2023 HIGHLIGHTS MEGAPOST

2023 was a busy year! It started off very dramatically, but all things considered, turned in a positive direction overall. The amount of work that I could actually share and talk about very much contrasted 2022 though. While that year was focused on my own indie project, 'Tales of Zale - Flickering Lights', in 2023 I started working more closely with the Danish animation studio, Nørlum. Both on Tales of Zale's TV-series continuation, and on some of their other projects. But as soon as non-indie funding starts getting involved, so does non-disclosure agreements.

Luckily, the development on ToZ that had concluded the year before, funded by the West-Danish Film Fund, was a lot more lax on those restrictions, and I ended up getting permission to share some of what we'd worked on from back then throughout the year to compensate. I've been really happy to share some of this stuff, and see everyone's reactions. There's still more to come this year, so stay tuned!

WORK:

So, let's quickly get the other work out of the way first so we can talk Tales of Zale after.

- Dream: The year started off with me working on Snobar Avani's short film, Dream. I joined a bit late in the production, and things concluded already in February, so it was a very short venture. Nonetheless it was a nice little warm-up before the next project.

The film is currently in festival circulation, and is being used in educational material in some Danish schools.

- (Emil fra Lønneberg) Snöbollskriget i Katthult: from mid-February till September, I worked as Animation Supervisor on a Christmas short film based on the well-known Astrid Lindgren character, Emil fra Lønneberg. It was a very ambitious project considering it's means. But I decided to take it as a learning experience and give it my all.

The short is currently only out in Sweden, but will be available in other places next Christmas, by which time I'll also be able to show some behind-the-scenes material.

Until then, I can only show screen-caps from the currently published trailer. It can be viewed here, in case you're curious.

Production ran from approximately February till September.

- TV-Series - Undisclosed: While finishing up Emil in September, I began working as Animation Supervisor on a different production. In this case a TV-series, which I will be working on until June 2024.

- Tales of Zale - Pilot Animatic:

In the beginning of the year, we were also granted broadcaster support to develop Tales of Zale as a TV-series. This first and foremost meant creating a pilot animatic, to show what a typical episode would feel like. The first step was to find the right Writer to work with. We took our time searching and interviewing different candidates. The same was the case for the storyboard artist. There were some very difficult choices, but I ended up following my gut feeling on each and every one, and I'm really happy I did.

Script writing began in August and wrapped up in September (right when Emil was also wrapping up and the new TV-series production was starting). We then started thumbnailing the full episode and making extra tweaks to the script based on visual appeal and rhythm. We ended up spending a full month on this, and then 1½ months on the final storyboard. I would make rough edit updates as we went along. Meanwhile, Matthew and I were also working on the music side of things, specifically developing an intro and outro song. He also went a bit above and beyond, helping out with the scratch music and finding sound effects.

During the last week before Christmas, we finally had our recording session in a Canadian sound studio with the voice actors doing representative voices for the characters in the animatic. I then rushed to make the final edits and deliver the animatic in time for our end-of-the-year deadline.

Of course, the whole animatic itself and anything concerning it is under NDA, so I've just put in some representative images from the trailer development from the year before.

FLICKERING LIGHTS:

'Tales of Zale - Flickering Lights' released in September 2022, and of course I still intended to support it's release over the course of 2023. I did so both by sending it to different festivals, and pushing it on social media - to the degree that time allowed. The festival run concluded with the Viborg Animation Festival in September, where I got to see the short on the big silver screen one last time.

At the beginning of the year, the short crept past 400k views on YouTube and I commemorated it with this sketch. Now it has passed 800k... maybe I should ready something for when we reach 1 million!? Overall, I've been super happy with how it has been received!

MUSIC RELEASE:

Back in April, Tales of Zale's soundtrack finally made it to Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube. Matthew Pablo, the composer for the series, put together such a great OST, that is also really nice to listen to on it's own.

Apple Music:

https://music.apple.com/us/album/tales-of-zale-flickering-lights-original-soundtrack/1681726823

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/5WcFIbY3eNY2NDDgWXMcs0

YouTube Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H9iaCaNdO4&list=OLAK5uy_nq_vYdtbsuy2szjRondykUREH0cIdR010

While it was technically released December 28th 2022, I also just want to mention the music video that was made for Marquette's original song, 'Lose Her', made for the end sequence of Flickering Lights.

FMX & ARTIST TALKS:

While I was tied down for most of 2023, I did get to travel a little bit in connection to the Flickering Lights release. I was invited to do a talk at FMX in Germany, which was very enriching and inspiring. There were a bunch of familiar faces that I hadn't expected to see, and some new acquaintances too! 

I also got to do an Artist Talk at the culture house in Farum in Denmark in September. Met a few folks who have been following ToZ online, and a bunch who were just curious about animation. I think I was a bit mentally exhausted during that month, so I don't feel like I was able to give the talk 100%, but I hope the people who attended got something out of it anyways.

ARTIST ALLEY & MERCH:

Also in September, there was the Artist Alley in connection with the Viborg Animation Festival where Flickering Lights screened. For this, I had a bit more merchandise made.

The big highlight for me was working with Josh (3D model) and TwoSoups (print and paint) to have a Zale figurine made. This was definitely a thing on the bucket-list for me, and I didn't expect to be able to cross it off so soon!

Here's how it started as a sketch.

Then, how it was translated in 3D.

And finally, how it ended up after being printed and painted. 

At the time of writing, I have just relaunched the online store, where the figurine and other merchandise can be bought online. Ideally, I should have launched it during 2023, but I needed time to focus on all the other stuff. The store will remain open for at least a couple of months.

CONCEPT ART & LOCATION EXPLORATIONS:

In 2023, I let you guys vote for what you wanted to see first. And while most of the votes went towards characters and animation (I would probably have voted the same), I did get to share some pieces of concept art and location explorations.

Now, I can only post a few highlights here, or else this part would get far too long. But the June update was definitely the most major addition to the location explorations so far:

And you can check out the May update for the breakdown of this piece:

While the April update covers this one:

CHARACTER DESIGNS:

Some of the biggest reveals came down to the updated character designs for all of Tales of Zale's cast, new and old. We put a ton of effort and consideration into these changes, based on the experience made during the web-series production. Again, I'll go ahead and link to the original posts for the full break-downs:

- Zale: 

- Elva/Alba: 

- Sesam:

Sesam actually hasn't gotten a full design breakdown yet, although his design has been released. But stay tuned!

- Evelyn: 

- Morpheus: 

ANIMATION:

And of course finally, in August and December  I got to share some animation breakdowns of clips from the teaser we made!

SKETCHES:

In 2024, I once again hope that I'll have more time to draw for fun. It was the same case in 2023, and unfortunately, most of my for-fun sketching was allocated to the beginning of the year, before things got super busy. So far, we're off to a good start though!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

Here's to a great 2024.

- 2022 megapost