Heya everybody,

Chapter One of the audio series "Unleashing Hope" is out!

"Unleashing Hope" is the sequel to "Letting Go of Hope".

I play the role of Sonic.

Go ahead and give it a listen:

[link]


The Cast:
- (KN) Narrator, Chris, Tails. (Ames) Amy Rose
- Sonic
Knuckles
Cream & Bokkun
Eggman
Grandpa Chuck
Jade (formally Karinathehedgehog on DA)
Dr. Cameron
Guest voice star.

Heya everyone,

Just wanted to say thanks for all the birthday wishes and the LLAMA FLOOD. XD
I know I'm not active much, but it means a lot that you stick around despite that.  Thank you.

I don't have anything of any real import to say, so I just want to wish you all a happy holiday and a happy New Year filled with all the awesomeness you deserve.

So what will the sequel to Letting Go of Hope be about?
Find out here in this special Halloween treat just for you!
[link]

Letting Go of Hope is a Sonic the Hedgehog fan-narrated series led by .  I play Sonic!  I had a blast doing the first season and look forward to what the sequel has in store!

If this is entirely new to you, check out the very beginning of Letting Go of Hope here: [link]

Soapy Waffles will be releasing "Mopiness of Doom", the fan animated episode of Invader Zim on Christmas.

Here is the newest teaser.  Gaze upon it with your ocular meat orbs: [link]

I have joined the team as one of the Finishing Animators.  I'll work my human stink pig hands off to make my part as show accurate as possible.

Also, sorry about not having a live stream from InvaderCon II, but technical issues blew that all to heck.  Not even sure if there are any recordings of the Soapy Waffle panel, but if I find any, I'll add them here.

Hey everybody!  Time again for a ridiculously infrequent "Cactacular Journal or Something"!

I haven't uploaded anything in "a while", understatement I know, but I swear that I've been animating!

For example, I've been working with an animation team called Soapy Waffles on a side project of theirs which I've completed and will be uploaded within the week!!

If you haven't heard, Soapy Waffles is a fan animation team dedicated to animating the episodes of Invader Zim that never aired because the show got canceled.  The first project that's nearing completion is the episode called "Mopiness of DOOM".  We'll be showing the progress so far as a main event at InvaderCon2: Doomcon!  In the current presentation, I only have a little voice work in it, but after the convention, I'm hoping to join in the animation of the main project and become a finishing animator.  I suck at the proper terminology, but I hope to help turn the animatics into the show quality final product.

Also, I'm currently at InvaderCon2: DoomCon in Los Angeles, CA with my good friend Elle and Emily (leader of Soapy Waffles).  I'm having a blast!  That part was probably important to say and probably shoulda been up higher.

For the main presentation, Soapy Waffles will have a livestream up, so you might see me up on stage helping present the Soapy Waffles Mopiness of Doom animation for Emily

The event/stream should be at 5:00PST/8:00EST.  I'll do another journal right before the event. (I promise it won't take 6 months to post it! XD)

The URL for the stream is: [link]

We'll be wearing our black "SW Elite" shirts, so you can't miss us.  I'll be the dude with the boony/cowboy-ish hat.

I don't usually do "tagged" journals since I never have anything interesting to say, but for these 2 awesome friends, I'll make an exception.  I'm not taggin' anyone else though.  If you read this and wanna do it, then that works too! :3

Let's see:

Tagged by :
Check out her awesome narration series, "Letting Go of Hope" : [link] .  It's an awesome narrated fan fiction with a different take on Sonic X.  I do the voice of Sonic.

5 Things About Me

1.  Though I use green a lot, my favorite color is actually orange.

2.  I don't really read fan fiction even though I mostly do fan animations.  I'm aware of my hypocrisy.  I guess that I have a short attention span and picture keep me interested.

3.  I never properly storyboard my animations (yeah, I'm bad).  I usually see it SO VIVIDLY in my head.  I draw several poses and pieces for each scene, scan the pictures, trace them in Adobe Flash CS5, and draw more keyframes as needed directly in Flash.

