I haven't been to Otakon in Baltimore, Maryland in about 3 years. It was the first convention I ever went to back in 2005 and I've gone to TONS more ever since then. It was blissful trip down memory lane for me to be back on the Baltimore city streets and trekking around the convention center when I was still in High School. So much has happened since then, the con itself felt both like it had changed and grown, but still held the same sentimental value I always liked about it. Wasn't without its fair share of bullcrap, but ANY convention experience comes packaged with it unless you go completely on your own...and that's no fun! I was in good company, between my friends from SVA who made a killing at Artist Alley, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged gang who made a killing at the Dealer's Room, the crew behind the One Piece Podcast and some of my actor friends, I thought it might be a task to divide up so much time to so many groups of people. But, it ended up being a glorious experience. I laughed my ass off every night with my roommates, had some tasty chow, picked up some free swag, even networked a bit with the three measly business cards I had left. Safe to say it kicked ass.

Con season's almost over, all's left is AnimeEvolution up in Vancouver. I think it's okay to mention here, so I'll announce that the screening for NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power! at AE will be on Saturday night at 8:30 in Panel Room 2. There might be time for a brief Q&A but most of the time will be dedicated to the screening itself. I'll also be at the Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged Panel, same day and same room, at 11 in the morning. I'm beginning to get back completed segments from the animation team and they're lookin' fantastic, not to mention hilarious. Downside, I'm pretty sure some of the segments will be WIP; at the very least in animatic form with the complete audio, or possible uncolored/yet to be cleaned-up. Either way, we should have the full-length collab to show even if it's not 100% finished. The final version should be put on Newgrounds before August is up.

My time for vacationing is nearly up, with only about a month left before I head back to school. This upcoming Friday, I'll be heading to NYC to hand in the first bits of material for my thesis. My storyboard's done, the character voices are recorded and cut together for timing, the designs have been set and I'm currently working on the rough animatic. Tryin' to stay ahead of the game, since this baby'll end up probably running about 7-8 minutes. It'll take a LOT of hard work, so I'll do my absolute best.

Stay tuned for more!

Super Freakin' End.

2010-07-19T19:21:00.000-07:00

So after 4 years of my life, Go! Go! Parody Rangers comes to a close.

The Feature Movie is all done and brought an ending to the series. I've been surprised, definitely looks like the most polarizing thing I've ever submitted to Newgrounds as far as people's enjoyment or disgust of it goes. I thank all of the people that still managed to get a laugh or two out of it and I appreciate the reviews and criticism left by the people that didn't enjoy it.

I think it's worth stating that the script, voices and overall concept of Part 3 are...well, outdated. The script was written back in 2007 when I hadn't nearly the improvements in writing and animation I have today. I think the original purpose of the Movie was that I wanted to try doing traditional animation for a Feature-Length project and try to improve my ability in the process. That ended up being accomplished, but more because of school as opposed to Parody Rangers. My reasoning for wanting to finish it NOW, 3 years later when clearly it doesn't quite hold up, was because I still genuinely care about these characters and wanted to give them a proper finale. Though the production had its up's and down's behind the scenes, the fact is that I wouldn't know nearly the amount of amazing people I've met the past 4 years were it not for Parody Rangers 1 getting Front Page'd all that time ago, so in that regard I don't regret working on the project.

Since finishing the Rangers Movie became more about closure for my OWN sake more than anything else, I honestly didn't expect really ANYONE to find it funny anymore. I'm glad the people who've followed the series enjoyed it for what it is, but I was also a bit afraid it would make it seem like I was going through a relapse and suddenly losing all of the development of my skills as an Animation Artist. My friends and peers seem to understand it's a product of the past, that only just so happened to be finished NOW due to other things having to take priority over it. As said at the tail end of the Movie, thanks all of you guys for stickin' with me.

Now that it's out of the way, what's next for me is to finish up NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power, which I think will better serve as my temporary goodbye present to Newgrounds. 64 far better reflects not only what -I've- learned about writing and animating the past few years, but the improvements my friends that I've been working on it with have made as well. I hope you'll all look forward to it when it hits the portal. Here's a little preview of what's to come:

By Dave Smith.

By Pierre Jackson.

By Tyson Hesse.

By Myself!

By Audrey Kare.

Still been doing Thesis Work as well, finished the storyboard and ready to move onto the next stage. Only another month and a half before the final year starts.

NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power!

2010-07-12T15:22:00.001-07:00

My public, I must apologize. I've lied to you.

I've made, yep you guessed it, another video game parody. I've been working on it for the past year in secrecy with a whole group of my friends...and y'know what? I'm proud of this thing, no matter how ridiculous it is. I'm also really happy to announce that it'll be shown on a big screen in front of a ton of people at a convention coming up. Here's the official announcement from AnimeEvolution's website:

“NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power” is the third installment in a series of spoofs on all things Nintendo! The previous two collaborative animations, “NiN10Doh!” and “$00pah NiN10Doh!” have reached wide success online, raking in millions of views and are well-known for their impressive animation quality, stellar voice cast, and out-there comedic style. The collabs are set up in skit-comedy style with various vignettes parodying a collection of Nintendo games, each with a different look and feel based on the talented animation artists that work on them.

The newest collaboration, will feature spoofs of the Mario Sports Series, Metroid, Bomberman, Starfox 64, Punch-Out!, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, F-Zero and many, many more of Nintendo’s beloved video game titles, from the mainstream to the obscure. The voice cast of “To the 64th Power” include special guests LittleKuriboh (Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged), Kajetokun (Over 9000), HappyHarry (Saturday Morning Watchman) and Matt Mercer (There Will Be Brawl) amongst tons of other hilarious voice actors.

These animations ain’t for “Rated E for” everyone, but see for yourself why they’ve become such a hit and be there at AnimeEvolution for the first look of NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power!

There ya have it. After its premiere at the con, the full thing will be submitted to Newgrounds for your viewing pleasure. Big thanks to Tom and the NG crew in Philli for being so gracious as to sponsor the team yet again.

