Release of NiN10Doh!: To the 64th Power!

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.

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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!"

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.

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!

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.

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...

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...

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.