Just before the end of 2024, I've managed to finish Brother & Sister: Episode 7!

I had some version of this "joke" in my head all the way back when the iPad was first announced back in like 2009, though a draft of this particular script didn't come together until 2015, with the intent of animating it that same year.

Here we are, a month away from 2025, and I've finally finished it. Whoops.

Will you ever get Episode 8? I hope so, but we'll have to see.

In the meantime, my first feature film "Sorry, We're Dead" is now available to stream or on physical Blu-ray and DVD!

Apple TV

Amazon Video

Tubi TV

The Roku Channel}

Fawesome (App Only)

If you like my work and are looking for a weird little indie film, go check it out!

Every couple of years I manage to get another piece together, and finally, I've managed to complete episode 6 of the Brother & Sister series.

At this rate, I might even manage 10 episodes before I die of old age!

Writing and directing a feature film has taken over a lot of my life for the past several years, so it kinda takes some time away from these little animated projects. I still want to make some more of them, of course. But it's hard to prioritize my endless creative pursuits, and these little animated shorts have become much more of a "side project" whereas they used to be among my main projects!

I don't really know why I'm saying it. Ya'll aren't my therapists!

Anyway, I'll keep making things, that part is for sure. Who knows what form exactly these things will take, but I suspect there will be a few more animated things coming up as well. There's certainly a large backlog of animations on the To-Do list, and I know what the next several are going to be when I get around to them!

Thank you all for checking out my work. It's always appreciated!

I've posted a new short for the first time in years!

Brother & Sister: Ep 5 - "Hanging Out"

Working in the film industry has taken over a lot of time, and I have less time than ever to make things nowadays. I've been busy on a particularly large project of my own for the past few years, but the pandemic forced me to set it aside for a while until we're allowed to start gathering in large groups again. So, I switched back to some of the animated projects that had been on hold because of the big project!

I know the animation and concepts in these are pretty simple. It's not that I don't have much larger or more complex projects to tackle, but these shorts are designed to be reasonably finishable, so that's why I'm making them. I'd rather finish something than spend years on too many huge projects that fall apart. Plus, I'm having fun, so that's what matters, right?

We'll see if I get any more of these done before the pandemic is properly over. I'm not so sure, because this one already basically took me a full year of the pandemic to finally finish. But if we're lucky, I'll squeeze in another one or two!

My local film industry is pretty much still in full swing though, despite the pandemic, so it's not like I'm sitting at home with nothing to do very often. But if a gap shows up, you know I'll be working on the next one!

Hey all of you lovely Newgrounds peeps!

I just released my latest animation, Brother & Sister: Ep 4, and I got a #1 Daily Feature! I've never actually quite had this honor before. My "Funny School Things 2" animation got a #2 Daily Feature and front page back in the day, but this is the first time one of my pieces will have that little #1 Daily Feature trophy on it. Thanks to all of you that checked out the episode so far! I hope to be making many more of these.

If you haven't checked out Episode 4 yet, go do it!

Meanwhile, for those of you that are interested, I have blog posts on my site detailing some of what went into rebooting this series (which I stared back in 7th or 8th grade in 2007), and most recently a blog talking about how the Nicole character model has changed over time. Check them out at http://www.aqlex.com/.

I hope to be posting to Newgrounds more! The community is just so much more fun than places like the money-driven YouTube... I always post to NG first (though YouTube follows shortly after). So anyway, all that is really just to say: keep an eye out for more Brother & Sister episodes!

Best,

-Alex Zajicek

Hey everyone! I've decided to reboot an old series of mine from YouTube (back before I knew what Newgrounds was).

Brother and Sister was an accidental series I started in 2007 (I say accidental because I thought it was going to be a one off short at the time, but it ended up having 13 episodes). I actually tried sort of bringing this series back with two shorts on Newgrounds a few years back, but I was trying to write a much longer episode so I kept calling these two "shorts." Anyway, I've since realized that the longer episode is outside of my scope at this point in time, so I've decided to start the series off as a bunch of smaller episodes. I'm rewrapping the two shorts I released on Newgrounds with a new title, theme song, and credits sequence (and I also adjusted some of the animation, aspect ratio, color palette, and sound mixes, so they're in a better form than ever before) as Episodes 1 and 2. But don't worry, I'm not just rehashing old material! I'll be releasing Episode 3 in a couple of days, and eventually I'll be releasing Episode 4 as well, which already has most of the work completed. And both of these are all new.

