Hey everyone!

We're about to start our 2nd annual NES Holiday Marathon for Child's Play! Just come on out to http://www.shamoozal.com/marathon09 to watch, chat, participate and donate. There will be plenty of chances to win some stuff too, and a 5 dollar or more donation gets you enter into a drawing at the end of the night. It's from 12PM to 12AM. Hope to see you there!

As some of you guys might know I spent a good part of the weekend throwing together a new Frankensteiner short for Halloween. It's nothing fancy, but maybe you'll get a laugh out of it. It's up at the portal.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
515839

edit: the feed is working like garbage so I stopped it for now. Sorry about that.

Hey everyone. Today I'll be spending a majority of my time working on a new "Frankensteiner" short, and I'll be streaming the entire work process live. It's a good time to see how I work (if you're curious) and just BS with other people. It'll start around 12est (probably a little earlier) and be streamed through ustream.tv. Here's a link to the Shamoozal ustream page:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shamooza l-radio-podcast-tv

This short will obviously NOT have the type of quality that the GFGames shorts generally do. The idea is for me to kind of rip through this thing as fast as I possibly can. The Frankensteiner shorts are made to look crude and aren't exactly the best animated. I'll step things up a slight bit compared to the old ones for this edition, but it's not going to be anything mind blowing technically.

Anyway, hope to see some of you there. It'll be a long day, so it'll be nice to have some people to chat with.

Hey guys, been a while since I posted anything new. Sorry, no new word on the next GFGames... to be honest, I haven't even had chance to come up with a new script yet since "How to Hook Up the NES." It's okay, I'll get working soon, I promise!

In the meantime, at the end of Oct (the 24th, a Saturday), I'll be doing a live stream of the creation of a new Frankensteiner short. For those that don't know, Frankensteiner was a segment I came up with for Crapfest Force a few years back and it turned out that a lot of people ended up liking that scene. Last year I did a live stream of a new Frankensteiner short but the deal was that it was created entirely with Mario Paint for the SNES. I uploaded both of them as a compilation to Newgrounds when all was said and done, where it was rightfully swept under the carpet. :) So anyway, I'm doing a third one, but I'll be using Flash this time. It'll go on for about 12 hours and it's a good chance to stop in, see how I work, ask questions and just hang out. Maybe even contribute a bit of input! I'll most likely have stuff like storyboards and audio recorded before I do the live stream though. I'll keep everyone informed.

Tonight the staff from Shamoozal will be getting together and doing a live podcast recording. I'll delve a bit into some more behind the scenes Shamoozal stuff, we'll play a few stupid games together and just shoot the shit. So if you have nothing going on this fine Saturday evening, we'll be streaming that live starting around 9 - 9:30. Stop by and say hi... or stop by and heckle us if you want. It's your choice.

Thanks guys.

Oh, and here's a link to Frankensteiner: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
466416

And a link to the Podcast: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shamooza l-radio-podcast-tv

Hey gang. We'll be doing our semi-monthly podcast live tonight if anyone wants to swing by. At the start we'll be looking back and talking about our short "How to Hook Up the NES", give some hints towards future shorts, and then act like a bunch of animals for a little while afterward. Hope to see some of you guys there, thanks!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shamooza l-radio-podcast-tv

Just wanted to let you guys know that we have finally wrapped up the latest episode of GFGames, titled "How to Hook Up the NES." It's over in the portal for you guys to check out.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
506191

Also, Steve and I are doing our weekly game related live stream, Born Again Casual, tonight at 9 est. Stop by if you get a chance!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shamooza l-radio-podcast-tv

Thanks everyone, and enjoy!

After spending a better part of this weekend working on GFGames #5, "How to Hook Up the NES", I can safely say that this is it. The final stretch. Right there. Just the slightest bit to go. No lie this time, honest. Frank and I have two shots to complete, and tomorrow I'm heading to Joe's with a near final copy for him to do the final sound. We're that close.

Initially Frank and I wanted to have a "launch" date of Friday the 10th, but that day has been ruled out. We're not quite sure where to place it next. Rest assured, you can bet that you'll be seeing it before the 17th of this month. That's a two week window, but when you consider the 8 month wait, those two weeks are nothing. Once we wrap up the shots, I then have to move onto getting it ready to show. Believe it or not, but even when we're done with the short there's even more work preparing the various versions that go out and then all the site updates that go along with it. In the past, I've pretty much put the video up the moment Joe handed it back to me, but this time I'm going to take the time to get it right and have an exact date ready for when you guys can expect to watch it.

