AD - Episode 2 - Pre-Production - Update # 1 🐴

Heeey everyone! 💕

We’re back from a needed break after finishing Kim! 😄 It’s officially the first episode of our big, ongoing project: AfterDark. (You can learn more about it right here.)

During our time off, we had the chance to really reflect on AwArdiente’s future. We’re super proud of Kim, but the production was incredibly demanding for both us and our tools. While resting, we had a lot of talks about what’s working, what isn’t, and how we can keep creating hotter and more ambitious content :3

The AfterDark project is big and expansive, with layered stories and complex scenes. To keep up with that vision, we realized we need to evolve our workflow and tools so we can tell complex, sexier stories more effectively without burning ourselves out D:

Main challenges/limitations we faced with Kim:

🎭 Limited character acting
Every gesture took a ToOOooON of time, so we had to cut corners on expressions, lipsync, and even sexy moments. Some of you asked for more kisses or emotional beats, but adding those would've meant months of extra work. We had to rely on a lot of visual tricks.

🧹 Clean-up was tedious
The final drawings cleaning process took weeks and felt super repetitive. It drained our creativity and left little time for actual animation or new ideas x.x

💥 Tech couldn’t keep up
Kim was our most complex short, and it broke our setup haha! Crashes, bugs, slowdowns—our pipeline was not being effective at all for big projects.

👥 Hard to grow a team
We’d love to bring in help, but our old workflow makes it tough to direct and delegate. With the new pipeline, we can work more efficiently and hire new talent :D

🕒 Production is kind of slow
Kim took way longer than expected. If we keep this method, AfterDark could take many many years to be finished.

What's changing?

We’re shifting to a new 3D style oriented, with 2D touches, carefully designed to keep the aesthetic you already know. We’re using a mix of tools and tricks to make the 3D feel as close to 2D as possible. The difference? It’ll show in all the good ways: more expressions, more dynamic scenes, and yes—more deliciously detailed sex and stories 💦

🔥 More 3D means more sexy, rich, dynamic scenes
By using 3D to our advantage, we can animate more interactions, complex sex scenes, and varied locations. Everything should feel more natural and intimate 💦

🎬 Better pre-production and storytelling
Our current process doesn’t let us plan properly. With the new workflow, we can lock down the story earlier and work with voice actors from the beginning, giving them a better sense of the narrative and tone. You can also be able to see what's the story is going to be about from more early stages

We’ll be sharing updates along the way! Over the next few weeks, we’ll be focused on developing the new aesthetic and crafting the story for Episode 2, featuring Neil and Dante. Stay tuned! 🔥 This will be fun :D

-E & K 💕