4.  My older cousin, Pikey is who inspired me to start drawing.  He is AMAZING and even has some art in a museum.  Seeing his art years ago gave me the epiphany that I could make ANYTHING DO ANYTHING.  If I wanted to see a Goomba dressed up as Gaara, BAM!  If I wanted Sonic to discover Shadow listening to questionable music, BOOM!

5.  My friend Daryl is how I got into animation.  Years ago, we both made sprite comics.  We used the Megaman sprites as a base and altered them to resemble ourselves.

My comic was God-awful.

He eventually found some free animation program that I can't remember and we began to make our first animated sprite comics!

My animations were God-awful.

In 2004, Daryl gave me Macromedia Flash 8 and it was eons beyond the other program.  I hit Newgrounds and did pretty much every tutorial that was there at the time.  My favorite tutorial that I'd recommend is "The Big Fat Tutorial" [link] .

Can you see my first sprite comics and animations? --> [link]

_______________________________________________________

And now for a MLP:FiM related tag!
<royalcanterlotvoice>THE TAGS HAVE BEEN DOUBLED!!</royalcanterlotvoice>

Tagged by :
Check out his awesome "Ask Frigid" Tumblr! [link]

01. When did you become a Brony/or started to like MLP:FIM?
I got into this show because of League of Legends back in April 2011!  I had seen the funny captioned pictures of the shows for a while, but this thread made me investigate the show: [link]

I think I Googled it for about 3 minutes, saw that the show was MADE IN FLASH and had to watch some of it to see what I could learn.  I started the first episode... by the next day I had watched the whole series.

02. What's your favorite video game?
Tales of the Abyss

03. What's your favorite episode out of season 2 of MLP:FIM?
Arg.  Making me choose between Lesson Zero and Secret to my Excess!!!  I guess I'll roll with Lesson Zero.

04. What's your greatest fear?
Not being able to protect my loved ones...

05. What's your favorite food?
Eggs

06. The Red pill or Blue pill?
Red Pill.  Let's do this.

07. Do you know kungfu?
No, but I'm confident in my ability to kick face if needed.

08. What's your favorite movie?
Hide and Seek

09. Which pony is your MOST favorite out of the mane 6?
Twilight with Rarity as a close second.

10. If some how Pinkie Pie broke the 4th wall, and entered our world, what would you do?
Party?

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, it really means a lot!

Just wanted to thank you all and apologize for more or less being completely dead this year.

Personally, this year has been rough and made of suck, but I feel the new year will be better.  I can't promise with any degree of certainty that I'll have a crap-ton of animations in the next year, but I know that I will put forth a more conscious effort to be more productive,  even if I have to develop some kind of daily planner of some sort.

Well, that's all I had to say.  Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday season, and I wish you only the best for the New Year!!!



***********
I guess I can get a jump-start on it by writing out my next bunch of animations here.  I'll make a new journal once my current Work In Progress is done.  Maybe even have people vote on which one they wanna see next.  The names I'm using for each animation are just how I remember them.  The actual title would be less dumb.  Just wanted the names to be vague enough to not spoil much:

League of Legends:
1. Vlad Mad
2. Community Chest
3. Fall of Ionia
4. O.P. Customer Service [IN PROGRESS]
5. Baker
6. Twisted Freak
7. Kayle & Morgana with Garterhar

Sonic:
1. Midnight Visit
2. Get Roboticized (Music Video) (BEWARE: Cacti sings)
3. Knothole Comedy Night

Team Fortress 2
1. Defend Defend Revolution
2. Glove Repo

The Cactus has returned! With a new journal at least.


After a long transitional stage in my life, I am deciding to open up commissions. I'll still be making random cartoons, but I wanted to give commissioned work a shot.

Ordering a Commission:
I will do 5 at a time.
The prices are listed below.
The first 5 people that contact me via PM about their commission will get put in the slot.
Once I complete all 5, I'll reopen commissions.

