Okay, so i haven't made a blog in ages. Why is that? Well all sorts of reasons. To find out more about those reasons you can read my shiny new blog. Well, not really new, its ive had it for a number of months now. Its my "animators blog about the real world". I tend to find allot of peoples blogs tend to focus on just animation itself and not how it can be directly applied to either finding work or that sort of thing, so that's sort of what i want my blog to focus on, tho of course, it still contains all my updates on my freelance jobs and thoughts on movies and games when they release, when i remember to blog about them at least. That said ill try to keep it up to date and from now on try to keep my ng blog... more ng focused...

Hows everyone's holidays going anyway? Mine looks like this.

http://vistorsfromdreams.blogspot.com/

I haven't done one of these in a while, jeez, where are my manners, im sure your all dieing to know about the amazing things that happen in my day to day life. Well, ill start with the news i guess, on Thursday my PCs motherboard died, so im getting all that fixed up in the coming days. Ive actually had quite a bit of freelance on so it died at a really inconvenient time, but that's life i suppose. The freelance work itself, ive been working on really simple animations as part of a promo that's being to High Schools worldwide, mainly in Australian and Britain. Ill probably upload it once i get my PC back up and running, its definitely not a technical show piece, but it gets the job done.

Other then that, not much to report, ive been talking to the original author of this flash. Allen And Merve What we are planning i wont go into, as i tend to announce allot of things that never end up happening, so im just going to leave it at we are at the planning stages of a film bringing those characters back from the grave, with him as writer and me as animator and director. Its definitely my most ambitious project in a long time, but in no way a feature film as i have planned in the past.

Out There is still happening as well, even tho i haven't had the chance to touch it in quite a while, im actually starting to question the approach i took towards it. That being the pixel animation. Its not so much the look im questioning but the time it takes, one episode this year is no where near where i wanted to be, so i think im going to have to do some revisions and animate it the way i was originally planning, which was with very stylized and simple tweened models.

That pretty much sums things up for now, i don't have any new illustrations or anything to show you, so instead here's a video i put together after going for a drive down the coast for my sisters wedding, trying out my new video camera.

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Adios

Im not online much these days, in-fact im only on for at most and hour or two each day lately. Not surprisingly, spending so little time online, im a little out of the loop. It appears however no matter how far out of this loop you get, once you get back in its exactly the same as how you left it, that loop ofcourse being the whole Rtil and Mindchamber thing. Now im not going to turn this into one of those posts most people do about how right or wrong one or the other or both of them are, that's been done and these days im trying to avoid covering old ground, that's sometimes called progression for you folks not in the know. It would be hypocritical of me to write a journal like this without pointing out the obvious, that i too was a shit stirring tosser not more then a year ago.

Metal Gear Boresum
Sprites And The Newgrounds Review System
Newgrounds In The Year 2010

But why was i shit stirring? I don't mind being honest about it now. I wanted attention, clear and simple, and when people stop giving a shit about what you do i suppose that's what can happen. Nobody cared about my cartoons, i wasn't happy at work, and i was online a hell of allot to much. So i deliberately went out of my way to stir up shit about stuff people on this website cared about because it made me feel like they cared what i had to say. And that's it. I didn't care who i was targeting or why people thought they were good, it was all about me. Hell i went so far as to organize One Love and then throw it back into everyone's faces.

And here i am year later, a little wiser, and a little, no scrap that, allot less interested in this whole internet finger pointing business. Newgrounds is what it is, people are what they are, and that's how the world works. Is 99% of the stuff on this website absolute garbage? Of course it is, and so is the content on Youtube and DeviantArt and every other website in existence, and further then the internet, everything from film, television and music shares the same ratio. That's the way things are. We could all spend our time bitching and moaning about these things, we could even get personal about it. But in the end what does it achieve? A little self gratification perhaps? At what cost? Well none really, a few people online might think your a dick i guess. Whats my point? I don't know, i don't think im saying that im better because now im not living online, although it can easily be taken that way, i suppose its more just, this is all so pointless (not newgrounds itself, but peoples attitudes toward it), the only thing that seems like more of a waste is arguing over something so pointless.

But enough of that, whats going on in my life? I know there are a few people who seem to like keeping tabs on my journals these days, feels good to be noticed for something honest actually. Well, im about to move home again, im moving closer to where i currently work, in a little place in Brisbane called New Farm with my lovely girlfriend. I haven't really met any NG folk from up this way, i know Blordow and Sexual Lobster both live up here, should really track em down and meet up with em for lunch some day. Aside from that, the childrens book illustrating role i mentioned a journal back is confirmed. So that's pretty exciting, and also, after The Basics - Like A Brother, a second band is interested in getting me to do a video for them, im keeping it pretty close to my chest at the moment since nothing is official, but ill keep you posted. That pretty much sums it up. Ill leave you with a video my girlfriend found a few weeks ago, i really love it.

