No time to make a full post, so sorry I never made one on Comic-Con. Might do it in a week or so, but I have a bunch of stuff to do before school. I have, like, twelve essays to write. (Let this be a lesson to you guys: procrastination=bad.) Hopefully I can finish this up soon, because 1.) school starts in about a week and 2.) I need to start my Halloween submission soon (Peter 2, anyone?) if I want to finish it in time. Anyway, I won't be posting again for a bit. Here's a drawing to tide you over for a while. Adios.

Don't die,
CASEY ROONAN
AKA IRRELIVENT

Yello, my friends. I am currently in San Diego, awaiting my trip to Comic-Con tomorrow. Which means that I unfortunately am not at my home computer, and thus can not post the pics of my Batman fork sculpture I promised you guys in my last post. Awww. I know, I'm sorry. But if it makes you feel any better, I also finished an awesome spoon Hellboy just before I left, so upon my return you shall get twice as much utensil-related goodness. That, however, I DO have photos of on my Zen, as I was going to try to show them to Mike Mignola tomorrow or Friday. So here's one of those below. I'll post more, along with Batman, when I return, which will be on the 29th. Expect a post around then.

So anyways, As I said, I WILL be attending Comic-Con, for all you folks with a spooky interest in my personal life. I will be there on Thursday and Friday, and will probably be wearing a Moonchild or Beetles t-shirt, in case you want to stalk me/bump into me/say hello. What am I excited for? Well, primarily the Venture Brothers and The Spirit panels, so I'll certainly be checking those out, amongst other things. Also, last year I managed to meet Jhonen Vasquez, Roman DIrge, Jenny Goldberg, Mike Mignola, Eddie Campbell, Danny Trejo, and Zander Canon on the show room floor--most of which signed the same dollar bill. So hopefully I can get to meet even more cool people this time around. Also, I have to pick up some comics I've been falling back on, namely Razl, which is fucking awesome so far.

I'll post some pics of my adventures throughout the week. So, hope to see you guys there. And if you aren't there, well, why the fuck aren't you seeing the Dark Knight right now? Idiots.

First and foremost, go and check out the new MGS Collab, in case you haven't. See if you recognize the Solid Snake in the menu (*cough*).

Secondly, I have more good news, involving the Tablet problem mentioned earlier. It seems my Wacom woes have ended, as my graphics tablet is up and running once more. So, I now can officially get back to animating, and now officially must apologize to Microsoft. I'M SORRY MICROSOFT, FOR MY RUDE REMARKS EARLIER. IT WAS NOT VISTA'S FAULT (although that doesn't excuse it for basically being a shinier, more confusing XP). Turns out if I spent more time fiddling with the settings, I would have found the solution quite easily, so my frustration earlier was ill-founded. But I'm not going to go into that right now.

Anyway, it's all good, because it gave me some time to read a good book, listen to some records, and construct Batman out of plastic utensils (some pics of that in a later post, as I can't seem to take any good shots at the moment). Also, it allowed me to sit back, sift through some old, incomplete flash movies, and rethink where I'm going to go with my next project. After dusting off some old .fla files and watching Wall-E twice, I've become inspired to pick up the project I mentioned a while ago. Make something a little less bunny-masked-knife-murderer and more adorable-pink-tofu-creature. But again, that's something to talk about at a later date.

Let's see, what else? Well, there's also the Epic Collab thing I've been talking about for several months. But that's not going to happen for a while, if at all. Which Adam won't like, because he's been eager to work on his part for a long time. Anyone else interested? More information on that when I get more serious about it. Currently I'm doing a quick sort of thing to get back into the swing of things that may or may not involve a certain film starring a certain Nicholas Cage. Also, I may or may not start writing a sequel to Peter so I can get started on that in time for next Halloween, even though I promised myself I wouldn't make a second. But I think the idea I've got is really cool, so I may just have to break that promise. This one will have much more of a storyline, and I thinks it can turn out really cool and (gasp) smart, even. Oh, and I will also be at the San Diego Comic-Con again this year, so keep a look out for me if you're going (although I'll probably try to avoid you, and you probably won't recognize me out of my jumpsuit).

So, between all these projects, and preparing for my AP classes and the SAT's next year, it seems I'm going to be busy. Wish me luck. Oh, and as promised, here's a pic of my Ziggy Stardust costume, for you all to laugh at:

UPDATE: Hey, what's this? Looks like Tom has gone and stolen my idea.

Lol. Picture below is me in the jumpsuit I bought for my Ziggy Stardust getup for a costume party I'm going to on Tuesday. If you have any recommendations for what else to wear, or whatever, the thread (and a further explanation) is here.