-When commissioning, go into as much detail as possible!  If you have pictures, references, etc., go ahead and send em.
-During the process, I will constantly give you updates on your commission for approval.
-It may take me a few days to some weeks to finish the commission based on the complexity of the commission or time I have available.
-If by any reason, a commission may take longer than usual, reasons will be stated to you.
-I pride myself on efficiency and guarantee that I'll do my best to make the final product as close to your desires as possible.
-I have an open mind, but I have the right to refuse a commission.  I'd like the materials to be PG-13 and under.  We can always discuss the commission.


Prices:

Characters
Bust:
Rough Sketch $4.
Line art $5.
Colored $6.

Half-Body:
Rough Sketch $5.
Line art $7.
Colored $8.

Full body:
Rough Sketch $6.
Line Art $8.
Colored $10.

Comics
1-2 panel: Lineart/Sketch $5. Colored $8.
3-5 panel: LineArt/Sketch $6. Colored $9.
5+ panel: LineArt/Sketch $7. Colored $10.

Full Bg's
Pencil/Line art: $12.
Colored: $15.

Animations
1-5 seconds: $10-$20. (depends on the detail)
6-10 second $25.
ALL animations, no matter the length, come with a FREE animated profile icon of your choosing!

Slots:
Slot 1:
Slot 2:
Slot 3:
Slot 4:
Slot 5:

Payment:
I accept paypal only. Tips are appreciated, but not required.

Today was just an average day to me.  I got up, went to work, came home... Same old, same old.
After calling all the kinfolks, I was feeling pretty awesome.
Then I log on to DeviantArt and see tons of birthday wishes and comments from all of you.  I'm honored to have you all as my watchers/friends.  You've all made me a very happy cactus!  <3

I probably won't be on DA Saturday, so I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Stay awesome!

Volume 6 is out: [link]
Enjoy it with your ears and eyes.
Also,VOTE 5 XD!

Sup everybody!

I haven't updated my journal in ever, but I've always been terribad at that.

Just celebrated my 4th DeviantArt Anniversary, thank you for the Llama Storm!  It sure doesn't seem like it's been that long, but thanks for joining me along the journey. <3

As for upcoming projects, I have 2-3 Sonic Shorts in my head that I'm just DYING to do along with a few other video game related shorts.


Also, I'm happy to announce that in the upcoming weeks I will be offering commissions for drawings and short animation.  I'll post more information on that when the time comes though.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
STUFF FOR THE EARS:
Here's something I'd like you to check out.  It's an ongoing Sonic series called "Letting Go of Hope", directed by for you to watch/listen to on Youtube.
[link]

The gist:
"Letting Go of Hope" depicts Sonic and friends in a more 'realistic' situation of the Sonic X Universe after they came to Earth through Chaos Control.  Sonic finds himself a victim of the darker side of human nature.  While there are only three chapters up at the moment, it is a very good narration and has nice imagery and voicing.
I'm the voice of Sonic in Chapter 2 and upcoming chapters.
Check them out here:
    Ch. 1: [link]
    Ch. 2: [link]
    Ch. 3: [link]

My computer's motherboard crapped out on me recently.  Being a senior Comp Sci student, I said "SCREW YOU", and my friend and I ripped the piece of crap apart and rebuilt the computer from scratch with all new materials.  Now I just need to get mah programs back and I'll be back in commission!

Knuckles has just about had it with the blue blur and his "Sonic Shorts"!  Rad Red decided to make his own collaboration.  He calls it the "Knuckles Briefs"!  Check it out exclusively at "The Sonic Show"!

[link]

Sonic Shorts Volume 5 is out:

[link]

Watch it!  Stop reading this and go do it!

It's come to my attention that some IDIOT is gaining access to fellow Deviantartist accounts by tricking them into clicking on a link that redirects you back to a page that LOOKS LIKE DeviantArt.  

This new page will want you to re-login to what looks like DeviantArt, but if you do that, your info will be sent off to said IDIOT where they will attempt to send comments in your name and trick others into falling for the trap.

