November Preview

Dear Patrons,

Another month has passed! We're chugging along on the final stretch of the Tales of Zale episode 3 production, progress has been made on the TV-series development - and there are some life updates that I'll sprinkle in towards the end of the post too. Without further ado, let's jump right into it!

THIS MONTH'S PREVIEW:

This month we're dealing with a familiar scene. I feel like it isn't that long ago I shared it colored, but now it's all composited too! I have been a bit burnt out on the rain scenes as of late (so much raaaaaiiiiiin!!), so I think there's a good chance that I might revisit some of these shots and try to make them pop more a little later on. That's stuff that can be done while we're working on the audio side though, so I'll add that to the "final polish"-to-do-list. For now, I'm pretty happy with how it came together!

EPISODE 3:

This month's progress might not look all that impressive in terms of percentages. There are a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, I got majorly stuck on two shots that I underestimated. It's not like I didn't count on them being hard, but... long 3-character shots in the wind really are a pain whether you're mentally prepared or not. Those took quite a long time to clean up and color. But at least they are done now! Another reason that the percentage hasn't moved much is because I noticed a mis-count of shots, so I had to fix the calculations. And finally, I had to take about a week of the month off to finish all the writing for our pitch package... more on that in the appropriate section!

- But other than that, we are at a good spot! Animation is ALL done now, that's wild! I'm gonna have to go back into background-mode soon!

SKETCHES:

To keep my sanity while working on those tedious clean-up shots, I decided to start doing some looser doodling on the side. It's been a long while since I drew purely for the fun of it since most of my drawing time goes towards production. I've had to draw Zale "on model" based off of the drawings I drew more than 2 years ago for so long. But in the meanwhile I've been getting curious about how else he could act and move. Here are some of my favourite sketches:

And an unfinished halloween-Zale for good measure:

TV-SERIES DEVELOPMENT:

I've been waiting to pitch Tales of Zale as a TV-series again for what feels like an eternity. The folk involved in the business side of things are way more experienced on this front than me, and I've gotta trust their judgement on when it's best to strike. But now we've got our first broadcaster pitch set up at long last! This one is not where we're hoping to get our budget from, so don't get too excited - but, it's a necessary step in order to move forward. I'm really looking forward to presenting the project here in December after doing training montages for so long!

Speaking of which, some of this past month was also spent finishing the episode synopses/season treatment and working out the English version of the pitch bible. The pitch package is looking pretty solid now! 

NEW JOBS:

I'm extremely privileged to be able to dedicate so much time towards my passions. But I'd be lying if I said it didn't stretch the economy in the long term (even though all of your Patreon support does actually help me keep my head over water, so I'm really really grateful!). Now that episode 3 is on track to be finished and the TV-series pitch package is finalized, I've decided to take on some new work in order to recharge my funds. Right now I want to stay in Viborg to be available to the company that I'm working on Tales of Zale (TV) with, and luckily it just so happened that a local production started up at the perfect time. I'll be working on this production starting Janary 3rd and then probably into early summer. It's my hope to finish the visuals for episode 3 before then, so that I can work on the lighter stuff (like directing audio, doing final polish, and prepping for release) during this full-time work period.

Oh, and I'm also teaching character design at The Drawing Academy for a week here in November. That's sure to be fun!

ROUND-UP:

I'm keeping busy during this transitional period and trying to make the most of it! Super excited to be pitching soon, and as always it's an awesome feeling to see episode 3 come together as well! I'd better buckle down and get to work on finishing these visuals before the end of the year - stay tuned!

- Sif