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Heres a picture of a brave new world...

Have i moved home? Yes i have, but that's not the news.
Am i living with the love of my life, yes i am, but that's not the big news.
Am i illustrating a series of 5 children's books, quite possibly, yes, but that's not the big news.

So then what is the big news?

Me and Zekeys music video to Like A Brother is finally out, and you can find it right here.

Like A Brother

So go watch it and let us know what you think, because if we get enough people liking it, we may even get to do more of them. So go, watch, enjoy, laugh, cry or dance, its up to you.

PS: Aforementioned kids book illustration.

Once again i missed out on making something for picoday, i don't know what's going on, this year was supposed to be my big come back year for animation, with all sorts of projects and all i have made are a couple of shorts, one of which i got the majority of done back in 08. Makes me sort of depressed actually. So what has been going on since my last blog, or complaining session, since all i ever seem to do these days is bitch and moan.

Well, ill start with the positive, i got a new job, one that actually seems solid no less, working in a warehouse, ill be starting my 3rd week there tomorrow, i quite like it, carry boxes around, getting antennas ready to send off and all sorts of fun stuff, its hard physical work, but its nice for a change, the only thing i don't like about it is having to wake up at 5:30 in order to get ready in time for work, but thats got more to do with how far i live from work then it does with the job itself.

On the not so up side, living where i am continues to be hell, housemates refusing to do any housework at all now, and so am i since im out almost 12 hours a day. One of them is unemployed, one would assume she would take over the role of the housecleaning, especially since the mess is 90% hers in the first place, but rather then do that she spends as little time as she can at home, only coming here to make more mess and then she takes off again leaving me to do the cleaning (the sink was full of maggots when i got home today), only now im not cleaning so its piling up, i don't know if she will ever actually take any responsibility for it, but im sure as hell sick of cleaning up after her, and sick of her using my TV and 360, always inviting her friends around to use my shit, im only here for another 7 weeks, but im thinking i might handicap myself, by moving all my shit out of the house a month earlier just so she cant have the satisfaction of using any of it.

So sadly i don't have any news regarding my upcoming cartoons, as much as i wish i did, all i can say is that they will be out when they are done and thats as good as i can do.

In the meantime, as promised last journal, heres the 3 episodes i did for the Gerkinman live action series back in the day, just because i can.

Gerkinman Episode 1: Squirrel Scandal!

Ah yes, the first little episode, i remember it was about 4pm one sunday afternoon, and i just told my housemate we were going to make a film, that was it, no script, no direction. And thus this was born, the first half is allot stronger then the second half, but considering how shit the whole thing is that seems sort of redundant anyways.

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Gerkinman Episode 2: A Prime Time To Game

Another one of those spur of the moment things. This time Gerkinman has to verse an evil optimus prime in a series of gaming challenges. And thats about it really...

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Gerkinman Episode 3: Gerkinmans Day Off

And the final episode, the only one with any real planning. It was a spiritual remake of a much earlier cartoon of mine called Kraidzilla. This is basically the story of Gerkinman taking a day off, in celebration of a public holiday for myself. Unfortunately, for some reason that defies explanation a bunch of Super Metroid Sprites create havoc on the world that very same day, and thus this story was born.

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Maybe some day ill start some other sort of Gerkinman series, maybe when i get my new video camera, but i cant say for sure. Animation i don't really enjoy until i can look back and view the finished product, live action on the other hand, its fun from the get go. But who really knows, i talk to much.

Here is a picture of a hansom young devil for all the ladies out there :P

Hows everyone doing on this end?

Hello there everybody, remember me? Maybe not, it has been a few weeks since my last update after all. How time flies.

Quite allot has happened since my last update, as i mentioned last time i started work at another Telemarketing agency, and im quite happy to announce i quite / was fired, yesterday. This whole telemarketing thing ain't for me, the real killer was when the boss called me in for a brief chat yesterday and said "you are too soft, your thinking too much about the customer and their needs rather then the business and your targets". Heres a biased but after my experience relatively accurate segment from a horrible aussie show called "A Current Affair" that deals with the company, keep in mind despite the fact these people are incredibly dumb and that A Current Affair is indeed one of the most poorly executed and biased TV shows on air, pretty much everything in this segment is accurate.

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So after that leaving didn't seem to bad, hell, he fired me before i had even finished my final shift, what a champ. Coincidentally, while i was working that afternoon i got a call from a company i went for an interview with several weeks ago, a company that deals with Antennas and home theaters, and while they don't want me for the job i originally applied for, they had a store-person role open up, so i guess ill be chatting to people and informing them about what system would best suit there needs, which suits me great since im a real audio/videophile. And its also allot closer to home, so double awesome.

