Animations in their BETA form, get it?

Here's where you get to see some animations in earlier stages, or, in some instances, the furthest they've gotten along development before their permanent pit stop at a popular hangout known as The Shelf.

LINKS TO THE PAST. GET IT?
2008 - 2007 - 200V - 2004 - 2003 - 2002 - 2001

2008

Parodius: Shadow Viper Team [12-200V, 5-2006, 2-10-2008]
In the warm season of 200V, I rediscovered Macross, and the remainder of the year was, to paraphrase a certain early '90s pubescent hip-hop duo, Totally Makross'd Out. While listening to Gradius Suite Fantasia during the fall, I noticed a section that very much sounded like a Gradius squadron getting ready to scramble. I was then inspired to build upon my Macross II/Gradius tribute from 2003, Skull Cannon.

In this work, a special Parodius force is briefed and sortied against an internal enemy looming above Konami World, long before the events of ParoVadius RESET. The design of the Shadow Viper fleet hints at a great fighter to come.

Work on this revision commenced in mid-December of 200V, until my move to California some weeks later, and resumed in early May of 2006, just days before my return to New York. I've recently arranged a couple of things right-quick for presentation here.

2007

GO AHEAD. [11-15-2007]
In this follow-up to BACK OFF., The Girl decides that her relationship with The Guy just won't work out. Annoyed by her frivolous attitude, he leaves her to the dangers of the world he once protected her from; namely, The Creep who once stalked her. "Go ahead, you can have her..." says he, before walking away. Grimm's Fairy Tales put it best: "And that is the way of the world." Check out the full animatic.

bts2 (working title) [7-25-2007]
Resuming from the random silliness in BEFORE THUNDER STRIKES, Fox enters the cave and encounters Painted Lady. A battle to the death would have ensued,...we think. This collaboration's demise was due to my extended work week of the time and lack of appearances from fellow collaborateur Rapplefee during my own rare IMing routines.

Happy S.A.D! [2-14,15-2007]
I originally made this for my fellow CastleVania fanatics who don't get Valentine's Day play, most likely because they're too busy with CastleVania. Naw...I kid, I kid! Since 2006, I've referred to 2|14 as Single Awareness Day, that yearly day during which the Worldwide Commercial Machine stuffs it into your lungs that YOU HAVE NOBODY TO SPEND THIS DAY WITH. And so, I began making this greeting card...

The premise, CastleVania friends? Big Daddy Dracula is busy having Big Time Multiplayer Fun at his Phat Flat and you're not. The trick? You get to put a stop to it (or let Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin, stars of the then-new release, CastleVania: Portrait of Ruin, do it for you). Beware, the sounds of 'Dracula' screwing around get EXPLICIT, so be very heads-upped. & lest the descriptor get you too excited, don't forget that after all, this is the BETA'NIMATION section, so expect things to look loose.

200V

Di Gi CRAP [4-4-200V]
A brief Di Gi Charat parody done during a very creative spot in 200V. Over the short course of this animation, I experimented with the other brush shapes and got some fairly interesting results. Its relative success was followed by Digimon VS Pokemon, done in a similar, haphazard style, the next day.

2004

One of THOSE Dentists [10-15-2004]
Inspired by ACTUAL, debilitating events! Following a root canal, Red's dentist instructs him not to go after hard foods...

One of THOSE VALENTINE'S DAYS [2-7-2004]
A VDay edition of One of THOSE Days. Red is having a bleak time (as usual) and a group of Whites attempt to cheer him up.

2003

BRAINPIERCE [9-16-2003]
What I despise about my own kind is the way they will look at your girlfriend when you're walking with her. Based on actual events...
In 2006 it was polished up and rechristened as BACK OFF.

CAR [7-2003]
Join Agent Colombia as he sets off on his neverending quest to get bicchiz. Special cameo appearance from Shady Muppets

NYPL EPISODE 2 [Summer, 2003]
The sequel to NYPL Episode 1, in which Muõz steps out for his 15 (really, 30) minute break, leaving Roman behind. Cosplay hilarity was to ensue...three summers later, when this animation was wrapped as an appointment.

Bloody Menu (early version) [6-19-2003]
The navigation menu for DYNAKYRIS' ETC was originally a corpse that breathed and bled. Unfortunately, this dynamism caused animations to play less smoothly. Eventually, in the interest of slicker playback during these lower-spec times, its breathing was ceased and its blood supply run dry. Ultimately, the Bloody Menu was dropped for a simple and easily-managed text version.

CV Snippets#1 [3-31-2003]
In this CastleVania scene, Simon Belmont prepares for a critical jump and is supposed to get knocked out in mid-air. Videogame nonsense would proceed once he hits the drink. I like the determined look on his face before he makes the jump.

Serial Experiments RED DOT [2, 2003]
A parody of the intro to Serial Experiments Lain, featuring Red, whom had recently been recognized for his role in One of THOSE Days.

To aid in some of the timing in this piece, I imported the original Lain intro into Adobe Premiere to study the frames. The bloody head you'll notice is that of Tricky the Clown, a Newgrounds scourge at the time.

2002

Merry Xmas [12-27-2002]
In this wintry scene, CastleVania III's Trevor Belmont powers up his Banshee Boomerang with Ice, winds it up, and let's it fly! His enhanced weapon causes all sorts of mischeif in several completely different scenarios. According to the storyboard, the Boomerang interrupts Zero Wing's intro.

