In other news, there have been some new additions to the site. The main addition to the site is an upcoming page, where you can find all the details on my upcoming projects, such as Space Chase at the moment. There used to be a small section on the animation page for upcoming projects, but I didn’t want that page to get too cramped over time. Be sure to check out the new page, where you can get all of the details on my upcoming projects such as descriptions, screenshots, and release info from now on. I hope you guys like it. Other than that, I’ve just made some other small changes throughout the site. I cleaned up the pages and edited some of the writing on them. One thing I added to the content pages was dates on when the work was actually completed. I think that helps distinguish my newer work from my older work if the quality isn’t obvious enough. I had actually hid the artwork page for a few days while I was thinking about deleting it. A lot of the artwork on the page is pretty old and I have improved a lot since then, even if it was only two years ago for example. I rarely do artwork on it’s own that is separate from the art seen in my animations, so a lot of my improvement is seen there. That’s something I’d like to change by drawing more for practice, which could also help me improve further. I’ll try to do more of that in the future. I also organized some of the site categories a little better, as well as other small things here and there. Nothing too important or incredibly noticeable.

Anyway, I think that’s all I’ve got for this post. Be sure to check out my cat artwork let me know what you think about it! I hope you guys like the little changes and the new upcoming page too. The next post you’ll see from me will be the new Space Chase update that I’ve been putting off for these posts, so stay tuned for that. I’ll try to have that out over the next few days, or week at the latest. Until next time, I’ll catch you all later!

In addition to those awesome games, they’ve just recently released their newest game called BattleBlock Theater. The game has been in development for a few years now, but the wait is finally over and it’s definitely worth it. I’ve been playing it for the last day or so and love it so far. Just like their other games, it is hilarious, challenging, and overall a lot of fun. You can watch the official launch trailer for the game here. If you guys haven’t checked it out already, I highly recommend you download the trial on Xbox Live Arcade and support them by buying it. You’ll have a blast. That’s all I’ve got for this post. I could write on and on about their games, but wanted to keep it short and sweet so you all can check them out for yourselves if you haven’t already. Until next time, I’ll catch you later!

“Scene of the Crime”:

For Scene of the Crime, I’ve actually taken the music away from the animation and left it with only ambient sounds of the city. The only musical piece that’s left in the animation comes from Pro Scores by Video Copilot, which is great for professional composed music. I’ve also added some new extra effects to the animation to give it more life, without changing the actual animation itself. Scene of the Crime previously wasn’t uploaded to YouTube in HD, but is now available on both NewGrounds and YouTube in HD with it’s new improvements. To watch the animation on NewGrounds now, you can click here, and to watch the animation on YouTube now in HD, you can click here. The animations page of the site has also been updated with the new version.

“Alan Wake Tribute”:

For the Alan Wake Tribute, I needed to find an all new soundtrack. After looking around over the past few days, I managed to find some great music by NewGrounds artist Idarin Snowtail. He had just the music I was looking for and was happy to allow me to use any of his tracks for the new soundtrack. The new re-release features five tracks from his NewGrounds page that I think have fit the animation perfectly and made it even better. Considering it’s my most recent release to date, I left all of the animation the same as it was, but did fix some errors that I found along the way. You can check out the new and improved Alan Wake Tribute on NewGrounds by clicking here, or check it out in HD as well on YouTube by clicking here. As I said with Scene of the Crime, the animations page is also updated with the new version as well.

The only unfortunate thing about re-releasing these animations on YouTube is losing all of the previous views, comments, and likes on the old videos. I had to delete the old versions though to be able to qualify for the YouTube partnership. However, I’m very pleased with the new re-releases and hope you guys enjoy them too. With a YouTube partnership now on my channel, more opportunities await. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to my YouTube channel here and stay tuned for more content from me! Be sure to check out the new re-releases and let me know what you think of them in the comments. That’s all I’ve got for now! I’ll catch you guys next time.

Update (2/4/13): After going back and re-uploading my videos multiple times for various reasons on YouTube, I’ve finally re-uploaded them for the last time in 1080p. I made some additional changes along the way too, such as updating the logos for both the site and the Alan Wake Tribute. I also managed to fix some other small issues that I found here and there. From now on, all of my animations will be uploaded in 1080p so I never have to do this again in the future. I apologize for the repeated re-uploads and hope you guys enjoy the new additions. I’ve updated the links in the post, so you can now check them out in full HD!

Now that that’s out of the way, I’d like to apologize for the lack of posts lately. If anyone other than my girlfriend and friends actually read this, I’ve just finished up this semester of college and have been busy running Christmas errands with my girlfriend. I’ve pretty much got all of my shopping done for the year, so all that’s left is to wrap presents. Not something I’m particularly good at, but that’s why I’ve been so silent. If I haven’t mentioned it already, for Christmas this year I’ll be receiving an upgrade to my Macromedia Flash 8 software and jump to Adobe Flash CS3, along with Photoshop and the other programs featured in the Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium. I was able to help my parents find a great deal on that specific edition. It’s not necessarily the one for me, but it has everything I need and more. So once Christmas has come in a few days, I should be able to get back to work with some brand new, upgraded software shortly after.