Last year, I had a crisis regarding $00pah NiN10Doh! where I became so conflicted as to what I should be doing. Caught between "Ugh, stop doing parodies, they'll never serve any purpose and they make you look like you're completely unoriginal." and "Ugh, stop whining and just make what you want already, don't care about what anyone else says." I eventually chose the latter. Flat out, my animation team and I just plain LIKE to make these cartoons. Just about everyone involved has their own original characters and stories that they continue to work on and eventually bring to fruition, but we also really like video games and it's pure, dumb FUN to make cartoons about 'em. Everyone's working REALLY hard on this and the final product will show, trust me.

So, to avoid "the fun being spoiled" and me even having to THINK about people complaining, I kept the production of NiN10Doh! to the 64th Power a secret. Definitely helps add to the surprise, but also I simply wanted to just...make the damn thing and put it out. You either enjoy it and get a laugh or two, or you don't. The end. That's all I have to say about THAT matter.

However, in a way it all works out. While I won't say, as I did after $00pah NiN10Doh! came out, that "THIS IS THE BE ALL END ALL, MY FINAL VIDEO GAME PARODY EVARRRR", NiN10Doh! 64 and the final part of the Go! Go! Parody Rangers MOVIE are going to HAVE to be my last Newgrounds project for the next year. Reason being, my thesis must take full priority and I do NOT want to work on anything else animation-wise while I'm doing this project. I'm putting 110% of my creative ability into the film for my thesis and don't want to risk anything getting in the way of it.

That said, 64 may end up being the last of the NiN10Doh! collabs for as while, if not completely. All of the team, which I'm honored to have worked with again, have been moving on to bigger and better things, myself included, so we simply may not have the time to DO another one even if the itch comes back. E3 certainly brought some temptations. But who knows, maybe in a couple years and we're all bored, another might surface. In the meantime, anyone going to Vancouver this August for AnimeEvolution, be there for 64's premiere and I'm sure you'll get a kick out of it.

This is what's called a Badass Weekend.

2010-06-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

So! AnimeNEXT! Totally badass! Yes.

I always enjoy this convention as just a little vacation not so far away, never really percieved it as a big deal compared to some of the larger cons I go to throughout the year. This time however, it was just an all-around AMAZING weekend. As with many cons, however, it was made to be kickass all thanks to the friends that attended. It's much easier to remember what was so cool about this con when I link it to the people who went, so instead of a 3-day report, I'm gonna give some big thanks to the friends I hung with this past weekend.

The MAGFest Crew (Anthony "Kroze" Krestky, Brandon Girkas, Brian Wilson & Dominic Cerquetti) - These guys worked REALLY hard this entire weekend. The Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged booth they worked at in the Dealer's Room was fantastic looking and they sold out every single t-shirt they had. I roomed with most of these gentlemen for NEXT and they were a pleasure to be around. I helped them out as much as I could with selling stuff at the booth and it looks like it paid off, so keep it up guys!

Martin "LittleKuriboh" Billany - Martin I probably spent THE most time with during NEXT. Some of his close friends, like Alpha and Birde, also joined in and they were great to see. We did a whole bunch'a events together, including a panel for his YouTube smash-hit, two 4-hour long screenings of his videos...even some autographs! All of which, were PACKED. We also did a dramatic reading with a few other friends, plus I sold some of my drawings for the "Leather Pants" music video (Thanks, those who bought 'em!). Martin, you really kicked ass this weekend, thanks for everything!

Karl "Uncle Yo!" Kuster - This guy is HILARIOUS. We had the chance to hang with Karl at AnimeMilwaukee one night and he was incredibly entertaining to us all. At NEXT we really got to bond with him, laughing all the way thanks to his uplifting personality...and jokes about stabbing. Buy his comedy routines on disc, seriously. He also recorded a bunch of us after seeing Toy Story 3, which was the perfect way to end the weekend, then took the train back with me to NYC as we geeked out about various things. You're a riot, dude.

The BigBaldBroadcast Crew (Kyle Hebert & Marc Swint) - Always seen around cons, Kyle's also always a fun guy. Marc, his engineer for the Big Bald Broadcast, is also a hard-worker, a talented actor I work with, and a tremendous friend for constantly getting me out of technical hitches. Kyle invited me and Martin to be on his Big Bald Broadcast recording during one of the panels, which was really cool and we all geeked out about anything from childhood toy collections to favorite cons. Thanks for the opportunity guys!

Tony Oliver - I had met Tony briefly a few times at other conventions, but this time we really got talkin'. After he inadvertedly learned I made Go! Go! Parody Rangers during Kyle's panel, at first I was horrified, but was then overjoyed to hear he liked it! The Producer of the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers saw my stupid cartoon from 4 years ago and DIDN'T think it was a giant load of garbage. GASP. Near the end of the con, we traded a bunch'a stories and he told me lots of funny mishaps while working on the show and even the Ivan Ooze Movie. Tony's the bomb.

Dave Lister & Chris Malone - Two talented artists that I had also met briefly at other cons, but again got to really know them this year at NEXT. Dave, in the midst of taking care of his beautiful new baby daughter, threw a badass Pokemon party for one of the panels. I, plus a surprise Michelle Knotz (voice of Jessie and Piplup), were invited on and had a great time, watchin' the games occur, singin' songs and all that jazz. I didn't get to hang with them as long as I had hoped, but they were awesome nonetheless. Thanks guys!

There were plenty of others I was happy to see, including several fans of all the stuff I've been producing for the last several years. It meant a lot to meet people that just flat out enjoy the stuff I do and made the weekend even better than it already was! Hitting the ground running with more work on Parody Rangers, as I may be able to meet the July deadline I set for myself. Still more work to be done at EduWare, too, but nothing to showcase regarding those minigames just yet, as the programmings being handled as we speak. I've got even more conventions to look forward to now, so I'll be sure to buzz about 'em later. Off I go!

NEXT time...

2010-06-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

Summer's only a month in and I'm glad of it!

Even with all the stuff I've been doing, I feel like May might've been a slower start than I would've liked. Now that June's come though, I feel far more productive and busier than ever. Been pulling as many hours at EduWare as I can manage, starting to draw on the train rides there and back every chance I get, working on some animation stuff at least a little bit every day, doing a lot of new voiceover excercises. So much, it feels amazing!

