Voice Actors: Lord Jazor

This has been a long time coming and I really messed up on getting it to the public in a timely manner. Life has a habit of getting in the way.

I have known Jazor for a while and He is a talented individual that amazes me everythime he does something. The range this man has in his abilities is simply amazing. And here I am hoping to show you this.

First, I want you to watch these:

Now that you have SEEN for yourself this mans talents, its time you get to know him a little better.

 

Me: Cosplay attracts all kinds of peo

ple of varying talents. What drew you to Cosplay and when to you become a part of the Cosplay community?

Jazor: I started off doing what I guess would be a branch of cosplay in that I have been doing pirate reenacting for about five years now, mainly performances at various pirate festivals with the crew and renaissance fairs sometimes and the like. So I would say that was my first cosplay-like venture. I’ve always been a fan of comic books and went to my first comic con in 2008 and ever since I wanted to get into the whole ‘dress as your favorite characters’ circuit. Since then I’ve even been going to midnight movie showings in costumes and such.

Me: I’ve seen several of your Cosplays and each has a great attention to detail. Do you do the sewing and prop work yourself?

Jazor: Not a lot of it, no. I don’t know the first thing about sewing cloth, but I do leatherwork so basically anything leather in a costume of mine that isn’t….shoes, is something I made. Everything else tends to be commissioned or bought online.

Did anyone influence you within the Cosplay community that motivated you to join in?

Funnily enough, the girlfriend (Tallest Silver) was one of my inspirations before we had even started actually talking. She just has such a passion for the art of it all and does such great work and has such a great amount of fun with it that I couldn’t help but be inspired. Come to think of it, I don’t know if I’ve ever actually told her that….hm.

I’ve watch several of your YouTube videos and heard your amazing voice acting skills, Does Cosplay come in handy to help you practice those voices? To get inside the head of a particular character you are voicing?

Well it’s a good question because I am principally an actor, of course, and I’ve done a lot of stage work and film work and such (nothing terribly professional) and the process of fitting voice to character is a huge part of that. The whole “I’ll find my character when I find his wardrobe” thing enters into it, and I do think that cosplaying helps in regards to some of my voice work. Dr. Doom, for example, was one that the costume helped a bit with. When I’m in that costume, because it’s very bulky and heavy and makes me look larger, there’s a real sense of power and majesty in it so that gave me some extra umf for Doom’s voice.

Are there any characters that you want to Cosplay as but haven’t yet?

Oh yes, I have a whole list of ideas I’m compiling. Who is next on the list varies depending on what I have been asked to do with various groups and things. It’s actually almost constantly in flux because of what I might be watching at the time or re-reading, or even reading for the first time. Couldn’t think of any in particular to mention at the moment, but I have a whole album on Facebook about it.

With your voice work, when did you first find that interested you?

When I was younger, I watched a lot of cartoons and would often record them on a little micro cassette player. Just the audio, of course, but I would imitate the voices and could picture what was going on just from the sound. So I naturally developed a love for old school radio drama at the same time and have remained a lover of them ever since. Only a bit later did I discover that it was an actual profession and, since I had always wanted to be an actor anyway, I jumped onboard that whole train and here we are, I guess.

You have stated many times that you do the voice acting for fun. Does it ever become a burden or feel like work? Have you given up on a character because it felt like work?

 

Well I do it for fun and as a means of income as well. Over the last couple of years, out of the six and a half years I’ve been doing this, people have started offering to pay me for it so that’s a welcome surprise. But yes, I always get great enjoyment out of it. The moment it feels like work will be the moment I stop doing it. Sure it’s taxing sometimes, and definitely time-consuming, but I have never felt that it was a huge burden or anything.

I’ve seen you do Steampunk stuff, as well as comics stuff, is there any voice acting you want to do but haven’t approached yet for some reason?

My main shticks are villains and anti-heroes, because that’s what my vocal range generally caters to best. Now I can change my voice to highs and lows and things, but everyone always has a certain niche that goes along with their character and that’s always been mine. It’s good fun, but sometimes branching out is a thought that comes to me. As far as anything I want to do but haven’t, I want to get back to my original desire to dub an entire comic from start to finish and get cast members onboard who will stick with the project, not like those who dropped out after being signed on to my first attempt at this with ‘The Long Halloween.’

What is in the future for Lord Jazor, be it Cosplay or voice acting, what do you see yourself moving forward towards?

