This is what's called a Badass Weekend.

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...

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...

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!

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

...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!

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!"

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! :]