To all of the undiscovered voice talent out there, there is a new Voice acting contest being held in the forums for which Bill (Maverick32183) and myself with be helping to judge along with FatKidWitAJetPak (The organizer of the contest.) DYLawryence and yes... Tomamoto

The contest will (in all hopes) be a monthly challenge, this month's challenge being to use this line at the end or beginning of a story that you make up.

"And that's why I don't have my homework"

For a great example you can check out the current #1 weekly audio submission made by FatKidWitAJetPak

The prize list is as of yet incomplete however there is talk of trying to get the top 3 winners mentioned in a front page post to promote them and, although it is not yet an official prize, I am offering a GUEST ROLE IN A "SKETCHED" CARTOON to the contest winner... Say whaaaaaaat? Haha, I know it might not be the greatest of prizes, but it's a start.

For a complete list of rules and everything visit the contest thread.

...In other news, I'm working my head off on the new Sketched so it should be ready for early March, and we are gearing up to work on our super secret project (that's really not that big of a secret).

I will leave you now, with a video my friends made many moons ago in High School that is a personal favorite of Bill (maverick) and myself due to its complete lack of decency.

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Till next time.

Well... it isn't... yet. I can't really divulge much of the details, but suffice it to say we have a LOT of stuff going on over here at Noreasta Productions (home of Sketched) and although it is all good and exciting stuff, I can't quite promise that we will be able to stay on our series production schedule as it currently stands. I can, however, promise that if it all goes according to plan, you will be seeing a LOT of new and exciting material come out of the sketched series, one way or another.

As it stands, the current cartoon is moving along swimmingly. I should have no problems getting it out to you by early to mid March. After that we plan on releasing the first part of our short sketch trilogy. This sketch (as advertised) will be a bit shorter than the others, however it is only the first part of a larger story. For some time after we may be doing shorter releases (don't worry, we would never cut back on the quality, you will still find the same great humor in every submission) in order to keep up the schedule while we ramp up production on our SEEEEEECREEET PROOOOJECT. (Although it's really not that secret if you think about it.)

I will keep you fine people updated as to the progress of our next short, however be forewarned, an unexpected slowdown may be forthcoming.

-Jeff

Holy unexpectedness Batman! We made front page. Haha. Thanks to everyone for that and all their support.

It was honestly completely unexpected because the last few cartoons we put out never made it, and in all honesty I felt they were much better (especially Sketchedmas), but then again who knows how front page actually works right?

My main fear is that for many this will be their first introduction to the Sketched series as we are still relatively small on Newgrounds and I hate for people to get a bad first impression on a sub par episode.

Man, seriously... what kind of an asshole complains about getting front page? Haha.

No, in all honesty, it's pretty awesome and I thank everyone for their support.

Hey hey hey! Check it out, there's a sweet new cartoon in the portal!

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
481755

This sketch is new in many ways, for instance it is the first sketch to feature the voice talents of the entire sketched crew! Second it is the first sketch where you will see artwork other than my own. That's right, Smirk Studios was kind enough to do all of the background artwork for this sketch making it with out a doubt the best looking sketch to date.

In related news, we recently recorded the audio for Smirk's new cartoon Teen Pijinz so keep an eye out for that in the next month or so from him.

That is about it from this side. Now that the new cartoon is finished we are hard at work on the next so until then, I hope you enjoy the newest submission from the Sketched series.

-Jeff

So I have been working like mad on the new cartoon which was supposed to go out late Sunday afternoon, however after an unseen hospitalization of one of our cast I had to delay the cartoon.

All is well and our cast member has returned home after an exhausting middle of the night visit to the emergency room, however it mostly meant that I lost my all important final day of animation because I spent the day in the emergency room with them.

Aaaanywho. The cartoon should be finished within the next day or two and then I will spend some extra time tweaking the Action Script on the new buttons and show intro so expect new content on Wednesday.

That's about all from this side.

-Jeff

I was just wondering, is anyone out there on Xbox Live and playing Left 4 Dead or Rock Band 2 (or the original)? I mean, I know there ARE people playing these games, but I just hate playing with COMPLETE strangers so I figured I would see if anyone friendly from the NG community wanted to game. I'm pretty much mediocre at "Left 4 Dead" but I can play most any song in "Rock Band" on expert on the drums, so if anyone is looking for someone to play either game with hit me up with a friend request (I'm SirJeffOfShort on XBL too) or send me a PM.

Now on to more important business... the new cartoon! Progress is going along swimmingly and I will have finished basic animation this week, leaving me to do effects, expressions, and lip synch in the next few weeks. We are right on schedule to release by the end of January (with special thanks again going to Smirk Studios for all his help on the backgrounds.)