Well college is honestly just not my thing anymore. I don’t think I’m unintelligent or anything, but I’ve gotten to that point in arts college when I really think I have gathered as much information as possible that is useful to me in my field. I don’t think it’s a self-absorbed notion, really, but rather just that as I continue on with it I just can’t find many classes that seem to offer me stuff I don’t already know about my chosen field and I’m not in the habit of logging away information that is ultimately not stuff I will use later, like marine biology or something. If that makes sense. So hopefully I’ll bow out of that and see about getting a proper voice agent in Chicago here, and several of my professors have connections and have offered to put in a good word for me, plus I do have a rather decent portfolio of work over the last six and a half years so we’ll see where that boat sails to, I suppose. As for cosplay, like I said no real set plans specifically right now. Just sort of up in the air.

 

YOU WILL SERVE DOOM!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The idiocy of Politicians

Today a friend of mine posted an article about CISPA and how the House of Representatives has passed this bill.

The US House of Representatives has passed the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protect Act (CISPA).

Lawmakers in the House voted 288-to-127 Thursday afternoon to accept the bill. Next it will move to the Senate and could then end up on the desk of US President Barack Obama for him to potentially sign the bill into law. Earlier this week, though, senior White House advisers said they would recommend the president veto the bill.

As I read the article, it became apparent that those who wrote it are complete morons. Just read what Rep. Mike McCaul said.

Speaking before his congressional colleagues, Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) said this week’s deadly terrorist attack in Boston are reason enough to pass a cybersecurity bill, despite lacing evidence that the pair of bombs detonated Monday at the Boston Marathon were acts of cyberterror.

“Recent events in Boston demonstrate that we have to come together as Republicans and Democrats” in order to pass a bill that will strengthen national security, McCaul (R-Texas) said Thursday morning.

“In the case of Boston,” said McCaul, “there were real bombs.”

“In this case, they are digital bombs — and these digital bombs are on their way.”

WHAT!!!!!! He compared cyber attacks with 9/11 and The Boston Bombings!?!?!?! How dare you take those tragedies and use them to pass your idiotic piece of trash of a bill!

And if that wasn’t bad enough, read this garbage.

When Rep. Ruppersberger reintroduced CISPA at the start of this congressional season, he evoked the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to suggest that Congress can and will do whatever is necessary in the wake of another tragedy.

“We don’t do anything well after a significant emotional event,” said Ruppersberger. Should there be a cyberattack on America on par with 9/11, Congress “will get all the bills passed we want,” he said.

THIS! This is proof positive our Politicians want to manipulate us to pass THEIR agendas and not ours. This ticks me off more than you can even imagine. Why do we put up with this?

 

Source

Voice Actor: Jason Marsden

Jason Marsden came to my attention when, as a kid/teen, I watched Boy Meets World. He played Eric Matthews best friend in High School. Ever since then, his distinctive voice as appeared in so many things, that its dizzying. I always recognize his voice and for years I had no idea what his name was. I didn’t even remember his character name on the show.

I finally researched him in preparation for this article and the list of things he has been in is even longer than I expected or knew.

Now some of you may already know who this guy is, and the parts he has played, but Here is a list of a few of my favorites he has done.

 

Oliver “Ollie” Osnick is a very intelligent kid of Boston, Massachusetts, who is huge fan of Spider-Man and super-heroes stuff. At some point, he was able to convince the Mayor to call Spider-Man to became Boston’s official vigilante, building for him a lair, gadgets and vehicles. He intended to became his loyal side-kick, Webbie, but Spider-Man denied him this, fearing for Ollie to be in danger, because of his lack of powers. Ollie quickly grew in anger for Spider-Man. He freed a few days later three low-range costumed criminals captured by the Webslinger, enhanced them with his tech, and led them in a team dubbed the Boston Terroriers against Spider-Man. He finally captured his idol, he revealed himself, and Spider-Man apologize but accidentally revealed the fact that J.J. Jameson offered 10 millions dollars for his unmasking, leading the three criminals to attack them. Steel Spider and Spider-Man teamed-up and defeat the Boston Terroriers, and Spider-Man leave back to New York, after having congratulated Ollie.

 

Born in 2255, Boone is a town guard and former NCR sharpshooter in the 1st Recon Sniper Battalion, a unit which has a reputation for being the best of the best. He is bitterly whiling away the hours until he can find out who is responsible for the disappearance of his wife, Carla, and kill them. Hardened and psychologically troubled from his time in the NCR military, Boone vacillates between being a stone-cold killer and a decent human being. Venturing out from the relative safety of Novac brings Boone into close contact with his old life until he is forced to deal with the tragic events that caused him to leave the military.

