What ho! Wait, this isn't Monday. Or is it? What are days? What even is time? Who can say that Wednesday isn't just Monday wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a pair of oversized sunglasses? They're clearly hiding something under all of those unnecessary letters. They're named after Odin, for gourd's sake! We simply cannot trust them!
Okay, where was I? Ah yes, an animatic.
I kept saying I was making it and, unlike Chaos Chess, it's finally here! Five minutes of domestic silliness from the four buffoons of the outpocalypse. This was conceived as a little comic exploring Mal's family, but gradually ballooned in size as more and more silly moments were added. Indeed after I made the decision to use it as a test-bed for animatic-ing I added yet more scenes, such as the late addition of the 'Rules of Emm'. So it was worth it just for that, really.
But yes, this was a tentative toe-dipping exercise in a new discipline and I'm not sure what the results are just yet. Feedback has been very kind and positive, but by the end of making it I had hit that long-term project brick wall of having no idea if I'd made anything worthwhile or likeable. The end-product was somewhat jettisoned before I either crashed or added 70 new steps to the process.
Can you expect more of this from me in the future? As much as you can expect anything from me and my indeterminate fancies, uh, let's say 'maybe'. The pros are that I can tell a story in real-time which offers the opportunity for timing-based jokes, slapstick, characterised movement, etc. Doing this has taught me a not insignificant deal about how Mal & Rufus move and hold themselves, so it's a good exercise for that alone.
The obvious down-sides are time and effort, naturally, but also that this is a format which locks the story to a single point of receipt. It's a video: You have to go to whatever website it's hosted on and watch it there. You can't (ish) download to watch it later. You can't (really) keep a copy for yourself. I can't print it off like a comic for a standalone physical version. It feels quite precarious in the volatile world of the internet to be putting so many eggs into such a narrow basket. Long story short, 🤷♀️
So what of all of my other projects and promises? Where's the fourth installation of the boyfs' adventure of self-realisation? Where're the unfinished October style illustrations? Where are the Calendars' origin comics? What of Tori & August's blossoming idiot-romance? Well, without putting too fine a point on it, I blame biology.
The week before last I had a hurried, but fortunately brief, trip to the hospital to check out the cause of some really rather alarming symptoms. As far as we can tell the origin was somewhat benign, if a reason to adopt some more healthy lifestyle choices (still working on that). More relevantly it rather put a crimp in my ability to focus on anything for a good 3 or 4 days. Health anxiety, as the kids say, go brrrrrr~.
I did however manage to get some miscellaneous, insubstantial bits and pieces tidied up. My website is now up-to-date with all of my more recent comic endeavours. Whilst in the area, I fixed a bug in the comic pages where, upon externally loading a comic, the 'Next' button wouldn't work until the 'Prev' button had been pressed. For those familiar with Javascript it was, unsurprisingly, Javascript's fault. Bloody weak-typing.
I also finished off the descriptions for the first line-up of Height Chart characters, something I hadn't quite managed prior to the previous update. Now you can learn all about Hercule & Zig's tour guide misadventures, and Wick's relationship with knives. You may be surprised. You probably won't be though.
I'm also slowly working on a project that'll be coming to you hopefully at the end of next week. A little something that will, all being well, become a pleasant, silly fixture of my output for some time.
Streams! They happen! At least when I'm not sitting in an emergency inpatient waiting room, they do. We've begun (and may very soon complete) our descent into the baffling world of Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis! We've been pitting our wits against the indomitable Arsène Lupin who, at present, is masquerading as half the population of London.
Our Return to Moria has come to a rip-roaring end, inasmuch as we ripped the hide off of a roaring dragon. No rings were involved, honest. This leaves us free to start something fresh, although to tide us over a little GigaBash kaiju-wrestling shan't go amiss.
And, naturally, we've been group gaggle doodling both off-the-cuff-and-collar ideas and prompts from randomly chosen AO3 tags. What a wonderfully strange world that turned out to be.
Righto, if biology would behave itself, what can we expect for the next couple of weeks, give or take two days? Well that little thingummie I teased earlier will of course be on the docket. The fourth Jay & Kay comic (strictly a Kay & Elle comic) will also be balanced atop both it and the docket. I need to crack on with advertising commissions to fill the hole of prescription costs, so that's also precariously balancing on the docket-pile. And finally, with the animatic cleared up, I can refocus my attentions on part 2 of the Dead Island highlight videos, which is enough to tip the docket-pile over and cause someone in the distance to shout 'Jenga!'.
For now though, I need to harness this recently uncharacteristic focus I find myself in possession of and get cracking. Thank you very much for your support, and any kind words already given on the animatic. It made the post-project blues much more bearable.
Look after yourselves,
Crispy 💜