[DnD Abridged] Episode 20 Boards

HEYYYY YALL It is Jay, your table artist. Once again I'd like to thank you and apologize for delays.

This episode's going to take a lot longer than the others, so we're uploading the boards and voiced lines today! There are no sound effects or musical cues yet, and stuff will likely change as I animate. My plan is to have it done by next week and hopefully return to our weeklies sooner rather than later.

A quick thank you to the wonderful Taylor of Taylor's Tavern Tales for once again lending her beautiful voice to Jackson's rival, the Fighter! Please go check her out - she's hilarious, sweet and creative as all heck!

This time the delay's because this is, shall we say, a very special episode! Not only is this once again our longest short thus far, capping off at 2 minutes and 23 seconds, and NOT ONLY is it our second fully dramatic episode, it's also going to contain the most frame by frame animation! See, with the exception of select shots, DnD Abridged is animated using Rigged Puppets - I hook up the pieces and puppet them around rather than drawing every single frame. This time, around 50-60% of the shots will be done using frame-by-frame.

This is because I find the way I rig and construct the puppets works well enough for our comedic scenes, but their general stiffness can drag down more dramatic scenes like this. We're very proud of the script and acting of this one especially, and I wanted to bring my A-game to elevate it in any way I can. I can't do this all the time because it's very time-consuming and I (Jay) am currently the only animator on our team, so I try and reserve it for special episodes like this where the short would benefit more from frame-by-frame than it would from rigged puppets.

All that in mind, that doesn't mean we're okay with these delays, and I'd like to apologize for that on behalf of everyone here at TOTU. Thank you all again for your patience!