 

 

 

Dustil Onasi was the Force-sensitive son of Morgana Onasi and war veteran Carth Onasi. He was taken by the Sith during the Bombing of Telos IV, and later trained at the Sith Academy on Korriban before turning away from the Sith and returning home.

 

 

 

 

 

Rosh Penin was a HumanmaleJedistudent at the Jedi Praxeum located on Yavin 4, after the fall of the Galactic Empire, where he was trained in the ways of the Force by Jedi MasterKyle Katarn.

 

 

 

 

For a Complete List, check out Jason Marsden’s IMDB.

Information from Wikipedia and IMDB.

Voice Actors Take Two

At one point I started a blog post series on Voice Actors. This was ground to a halt and has not been renewed. Well now it will be. I interviewed an online friend about his Voice Acting and he answered all my questions. He spoke with me tonight and reminded me I hadn’t posted it up and I decided now was a good time to get on it and finish the series of posts I had planned before.

I want to show appreciation for Voice Actors and provide info on some well known Voice Actors and some unknown voice actors. In fact, there is a voice I hear all the time, but I bet no one knows his name or his face or the fact he did a TV show back in the Nineties. Curious? Well guess you gotta tune in and see just who I am talking about.

So, tomorrow evening, the journey begins again!

A Prescription for Delirium by Noree Cosper - Book Tour Guest Post!

Reblogged from qui est in literis:

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Today, I have the honor of hosting a blog tour stop for Noree Cosper, author of A Prescription for Delirium, book one of the Van Helsing Organization Series. When it comes to research and history, Noree is just a little bit mind-boggling, and she's kindly agreed to share some observations on Vlad Tepes, the historical Dracula.

Bram Stoker partially based his Dracula off the historical figure of Vlad Tepes.

Read more… 1,005 more words

This sounds like a great Book series to dive into.

Teramyyd: Earthsphere by IO Worlds

Its been a while since I have posted a blog post up and decided it was high time I got back into it. Last week or the week before, I can’t rightly remember, I was messaged on Facebook by a friend about a game called,Teramyyd: Earthsphere.

I met this friend over at the Brass Goggles forum, which is a Steampunk forum for those who don’t know. She messaged me and told me she literally witnessed this game being born form the minds f her friends and asked me to check it out.

I just finished watching the Kick Starter video and l am blown away by the details of the entire thing. From the very setting, which is Steampunk/Fantasy, you the highly detailed minis that come with the game, to the other pieces, this game looks like it will be fun for all ages of Steampunks and probably even non-Steampunks.

Teramyyd: Earthsphere by IO Worlds

An epic steampunk/fantasy/monster-fighting game of aeronautical questing! Battle sky pirates or become one in the world of Teramyyd.

Well with a description like that, how can you ignore it, right? The Kick Starter has already met its goal of $40,000, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pledge still. they have more stretch goals that give you even more awesome gaming materials.

To learn more about this awesome game and pledge to see their stretch goals met, you can head over to the Teramyyd: Earthsphere Kick Starter.

Gold Dragon Horde

If you’re a geek who likes gaming then you probably have tried Dungeon and Dragons at least once. I played it once myself, but we used it as a supplement to the LARP I play to create a mod to flesh out some backstory.

Now, seeing as I know little to nothing about D&D, I was lost when I learned about minis. I have some Star Wars minis I collected, not to play with, but to display and just have in a collection. This is where my friends, Gold Dragon Horde come in.

I met them on Facebook a while back and became friends because they seemed to be an awesome female run gaming site/profile with a huge love for D&D gaming. Even though I know hardly anything about the game, I wanted to friend them. I did so because not only do you get to hear stories about their Gaming Table misadventures, they are very awesome and sell the aforementioned minis.

I had a long chat with one of the ladies from GDH and got some answers to some questions to help me, and by extension you, on what we need to know about these awesome people and their business.

My first question was to establish how they came to be, and boy was it a long answer. The passion behind this was something you rarely find in people. I think I’ll let her explain how they came to be though because I simply don’t see a way of paraphrasing this.

“GDH was the seed of an idea, planted on eBay. Being old-school gamers, we were a husband and wife who collected old lead figures…approximately 4,000 of them, and actively used them in our almost daily gaming sessions. In 2006, we discovered the WotC line of D&D minis. We actually debated about collecting them at all. My husband was a die-hard lead fan so I picked up a lot behind his back on eBay so we could check them out in person. It was a match made in Heaven. We both LOVED them and decided then and there to collect every one of them ever made.

