Reaction to Alan Wake Tribute:

To start off, the Alan Wake Tribute took me by surprise and did exceptionally well with it’s release! It’s all thanks to you guys and I can’t thank you enough for that. If you missed out on my latest animation, you can check it out here on the site, or either NewGrounds or YouTube. On NewGrounds, it received generally positive reviews and managed to get posted on the front page! That was a huge honor and I want to thank the staff at NewGrounds for being so kind. As of right now, the animation has received over 22,000 views on NewGrounds and over 6,000 views on YouTube. I also posted the animation on the official Alan Wake forums and it was noticed by the staff at Remedy Entertainment, who created the game. The staff commented and even provided some constructive criticism, which was really nice of them. Remedy’s community manager also noticed the tribute and posted it on their official Facebook and Twitter pages to share. That was another huge honor and I can’t thank them enough for doing that. They’re a really great team that actually communicates with their fans, which is a really nice thing to see. Needless to say, I’m really pleased with how the animation turned out and was received. It did everything that I could’ve possibly wanted it to and got some exposure, which hopefully gained some new fans. I just want to thank everyone out there who supported it and provided me with some great feedback. You guys are awesome and keep me moving forward, so thank you again!

What’s Next?

At the moment, I have no plans or ideas for future animations. I mainly want to focus on finishing this semester of college before starting any major projects. I haven’t even decided if my next animation will be another action animation, a funny cartoon, or something else entirely. We’ll see what happens. As soon as something pops into my head that I know I want to work on, I’ll be sure to start planning and let you guys know about it. I’m hoping that I’m not going through an animator’s block phase since I’ve just finished and released a long animation. Once this semester of school is finished, all I’ll have is work and free time, so I’ll have time to draw and come up with ideas. I might go for some simple shorts, but we’ll see what happens.

Defective Released!

This is a little late, but my good friend Ralph Damiano from ForTheLoss.org has recently released his new game, Defective on NewGrounds. Technically it’s not his newest game, but he’s had trouble finding a sponsor for it and wasn’t able to release it for some time. However, it’s finally here and it was well worth the wait! It’s a really fun shooter that’s definitely worth playing, so you should definitely check it out. Be sure to check out the other games on his website as well for some more great Flash games. He produces some quality games that are all worth checking out.

Going to Disney World:

Recently after visiting the Clay County Fair here in Florida, me, Abby, my brother, and sister in law have decided to plan a trip to Disney World in May. We had a lot of fun at the Fair and have wanted to go on a vacation for some time now. Well, an opportunity came up with my sister in law’s birthday on the 18th of May. The 18th is on a Friday, so we will be there from then until Sunday, the 20th. Disney also has a deal going on for three days for $99 admission until May 21st. It falls perfectly after our planned trip, so we’ll be taking advantage of that and spending the weekend in Orlando for the trip. Until then, we’re all saving up money and plan to split the costs for a hotel room while we’re there. We’re probably going to book the hotel soon, so the trip will be final. I’m really excited and it should be a lot of fun. It will be the first vacation that I spend with my girlfriend, Abby. Now I can’t wait until May!

Anyway, that’s pretty much what’s been going on with me lately. I might be drawing, but probably won’t have another animation started until my semester ends at the end of this month. If anything changes, I’ll be sure to let you guys know. I hope you enjoyed reading this massive post, but it’s been a while. Be sure to check out Defective and let Ralph know what you think of it. Until next time, I’ll catch you guys later!

Well, there’s not much I can think of to say right now. I really hope you guys enjoy the animation. Please check it out and comment, letting me know what you think. Until next time, I’ll catch you guys later!

Until it’s finished and released, that’s all I’ve got for you guys for now. I know I mentioned that I wouldn’t release any more screenshots, but I put a new screenshot as the image for this post. Feel free to comment on that and let me know what you guys think and if you’re excited for it’s release. I can’t wait to show everyone what I’ve been working on. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. You’ll hear from me when it’s released!

With the animation so close to being finished, that might be all of the screenshots I’ll show until it’s released. I may decide to release one or two more at the most, but we’ll see what happens. That’s all I’ve got for this post. I might be making another post soon about what’s been going on with my life, such as Valentine’s Day and other things. Stay tuned if you’re interested in that. Please leave a comment and let me know what you guys think of the screenshots. Catch you next time!

