Hey guys. I have a question for you: How many of you would care for me to release "Hotrod opened the Matrix 1, revised edition" on Newgrounds?

For those of you who don't know, my first series was a trilogy of cartoons called "Hotrod Opened the Matrix", a parody mixing Transformers with the Matrix trilogy, and pitting Bobert and friends against Transformers bent on enslaving mankind.

Back when I was doing HOTM 3 part A, I started working on a revised version of HOTM 1. I was about 95% done with it when I stopped working on it (due to the weapons scene with Jesus and me having no idea how I wanted to do that). I've been releasing unfinished cartoons on my dA account and figured this would be a nice way to end it, so I finished up the revised HOTM 1.

Another cool thing about this is that I figured out how to combine parts A and B so you can watch the ENTIRE first episode uncut! This caused the filesize of the animation to go up to 8.8 MB, which is pretty big. I think dA has a size limit, so I might have to release it on here.

Due to it being one of my oldest animations, it's not as good as my current work. Thus, I'm not sure if I want to release it on here. I mean, I do have a high standard as far as animation is concerned, and this doesn't quite measure up to my recent works (visually and audio-wise). It's MUCH better than the original though, honestly. I can actually sit and watch it now.

So tell me: Should I do this, or not? I don't want to give people false hope about HOTM 3 being finished, because that still isn't happening... most likely. But if you guys are interested in it, I'll release it on here. Well, I'll probably do what I'm going to do regardless, but you might change my mind if you guys care strongly either way.

Hey. I made something. It's the extras from episode 5 of Siblings, "Not-the-Final Fantasy XII". It contains a lot of FFXII-based humor. Check it out if you want to.

Enter the "Not-the-Final Fantasy XII Extras"

Also, guess what? Do any of you remember HOTM? It's my first series, you can watch all the parts I made of it here on NG. Anyway, I never finished "HOTM 3 part D", but a few days ago I decided to release what I had finished of it since I most likely will never finish it. Click below for a link to the incomplete version of "HOTM 3 part D", containing 40 seconds of animation that goes nowhere.

HOTM 3 part D **INCOMPLETE**

Well, that's all I have to say about that. Hope you enjoy the fruits of my recent labor, as I won't be finishing any more animations anytime soon. It takes time to make this stuff, you know. Lots of time. Until next time...!

A heads up to all the fans of mine who drop by my page to read news and whatever:
The extras collection is really REALLY close to completion. I decided to go ahead and finish it the other day and it's practically done now. I'm now expecting to release it sometime around my birthday... sometime between the 7th and 9th, I think.

What's left to do? Well, I'm going to add a 'spoiler-free' option for those of you who don't want to spoil FFXII's ending by watching the last two scenes. The spoiler free option will replace those scenes with a different scene, so you might want to watch it later even if you decide to watch the regular one.

I also hid a music player in there so you can listen to all the music I made for these parodies uninterrupted (you know, the whole 'click on something and unlock it in the extras menu' thing (yes, the extras animation has an extras menu)). You know, because I don't feel like releasing 10 songs seperately on here. It'd be monotonous and pointless, you know? Especially due to their... quality.

In summary: New animation going to be released soon. After that, I won't release anything for a few months, so this will be the last from me you'll see for awhile. Well, the last flash animation you'll see out of me for awhile, anyway. Takes time to make this stuff, you know.

!Warning: I use run-on sentences like they're going out of style. Also, my paragraph structure sucks. Also also, I practically wrote a book worth of content, but don't feel like editing any of it out. Read only if you can tolerate these things.

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Well, my kingship is almost up, and what do I have to show for it? A news post in which I rant about 2012. Nifty. Although here's the interesting part: My birthday is on the day right after my kingship will be revoked. I hadn't realized this until a moment ago, so I figured I'd share. My birthday is on the 8th, by the way.

Now that that's out of the way, let me tell you... I was totally going to finish the extras for episode 5 and release it this month. Totally. Here's the thing, though: I got sidetracked. Sidetracked how, you ask? Well, I'll divulge in a minute. Just know that I do intend to finish it and release it sometime in June. Not in time for my birthday, no... but it'll be out sometime next month, I assure you.

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Have any of you guys heard of Mugen? Not the guy from Samurai Champloo, no. It's a PC fighting game. Specifically, it's one in which you can download characters and install them into the game, pitting fighters made by other players against one another. Most people use this as a chance to make fighters from anywhere you can think of (mainstream fighting games, misc other games, pop culture) and pit them against eachother. I used to be really into it back in 2001 when I first found out about it, but lost interest a year or so later because it was a DOS program back then and was a really difficult program to work with. Lack of documentation didn't help matters either.