Noreasta Productions as a whole does have a few more things coming up the pipeline, but rest assured you will have monthly Sketched content right here on NewGrounds for some time to come.

Sadly I am unable to leave you with any production artwork this time, so instead I will leave you with this handy dandy live action sketch we made about a year ago. Enjoy.

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Whelp! Back to the mushroom patch!

Till next time,

-Jeff

Update 1-9-09: Holy Crap! We made 9th in the comp. I am absolutely thrilled. Tom (the glorious man that he is) filled in the last two slots in the top ten and we were awarded 9th place! Thanks so much to everyone on NG and to everyone who voted and supported us. I decided to leave my first paragraph of my original post below so that (as if anyone cared) people could see what Luis and Tom were responding to. Thanks again to Tom and everyone on NG.

Oh well, who wants a cigar anyways?

Haha, the Christmas results are out (as I'm sure you know because anyone here is more likely to read Tom's post before mine, but I digress) and I think that Sketched placed fairly favorably. Sure no winnings were in order, but I think as first runner up we put up a damn good fight for not having made front page (of course that's a double edged sword, because if we had made front page more people may have hated our submission... Doh!)

Anyways, onwards and upwards. The Sketched January release is well underway and with ease the best looking of all the sketched cartoons to date. This is in a large part due to the hard work of SmirkStudios who put a tremendous amount of time and effort into doing the backgrounds for our new cartoon. He added a lot of great detail that I am usually to strapped for time (and lazy) to add to the backgrounds and I couldn't be more thankful.

As a bit of a trade off the Sketched crew also did voice work for his new cartoon "Teen Pijinz" which should be out in early February. So keep an eye out at the end of January and early February for more amazing content from the Sketched crew and Smirk Studios.

As a side note I would also like to mention that we at Noreasta Productions (the purveyors of Sketched) are in no way opposed to working with others on ours or their cartoons. Although I do not have much extra time to help with animation, if anyone is looking for voices we are more than glad to lend a helping hand, and if anyone would like to get in on animating a Sketched episode by all means drop me a PM (just please make sure that you have work of your own to show) because we have more skits recorded than I could ever animate on my own.

I will leave you fine people with a bit of concept art from our next cartoon over which to speculate and bemuse yourselves. This is my original concept art and does not contain Smirk's background (which is much better than my own.)

Till next time, keep on rockin NG.

-Jeff

First off I wanted to say a huge "Thanks" to everyone who has supported the Sketched series. We are now three episodes strong and moving forward and thus far people seem to be liking them. So again, thanks to everyone who has been seeking out the Sketched episodes, who has voted, reviewed and favorited. You guys keep us going from episode to episode.

On a more informative level. I am still on vacation in sunny Massachusettes and will be until the new year. I have been working intermitently on the audio for the next few sketches and have concept art finished for the January episode. This episode is decidedly more in depth animation wise so it may not come out until late January, however I have been playing a bit with a "behind the scenes" type thing containing rejected sketch animatics, behind the scenes footage and concept art to practice my AS and menu making skills, so that may be released someday.

Lastly, some people have mentioned an interest in collaborating with our crew, and I wanted to say that we are completely open to the idea. We have SO many sketches recorded that I could never animate all of them myself, and our voice actors are always willing to help out on projects that need vocals. So if you are interested in possibly animating or helping to animate a Sketched episode feel free to PM me with a link to some of your work or if you need a voice feel free to PM any of our voice actors.

Thanks again to everyone on Newgrounds who has supported us.

-Jeff

Hey everyone, our official Christmas cartoon is officially in the portal... officially...

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
474177

This one was a bit of an experiment in animation for myself, and sadly my PC got all virusey in the middle of production... but now I'm back with a brand new MacBook Pro and I'm ready to make more of those amazing little flash cartoons for everyone.

In other news, Bill (Maverick32183) and I will be returning to Massachusetts for the holidays so not much animating will be going on for the next two weeks, however I have found that between working full time and having some semblance of a life, I am still able to finish a cartoon in about 2-3 weeks, so you can expect the next one in mid to late January.

Till then, Happy Holidays all.

Hey everyone! There is a new Sketched cartoon available now in the portal. Check it out here:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
470229

It stars myself and J.S. Thompson (A.K.A. Silent War)

The next SKETCHED toon is underway and will have a holiday theme. Details are sparse, but it will be starring Bill Rinaldi(The boss of the Pregnancy Testsketch), and Jake Richardson of "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," and "Clerks II" fame. There are also brief cameo's from myself and Lori Starkgraf.

So check out the new vid and let me know what you think.

Rock on Newgrounds.

-Jeff Short