Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Indie Games Funded + TOME Episode 06 released!

Just a WEE BIT of an update!

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

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

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



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

Back to work for me!

Thursday, February 14, 2013

TOME Episode 06 at Kami-con tomorrow night!

Happy Valentine's Day, folks!

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



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

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

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



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

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



Saturday, February 2, 2013

Weebl & Cinema Snob Toons + AlmaCon Next Weekend!

Oh what's that? It's been a month and literally a million things have happened?

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


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


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


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

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

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

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

Oh and one last thing! I've had the privilege of working on several really cool video games since I got out of college, including Skullgirls, which just raised nearly $80,000 for Breast Cancer Research, as well as Crisis Heart Brawlers: Clash at Otakon, which is kicking back into production! Most recently however, I've been brought onto ANOTHER really awesome independent game project called "Cryamore", which is currently finishing up its first week with a kickstarter campaign that'll be going on until the end of this month. Currently it's pushed WELL beyond its intial goal of $60,000 and at the time of this post has reached $100,000 in backing! If we can double that amount in the time we have left, there's a very good chance it will be funded to get on major platforms like the Wii U. I'm working on the game as a character animator, as well as the voice/casting director. The game is an Action-RPG inspired by the likes of Zelda, MegaMan, Secret of Mana and general Steampunk awesomeness. It'll be featuring the voices of Erica Mendez, Kimlinh Tran and Marianne Miller as the three lead characters. Check out the kickstarter video for more details!

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