So speaking of EduWare, you guys may finally get the chance to see some of the stuff I've done for them; in a very interesting way too. The project I've been focusing on for them this Summer has been a collection of original mini-games, based after the characters from "The EduGame!" product. I'm doing quite a few at the moment, including but not limited to: "Fall of the Snowflake", "Smiley Seeker", "Beaver Bash" and "Fishbone Frenzy". I'll be kept busy all Summer with these, which is good news for my wallet at the very least. However, these are some fun little games, about as quick and simple as a Mario Party mini-game. The Snowflake one is nearly finished, so once these start getting posted on the EduWare site, I'll throw you guys a link to check 'em out. Granted, you'll have to answer some questions to get the chance to play 'em, but a little educational value never hurt anyone, right?

In the realm of voiceover, I'm happy to announce not only my next gig, but my first Video Game gig of all things! Ayu Sakata, one of the awesome creative minds at Sakevisual Studios, has just released the Murder Mystery Game "Jisei", which went on sale at Oni-con a little while ago. I play Detective Mikolaj Gurski, who's always there to help out the player in their endeavors towards finding the crook who done it! It's available for purchase for PC, Mac & Linux, I highly reccomend it, if anything to support the very talented creators that put it together! The voice cast also includes Micah Solusod ("Soul" on Soul Eater) and Kira Buckland ("Eri" on Aika R-16 Virgin Mission). Check it out! ;]

Enough of these games! Animation now! Rob Kohr's film, "The Lift" is hitting the festival circuit across the US. Rob's launched an official site all about it; I'm honored to be linked on there amongst the credits page! If you guys get any chance to see the finished version of this baby, PLEASE take it. It's a gorgeous cartoon. On my front, still toiling away at the Rangers Movie. Just hit the halfway point now, definitely keeping up with my vow to finish at least one scene per week. Make sure to subscribe to the blog if you want constant updates about it! My other big secret project is also slowly but surely getting done. Once we reach a certain point to where I can say it's essentially finished, I'll make the announcement for it here. If all goes well, it may even be showcased at an upcoming convention!

Speaking of, AnimeNEXT< in Somerset, NJ is fastly approaching! I'm not a special guest at this one, but I'll be doing a few panels throughout that weekend (June 18-20). Martin will be doing a YGO:A Panel, which I'll be on with him along with Kroze, plus Kyle Hebert will be doing a live recording of an episode of the Big Bald Broadcast! Martin and I will be on that as well, along with Tony Oliver and the talented Uncle Yo!. If you're going to AnimeNEXT, be sure to stop and say hi!

Last thing I'll mention is the $5 Commission deal I'm doing on Fiverr.com throughout the month of June: a sketch of a character of your choice, Parody Rangers-style, plus a preview of Parody Rangers: THE MOVIE Part 3's animation! Every little bit helps and I sincerely appreciate all of the support and feedback from you guys. Gotta get back to work already, latah!

To Sum-mer Everything Up...

2010-05-10T11:05:00.000-07:00

Done at last! This is the first Monday I've had in a good while where I'm not gonna be drawing naked people for five hours!

School ended on a great note. Spent a lotta time with all the friends I've made since we started 3 years ago, had a blast at Zach Bellissimo's End-of-the-Year Party, toured around NYC with someone very special, saw the Dusty's screening for this year's graduating students and had a couple fond farewells with food from my favorite diners. 3rd Year at SVA was really somethin' else and thanks everyone who made it so great for me. :]

Got so much lined up already, even with school finished. I'm heading STRAIGHT back to EduWare and puttin' my giant nose to the grindstone with work for the entirety of the Summer. I can't say for sure until I get there, but I may have some particularly cool things happening there that may interest people that follow my stuff online, but we'll see...

As for my online stuff, FINALLY finished the long-awaited music video LittleKuriboh commissioned me to animate a few months back. Due to several unfortunate things, GAMM-EXPO was canceled and obviously we're no-long showing it there for the big premiere, but no worries! As its just hit the front page and you guys can tell, "Leather Pants" has had its first showing right here on Newgrounds when LK and I submitted it last night! It's also now available to view on the official website and YouTube. The MP3 will also be downloadable soon. Once again, big thanks to LK for the honor of working with him and being a part of his YouTube phenomenon that's taken the net by storm and thrust Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise back into our minds.

The music video, which for those who didn't know is a parody of Lady GaGa's "Bad Romance" as sung by two Yu-Gi-Oh! characters, was easy and really fun for me to work on. Seeing the reaction from people at a few cons, where they witnessed the work-in-progress version, was also a real treat for me to see instant gratification by the followers of LK's work. Those who was happy to see him and I teaming up for a creative effort like this will have more to look forward to in the future, as we may be doing some even cooler things for everyone far past simply parodies. Time will tell...

With the start of the Summer vacation for me, I'm already carefully planning out how I'm gonna go about everything until I head back for my final year in September. Plenty of pre-production work to do on my Thesis, which I'm gonna put full force into. Also I'll be starting on the final part of the Parody Rangers Feature, so keep an eye out on the official production blog for updates and other fun things. The audio for Part 3 has already been cut together, so the animation process will be underway soon enough. This one's gonna have a lotta cool little cameos I think you guys'll get a kick out of.

I may have another BIG announcement for everyone on here soon, but I can't give the word until everything's set in place. Trust me though, it's amazing...

We're at the Homestretch!

2010-04-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

My 3rd Year's just about at its end...

Only one assignment and one class left before I'm all finished. It's been a crazy year and as expected, SO much has happened. Now that I've completed all the preparation for my fourth and final year, the most difficult of them all, I can finally showcase some of the stuff I've been doing lately! I've submitted a couple things to my NEO-C Gallery.

First off, a new 30-second short film: "Scaredy Cat". The concept came from a video clip found by Scott Frerichs, about a tiger that was too scared to come down from its artificial habitat in a Christian zoo, while another tiger looks up at him, confused. Scott recorded a short voice clip, making a conversation between the two Tigers. I asked if I could animate it into a quick cartoon and this was what we got! It was a lotta fun to animate and got a few laughs, so I'm certainly proud of it. :]

Second, I've finally worked up enough material to submit a demo reel of some of the animations I've done for my workshop classes under Celia Bullwinkel for the last two years. There were a whole bunch of assignments I had to choose from, so I picked seven of my favorites. There were two lipsynch ones I really wanted to include, but they feature a character from my Thesis, of which I'd rather not show online until the time is right, so I dis-included those. Regardless, there's some neat stuff in there so check it out!

