March Preview

Dear Patrons,

There aren't many words I can write that suffices to address the gravitas of the events taking place out in the world right now. I know humans gotta human, but like so many others I'd been hoping for just one relatively quiet year without the structural pillars of our society being thrown into disarray. Still, we have to stay firm in our belief in a better tomorrow, because that is the only way we can bring it into existence - and as such, I keep on keeping on. I dearly hope that you too are all safe and sound, wherever you are.

THIS MONTH'S PREVIEW:

This month's preview is an old classic that I haven't touched for over a year. It was the first scene I started animating, and I composited it at the very beginning to use as a test and teaser. Of course, at this point I've developed the compositing style for the episode further, so an update was long overdue. Since the scene takes place in the very beginning, I wanted to push it's colors a good deal more, in order to increase the contrast with the later scenes where the colors become a lot more muted. Here's some side by side comparisons so you can see what I mean (before on the left, after on the right):

EPISODE 3:

Although I'm still working at a slower pace because of the 9-5 job, I've been making good progress in giving the rest of the episode a similar color correction treatment. I've been working at it chronologically in order to get a good feeling for the color progression, and I'm at this point a little over half-way through the episode. Of course I'm reaching some of the rain scenes, which will make things a bit slower because of those composites' complexity. But that's alright, because we're still very well on track.

I've actually gone ahead and picked out a release date at this point, and I may as well go ahead and make an informal-out-of-the-blue annoncement on it in this post. The release date for Tales of Zale "Flickering Lights" (episode 3) will be....

September 7th!!!

- Yup, a good-old autumn release! It may seem a bit late in the year, considering that the episode is so close to being finished. But there are a couple of reasons for this. First and foremost, I don't think we'll be entirely done with sound and music before the summer vacation season, and I'd prefer not to release it during that period because people usually have a lot of other stuff on their program. The episode release could easily drown out. Secondly, I'm aiming to mark the occasion in a whole bunch of ways, and this should give me enough time to prepare. And thirdly, September 7th is my birthday and I couldn't imagine a better birthday gift than finally putting out this episode that I've been working on for so long.

So there you go, that's what to expect!

TV-SERIES:

Another reason why I think it's a good idea to push the release back to an autumn date is because I expect that a lot of my summer is going to consist of visual development on the Tales of Zale TV-series. This month we had a follow-up meeting with the fund we applied for earlier, and it's looking really promising. We can't know anything for sure until we get their official answer, but chances are certainly high enough for us to start making preparations. We've had meetings with a potential character designer, a concept artist and an animator to join us on this trip. And we're starting to sift through applications for a couple of interns to join in as well. Meanwhile, I've been working on a whole plan of the things we need to explore and questions we need to answer:

ROUND-UP:

So overall things are just chugging steadily along. I've omitted some details on the sound work being done, but I think there'll probably be a lot more to say about it next month. What do you guys think of the intended release date? Lemme know!

On an entirely unrelated note, since I ended last month's update on some sad bird news, I thought I'd end this month's post on a more positive bird-note. Here's my male canary, having the time of his life bathing in the new water fountain I got him:

Stay safe, and all the best till next time!

- Sif