The messages I keep receiving have been of the following formats:



1. Hey. I think i saw your picture on this website/blog here CLICK HERE

2. Hey. check out this funny blog!! LOL CLICK HERE

3. Hi take the free IQ QUIZ! I just found out mine. CLICK HERE

4. LOL everyone should see this ... it's HILARIOUS just Click here



If you see this comment or note, send a note to the person who sent it and notify them that their DA security has been breached.  If you've been victim to this trickery, I'd strongly suggest changing your password to keep the IDIOT out.
__________________________________________________________
Also, in order to change your password, on your profile page:

1. Click the button on the right that says "More".
2. Click "Edit Settings" from the drop down menu that appears.
3. On the page the comes up, you'll see "Change deviantART password".

I'm quite horrible at journals since I've nothing much to say most of the time, but what is worth saying is "THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR 100K PAGE VIEWS!!!"   A bit late, but still...  I had an animation in the works for that benchmark, but I'd rather hold off on it so that I can pour my all into it.

    Also, after a few more projects are completed, I think I'm gonna begin an original series of animations.  Sure, animating well-known characters is fun, but I wanna do at least one decent animation with characters and such of my own creation.  But all of that won't be for a while, so for now, the beat goes on.

Got tagged by   Not like I have anything better to do so:


1. What does your deviantart name mean and why did you join this site?
Cacti was made up by my friends and I stuck with it.  Also, one cactus = cool.  Multiple cactuses (i.e. Cacti) = friggin awesome.  I joined this site because I it's an easy/awesome way to show my animations and drawings to friends.

2. What fandom were you obsessed with when you joined and what are you into now?
When I first joined, I had every intention on doing an ongoing Smurf comic.  Now, I'm into
videogame animations

3. How many watchers do you have now?
734 awesome people

4. Name 3 of your favorite artists on DA
I love a bunch of people, but off the top of my head...?  Bleedman, theWax, ChadtheCartoonNut

5. Do you comment, fav, or both?
I'm not very vocal, but I do fav things sometimes.

6. Do you participate in clubs' contests here on DA?
Hrm... no, but that could be interesting

7. What is your most popular deviation?
Run Goomba Run

8. What are you favorite non-anime TV shows?
Daily Show, Colber Report, History channel things, Futurama, Fairly Odd Parents, Spongebob (I love ALL cartoons... except the programming on the Disney channel... watching that for too long can give you cancer.)

9. What are the things you wish you could draw better?
HANDS

10. Summer or winter?
Winter.  I enjoy the cold

11. Rain or Sun?
Rain

12. What's your favorite type of music?
Rock/Metal

13. PC or Mac?
I'm Cacti, and I'm a PC.

14. Anime or Manga?
Anime as long as it isn't filler CRAP.

15. Coke or Pepsi?
I like em both.

16. Read or TV?
TV... which probably explains my horribly short attention sp-

17. How many hours a day do you spend on DA?
A LOT

18. Name a hidden talent
Uh... I have no idea

19. Flash or traditional cartoons?
Traditional cartoons ftw

20. What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
Burger King

21. What are your top 3 favorite books?
Ender's Shadow

22. Wii or Playstation?
Wii...

23. Name 3 of your favorite bands
Breaking Benjamin
Three Days Grace
Lordi

24. Are you a fast, slow, or medium typer?
Medium

25. Do you like Denny's?
I don't believe those are around here, but I figure I probably would like it

26. What is your favorite emoticon?
I HATE most emoticons (ESPECIALLY AIM's), but DA's are actually ok.  I guess my favorite would be the big smile