Still plenty of stuff for me to be taking care of though. My music video for LittleKuriboh, "Leather Pants" is nearly complete and looking pretty damn funny so far. It's gotten great reactions at both AnimeMilwaukee and most recently Kami-con where Martin showcased it...as well as a trailer for the upcoming Season 3 of his YouTube smash-hit, featuring the voice of a certain someone. "Leather Pants" will most likely be submitted online first instead of being premiered at a con, but we'll see how it goes. Either way it'll be submitted first right here on Newgrounds, so look out for it!

Starting tomorrow night I'll be taking a full week off from everything, since someone very special's coming to NY for a visit and I'm putting all of my side-stuff on hold until then. Afterward I'll finish up Leather Pants and begin working on Part 3 of the Parody Rangers Feature. Headin' back to EduWare for more work over the Summer too, plus several conventions, more pre-production work on my Thesis...and hopefully some other big news. To everyone else in my classes, cheers to a kickass 3rd Year and here's hopin' we kick even more ass next year!

ConMan.EXE

2010-03-28T15:25:00.001-07:00

...have I ever mentioned that I love conventions?

Seriously, there was a very short time in my life a few years ago where I thought I was growing sick of going to Anime Conventions, or really just cons in general, but the last couple years have been incredible regarding my experiences at them. Granted there'll always be a tad hint of bullcrap along the way, but never anything big enough to ruin an all-around amazing weekend.

I had the pleasure of attending AnimeMilwaukee a couple weekends ago alongside LittleKuriboh and company, as well as several prolific Voice Actors, which was a tremendous honor. I did a whole bunch of panels, ranging from Voiceover panels with Todd Haberkorn, Wendy Powell and Chris Sabat, to Martin's panels all about his amazing YouTube sensation. I got to showcase There Was This One Time on a big screen at one of the panels, and we showcased the Work-In-Progress "Leather Pants" YGO:Abridged/Lady Gaga parody music video three times over the course of the weekend! It got a HUGE reaction from people, tons of hysterical laughter all around, I was so proud of the turn-out! The staff were all incredibly friendly, professional and accommodating to our needs. I definitely hope to come back next year, thanks everyone who showed up to our panels and thanks to all of the great friends I went with. :]

That's certainly not the end of it though, I've got a few more lined up for the Summer. I'll be attending the GAMM-EXPO in Orlando, Florida during June 4-6, followed up by AnimeNEXT on June 18-20. Then, in August, I was JUST today announced as a guest at AnimeEvolution in Vancouver, BC up in Canada, which I'm the most excited about visiting! Getting to meet such talented people from all across the country (and others, in some cases!) has been an honor and a privilege, not to mention a great networking opportunity. That said, I've got a LOT to look forward to this Summer once class is up.

Speaking of, 3rd Year's only another measly month or so from being done. I've just begun to start on my 30-second short film for my animation workshop, which I'll be most likely be submitting to my NEO-C Account, as well as a collection of all the random school assignments I've done over the last couple years. Should be fun, so look forward to those. I'm continuing to work on the "Leather Pants" video LK commissioned me to animate him and we're aiming it to be done by June so we can premiere it at GAMM-EXPO. I'm gonna be finishing that first and foremost as far as side projects go, but Parody Rangers: THE MOVIE - Part 3 will start being worked on in May, once school is out. The secret collab is continuing to be worked on all the while...stay with it.

Other stuff...I did another interview on 9.18 THE FAN recently as part of "Pokemon Week", which speaking of, I've been playing the crap out of since I picked up HeartGold. Between that game and picking up a copy of the beautiful Rockman.EXE Official Complete Works Artbook at Kinokuniya recently, it's been quite a trip down memory lane as of late. Just about to meet up with my Thesis Advisor tomorrow to plan for the next school. SVA's 2011 Graduating class is gonna rock the house with our amazing line-up of Thesis cartoons. YOU KNOW IT.

Spring Break Announcements!

2010-02-27T19:25:00.000-08:00

A LOT has happened since the last update...

...namely my Laptop got infected with viruses and had to be wiped and backed up TWICE in the span of a month. Big thanks to Marc Swint and Marc Levy for helping me out so much with all the technical mumbo jumbo I REALLY need to start learning myself.

Anyway! So class is already almost done and I can hardly believe it. We've got another week before Spring Break, then one more month and a half before my 3rd Year at SVA is all done. I've been animating quite a bit for various things, but my schoolwork has been the best stuff I've ever done. I'm getting really confident about my thesis and am attempting to plan out all of the pre-production stuff to do the summer in between all of my other projects. I'm continuing to work on the secret collab that will hopefully be finished before the school year is over (end of April-early May) and I have a music video I'll be doing for the awesome LittleKuriboh before then as well.

Something's missing...PARODY RANGERS! It's coming up on a full year since Part 2 of the Movie came out in all it's orgasmic "glory". My stance is that I still want to finish it and put a cap on the Parody Rangers series as I had intended to from the beginning. I've edited together all of the audio for Part 3, which will run about 18 minutes in length, and I plan on try to bust it out at the beginning of the Summer. It's gonna be tough, since I'll have two big conventions I'll be attending during that time, as well as prepping for my thesis, not to mention the uncertainty of if I can get all this OTHER stuff done before the school year's finished. It's gonna be a doozey, but I'll try my best as always.

Meanwhile on Cartoon Network, Khoury's just about to finish up his 5 Episode run by next weekend's Saturday morning. It's been a good run, my family and friends have gotten a huge kick outta hearing me on TV and even just seeing Pokemon for the first time in years. Thanks to getting the part, I recently did an interview on 9.18 THE FAN where I got to plug some of my Newgrounds stuff. That and I'm also going to Anime Milwaukee as a guest alongside LK himself, as well as the likes of Chris Sabat and Vic Minoganoganoganoga. It'll be on the release weekend of Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver just after Khoury's final episode, March 12-14. If you'll be attending, come to the Voice Actor Panels and the Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged Panels where we'll be doin' all sorts of neat stuff as usual! :]

That's all for now, but plenty more things to come...

"Cool! A Carnivine!"