Well, about a week or two ago I found some really old files buried on an old harddrive. Among these files were the old characters I had downloaded for Mugen way back when. So I tinkered around with it and did some research and I found out that there's a newer version of it out, for windows no less. So since then, I've been downloading more characters and decided to try my hand at character creation again.

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From the image below, you can guess which character I'm making. Yep, Spike from Siblings. The blue haired fellow he's fighting in the image is a character I made back in 01 (based on myself in highschool, as I was in highschool back in 01). Going through the older characters I had made, I really REALLY sucked at making fighters for that game. Seriously, there are so many things wrong with them, it's mind boggling. Thankfully, there's now MUCH better documentation for the program and even a nifty program that makes the creation process 100 times easier, I love it. I'm half way through making Spike already and I'm really excited about how it's going to turn out. Animating the character in flash helps, too. Who knows, I may incorporate these graphics into some kind of flash game... if I ever get good enough at making flash games, anyway.

As you can assume, my work with Mugen has put my animations on pause for a moment. A small vacation, if you will. See, I'm doing this just for my love of this program and my desire to create something that won't take long to make and that will test my ability to make something game related that's actually, you know, FUN. He'll be available for download on my site when I'm done making him of course, but I'm mainly doing it because I want to. Most of you have probably never heard of the program anyway. Of course, if you HAVE heard of it, then this will be a pleasant surprise, eh?

And for those of you who are now curious about the program, please, DONT ASK ME HOW IT WORKS OR WHERE TO GET IT. It's called a search engine, try using it. You could always get started here (Wikipedia article) for the basic info on it, and check out the sites it lists for forums to ask questions in. Also, FAQs help with that too. A warning: it's a hard program to work with. But when you DO get it to work, it's truely mind boggling. Omega Tiger Woods is reason enough to get it working.

On a somewhat related note, there are a LOT of youtube videos about Mugen out these days. Weird stuff. Although it's thanks to that site that I was able to gain some of the characters that're almost impossible to find, so yay for that.

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But anyway, hang tight everyone. More's on the way, but it'll take a little bit. Later!

This is a pointless little post in which I'm just going to ramble. Leave if you no likey aimless rambling.

EDIT: Ok, so apparently it's the Mayan calendar that predicts this, not the bible. People I know keep saying the bible for some reason. *shrug*

2012 Rant:
So yesterday I got my liscence renewed. Now it's good until 2014. When I mention this to people, they like to mention the whole "World's going to end in 2012" thing, which annoys me.

This is the same shit people spouted about 2000, that all the computers were going to die and civilization would crumble. Yeah, that happened pretty well, eh? And now people are saying 2012 is the new apocalypse date since it was mentioned in the bible or something. I wouldn't know whether the bible really says this since I never read the bible, but how are we supposed to assume some old text is right about this? It's an advice book, not a calendar for future events. Nothing's going to change in 2012 either. Every generation has their apocalypse date and it never happens. God just keeps pushing back the release date on mankind's ultimate destruction.

Once 2012 doesn't end in tragedy, someone will find something ELSE that promises destruction at some later date and all the paranoid idiots will look forward to THAT, which won't happen either. I love humanity.

But I digress.

Since Rob loves adding art to his posts that are unrelated to his non-animation blog posts, the image below is likewise unrelated to 2012. This is a sketch of a Siblings episode I most likely will NEVER make since I have so many other things that need doing. See, it'd be an entire episode that'd parodize certain series here on NG. As you can tell, they're not the super popular series, but rather, some of the older ones I've always enjoyed myself. This includes Spike being Beebo, Johny being Jhonny of 3-ALi fame, and Rob being Eskimo Bob. The last two are just done because of the similar names, but I figured Spike'd make a good Beebo (that and the fact that Beebo is an awesome series), so I made that connection. I'll probably never do it, though, so I figured I'd share. Cuz I'm nice like that.

Oh, and in the image itself, I misspell Eskimo. I do that a LOT for some reason. Oh well.

Apparently I am. Wee. For a week. Yay for being king of the portal though! Woot!

EDIT: Ok, so it's for a month. I assumed it was for a week since I was crowned on the 7th and figured if it was monthly then it would've happened on the 1st.

Am I making a post just to gloat, though? Maybe. Honestly, though, I made a post about a past animation I had done, 'Dang ol Greenhaah'. Now that I'm king, I figure my newspost shouldn't show off my worst work, you know? So I'm updating it. If you're a fan of my work and are curious about where I started, look at the previous post. Otherwise, don't, as it doesn't reflect my current ability at ALL.