With nothing more than the desire to complete our collection as quickly as possible, I continued buying the largest lots I could buy, picking what we needed and selling the rares on eBay. I was also the pioneer of selling “Choose Your Own Minis Lots” where the winning bidder could pick from a list of about 500 minis to create their own grab bag. Before long, I had amassed over 8,000 of them and selling anything other than the rares was not worth it due to the fees associate with selling on eBay.

As time went on, eBay fees got higher and higher. I was paying nearly $400 per month in fees, even getting the Powerseller discounts. I decided enough was enough and in February of 2009 had my first website built. The name Gold Dragon Horde was chosen because the Gold Dragon character is most like how I do business. Honesty, integrity and a desire to do the right thing, treating others as I would like to be treated, is paramount. The flip side is that dragons are hoarders. Due to the large number of minis in our inventory (over 10,000 at launch), it was both a hoard AND a horde.

The first site was just a hobby; testing the waters to see how it would do. By the middle of 2010, we were getting so many orders it was sometimes tough to keep up. In August of 2010, it was decided that this really was a viable business and was taken to the next level. We hired a web designer, obtained all appropriate licensing, set up for credit card processing and started advertising on a larger scale.

By the website launch in March (after numerous system failures and missed deadlines), I was really struggling with handling things all by myself so enlisted the assistance of a two part time helpers and a business advisory board consisting of an attorney, an accountant, a tax rep and the CEO of a local International-level business.

Now, we are just working on getting our name out there. Our superior customer service and Referral Bonus programs are helping a lot. Since we were customer first, we spent years learning what to do and what not to do for customers to keep them happy. It’s why we maintain our “bend over backward” policy. It is our commitment to our customers to never lose site of the “customer matters” philosophy that is lost with most larger businesses. Of course, having a huge inventory that is second to none and a “Low Price Guarantee” also help.”

See, I told you it was a doozy of an answer, but it certainly shows the passion GDH shows for not only its business, but its customers. I also asked about how long gaming had been a part of their lives. She tells me her playing D&D came in the 80’s while her husband had started in the late 70’s. They raised their children around the gaming table and found a passion that not only brought husband and wife closer, but brought them closer to their children. She stated during our talk: “Now, it has grown into an obsession (and what better way to make a living but making money doing something that you love and have a passion for?). We now have minis decorating nearly every wall in our house, as well as various dragons (my own personal, life-long passion, long before I played the game) and various D&D-related artwork and literature.”

Now, for you intrepid gamers looking to find GDH and get some D&D mini goodness you can go to DandDminis.com. I asked her about the naming of the website and this was her response: “When I took my first business class, over 20 years ago, one of the first things discussed was the importance of a name. Well, I believe that still holds true but it extends further now, with the internet. If your name isn’t indicative of what you do, especially starting out, people will pass you by. Well, Gold Dragon Horde doesn’t really say who and what we are but DandDMinis.com does. Also, since we had been eBay Powersellers for so many years under the name Gold Dragon Horde, we wanted customers to easily find us and associate the website with the same extraordinary level of customer service seen on eBay. In truth, though, http://www.GoldDragonHorde.com will also get you to our website.
Eventually, when we are more well known, we will officially adopt the use of only http://www.GoldDragonHorde.com. Until that time, we will be using both to promote ourselves.”

So either way my friends, you can find them using both URLs. They use simplicity with sophistication and this was another thing that drew me to them. But the website isn’t the only way to meet these fine people.

I asked about conventions seeing as I knew they had attended DragonCon.

“We do attend DragonCon and this year we created company mascots for our costuming and walked around the gaming areas passing out free minis, dice an discount cards to gamers (the highlight was being stopped by Edward James Olmos in the hall because he wanted to take my picture). While not attending other conventions this year, we do support several smaller conventions across the country, by donating prizes or money. We tried to become involved with a couple more conventions to attend, including giving a presentation on how to photograph miniatures, be it Reaper, WizKids, Mage Knight, WotC or whatever. However, both with both conventions we planned to attend, we got no response to our inquiry at all so will not be going. Eventually, we will have someone who’s job it is to just attend various conventions. We just need to grow up a bit before we can make that sort of commitment. No matter what, though, we will never stop supporting the little guys. We know full well what it’s like to start something new and having support can make a world of difference. I am all for supporting things that support the game!”

And that my friends is Gold Dragon Horde and their wonderful mission to supply you with your D&D mini needs. If you like D&D, or collect minis, check them out.