You can watch Episode 1 here: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/705595

And Episode 2 here: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/705719

Will there be even more episodes? I sure hope so. I have plenty of scripts, some dialogue recordings, and some assets already made toward future episodes. As long as time permits, I will be making more of these. Freelancing is how I make a living though, and it currently takes up a major portion of my time. So I can't give any dates or anything, but I do hope to be back with more content soon. Ideally the gaps between releases won't be YEARS long!

Check out some of my other work, if you're new. And check out my YouTube channel as well, though I promise to be always posting my animated work to Newgrounds too!

If any of you are from the San Francisco Bay Area in California, I'm going to have a short film of mine (called I Edit Lectures) premiere at the Albany Film Festival on March 25th, so feel free to swing by!

Website: http://www.aqlex.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/aqlex

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AqlexProductions

Hey Newgrounds!

I just put up an Indiegogo Campaign for a short film I've been working on for over a year now.

I've been on here for a couple of years. Since 2008 I think. I've been posting up animations (albiet inconsistently) since my early days here as well, but I've always had a love for storytelling in all forms.

Now I just graduated from college, and as my senior thesis, I made a short film. I've been making them for years, and even gotten into a handful of festivals, but this film I made as my senior thesis, titled "The Last Summer," is definitely my biggest project yet.

It's not animated, so I know it's not quite appropriate Newgrounds material, but it's currently what I've been pouring all of my time into. If anyone here is interested in short films or coming of age stories (particularly comedic-and-dramatic ones that also poke some fun at modern culture), please try to check out my Indiegogo Campaign.

You can find out a bit more about the project on my website, here.

Newgrounds has been a really cool place that's helped me develop as an artist and storyteller, and I hope to be able to share this film with you all one day in some form. And don't worry, animated things are still coming too!

Alright, here's a short new animation!

Now, I was working on bigger stuff, but it turned out to be too big for my already-limited animation time, so I had to set it aside for the time being. I made THIS one instead, based on a script I wrote while I was animating Genius Cop 2.

I tried out some new stuff, namely a new lip sync method. While I love the result, there was just too much work involved, so I'm going to have to find a good middleground.

I wrote it at the time because I realized that Ms. Leursen (who I consider to be one of my more iconic characters) is only in three of my animations, and one of those is a remake of the other! Plus she's just fun to work with, both in writing and in animating. She listens to the least of my animation rules. If you're interested, you can find her in Funny School Things, Funny School Things 2, and Funny School Things Redux.

I'm still open for doing voiceacting by the way, if anyone is looking for voiceactors!

Alright, time for another semester of classes. We'll see what kind of free time that translates to (spoiler alert: probably none).

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/Aqlex
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AqlexProductions
Tumblr: http://aqlex.tumblr.com/

This was my final for my Flash Animation class. The assignment had some really restrictive rules, so I took the chance to 1) push those rules, and 2) make something pretty out-of-the-norm instead of my usual work.

The assignment had to have an alien (that spoke English) on one planet (and include a walk cycle) go to a spaceship and head to another planet, where the alien had to interact with another alien. I made the spaceship a couch, I made the alien's tounge come from the roof of his mouth, I made his walk cycle not a human-like walk at all, and I probably screwed with other constraints as well. This is what came out of it.

Hey everyone!

Just got a new short together. I've been working with Flash for YEARS, but I finally got myself into an actual class on it in college. Lots of this stuff I already figured out over the years, but I've definitely picked up a few new tricks and tools. Anyway, this was our first proper assignment: Have 3 scenes and a jump, with no dialogue or walking.

I abused the blur filter, thanks to Swivel! I've always wanted to get to use it more, and now I can.

I think I managed to animate the smoothest thing I've done thus far, even though it is incredibly short and simple. I hope you enjoy it!

Hey guys! I've made another Brother and Sister Short! Check it out.

This one is shorter than the first one (check the first one out HERE if you're interested) but I think this one has more of a fun concept. Like I promised, I've gone in and changed some things since the last episode. I've changed the character designs, color palette, and aspect ratio! I'm also upgrading my sound equipment, so hopefully the sound stuff should be improving (and get even better by my next animation).

I'm still open for doing voiceacting if anyone is looking! I think a few more animations may have been released that I did a voice in since last time around...

Anyway, it's time for me to go back to school and finish off my finals for this semester. With summer coming around, I hope to get some good time to animate more!