2010-02-09T14:11:00.000-08:00

Everything is pretty awesome right now. :]

Seriously, I've never been happier right now. School's been going better than ever before and I'm plotting far ahead for everything I wanna do with my life over the next year and a half. There's a few hitches here and there, but nothing too bad to stop me from feeling this great about everything. For the time being, I'm mostly doing assignments for class and random drawings here and there, with bigger stuff being worked on for the coming months. This weekend I'll be going to Katsucon in Maryland for a bit of networking on something really cool. Wish me luck on that!

Also, FINALLY the episode is officially up and streaming on Cartoon Network's streaming site, so for those who missed it, I can officially say I'm voicing Khoury (Kazunari in the original Japanese) on Pokemon: DP Galactic Battles! I recorded his episodes last year and at long last they're airing on CN Saturday mornings. Khoury and his gal-pal, Lyra (from Pokemon: HeartGold & SoulSilver) will be joining Ash & friends for about five episodes, which is about a month's worth, to promote the new game coming out in March! It was a huge honor and a lotta fun to play the little Pokemon Breeder in-the-making on a show I grew up with for a decade of my life. Hope you guys enjoy him! :]

What's happenin'?

2010-02-01T17:49:00.000-08:00

So much to do!

School's been nuts since I got back. Really fun new classes and even funner assignments in my old ones. Doing a lotta things at once, but as always it's good to be busy. As I'm writing this, my regular net access is down while I'm at school, aside from being able to log onto AIM and Skype. It's inconvenient as all get-out, but at least it's keeping me semi-productive. Thankfully the school's got lots of computers around to check up on things, so...yay?

Rob Kohr's film is nearly complete. I'm up to my neck in coloring a bunch of shots for it. I think it'll only be a couple more weeks until it's all done, but I'm not sure if it'll be up publicly since he may be running it in festivals. Once I find out I'll definitely post more info; I think you guys'll really dig it. T'was a big honor to be part of such a visually-appealing animation project. Props to Rob. :]

Speaking of honors, one of my biggest honors for the past year is finally coming to fruition! My first episode of Pokemon Diamond & Pearl: Galactic Battles, will be airing this weekend on Cartoon Network! Saturday, Feb. 6th @ 7:00 AM (then again on Sunday, Feb. 7th @ 7:30 PM) and then most likely on the Pokemon section of CN's streaming site. It's US Episode 605 "An Egg Scramble". I'll post more about the character after they've premiered, but you guys'll probably recognize me as soon as they speak.

Still workin' on a few secret projects, one of which I'm glad is being kicked into high gear this month. Still not sure of a release date on that, but it's gonna be amazing. I'm really proud of what's come of it so far. Slowly building up to my thesis too. Pre-production on that will start over the Summer; I'm the most excited for that above all else.

Hope all's well with people and stay tuned~

Short-but-Sweet Vacation

2010-01-12T05:40:00.000-08:00

Those couple weeks flew by, but I'll never forget 'em.

I'm already back in action for the new semester at school and I've got a LOT on the horizon to take care of. But, I'm on a normal sleep schedule (good sign) and rarin' to go for my new classes. I wish I had more time over the break to work on stuff, since I wasn't nearly as productive as I was hoping, but regardless, this vacation was somethin' else. Christmas passed, MAGFest was a blast and my last week before coming back to the city flew by in an instant...but every day was an absolute joy.

Once again, I gotta hand it to KROOOZE and all of the lovely staffers running MAGFest for giving me the chance to have such an amazing weekend. For MAGFest being a smaller-scale con compared to others, these people do a top-notch job. The whole thing took place at a hotel that apparantly looks like the covenant from Half-Life 2 (Hi! I'm Chris and I don't play mainstream video games! Derp.) with a very nice setup for all parties involved.

New Years Eve was a smashin' party complete with the voice of Duke Nukem doing the countdown into a "Happy Fuckin' New Year". Then I was happy to have my group of pals to hang with involving the two british gents, Martin (LittleKuriboh) and Lawrence (MasakoX) as well as Mart's two friends Carolyn and Ashley, who were nice enough to record a lot of our stupid antics and adventures throughout the con on video (a bunch of 'em are on YouTube already). I was also honored to be on a few panels with LK and Masako, including a couple of their panels, a Voice Actor panel (which included Jon St. John and Matt Mercer, both of whom are very awesome) and my spotlight panel where I showcased a bunch of my animated works. Thanks everyone who came to our panels and we hope y'all had a great time! :]

Con-stuff aside, we also had many misadventures while staying at the Hilton involving a fire-alarm on the first night, journeying through blistering cold to find a cab after dinner another night...and even getting into a car accident (no one was hurt) on the way to see Avatar the last morning! (That said, NO I haven't seen Avatar.)

So now that I'm back in action, I have a lot of things planned up until the Summer. Speaking of, there's a strong possibility of appearing at a few other conventions in the near future, but I'll post more of that when I hear anything definite. Meantime, I've got more coloring on Rob Kohr's film to take care of, a super-secret project that will hopefully be finished in the coming months and more schoolwork of course. Once Summer 2010 hits, I have to focus ALL of my energy into one specific project, while I'll go into a bit later.

Hope everyone had an amazing Holiday and here's to a badass 2010 for us all!

Decemberending!

2009-12-27T10:17:00.001-08:00

So the holidays come to a close and December's on its way out...

T'was a pretty full month, even during the holidays for me. Finished up all of my school stuff and looks like I got some damn good grades for all that ridiculous amount of work, phew! Christmas was fun, as were the parties and get-togethers that preceded it, but I'm hittin' the ground running and tryin' to work on stuff as much as I can over the next couple weeks 'til I go back for my next semester.

This'll be my last blog post for the year, so I won't have anything else to report until after January begins, but my 21st Birthday this Thursday's gonna be a blast with the MAGFest New Years Eve party! I was added to the guest page finally and I've already been set for a few panels. I'll have my own spotlight one where I'll be showcasing lots of animation stuff I've been working on, along with a few big announcements, then Masako and I will be on LittleKuriboh's Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged panel which'll be sure to make a big splash. Lastly, he and I will be part of a really neat panel with John St. John and Matt Mercer that I'm super excited to be part of. All of those who can attend this year, I can't wait to see ya! This'll be an experience and a half.

2009 is quite a great year for animation. Fantastic Mister Fox was my absolute fav this year, with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs as a close second. Disney did some amazing stuff of course with Up and Princess & the Frog, the latter of which I've seen 3 times over the last month and loved it each time. Pokemon had an awesome 12th flick in Arceus and the Jewel of Life and Coraline was really memorable, espcially for a few friends of mine. I hope 2010'll top this year but that's gonna be a tough line-up to beat.