I’ll be working a lot the week of Christmas, so it won’t be until the start of the new year when I can really get back into the swing of things. School should be a lot easier to handle as well, considering I’m only taking one class this Spring semester. That way I can really focus on animation without school getting too much in the way, so that’ll be great. I haven’t been able to work on Space Chase at all recently because of Christmas and everything else going on, so that’s why I wanted to get this out before the New Year comes around. I’ve also posted new screenshots, which are shown in the teaser, on the animations page of the site. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for this post. I hope you guys enjoy everything I’ve put out. I’d really appreciate it if you let me know what you think! If I don’t make another post for the year, I hope you all have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year! See you in 2013!

I’ve uploaded two screenshots from the first scene that you can check out on the animations page of the site. They are the full size images of this post and the announcement post I made two months back. They don’t show a whole lot, but I want to hold back on showing some of the good stuff for now, like the scenes featuring the alien’s character design. You can still get a good idea of the atmosphere of the animation, which is exactly what these screenshots show. I’ll most likely show some of what I just mentioned in the next update, so just stay tuned for that. I probably won’t write the next update until the first scene is completed. Hopefully that won’t take too much longer. I want to pick up the pace and possibly have this cartoon out sometime in November. I should specify the possibly, though. We’ll see what happens, as always. That’s all I’ve got for now. For further updates on the animation and other things from me, be sure to follow me on Twitter. Until next time, I’ll catch you all later!

It’s just a simple animation that takes place in space with aliens as the main characters. It’s a basic, comedic short animation with no major plot or story, so there’s not much to tell without ruining any of the jokes. There’s a lot of inspiration from things that I love, such as Invader Zim being a pretty big one, but it’s still an original short. I’m trying to take a step back with working on real lengthy projects and go for more humorous short animations for now. That way I can spend less time working on a new cartoon and release more content, more frequently. I’ve always loved funny cartoons and most of the animators I look up to do that kind of work, so it seems appropriate for me to work on that type of material. My art style is more suitable for comedy as well. In the future, when I’ve released more content and feel that I’m ready, I may attempt to work on another bigger project or even a series. That could end up being a comedy or action cartoon, depending on what I’m interested in making. We’ll see when the time comes, but for right now I feel like this is the right direction to be in. I’m having fun making this cartoon and I’ve always loved to make people laugh. Hopefully with this release and many others, I can do that for a lot of people.

As far as a release date goes, it’s really just guessing at this point. I plan to have the animation under or right around two minutes long. I’ve only completely storyboarded the first major scene out of probably three. I’ve even started finalizing some of the bits in the first scene if I don’t feel like storyboarding. But all in all, it’s still in the beginning stages. I know how I want the animation to go, but I’m still just storyboarding and rough animating the rest of it and trying to execute it properly. I’d like to have it finished relatively soon though, considering it’s supposed to be a short animation. Hopefully I’ll have it finished within the next two months or so. I start college again on August 20th, so I’m hoping that doesn’t slow it down too much. Anywho, that’s all I’ve got for this post. I’ll be posting updates for the animation as I progress just like I have been. You can also check out a little screenshot of the opening bit that I’ve completed on the image for this post. That’s all I’ll be showing for right now. Until next time, I’ll catch you guys later!

As always, you can check out the new concept art on the artwork page of the site. Be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think of the re-imagining. I appreciate anything you guys have to say (not including Ralph’s opinion, of course). That’s all I’ve got for this post. Until next time, I’ll catch you guys later!

As you may know, I’m out of school at the moment and just working right now. I still haven’t come up with a solid, new idea for a full animation yet, but I have been drawing and practicing animation. I’ve mainly been playing around with cartoony animation, with funny faces and such. So recently I decided to spend a night and work on a simple lip syncing test to a simple line and voice I recorded. After that, I synced it with a character I animated and gave him some funny expressions. Overall, I think the test turned out really nice and it’s just a taste of what I want to use in future animations. I had originally recorded the audio clip with my laptop microphone, which isn’t very good quality. However, I just recently bought a Samson C01U Studio Condenser Microphone. It’s a lot better than what I’ve been using and it will make my future projects sound a lot more professional. Since I bought the mic, I decided to test it out and re-record the audio with better quality and give the animation some final touches.

That brings us to where we are now. You can check out the animation on my YouTube channel here, or watch it on the animations page of the site. Be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think of it! I had fun making it and can’t wait to do more animations with that style. That’s all I’ve got for this post. Until next time, I’ll catch you guys later!

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!