After using the Create for a few days, I can see that it’s also the case with this tablet. One side of the nib that I’ve been drawing on is already starting to flatten slightly. You can barely tell, but it’s there. I’m not sure how long one nib will last me, but after the three additional nibs that come with the Create wear out, I’ll have to buy new ones. It all depends on how often you draw and how hard you press down. That’s probably the only downfall with Wacom’s newer tablets, but you have to deal with it because just about all of their older models have been discontinued. The reason they wear so fast is because of the new textured surfaces of the tablets themselves. It’s not very noticeable with the touch of your hand, but when you draw it gives it a more realistic feel, as if you’re actually drawing on paper. That’s the good thing about the newer models. However, aside from the nibs issue I’ve been enjoying the tablet a lot. As I’ve mentioned, it has a much better feel and grip when drawing to help you produce better quality lines. I’ve definitely noticed a difference with the sensitivity and pressure levels since switching from my Graphire4. I’m able to draw thinner lines using lighter strokes much easier than I could with the Graphire4. This makes drawing a lot easier and it feels more natural. Overall, the Bamboo Create is certainly a great upgrade that I would recommend to anyone who’s looking for a high quality tablet. It might not have as many pressure levels as the Intuos4, but with a smaller price tag, you get what you pay for and more.

As for the Alan Wake Tribute, progress is still going smoothly. The animation is now 80% complete. It’s getting close and it feels great. I’d really like to have it done by the end of this month, but we’ll see how that goes. I don’t want to make any promises until I’m absolutely sure. For the next Alan Wake Tribute post, I’ll try to show off some screenshots and give more details about the status of it. Until then, I hope you guys enjoyed reading my thoughts on the Bamboo Create. Let me know what you think! I’ll catch you later.

As far as Christmas goes, I had a really great one. I got lots of cool gifts from Abby and my family, and had lots of fun spending time with everyone. I also got a surprise gift from Kohl’s (where I work) a few days after Christmas. I came into work to find out that my name was drawn for an associate appreciation contest we had for the entire district. You were entered into the contest if you worked the two days after Christmas. I worked both days, so my name was entered twice. Three winners were chosen with a prize of either a $500, $200, or $100 Visa card. I was in disbelief when they told me that I had won the $500 Visa card. Needless to say, I had an amazing day after hearing that. I’ve already managed to spend $100 of it on two pairs of Vans shoes. Me and Abby went to an outlet mall yesterday and today to shop around, where there’s a Vans outlet. Money well spent? Probably not.

In other news, I’m finally back on track with animating the Alan Wake Tribute. I admit, I was getting lazy with it there for a little while. School was over and I was just looking forward to the holidays. I actually got my head into gear and started working on it again before Christmas even arrived. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you might know some of the details already. The storyboard is now completely finished and I’ve started to work on the final scenes of the animation. With the storyboard complete, I can now properly calculate how much of the animation is finished. As of right now, the animation is 69% complete. (You can check out the image of this post for a screenshot of a newly completed scene.) It doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but I practically have this whole week off of work. I only work again on Tuesday for a small shift and school starts again for me next Monday. During this week, I’ll try my best to get a good chunk of work done. I stopped working for a while, but I’m gonna try to keep working on it as the days go by. I would really like to have it finished by February or March at the latest. As always, we’ll see what happens. Past “hope” release dates haven’t been so smooth, but I’ll try my best.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed reading this wall of text if you actually made it through the whole thing. I’m sorry for the lack of posts, but I’m also gonna try to manage that a little better as well. So expect more posts as I’m wrapping up the animation for the Alan Wake Tribute. If you want additional details on anything I’m doing, I usually update my Twitter more than anything else. You can follow me on there if you like. That’s all I’ve got for now, guys. Catch you later!

If you didn’t read my previous post, I talked about how I was going to storyboard the rest of the animation before I actually work on completing it. That’s all I’ve been doing lately. I have to say that it’s really turning out great and storyboarding is definitely helpful. I’m also getting plenty of work done for the final product, considering I’m working on syncing the storyboard to the music and adding sounds. By the time I’m finished with the storyboard, everything will be planned out and all of the audio should be synced and complete.

Right now, I’m about forty seconds into the storyboard, which is actually a good majority of the final scenes. Everything before that is done. It shouldn’t be much longer until the storyboard is complete and I can actually work on completing and polishing the final animation. Hopefully within the week. We’ll see how that turns out. Also, for anyone who is interested, I’ll be releasing the storyboard for the action sequence after the animation is finally released. I figured it would be interesting for anyone who likes that sort of thing. That’s all I’ve got for now. Until next time, I’ll catch you guys later!

(I should have another post up shortly about other things, so be sure to check that out too!)

As always, let me know what you guys think and please subscribe to my channel if you’re interested in seeing more videos like this. I’ll try to work on more as I progress with the animation. Until next time, I’ll catch you guys later!

In other news, my girlfriend just recently made a Tumblr and convinced me to get one too. If any of you have a Tumblr, you can visit mine here and I would love to have some new followers. I’ll be sure to return the favor. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for this short post. Please check out the updated explosion test and my Tumblr page. Let me know what you think of everything. I’ll catch you guys next time!