27. What is your favorite type of pie?
Pumpkin pah!

28. Have you ever stayed up for 24 hours?
Of course.

29. Do you go on YouTube alot?
Indeed

30. Are you a member on any other sites besides DA?
Yup, Sheezyart.

31. Do you cosplay?
No, but that'd be awesome.

32. Fruits or sweets?
Fruits

33. Name 3 artists you admire
My cousin Pikey, Bleedman, ChadtheCartoonNut

34. Buttered, plain, or salted popcorn?
Buttered. *clutches heart and dies*

35. Have you skipped school?
Yes

36. Have you been on a plane?
Once, when I was 4.

37. Have you swam in an ocean?
Yes

38. Have you been iceskating?
Yup

39. Favorite vacation spot
The happy place in my mind

40. Ever been on tv?
Yeah, long ago when I was in grade school

41. Favorite salad dressing?
Ranch w/ bacon

42. What do you do to relax?
Play video games, draw, and animate

43. What is the last film you saw in the theaters?
Kung Fu Panda!

44. Favorite Sandwich
Philly Cheesesteak

45. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Japan

46. Favorite time of the day?
Sleep time!

47. What did you want to be when you were little?
An astronaut!

48. What do you want to be now?
Happy.  

49. If you could eat with one person, who would it be?
Jesus.

50. What character would you hate to be stuck in a room with?
Cheese from Foster's Home... I'd lose it and end up hurting him.

51. When is your birthday?
December 23

52. Favorite type of ice cream?
Strawberry

53. Last book you read?
The Ghose in the Tokaido Inn

54. Which store would you max out a credit card at?
Pfft, I dunno a computer part/ gaming store

55. Do you buy / sell / both on ebay?
Nope

56. What is the most annoying thing people ask you?
"What program do you use to animate with even though you wrote it on the front page?"

57. Favorite all time tv show?
Dexter's Lab

58. What was your favorite show as a kid?
Doug

59. What are you listening to right now?
President Obama

60. What is the last thing you ate?
Zaxby's chicken tenders

61. If you were a crayon what color would you be?
Cactus Green

62. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
... No comment. o///o

63. Favorite sport to play?
Basketball

64. Favorite Day of the Year?
Cacti day

65. Hugs or Kisses?
Kisses  8)

66. Chocolate or vanilla?
Geez, where's strawberry?!  Chocolate then

67. Favorite Board Game?
Monopoly... until it breaks down into a knife fight over Boardwalk

68. Favorite smells
Fruits

69. What inspires you?
My work giving people a good laugh

70. Do you have any piercings?
Nope...

71. How many siblings do you have?
2, 1 bro, 1 sis

72. Bacon Bits or croutons?
Bacon Bits!

73. Favorite Day of the Week?
Friday

74. Favorite phrase
You're bringin' me doooooown, maaaaaan!

75. Favorite Restaurant?
Golden Corral

76. Favorite animal?
Armadillo

77. Favorite thing to do outside
Cloud watch on a windy day

78. Favorite thing to do when it's raining?
Sleep

79. Favorite Disney character
Genie from Aladdin

80. Do you like coffee? If so, what is your favorite brand?
Nope

81. Tag six people
Nah, I'm a rebel.  Whoever gives a crap, you're tagged.

Hey everybody,

Just wanted to let you know that some of my Sonic shorts are in the all new Sonic Shorts Volume 4 which was just released.

You can see the movie on Newgrounds: [link]

Probably should have said this months ago, but I post a lot of my animations on other sites.  And before anymore people accuse me of stealing my own work, I'll list the sites I post on.

Cacti on Sheezyart
[link]

GeneralCacti on YouTube
[link]

But given that this is the Internet, even with this said, I'm sure I'll still be called a thief by those who don't like reading... LITERATURE IS YOUR FRIEND....... sometimes...

Tagged by:
1. Post these rules.
2. Each person tagged must post 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Tags should write a journal/blog of these facts.
4. At the end of the post, 8 or more persons are tagged and named.
5. Go to their page and leave them a comment telling them they're tagged.

1.  My favorite color is orange.

2.  I was inspired to draw by artwork of my older cousin.  (Compared to him, I couldn't draw my way out of a soggy paper bag...)

3.  The bulk of my TV watching consists of cartoons.

4.  My favorite number is 4.

5.  My favorite card is the Jack of Clubs.

6.  My favorite animal is the armadillo. (Though I only see them dead on the side of the road.... My goal is to find a live armadillo around here...)

7.  The nickname "Cacti" was given to me by one of my best friends and his brother.

8.  I enjoy cold, starry winter nights.

I think I'll pass on tagging though.  (I'm a rebel.  ) If you want to do this too, feel free.