[MODERATE SPOILERS] | Graphic Design Update 9/8/20

[Be advised: this progress update contains moderate spoilers for the topic; while the precise topic itself isn't revealed, the general area of focus will be, so if you are looking to go into the new video completely fresh, it may be best to skip this update. The last update was written by Ryan Probert, the composer for Down the Rabbit Hole, and this time, I'm giving my graphic designer the chance to share his work so far]

Hey everyone, I'm Christopher "Arcaxon" Malouin-Monjaraz! You probs seen my work on the show for a few years now, I'm basically the guy who makes the lil slides in every episode like this one:

But enough about me, let's talk about this next episode's graphics!

For this one I had to design an entire chess set, including the board and pieces and I will also have to animate each move! This was a first for me and a great challenge, Fred also had really great ideas and made this whole project so enjoyable!

The pieces are made to look like they are made of Marble.

Above are the pieces when full sized, these are the final designs for the episode, but not the ones that will be going on the full chessboard due to their sheer size and the angle they are displayed at.

Original Staunton Chess Pieces

The pieces were designed with a lot of inspiration from the classic Staunton chess set but with a simplified design so as not to distract from the narration. These are easy to recognize at a glance and using such a popular chess set as inspiration means a lot more people will be able to recognize these silhouettes!

The Board is Designed to Look Like it's made of Wood.

The board had to be simple but yet not too mundane as to not bore the viewer immediately. Making such a simple chess board with black and white squares would have made the the board boring and extremely tiresome to the eyes, not the best thing for a video projected to be 2 hours+, and so the design was set to be made of wood with clear demarcations for each square.

As mentioned above, pieces needed to be edited slightly to look good on the board!

Using online chess resources (like lichess.org) as guides, I modified my original full-sized chess pieces into smaller ones which are easily recognisable with just as strong silhouettes. It was very important that each piece stood out but not enough to be distracting.

Animation, simple but effective.

For every move I will need to represent in the episode there will be an animation for it.

Which means, I will need to animate every. Single. Move. With so many moves to animate, as explained in past updates by Freddo, it will take me a significantly higher amount of time to complete. Along with that, all animations done pre-narration will need to be fixed up to match the narration.

Progress so far?

So far I am, I'd say 55% done, I still need to animate almost every single move and plan out timing for matches, but all planning for "Slide/Tutorial" sections are completed and are being completed in a good time so things should be on time!

It’s been awesome working on this episode and giving it my all really helped me out of a bit of a slump of self-doubt. I can’t wait to show you all the rest of my work when the episode is live, Fred wrote an AMAZING script and Ryan is going all out!

• Christopher “Arcaxon” M-M