So I guess I'll just take this time to say thanks. Thanks guys! To my fans, my friends, and all the inspirations I've had along the way that make my animations possible. A million times thanks.

More to come soon, I'm working on the last scene in the extras pack of episode 5 (the FF one). See you then!

Ok, so one of my friends asked me about supplying the first animation I had ever completed, a music video entitled "Dang ol' Greenhaah". This got me thinking I might as well make it available to all, so I put it on my website. But some notes about it:

It's the first animation I ever finished, so it's really REALLY dated... even more-so than my HOTM series. If you're interested in seeing it, well... you can find that at my site. Just remember it's old, so it doesn't reflect my current ability at all. It's crudely drawn and choppy as can be. It also uses real photos of people for the characters' faces. Yep, it's THAT lame. That's why I won't be submitting it here. I fixed a few things in the animation itself, like broken tweens and added filters to some of the backgrounds, but most of the animation remains the same.

More to come... eventually.

Link to zeh animayshun

PS: The only reason I feel like mentioning this here is because I'm tired of the previous news post.

Yeah, so I'm not always great when it comes to research. I'm going through reviews of that whole 'Mac VS PC' parody thing I did, and there are a few who really REALLY didn't enjoy it. Now, I'm not about to say it's a masterpiece, but it's got some highlights. Good for a chuckle or two.

But this one reviewer was like "Damn you Rob, Linux isn't a computer producer, it's an operating system. RESEARCH, DO SOME.". This is one of those moments where Rob realizes he probably should've done a wee bit more research before commiting to an idea. Most people enjoy the whole Linux addition, though, so I can't say it was a MISTAKE... but I could've at least brought that whole factor to attention somehow.

But everybody makes mistakes, so whatever. I'm not sure why I'm choosing to make an entire news post about it... just thought it might be something worth noting. Regardless, I'll go ahead and bring up something else that's kind of related, but not really.

Did I use any 'street talk' in Episode 5 of Siblings? One abusive reviewer said the brothers were a bunch of 'white boys talking street' and I honestly have no idea when (if at all) any of us talked street in that animation. Am I just forgetting a vital part, or is that just a bunch of complete bullshit? I'm thinking bullshit, but who knows.

I'm not going to let a few negative nancies ruin my opinion of my own work, of course... just like how I won't let a lot of really positive petes make me think any higher of myself. I'm just an amateur animator who's still learning his trade and hoping to make a living out of it someday. That's all I am, no matter how successful I get or how good I get at it. Well, until I get a job doing it, anyway. That'll probably take awhile, though... if it happens at all.

On a completely unrelated note, happy Pico day everyone. No, I'm not doing anything special for today... I've been releasing too many things as it is, what can you expect?

Here's a drawing I drew last night. Took awhile to do. I'm not done with it (thinking of redoing the background), but I'll let you guys see it anyway.

Blah blah blah I'm done.

Yeah, so I released 'I hate MAC ads' on newgrounds, what about it? What, you expect me to talk about it, or provide a link or something? Pff. I might provide a link... MAYBE.

Read the previous news post on info on other releases to be made by me sometime in May/June... IF YOU WANT.

FINISH YOUR PLATE OR YOU GET NO DESSERT.

Yeah, so episode 5 of Siblings is doing really well for itself. You'd think that with having released something so recently that I'd take a break. Unfortunately, not the case.

I'm still working on the extras animation from episode 5 and the more I work on it, the longer it's taking. See, I keep writing new bits to flesh it out, and this is causing me to have to draw new stuff and whatnot. I was just figuring in recycling old drawings and putting the extra dialogue to that, but no... Rob can't go easy on himself for some reason. Oh well, it should prove to be worth watching. It was originally only going to be a minute long, but with all the new stuff I've written for it, it should end up being almost 3 minutes long. So like I said before, almost like a sequel, just without a real storyline. It's also the last time I plan to parodize FFXII, so this is sort of me just getting it all out of my system.

I think I'm going to release another animation I've been meaning to for a few weeks now. It's a mac commercial parody I finished up a few weeks ago and released on my youtube account already. Well, I want to release it here, and I'm thinking of trying that new advertising system Tom mentioned in a previous news post. Only time will tell if that works out for the better or not.

And for those wondering, 'The Heart and the Hand p2' is on hiatus at the moment. I'm way too busy working on the episode 5 extras and other things to pick it back up, but don't fret... it WILL be completed. I have way too much animation of it already done to call it quits now.

More to come, shortly...