Vaguey-McVaguesville

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)

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!

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.

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

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

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"

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!