Other then that not much has really been going on, that job was eating into my time so much i never even got to go shopping, so i haven't really had time for any animation or anything along those lines which is unfortunate, but now i have this new job i should have most nights at home to work on my multiple projects, hopefully ill get a quick short done and out before April 28th for a certain someone's birthday, but ill just have to see how i go.

Anyways, for this weeks entry i thought i would try something a little different, so i thought i would up some of the the live action films i made when i was living back in Ballina from back in 07 and 08. They're not particularly good or anything, but i ended up going threw them the other day when i was cleaning up my youtube account and i sort of found them interesting in retrospect for some reason. So here is some old shit with a little bit explaining each one for those who are interested in seeing what i was up to during my year long absence from the flash world.

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This was the first ever video i made, back in August 06, i made it the day after i got my at the time shiny new video camera, which is actually useless now since there are no Vista drivers for it... Anyway, what started out as a video of me filming myself, as i tend to do that allot, turned into me filming myself getting attacked by a Magpie and then... i don't know what happened, i just sort of went on a tangent about bird conspiracies or some shit. Its double weird for me to go back to now since i was still living with my grandparents at the time and it was all filmed around the original office i worked at by the River in Ballina.

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This was the original trailer for the Gerkinman Feature Film i was working on back in 2007, a remake of what i had done of the original Nimbin movie (which i had completed 40 minutes of before having the HDD crash on my PC and loosing all of it). it was originally going to be filmed with live action backgrounds and then characters tweened all over the top of the footage, no real reason for me canceling it other then the fact that i had animated a small portion of it and then my art style radically changed, with me stopping tween animation in favor of a more simple and limited animation style. I still think the script and story are half decent, and i might get around to working on it again some day, but i doubt it.

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This was basically a film clip i made to a song i had written about 8 months prior, i think i was just sitting around one day with my housemate and we were bored, so i thought it'd be funny if i rode around on a kids trike while wearing a motorcycle helmet, so low and behold, i did, and this is what came of it. To be honest despite how badly shot and edited this clip is, i still find it to be one of the only live action things ive done thats genuinely entertaining, if only for the concept.

I might leave it at that for now, save the other few for next week and speaking of weeks,Ill leave you with a weird tribute to Jimmy Hendrix i drew last week.

Peace out.

Best one yet, easily, reminds me of Mc Donald's actually, coincident that Mc Donald's and the Commies love the same 2 colors? I think not. Regardless, this is easily the most intelligent and timely April fools joke the site has pulled, i tip my hat to you gentlemen.

But thats not why im here, this is me first post in like 2 weeks. Crazy i know, for me at least, im normally so punctual. So what is all this madness thats keeping me away then. Well, for one, i got another job last week, and wouldn't you believe it, its another telemarketing job, and god damn do i hate it, at least my last telemarketing job was only 4 hours a day, this new one is full time, and on top of that its a 2 hour trip on the train each way to work. Im hoping i can just work there for the next couple of weeks and find something else in my free time, but judging by the amount of free time i have between work and traveling it wont be easy, to say the least. I just, eugh, Telemarketing is horrible, even if its for the best of causes, between people being an ass to you on the phone and the unrealistic expectations of the managing department its just a nightmare.

On the upside, ive recently started dating a lovely girl, and she never ceases to boost my mood and make me giggle, so now im spending allot more time with her as well that too is cutting into my animation time, mainly on my weekends, since i get home from work so late i never feel like animating anyways. The only chance i really get is in the early morning. Hands up anyone who animates in the early morning :P

In other news Brisbane Supanova is this weekend, dunno if any of you Brisbanites are going, i don't think ill get there until later in the afternoon, around 4, due to work. Kinda sucks, i finally move up here to Brisbane and i miss out on the only real animation con there is. Thats life i suppose.

Not much else to report really, ive suddenly gained a great interest in time lapse work. Ive dabbled in it once before, one afternoon, it only ended up being about 20 seconds worth of film, but there's something about the way clouds move that really captivates me, and strangely enough, after buying the Watchmen Soundtrack and falling in love with "Pruit Igoe & Prophecies" i did some digging and found that the track was originally from a movie called "Koyaanisqatsi" from 1982. Im sure some of you would have seen it as some of the imagery is rather famous now.

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Here was my little attempt before i knew the film existed, filmed late last year before i moved up here to brisbane. After about 20 seconds it cuts to just lightning strikes. I might make another one soon for a local film festival. Definitely my main interest in film making outside of animation, people and acting never really interested me, well, aside from acting myself.

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And finally, the trailer for an Aussie movie im incredibly excited to see, from Adam Elliott (no relation) the creator of Harvie Krumpet and numerous other award winning shorts, comes out April 9th over here and me and my lovely gf should hopefully be going to the premier.

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And ill leave you with a screen from a little short toon ive been working on =D

More news as it comes, hows everyone else doing these days?