That said, I hope y'all had a great December and I'll say right now, I've gotta LOT of really cool things in store for next year. I'm gonna work real hard and make sure I get done exactly what I need to do. Wish me luck and see ya in 2010 kids. :]

Busiest December EVER.

2009-12-13T00:28:00.000-08:00

Okay really, I love December...

...but this may be THE busiest end of the year I've had in my life. I finally know the pain of Mike Luckas and the other SVA Cartooning majors with their ridiculous amounts of homework. SO much stuff to do...and schoolwork is only half of it! I've gotta ton due by the 16th and even more to finish before the month is up.

In the midst of the chaos, I managed to do a quick little cartoon for the holidays, thanks to creator Scott Frerichs of DBZ Abridged fame, for coming up with a funny little piece of fake commercial copy that I thought was BEGGING to be brought to life. Scott recorded it for me and I finished it in a couple days, came out pretty nicely and he and our friends all seemed to enjoy it! That and I had completely forgotten about the NG Winter contest, so that was a nice bonus too. Also I hope those who watched and were offended by any of the content will know that Scott and I don't mean any of it offensively and that Jesus Sweets was done all in good fun.

I've also gotta lotta stuff to prepare for MAGFest at the beginning of next year. Most likely I'll be doing my own panel where I'll have some stuff to showcase and a few things to announce, but I'll also be part of a few other panels that are focused on certain other guests...some surprises are in store, oh yes. :] Seriously, if you can make it to this con, do it. It's gonna be worth it.

Now I'm gonna go collapse, do some last second X-mas shopping and work my ass off on BACKGROUNDS OF ALL KINDS. HOORAY. Also thanks very much to all of the kinds folks who've supported and purchased the Parody Rangers t-shirts as well as the nice comments. I appreciate it :]

TEE-SHOITZ!

2009-11-29T20:38:00.000-08:00

Go! Go! Parody Rangers T-shirts are now up for Pre-Order!

...on the ever-so-amazing Sharkrobot! Available in delicious Meat & Renaldo flavors! Part of a balanced breakfast, contains Vitamin B for BADASS. Go up to evil's face and go BIZZAM or decorate your torso with the face of the greatest man ever. Makes for a great holiday gift!

BIG thanks to Snafu-Dave for makin' this happen for Psy and I. For my first t-shirt designs I think they turned out okay. I'm really proud of Meat and Renaldo as characters and I know they're some of the big fan-favorites, so I hope the Rangers fanbase get a kick outta these and help support us! :]

Also if you guys who follow and enjoy my animation work have any ideas for other t-shirt that you'd be interested in seeing on the site, lemme know and we'll talk about additions to the store. Hope all's well with people and that your holiday season is kickass. I'm starting off this December with my second recording session, as mentioned last post, so I'm excited to kick-start what's usually my favorite month.

Up to speed~

2009-11-22T14:19:00.000-08:00

So lots 'o stuff has happened in the past month!

I've been continuing with various school projects and I've decided to compile of all of 'em all together at the end of my 3rd year, which will be in early May of next year. After that I'll be going full-throttle with my thesis in the following 4th and final year, but by that point I'll have plenty of material to put into a little reel of various animations I've done over the course of my three years at SVA.

In the meantime, I'm thankful to say I've got another set of shots to color for my freelance job on the side from schoolwork. I've often spoken of Rob Kohr's independent film, "Once and Never Again" (which may be getting a title change to "The Lift") and perfect timing: Rob's been uploading some videos of the WIP
cartoon. This one in particular you can see a bit of the coloring work I've done!

I've also been fortunate enough to double a few of my assignments for Celia Bullwinkel's class with some animation I've been doing on my current super-secret project. I should be able to finish one complete part of it by the time I finish this semester and hopefully production will kick into full gear over the next couple of months. I'll also be officially announcing what the project is at...

MAGFest! The Music and Gaming Festival taking place over 4 Days (Jan 1 - 4, 2010) in Alexandria, VA. I'll be making my first official guest appearance at this convention right at the start of the new year! I'll be there alongside the likes of LittleKuriboh, Jon St. John and the creators of ThereWillBeBrawl...Best...Birthday Present...EVER. All thanks to KROOOOOOOOZE.

I'm also very honored to say that I've just recorded my first professional voiceover gig on a show that I grew up with for over an entire decade. It took a long while before all the stars and planets aligned in just the right pattern to help me luck out...but ladies and gents, I've landed a guest character on the Pokemon animated series! I can't go into any detail about the character until after their appearance in the show, but once I have the exact date of the premiere, I'll post with a bigger update on that. I -think- I should be on around February, we'll see.

Lastly, Christmas vacation's coming up and I've still got so much to do. I really wanted to try and finish Go! Go! Parody Rangers THE MOVIE Part 3 while I'm home and have a spare month to do so...but, I still have a huge desire to finish the original game concept I came up with along with Richie Zirbes, who've been dedicating a LOT of time into the programming of this action-packed adventure. I feel like an original project should heavily take precedence over all else, so I'll be working a lot on the cutscenes for the game during that time instead. Sorry GGPR fans, but hopefully I'll get to the rest of the movie eventually!

P.S. I may have a liiiittle somethin' planned for Christmas. Look forward to that ;]

Skoolwerkz

2009-10-24T23:12:00.001-07:00

Takes me another month to make a journal entry, joyous.

But, I'm havin' the time of my life right now, so hopefully it's forgivable. No, I'm not dead! Really! Well, maybe. Wait...no. Okay.

So I promised I'd upload some schoolwork and I figured this'd be a good opportunity to show some of the crap I've been up to. So far we've done three homework assignments for the class and are already working on the fourth. Here's what I got for ya:

Our first two assignments went hand-in-hand; they were exercises in character design, which I gotta huge kick out of. First, we picked an animal of our choice and were asked to draw as many designs as we could manage; typically around 10 from everyone. I had taken some photos of the cat often seen at our local art store and had them on hand as reference. So while a cat is usually a bit generic of an animal, I went more in-depth with it and tried to apply a specific personality to character. After choosing our favorite design of the bunch, we were asked to create at least ten different poses of them displaying as much of their personality as possible. I think I did about 16 or so and put my favorites in the final collage.