In other news, my Graphics Tablet is broken. Or more accurately, Microsoft's shitty Vista operating system is broken, because it's up and decided to stop recognizing my Wacom tablet. It says I need to download an update for the driver to fix this, so if I search around for it (assuming there is one), I should be able to remedy this and get back to work on my other flash projects relatively soon. But unfortunately I'm in the middle of final exams right now (and of course worrying about this totally epic costume), so I haven't gotten around to doing such. So if you guys want to do my lazy ass a huge favor and find this fabled update FOR me and send me a link, that would be swell. But until then, my contribution to the upcoming Metal Gear Collab(s) will be all you see from me for a while (I'm of course assuming that I made it in, since Stamper has confirmed that it's now going to be all of TWO giant super sexy flash movies). And until then, I'm horribly distraught over my broken present from Tom, and my slowly deteriorating heterosexuality, as pictured below:

Until next time, please don't kill yourselves. And go see The Incredible Hulk, even though it sucked. I don't know why I'd recommend a movie I didn't like, but there you are.
-IRRELIVENT

UPDATE: Yeah, costume worked out, in the end. Post pics later. Tired.

Yeah, so I've been working hard for the last few weeks on my part in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Collab. I've spent a lot of time making each frame as detailed as possible, to try to make some good high quality frame by frame animation for you folks, so I hope it all pays off. As usual for me, tweens just weren't an option. I also tried to go for a more cartoon-y feel to it, as opposed to the more realistic look of say, Peter. I don't think I really got it down until about midway into it, but I think it's some of my best flash work to date.

Not to give anything away (and maybe I am simply by telling you this, because the thing's only about twelve seconds long), but the concept involved entails Snake's terrible (and completely unnecessary, game play wise) smoking habit and it's unfortunate side effects. I suppose it isn't a very good gag, but I hope the animation will more than make up for it, and hopefully it'll be worth some small amusement. Hey, at least it isn't a cardboard box joke.

Right now I'm just putting on some finishing touches--sound, and the like--and should be sending it on over soon. Wish me luck, and hope I get in. Although, by the sound of things, maybe that won't be too difficult. Anyway, here's a sneak peak:

(Oh, and by the way: Speed Racer is like an hour and a half of gummy bears fighting at 200 mph. Ignore reviews. Go see.)

UPDATE: Shit is done.

This is a video. Notice how it is embedded in this here blog post.

Yeah, so a week ago I finished constructing the Cloverfield monster out of a bunch of forks my friend gave me for Christmas (Long story. All you have to know is he's an asshole, and I had 700 forks laying around my room for two months). I was bored on a Saturday, and figured I'd do something constructive with myself instead of reading comic books or wandering around Facebook like the horrible tool I've become (I finally gave into peer pressure and got one, and I feel awful for it), so I decided to make a sculpture out of the horrible overabundance of forks plaguing my room. So I sat down with a hot glue gun and a pair of scissors and started doing just that, not knowing what I'd come up with. However, after about 15 minutes of gluing together random bits of fork--thinking I'd make some figure, maybe a giant Batman?--I took a look at what I had created and realized, in dismay, that it didn't look like anything. i would look right at it, and still not know what the fuck I had made. And then, logically, the next thought that crossed my mind was "CLOVERFIELD!"

In a way, it's kind of a parody of all the buzz on the internet about what the monster is--what it looks like, where it came from, etc. You know, I mean there are huge message boards dedicated to it, where people come back from the theater and draw what they remembered the monster looked like. My other friend was obsessed with it for awhile and I kept telling him that if you care about what the Cloverfield monster really is then, quite frankly, you're missing the whole point. Which is why my Cloverfield monster looks almost nothing like the one on screen.

The way I see it, Cloverfield wasn't really about the monster. Which sounds crazy, but anyone who knows shit about what makes a GOOD monster flick knows that they're never really about the creature. Like the old Romero movies with their social-political commentary, and The Host (awesome, for those of you who haven't seen it), which was about the family at the story's core. Like all of those, Cloverfield is about disaster, and how people respond in situations like that--and what it says about them, personally. You know almost nothing about these people at the opening of the movie, but by it's closing, after the proverbial shit hits the fan, you feel like you know them. You feel like you've known them for a long time, almost as though they're your own friends, and THAT (coupled with the device of digital camera POV) makes the whole experience so much personal. As the credits began rolling up, I felt so satisfied with the simplistic beauty of the story that I was completely satisfied. I no longer CARED what the monster was, or where it came from. That's why I think so many people weren't satisfied with it. They were expecting a complete balls-to-the-wall giant monster movie, but since you only saw the thing a total of four times--and because there weren't half-naked men flipping around, spewing bad ass one-liners, and stabbing things *cough*--they decide it sucked. But yeah, now I'm ranting...

So needless to say, the idea of the Cloverfield monster made of forks seemed unnaturally fitting to me. Fitting to the mystery that surrounded the film prior to it's release--and even still today. So I went ahead and made a model of it, disregarding everything I saw in the film and what everyone thought about it's appearance, until--about 350 forks later (yes, there are still leftovers)--I came up with this. I spray-painted it black, and the debris around it brown and silver--which I think actually gave it some symbolic value, completely by accident (you can probably figure it out for yourself if you consider my opinion of the film. I think it's pretty obvious) and then took some pictures.