Normally, as of late at least, this post would be about how much my current financial statement sucks, and as a matter of fact, it still does, with me sending out an average of 16 Resume's a day to different jobs and i have under $600 to my name, Maybe one day Tom will be rich and pay some animators big moneys to make the cartoons they want to make, but its not today, and it wont be for a long time, in the mean time i, along with everyone else in my position will just have to make do. But thats not what im here to talk about.

Nope, today is all about a Bus Trip, a Bus Trip of horrors some might say. Seems in my endless struggle to keep off the street ive stumbled upon a few small local film festivals, and these film festivals just so happen to have cash prizes, and cash pays the rent, and so i put two and two together and hey, im making something for these film fest's. So i only have about a month left to finish the film i started for this festival, and instead of investing time into a fresh idea ive actually reverted to one of my old submissions, namely Little Bus Ride of Horrors 08 So yeh, im adapting this coming i wrote in about 8 hours into a flash movie, with some changes of course. The characters are all new, or old if you take into account its made up largely by the cast of my numerous shorts over the last year, excluding Space Man Bob, no idea why he didn't show up for the film, maybe he's busy with something else? I think the animation, so far, is the best ive done to date, somewhere between the static animation of Space Man Bobs Time Apple and Whats That Sound. Keeping the visual style of Space Man Bob and the slight fbf of What's that Sound, no tweening from pose to pose as i have done in the past. Its also the first cartoon ive worked on in a long time that has substantial amounts of voice work and lip sync to go with it that isn't distracting like the lip sync in Behind The Flash. Im also trying to focus allot more on character acting, rather then just having the characters standing around spurting dialogue, its not easy but its something i want to really invest time into.

Aside from that, the next episode of Out There is on hold, but my goal is still to have the whole series finished by the end of the year, so lets hope i can do it, id be working on it now if it wasn't for these film festivals, but thats life.

Anyways, next week you can look forward to a blog on the amazing life of plants.

They've done studies, you know. 60% of the time it works, every time.

By the way, i cant get any images to load, is this just on my end or what? o.0
So i guess no pic this week, sorry guys :(

For those who don't care about the dramas in my life and don't want to read all this, this video by Flight of the Concords sums it up nicely.

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And for those that do care and like a good read.
Its a strange strange world out there, after telemarketing for the Kirby Company for only 2 weeks ive been laid off for not reaching the numbers i need to. To be fair, i cant say i really liked the place, i mean it felt more like the church of scientology only with Vacuums instead of crazy books and lord xenus then it did a work place. With motivational videos of holidays people can go on if they work hard enough and little award ceremonies and all that garbage. What's made it doubly frustrating is the fact that my boss, a cocky american called "Brad" who gets around with his hair slicked back and his yellow power tie floating in the wind open told me the day i was laid off that if i didn't meet my quota, i would be dropped, i didn't make my quota that night and i just up and left, nobody was in the office at the time but my department anyway. Then today my housemate gets a call saying that i "threw in the towel and quit" . I never even spoke to my boss about it after last night, all i did was go home like everyone else. And so here i am with less then a thousand dollars to my name, one of my housemates leaving so my rents going to go up by another 50% and even then, once my lease runs out and my other housemate leaves ill have nowhere to go. Things certainly don't seem to be going my way at the moment. Tho i do have another interview tomorrow for a roofing company, the job isn't much, but itll cover my rent at least. Im just double pissed i got laid off the week Resident Evil 5 comes out, i was so stoked for that game...

Aside from that, ive barely touched Out There because ive been so stressed by just normal life, i really want to work on it but i just cant concentrate with all this shit going on in my life and all this instability. So sorry to anyone who has been waiting, but don't worry, im sure things will start looking up soon and ill hop right back onto that pixel horse. In the mean time heres another quick sketch thing.

-You ate the whole wheel of cheese? And pooped in the refrigerator? Wow, im not even mad, thats amazing.

Well, i don't really have all that much news for you guys... nah im kidding, i always have tonnes of stuff to talk about. Well first of all, i got a new job, ive worked there a whole week, Telemarketing for the Kirby Company. Don't know if that means much to anyone but basically i organize free demonstrations for a $4k vacuum. Yeh, fun times? Not really, but its money, and i need money to survive.

In other news, as most of you would know since ive mentioned in about a bazillion times, ive been working on a music video for a band called "The Basics". I was surprised to see last night that the first animated music video they commissioned is up and on display on youtube, this was the song i was originally going to be making a music video for, but they changed there mind and im working on another one, but regardless, heres it is for all you folks. Me and Zekey need to get our video finished within the next 3 weeks or hell is going to break loose.

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And in other other news, i finished a new show reel for the year of 08, there are quite a few scenes from me and zekeys music video included in there.

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Actually, thats all i really have to report this week, not all that much. Maybe youll get more luck next week :P