I just thought it would be good to let everyone know (well, everyone who cares at least: like, 2 people) that last night I completed the storyboard for my next music video animation.

The results look very promising.

For this animation, I'm trying to actually act like an animator and go through all the steps of animation: storyboard, stickfigure animation, full animation, backgrounds and extra detail. I'm hoping the end result is something that looks much more like a conventional cartoon than my previous Aquabats animation.

So, for those who can't wait to speculate about what I'm working on: yes, it is an Aquabats' song I'm animating. I don't feel like explicitely stating which one right here, but I don't think it's very hard to figure out which one it is especially if you've ever visited my deviantart. For those who can't wait to see the work in progress: too bad. I'm new to storyboarding, and a lot of my notation isn't understandable to anyone except me, and it's still pretty sketchy as it is. I'm not going to let anyone see any work in progress (well, except for maybe a couple people who's artistic opinion I trust), so don't come-a askin'.

So, that's all. Carry on with your lives. Just know that something good is coming to a computer near you. Something really good.

Oh, and for those who give a hoot, I'm working in the Chino Hills branch of the ION for the summer, since it's closer to home than the LA office. I'm translating, thanks to my major in Japanese, and my ninja language senmon (area of expertise? Does that translate correctly?) of comparative enchanted-mountain linguistics.

Sounds like a killer gig, I know. The spreadsheets I translated today would prove otherwise. At least the hours give me some spare time to spend on this animation.

Well, after way too long, I've finally finished my first masterpiece: a music video for Captain Hampton and the Midget Pirates, by The Aquabats.

If you haven't seen it, I suggest you check it out. Like right now.

It was a great learning experience, and it's hilarous to me, watching what I animated well over a year ago, and how my style and comfort with flash have changed over such a short amount of time. The ending looks nothing like the beginning in terms of technicality, style, or just plain penmanship.

I'm kinda looking forward to an animation break, though. I've been focused on this one project for so long that I've put all other projects on hold, the biggest one being my webcomic. I'm going to start drawing for that again this weekend, and hopefully my forced sabatical from that project will allow me to re-pursue it with vigor and energy and blah blah blah. But serriously, I'm looking forward to drawing some things that aren't Captain Hampton related.

And with that note, I am off to bed. I spent all day cranking out the last little bit of the animation, and I'm beat.

If you haven't already seen the animation: what's wrong with you? It's just a click away. I'll even post the link: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
420287 . There, you have no excuse.

Well, I can't put this music on Newgrounds, because it isn't completely my original work...

But I can put it on SheezyArt and then link to it from Newgrounds!

http://www.sheezyart.com/view/1491748/

This is a parody of the University of California, Berkley fight song: The Sturdy Golden Bear.

I changed it to "The Creepy Golden Bear," because that description is so much more fitting.

Be sure to foward it to eveyone you know that hates Cal, and everyone you know that loves Cal, and everyone you know that you want to turn against Cal, and everyone you know who would appreciate some good parody lyrics.

Well, I've found my flair for animating again, and have once again resumed serrious work on my music video animation. It was on hiatus for a while thanks to some addictive and neverending games, but I'm happy to report that work has resumed and that it is completed up until about to the second half of the second verse. The next part of animation will be very exciting for me, as it makes use of some experimental techniques (well, experimental for me...), and I can't wait to see what they end up looking like.

Now, I am well aware of the fact that almost everyone who is reading this has no idea who I am, what song I'm working on, why they should care, or even what I'm talking about. But I can't answer those right now as I have to go work on a crash sequence in the animation. I wish I could give clueless readers a better clue as to what song I'm animating; but unfortunately, I feel that my animation's acceptance by the Newground's audience will be largely rooted in the fact that the song I've chosen is random, awesome, and not very well known. I can't risk people going out and cranking out tons of animations of this song before I've had a chance to unveil my first big project.

So, thanks for reading, check out my deviantart at http://ninjkabat.deviantart.com , keep it ninja, and don't ever buy a set of playing cards from a rakukage demon.

-The Ninjkabat

P.S. Here's a screenshot of an early on sequence. I'm pretty sure you won't be able to tell the song from the picture, but hopefully it'll give you a taste of what's to come and get you excited.

Well, with both the redesign settling in, and my own artistic schedule doing a little settling of its own, I feel like I can stop being so hectic and start working on stuff I wanna.

For those who don't know, (and I'm assuming that's the vast majority of you) I have been gridlocked in a comic-ing project since the beginning of the summer. It's one of those things like Void City, where everyone makes a character, and then a tournament is set up with comic drawing and voting and the like. I've made it up the first two tiers pretty easily, and earlier this evening, I turned in the comic for tier three, all of which can be seen at this link. I've been scrambling these last couple days to finish the comic for tier three (well, that and play with the redesign), and now that it's over, there's not much left to do but wait around for the voting. And you know what that means? I have time to draw what I want to! Yay!

So, I thought I would enlighten everyone on what I'll be working on, and where you can see it, and the like. Firstly, I have to do some work on the Ordinary Powers project. You can also see that at my deviantArt page, but it's an ongoing serries of images for a friend. I just gotta get some done really quick so that he dosn't get antsy. I'll also be working on Reptile Guard; but since it's not very hard, I shouldn't be spending too much time on it.

But most importantly for Newgrounds members: I'm going to continue working on the Aquabats' music video that's been on hiatus for about 5 months now. I'd say I'm about 1/3 done with the song, but there's a section that I will reuse for the chorus, so I'm probably a little closer to half done. My best guess is sometime before the end of the summer. If I get really bored, I might cut some things into nice little swf's to put into the Alphas, but take my word for it: this is the best animation I've ever done, and I'm getting better as I animate it.

So that's all. I mostly wanted to make a front page post so I could see how my icon looks (I think it looks grainy on my computer), so I'ma check that out.

Cya

-The Ninjkabat