And so here i am, almost 2 months on, still no internet, but im settled into my new home in Brisbane, its not so bad up here, certainly not what im used to, having lived in a beach side home for the last 4 years its a little odd getting used to the heat here, but im sure ill cope. Something that isn't coping so well is my bank account. I came up here with the promise of a job that conveniently fell threw, so now here i am, sitting in my new home, unemployed, which is rather boring since most days its far to hot to be sitting here in-front of the computron. I've got an interview this afternoon with a delivery service, not newspapers mind you, but electrical goods, TVs, Washing Machines, Fridges and the like. And to be honest, im kinda hoping i get it, it pays well and ive been wanting to work in something other then computers for a long time now. Allot of people learn animation and the like so they can go do it for a living, ive been doing it for 4 years now and i cant wait to get the hell out of animation (or rather i couldn't, i have no obviously hence me being in this predicament.), not because i hate it, quite the opposite in-fact, its my love of animation thats made me want to leave. if i get this job i should be making enough money to cover my living costs while still having 2 or 3 days a week to work on the animations i want, sure i might not be getting money out of them, i hardly expect to be winning cash prizes here on NG for these cartoons, and i doubt im the kind of guy Tom Fulp would sponsor, seeing as ive never really been much of a traffic draw and the cartoons i have in the works aren't going to change that, but thats the idea, ill be making enough money to make what i want without having to feel weird about it.

And now im on the topic of my animations i suppose i should talk about those. Over the last few weeks i came to the decision to cancel a bunch of the cartoons i had been working on, some of which i was half way threw. So heres a list and the reasons why for those people who had been following. Keep in mind that i still hope to use what i have done on a few of these to turn them into short comics for a collection i have been working on, but more on that when its closer to release.

The Back Alleys - Was a timely piece about the forums of the same name and the dramas that surrounded it, but since im not really active there anymore and the whole ordeal is over now there's no real point in continuing it.

Watermelons - This one was hard to cancel as an animation, but i wasn't happy with the quality of the storytelling and thus it was canned, will definitely be living on in the comic format however.

Hush - Another one that was hard to cancel, mainly because it was so close to completion and it meant allot to me, sadly, once i moved, what the cartoon was about was no longer relevant and i lost that sense of connection to the piece, as i kept working on it i felt sort of awkward so, i decided to leave it, im not sure if it will make it into my comic collection as of yet, im not sure it would work.

Jon the Fisherman - To be honest, as much as i love this story i never got much done on it, so look forward to really starting on it in the comic format.

So if thats what's cancelled then what's left? Well, the game Randy Rocket Snail is on hold until i get the internet back, im not much of a coder and i have some nasty bugs in the game that need cleaning up, which ill need help for, rest assured once i have the net back ill be diving strait back into it.
The paid music video i was working is all finished, on my end at-least, im still waiting for Zekey to complete all of his segments so i can compile the sucker. I cant really give a release date for it since its not up to me but rather the band, so who knows, it might be sitting around completed for 6 months before its release, i hope not but thats the nature of the business i suppose.
My first ever sprite cartoon is still going strong, tho its incredibly time consuming, i spent 9 hours on a 2.5 second sequence yesterday, 3 objects scaling away from the screen while a character walked towards it, in the end it was over 150 frames, for each layer, each being fbf, including the background, it was quite a time consuming process and ill keep that in mind when i set up the remaining scenes, i love the look of pixel scaling, but its just not practical enough to create to use all to frequently. (Out There Preview) For those who haven't read my previous journals and are curious, no, the sprite cartoon has nothing to do with mario, sonic or any other game character, nor is it full of bad jokes and dragon ball z sound effects, sorry to disappoint you.
Lastly, so as to keep things simple, 3 projects at a time seems a little easier to manage then 6 or 7. Anyways, where was i? Oh yes, my third project. After going back over my dialogue driven cartoons, i've come to the conclusion my storytelling abilities are far from up to scratch, im quite content with my ability to tell a story without words, you can check out Time Apple for an example of that, (One of the few flash i released last year i can look back at without cringing.) but as regards dialogue pieces, i can say im not happy with my work at all. Not that there are many people on NG that can carry a dialogue driven piece, at-least from what i've seen (feel free to link me to some cartoons that prove me otherwise). So yes, i've been thinking about how i can better my story telling abilities, and i thought what better way then adapting some fairy-tales, i know the idea is done to death, but i think adaption is a good way to get down the fundamentals of storytelling down, since story itself is already structured for you. The first story i was planning on doing was Rumpelstiltskin, followed by some more obscure of the Grimm's tales such as Deaths Messenger and The Straw, the Coal and the Bean. Ill be taking these as they come. Its a little hard working on fairy-tales for me since i don't want to cover old ground, and i want the stories to be fun and amusing without being the typical parody garbage that usually weasels its way into... well, everything nowadays. How does someone tell a story thats been told a hundred times and keep it a fresh, original retelling? Its not easy, i will leave it at that, hopefully ill have some screen shots up in my journal in the coming weeks.

I spose while im here i should do the little rip on Supah Nintendoh thats no doubt expected of me, i have to say, i was somewhat looking forward to its release, not because i thought the original was a masterpiece, but it did have a few segments that i at-least got a chuckle out of, not to mention it had some high quality animation scattered threw it. I got to say, i was surprised, i had my fingers crossed the writing might have improved a little for the second, but god damn, i don't think it could have possibly gone further in the opposite direction. I laughed at one segment, and out loud at that, but i couldn't get so much as a chuckle from any of the others. (That segment being the Tetris one, a classic gag used appropriately without a word spoken, loved it). But for the others, i don't know what was going on, i don't know whether to blame the writing or to blame the voice actors for screaming every line in irritating voices. Maybe there was a joke hidden among the screaming somewhere, maybe the screaming was the joke. I don't know, somebody fill me. Thats not to say it was all bad, there was allot of gorgeous animation threw-out, and seeing Richie using a tablet to do his segments certainly impressed me, im so used to his work having a very digital look due to the line tool, but seeing hand drawings in his segments really made me happy, made a huge difference, even if the content was nothing more then fan service. Even Legendary Frogs first segment didn't look horrible, tweened as always, but with allot more layers then i've ever seen him use before, and it was actually smooth, which kind of shocked me (Cant say the same for his second segment however.) I don't know if they plan on doing more or not, i do know that despite the fact i didn't particularly enjoy it, i would be interested in working in one, which is rather strange. Maybe its because i know that even people who know they will hate it will end up watching it regardless so they can bitch about it, being one of those people i can say it'd be nice to see something like this with something for everyone in it rather then just jokes for prepubescent boys. I don't hate video game parodies because of there popularity or use of characters, its there horrible writing and timing that does it. How come nobodies making parodies for people who's balls have dropped or have an IQ higher then 11? Make it happen.

Wow, that was a long journal... well it has been 2 months i suppose. Anyways, heres to my new city life. Bottoms up ladies.

*On a side note, if there's any NG news or interesting cartoons that have come out in the last 2 months paste the links in the comments so i can go check it out, thanks <3