Our third assignment was the first piece of animation we produced for the class, which was to have a character carry a heavy object from one side of the screen to another. I went an extra mile and did two characters, with one of the two having two different animations. This was a good exercise for getting me back into the animation spirit, since I hadn't done any -real- movement in quite a while. Not bad for a start, I hope. Our next assignment is to make a fat character sit in order to display a sense of weight in appliance to the character itself, as opposed to them interacting with weight of another source.

In between the stuff such as this, I've been still working on a big secret project, which I've been applying some of the new stuff I've learned. It's not turning out too bad at all and I've got some good feedback, so I'm real excited about this one, oh yes. Also, mostly thanks to a certain class of mine, I've been doing some MAJOR networking...in fact I've gotta little meeting this coming Teusday I'm very looking forward to. We'll see how that goes. Still got other stuff in the pipeline and doing my best to keep track of it all.

Happy Halloween this weekend, kiddo's!

Orders 'n Business

2009-09-29T00:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, first and foremost...dear internet:

Specifically everyone who uses Facebook that knows me, anyone who you've friended or has tried to friend you who goes by "Chris Niosi", is NOT me. I DO have a Facebook account, but it's under a fake name, mainly for privacy issues, but also because Facebook isn't really "for me". I use the account for specific purposes, but flat out, I do not have an account labelled with my name. So to the many I've spoken to who're like "why won't you friend me back!?" it's not me. There we go!

ANYWHO. So New York Anime Fest was great yet again. Had a lotta fun as I did the previous two years, did a little bit of networking, made some new friends and hung out with a few I haven't seen in quite a while, though I was glad to have a lot of the same company as last year's con. Good to see Crystal Lonnquist, Lucien Dodge, Casey Mongillo and the like. I also dragged Mike Ruocco along with me on Saturday to see the American premiere of Soul Eater, which is awesome. I met the cast of the show and the director, gave 'em some nice gifts of which they very much enjoyed too!

Aside from that I've gone through about 3 full weeks of school thus far...and I don't mind saying at all that's been freaking GREAT. Truthfully, I've been "unproductive" in the sense of online projects; I haven't touched Parody Rangers or the Po3 game in quite a while now. The only side project I've been doing any work on as of late is the super secret thingamabob, which for now mainly concerns overseeing other people's work until I get going on my contribution. Point is, I like not being tied down to a million things at the moment and primarily focusing on schoolwork and just livin' life. Plenty of close friends living in the general area, or close enough to where I see them on a regular basis. Odd's are, over the Christmas vacation I'll "get back to work" on certain things and I'd dare to say before then I'll be doing work on some stuff, but we'll see. Regardless, I feel great and just wanna keep pressing forward. I've come to grips with a lot of personal stuff about my future and what exactly I wanna do as far as a career goes. Still plenty to sort out, but I'm tryin' to stay level-headed and logical about everything.

I'll be uploading some stuff from school soon most likely. Thanks for readin'!

Survival

2009-09-17T07:42:00.000-07:00

I've made it through nearly two weeks of school so far.

I LOVE being back in NYC on a regular basis. While I've not quite reached the point where I'm sustaining myself on my own income, at the very least living in a dorm here in NY feels great and gives me a sense of responsibility. I've had all five of my classes for this semester at least once so far, all of which have been very beneficial. Advanced Life Drawing and Layout & Design are workshops for exactly what they mean, giving me crunch-time on major stuff I need to work on. My main class, Advanced Animation Workshop, which I'll be taking once again with Celia Bullwinkel (who's also teaching a 3rd Year class for the first time!), is crunch-time for everything I've learned. Light & Color is my one humanity or "regular school class" as I often slang-term them to others, but it doesn't seem like it'll provide too much distraction. I'm glad most of all to be taking the elective Developing An Animated Series in which to focus on what I wanna do with my art, stories and characters most of all. I'll probably be posting a lot of the stuff I'm doing for school here, so those've you who have any interest can check it out.

I'm starting to have to put a lot of things on hold, but I AM continuing to try to work on stuff on a daily basis and keep track of it all. I'm overseeing a big group project and sending out material for people to work on in hopes that I can that relased at a reasonable time from now. I'm also continuing to work on Rob Kohr's film which is coming along nicely and helping me maintain a small amount of income while at school (it's a bit more difficult for me to keep up a normal job while I'm here). He's looking into showcasing his film at one of the ASIFA events coming up, which is gonna be amazing, so look forward to that...among other things. We'll see.

I also wanna start making more blog entries on specific subjects that hopefully I may end up getting more feedback on. With my thesis coming up next year and a lot of really in-depth things about animation flying around in my brain I'm curious on as getting as many retrospectives as possible. Time will tell.

Later kids!

Third Time's the Charm

2009-09-04T16:15:00.000-07:00

What a Summer, yet another already come and gone.

I wasn't NEARLY as productive as I wanted to be this season, but what I -did- get accomplished I'm very proud of. I'm glad I got my writing spark rekindled, had a ton of fun with character designing, did a few storyboards and a just a tad of animation. Nothing fully completed, sadly, but PLENTY in the works.

The game I'm working on for Newgrounds' Power of Three Event definitely ain't comin' out at its appropriate time, but Richie and I refuse to give up. We'll most likely be continuing production on it over the Fall in bits and pieces because we think it's a great concept that shouldn't simply be abandoned. I think it'll be something that will really surpise people, especially from the standpoint of a flash game. Meanwhile I've also started production on a BIG new project involving some close and INCREDIBLY talented friends. I'm actually not sure which project will finish and release first, but both are -very- worth looking forward to.

The Summer's been fun AND draining. I've made new friends, lost a few, revived friendships and relations with many people that I'm very grateful and appreciative for. There's been some sickness issues at home between my getting my first cold in a long while, not to mention my mom's condition, but she'll be fine thankfully. Also Comic-con was still amazing. I think the filthy laziness bug will be sprayed off once school starts in a few days. I'm just about to move back to my dorm in NYC and despite some small concerns, I've gotta damn good schedule of classes this year. I'm also glad to have a couple 'o Mikes around the area to hang with, eat with and watch ridiculous amounts of stupid animated movies with.