Frank and I went through the near final short together yesterday afternoon. I think it has come along really great, and I think it's something that we can be really proud of. Regardless of how much people end up enjoying it once it's released, I can say with confidence that this is our most beautiful short yet. Frank has done ridiculously nice work that rivals what you saw him do back in Man-Bot. I also just finished the hardest shot I've ever had to animate in my life. I personally don't think it looks as nice as the harder shots that Frank handled, but it surely made me stretch whatever type of animation muscle I have. It was a brutal one, that's for sure. I actually wonder if people will notice the two scenes that the two of us spent an insane amount of time on, or if they'll just blend in with the whole thing?

Joe asked me tonight if I believe people will enjoy it and I told him absolutely. If you have enjoyed our previous work (and I imagine you must have if you're reading this) then this will be no different. Though that doesn't mean it's the same old you might expect from us. The short relies a lot more on classic slap stick style cartoon humor, which is the main reason the thing has taken us so long. In order to sell visual gags, it's more work... lots more work. While our pal Jacquo is the center of attention, you'll hopefully just enjoy watching his actions instead of waiting for his next one liner.

So just hang in there a bit longer, the wait is almost over.

If anyone wants to stop by, I'll be working on the next GFGames episode live for a little while. Stop by and say hi!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shamooza l-radio-podcast-tv#

I'll be working on the next GFG short live for a little while. If anyone wants to stop by and say "hey" or see what's going on, feel free.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shamooza l-radio-podcast-tv

My brother Frank also animates the Shamoozal shorts we do. We're both currently working on GFG#5. He posted a blog post over at Shamoozal.com that is a pretty interesting look at the animation process.

"Hey all. Hope everyone had a good weekend. As for myself, I was able to devote almost this entire weekend to working on the new short, GFG#5. I spent probably around 13-15 solid hours this weekend working. I decided to once again put off Shot04 until I knew I had a nice chunk of time to work on it, so that was what I went after on Saturday. I had reasonable expectation about what I would be able to accomplish, but as usual I didn't meet my goals. In all seriousness, I could easily spent an entire 40 hour work week into this shot.

As I've mentioned before, its probably the most involved shot in the entire short. Flash's shortcomings are starting to rear its head suddenly as there are a lot of layering issues I have to trudge through. For example, I have to keep track of each time Jacquo's arms cross over top of each other, and in this particular shot he does this a lot. His arms are going in front of and behind each other, sometimes obscuring parts of his coat in the process. I almost feel like I could get through this shot faster if I was traditionally cleaning it up with paper and pencil. Simple things like a cuff suddenly overlapping another cuff out of turn causes a traffic jam of layers.

I was looking through some old Shamoozal files and I found that it was this time last year that I was working on "The Last Copy". A whole year. Its a little hard to believe that much time has gone by. Then I think about this short I'm working on, and its been in production since December. Sometimes, I don't know what else I can do to make the shorts go by faster. Its hard for me to compromise on quality, and at times I get caught up in the details that I don't even think most people will see. Like, I spent maybe an hour or so today redrawing Jacquo's collar on his coat for about 7 frames or so as he shifts his weight. At first I think, "well, gotta roll up those sleeves!", and then about half way through I think. "will anyone even notice this?" But there you go. An hour or so spent on redrawing a collar.

Animation is a frustrating process. I constantly go back and forth in my head about doing something with quality vs. cranking something out simply for the sake of cranking it out. I find myself wanting to redraw every frame, but that's not feasible. The shorts would never get done then. So I compromise and cut a corner here and there. I've been around in this business long enough to know where and when to cut those corners and how to pull them off, but if I am given a week or a month to work on a shot, I'll take that week or month. I know it's old hat around here to bust George Lucas's balls, but he once said something along the lines of: "Films aren't finished. They're abandoned." He's right. There's always something that could be fixed or tweaked, but you look at your watch and realize that you've got more shots to do. So you let go and try to ignore the things that bother you about a shot or a sequence.

Above is a frame from a half-way completed Shot04. I posted the rough of that same frame a few weeks back, so I thought I'd post that up to show where things are at this point. Things are moving along slowly but surely."