Storyboarding occured during the afternoon of Christmas, work began Christmas night, and it ended the evening after due to lack of graphical resources and sound sync issues. It was a pleasure to work on this one during the very heavy snowing of Christmas night. Merry Xmas is a "mixed elements"' animation, combining rasters alongside vectors. Keyframe animation and the camera were also experimented with.

I should mention that in 2005, some heartless dillweed carried out this very concept with the Boomerang interrupting other worlds and took all the credit.

ViolenceWorld ZER0 [10-11-2002]
Ed Oscuro from the CastleVania Dungeon forum dropped a link to a hilarious outtake from HALO. It just HAD to be animated.

ParoVadius; Stage 0 [7, 2002]
The Prologue Level of ParoVadius, a la Dracula X Rondo, in which Slogaibon races along the highway before encountering the first true skirmish of the game, Galamoth.

I used skewing to create a 3D effect on the builidings in the foreground and background, and for some reason added slog's shadow to the highway surface.

jAY16CD [6-22-2002]
My friend Jason and I run our own taped radio show, WJNE 10.5. For one of our many amusing commercial breaks, he decided to advertise the CD player I used at the time. When he finished, I felt it would make a perfect Flash short.

Later that day, after teaching him Motion Tween and button-making, I set to work.

Merit here goes towards the lip synch, which I had made so varied and complicated it eventually burned me out for the day and I left the commercial as it was. Jason dislikes that I used anime characters for the 'girls', even though they were the most accessible elements at the time.

TxM [6-20-2002]
Within the realm of the ParoVadius release countdown, and very early into my dabbling in the surprisingly congenial and constructive Texas Mafia, I came up with this concept for a TxM plug. Thier logo would appear, then a certain Dinosaur Knight would show up to blast it away.

While the voice track was recorded for this plugging short, it was never included.

ParoVadius; NOT a VGDC Production [6-17-2002]
Originally one of ParoVadius' headliners, this scene was cut from the final movie to reduce time and file size.

Had these few killer seconds remained, what would have the audience impression been?

ParoVadius; First Trailer [5-30-2002]
I referred to this one on DCTP as the "intimate" trailer to ParoVadius, because had it been completed, it would have been backed by a sad, passionate violin theme, in memoriam of the millions lost in Konamiworld City.

The END of PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME [5-28-2002]
The storyboard for this fad attack calls for Slogra to toss his spear to the sky, air-dash-rip through The Dancing Banana, and appear on the other side of it, catching his spear just before the bananna blasts apart.

I was waiting on getting a certain "particle effect"--that being the bulbous, beautiful blast sprite from Contra Hard Corps, so the banana would meet its end Contra HC style.

ParoVadius; HOW TO PLAY [5-22-2002]
In the vein of Neo Geo arcade games, I had planned to do a "HOW TO PLAY" segment for part 1 of ParoVadius. The voice track was completed for this one, describing all of Slogaibon's weapons.

This scene was intended to go with the full part 1 of ParoVadius, but I cut it off and isolated it. You can also see here a fairly realistic (and not necessarily accurate to Gaibon's) flying animation that was never used.

ParoVadius; 5-18-2002 BETA [5-18-2002]
What a difference 2 days makes. So what's the difference?

There are 2 big ones. In addition the the extra scene and Banshee Boomerang buttons, this is the first time Shoutarou Morikubo's Moon Light is dropped as the BGM; Master of Illusions from CastleVania: Dracula X (as covered in Perfect Selection Dracula Battle) is auditioned as a possible replacement.

Also at this point, I had learned how to use STOP actions along with buttons so that the viewer could click through the story and read it, rather than attempt to speed-read lines I had never tested read-times of.

Click-through was dropped from ParoVadius in the end because I felt it kept interrupting the flow of the movie (I observed my beta tester's reaction to the click-through), though I should've increased the number of frames on each line shown...

That's why you should use a stopwatch when you're making anything with non-vocalized onscreen dialogue.

ParoVadius; 5-16-2002 BETA [5-16-2002]
ParoVadius in its infancy... The project was nearly a month old, but gaining rapidly and passionately...I had been released from college for the summer a few weeks earlier, and all my mad energies were directed towards the completion of this movie.

I was getting a bit tired of hearing the same (though fitting) background music, so this is the last time I would use it for the opening scene.

If my eye and memory serves me right, this is also the last beta of ParoVadius that runs in 17FPS, with all versions afterward running at 24FPS..

2001

Poopy! [10-31-2001]
Why is Alucard in such a rush? Find out at the end of this very silly quickie. !!!TOO HOLLOW FOR NEWGROUNDS!!!

DCTP Opening [10-18-2001]
A Flash opening for DCTP had been planned ever since seeing my first Flash animation in the late 90s, but when I began to shoot for this simple one, I took a different approach (and mimicked the scrolling clouds of the Japanese version).

At the end of the Flash you can hear me say "...I like this game..." as stage 3 plays in the background.

Trevor VS Skull Knight [10-11-2001]
Newgrounds was experiencing a deluge of repetative, heartfelt dedications to planes crashing into buildings, and I looked over most of them.

It was the poor quality of these tributes that made me reevaluate Flash and its power ("I HATE WORKING WITH FLASH!!!" --Eric Roman, 2000), so on October 9th, I set out to make a brief encounter between two characters from my favorite game ever, CastleVania III: Dracula's Curse.