Unfortunately, Newgrounds only lets me post one pic per entry, so I'll try to pick the best one, and find a better home for all of these later. I was going to make a Deviantart so I could have a better place to put these and my other projects, but unfortunately they decided to ban my IP address for some reason that is completely beyond me (any of you guys want to make me an account and send me the password?). All of them are up on my Facebook profile though, so if you guys have an account just send me an invite and I'll add you (although that might be kinda creepy). Anyways, enjoy this one pick, and go see the movie if you haven't yet (or again, if you have). About my plans posted in my previous post, I've decided to work on my portion of the collab before I continue with the other flash, so that Adam can work on his segment while I do that, and we can get this ball rolling.

EDIT: More pictures here.

So here it is, and have a nice day.
-CASEY ROONAN
(IRRELIVENT)

Hey guys. Just checking in to let you know I started work on a new flash--my first "real" project since Peter--that should be due out sometime soon. Let's say...February? Speaking of Peter, it should be drastically different than that flash (art wise, story wise, and content wise), so many of you will be dissapointed, but hopeflly many more of you will be pleasantly surprised. For one, this is much less violent. As in, not at all. In fact, the feel I'm trying to go for is a sort of children's picture book kind of thing, only a bit more mature theme wise. To complement this, expect it to be in a much cleaner, more simplistic visual style (although the twitchiness of Peter and A Transformation remain). So far, I've only just begun to animate it, which has been slow because I haven't gotten a chance to record the narration yet (it's already written out and I love it, but it's so god damn noisy in my house) I've got a good feeling about this one guys, so keep PMing me to keep me on track! :)

Also, on the topic of Peter, I'd like to thank you guys for all your support throughout October and early November. Really meant a lot to me. I unfortunately did not win the contest, but Tom was nice enough to send me a FREE Wacom Tablet after some prodding from my good friend Adam (who, against NG regulation just made a new account for some reason), so I got what I wanted out of this, so it's all good, right? Animating is so much easier, which is really helping me out with this new flash, so maybe this will be out BEFORE Ferbruary. Also, I got a cool T-shirt and stickers, so thanks again, Tom!

Adam and I have been talking about this idea for a Collab I've been thinking about doing for a while now, which I've been wanting to post about but keep forgetting to. So, I figured I'd post about it here while I'm at it (although, due to the project mentioned above, this will unfotunately have to stay on the backburner for a while, so no one get to excited just yet). The idea is simple enough. I will make a short, minute (give or take) long flash that starts a story, which Adam will then continue in his own flash. He will then send the first two parts to the next artist, who will then add a third part, and pass it one. And so on and so on like that, until it has been worked on by around 10 to 15 different Newgrounders, thus creating an epic 15 minute flash story that will then proceed to blow the minds of people the whole world over. (So many, in fact, that the United Nations will have to ban our beautiful film to keep any more innocent heads from exploding.) You get the picture, right? The title would be something like "Epic Collab," or something hopefully a bit more creative.

Yeah, so you guys can PM me if you are interested, but keep in mind I will only admit artists who I think are truly talented and/or creative enough to take this thing somewhere crazy and unexpected. Also, as I said before, this won't be happening for a while, so you guys have a while to upload something good to impress me to get admited into the collab. This is all pretty rough right now, but it should be fun, right? I will post the order of the segments here.

1. irrelivent
2. aardvarksympathizer
3.

Oh, and here's an extra drawing for you--made it this Sunday in ink. Can you guess who it is? Adam and Will didn't know who it was at first (Adam still doesn't) so PM them to tell them what idiots they are. Just don't tell Adam who it is! :)

Have a nice day.

-CASEY ROONAN
AKA IRRELIVENT

Drew this yesterday. I like it, so I thought I'd share it with you guys. Inspired by a scene in a particularly good movie. Can you guys guess which one? FREE high five for the first to figure it out. :) Sorry for the blurry pic. Didn't want to tear it out of my sketchbook, so I took a picture of it with my crappy digital camera.

Finished this not 20 minutes ago. The film is called "Timmy the Tomatou." Yes, I know that is misspelled. However, it wasn't me you wrote it like that.

You see, the long, colorful history of Timmy the Tomatou goes like this: I did not create Timmy the Tomatou.

Rather, my friend Adam did one day, after we got back from the movies (we saw Darjeeling Limited). He drew a single frame in flash while I was off somewhere doing something. A frame so poorly drawn, I HAD to make an entire movie based off the little man it features. The name of the file that he saved it under was "Timmy teh tomatou," which begs the question; why? Why is it called "tomatou," when the character (then just a floating head) is clearly nothing of the sort? And just how the fuck do you misspell the word "tomato"?So many questions. So compelling a character, I knew exactly what I must do. And that was not answer any of those questions.

So now, I present to you:
Timmy the Tomatou.

Wuv you. :)