I've got high hopes for the future and plan on goin' full-throttle with this next year of school at SVA, hopefully doing even better than last year and the year before it. Wish me luck!

San Diego: 2nd Wind

2009-08-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

We're back!

...and NOT like the Dinosaurs! Seriously though, not touching the internet for a solid week is...scary, but refreshing. Going to the opposite side of the country for something a 'lil more important justs makes ya all "other worldy". I swear, the group I roll with always wants to just STAY in San Diego and never go back to NY...and frankly I don't blame 'em, this place is drop-dead gorgeous.

Comic-con 2009 was amazing; topped last year's in a lotta ways, too. I travelled with a heftier group 'o chums this time and met up with several more upon getting to San Diego...which I swear half of us didn't wanna leave once the trip was over. I had the honor of meeting a WHOLE slew of people this year, not simply from my homebrew of Newgrounds, but some great folks working at Cartoon Network, a truckload of different voice actors and other really talented artists scattered about the con. Ended up buying a lot more this year too, but I got a nice haul of DVDs and comics.

Took a bunch'a pictures this time too, be sure to check 'em out!

Also thanks to the godly productions of Overnightprints I managed to scrounge up a bunch of business cards to bring with me and as with last year I'm glad to say I've dished out well over half of them to people these past 10 days. Not only that, I stayed productive and tried drawing as much as I could with two sketchbooks on-hand. Here's a few key points of interest:

- Thursday, we all met the Cartoon Network triple threat of C.H. Greenblatt, Thurop Van Orman and Penn Ward, the last of which threw an "Awesome Beach Party of Awesomeness" not far from the Con center. All sorts of cool folks there ranging from fans of the shows, to fellow artists, to working professionals on Flapjack and Adventure Time. Thurop was so gracious to everyone throwin' fanart his way and conversin' about the biz and Penn was a great host to everyone who came to join. Adventure Time's gonna rock the house.

- On Friday, of all things, I met Stan Lee. The Viz Media panel had a big focus on the manga "Ultimo", conceptualized by the man himself and brought to life by Hiroyuki Takei of "Shaman King" fame. I thought that series was really underappreciated and was glad to see him working again, plus Ultimo looks fantastic. The friend that attended the panel and I got tickets for their autographs later on and shook hands with the masters, HUGE honor right there.

- Newgrounds/Behemoth did a bigger and better job this year with their entire set-up. The booth was gigantic and had tons of awesome exposure for their upcoming 3rd Game, which is mad fun to play, and Saturday Tom Fulp threw another party that was just as huge. Lots more guests this time around, including a few surprises. Met some great animators and artists I didn't catch last time and even met a few really nice Parody Rangers followers. There were lots of fans at the booth too, giving autographs is a rare treat and a humbling experience for me.

- Tara B. has tons of contacts out in Cali and across the world that I had the chance to join and converse with at different times. We had a big drawing session on Friday night with a whole slew of artists and we even made a mini-comic together spoofing Space Jam. Then Monday when the festivities was over and done with I met Ricky Garduno of Dumm Comics fame, who graciously treated us to the best freaking pancake breakfast I've ever had. Ever. Got tons of inside info about the industry, t'was a great cap off to the days that made up the con.

- In general I ran into lots and lots of people, expected and unexpected; Matt Mercer the co-director of "There Will Be Brawl" was a nice surprise, for one. Several members of my group actually met some of their biggest heroes. Ruocco and Corinne met "Bone" creator Jeff Smith. Zach and Tara met John K. and finally got the chance to know their biggest inspiration. For me, some BIG ones were John DiMaggio along with some legendaries of the Futurama cast...and right after that awesome pancake breakfast was Stan Freberg, voice of Pete Puma, one of my favorite Looney Toons. He and his wife were both really sweet, we traded business cards, talked for a bit, etc.

SO YEAH DID I MENTION IT WAS AMAZING.

Now that I'm back, there's no time to rest; all of August is gonna be crunch-time for me. I've still got two games to finish, for both the Power of Three event and the new side-scroller I pitched and started for EduWare. Plus, I'm conceptualizing and character designing a third one as we speak, but that may have to hold on for a bit. Got storyboards to draw up and audio to be spliced for various projects. Oy.

Thank you so much to everyone who made this weekend an absolute joy, I hope next year'll be even better!

Introductions are always awkward...

2009-07-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

Okay! So, now that my site's officially set, I'm expecting (more like hoping) that a few people will start to visit this blog a bit more, especially after I start dishing out business cards at San Diego Comic Con coming up in another few weeks.

So if you're new to these parts and have NO clue as to who I am, I'm Chris Niosi! I got by "Kirbopher" and occasionally "NEO-C" online and have been doing amateur animation work over the past 4 to 5 years. I'm just about to reach my 3rd year at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, I'm currently working for educational computer progam company EduWare as a general master of all things Flash animation for their various games and tours, as well as coloring frames of animation for an upcoming independant film by SVA Alumni, Rob Kohr. Outside of that, several cartoons I've created, directed or been involved with have made a decent killing around sites as Newgrounds, which are often gracious enough to sponsor my work. Some of my stuff's been seen across places such as DeviantArt, Fireball20xl and sometimes even 'ol YouTube.

A few of the more well-known toons I've done include the ongoing Go! Go! Parody Rangers, a spoof of the classic Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers franchise and Rawest Forest, a music video in tribute to the game Super Mario RPG. I was also in charge of production on an extremely popular collaboration called $00pah NiN10Doh!, a collection of short spoofs on various Nintendo games animated by myself and a number of talented animator friends of mine. More recently I've begun to focus attention on original projects for school and otherwise, of which I mainly post on my NEO-C gallery on Newgrounds. My latest would be my 2nd Year final project, a 2-minute film called "There Was This One Time".

I'm continuing to work on various side projects and am continuing to study animation in work and school. I'll be using this blog more from here on out, so be sure to check back often! There'll probably be stuff on my NG-Blog as well.

Official Blog

2009-06-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, finally, here we are. I've officially set up a blogspot for myself. For the time being I've been making posts on my Newgrounds blog, as well as making updates once in a blue moon on the Parody Rangers: THE MOVIE production blog, but now I'll have the chance to make an update system for anything and everything else. This'll be attached to the new website I'll be making soon, which I'll soon provide a link to. I'm also on Twitter, in case any of you are into that.