americanmcgee

Plushes, Pins, and Pigs

Dear Insane Children, 

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend wherever you are! Here in Shanghai, we celebrated Lucky's 100 Days and birthdays for myself and Yan's mom. Which made it a busy weekend full of babies and balloons. Yay! 

Back in the Asylum... 

Crowd Design Delay

We're moving our next Crowd Design Session to Thursday, Dec 19th, afternoon PST (Friday morning in Shanghai) so that one of our Insane Children Mods...

Enamel Pin Update + Monthly Drawings

Dear Insane Children, 

American here from The Future in Shanghai. It's Thursday here and I've managed to get a TON of work done on Pirate Jam planning. Yarg! Updated the Planning Documents, made some improvements to our Participant Agreement, and worked out a roughly accurate route for the 2020 adventure. Blimey! 

If you're interested in learning more about Pira...

Hatter's Tea Leaf Collider

Dear Insane Children, 

A couple of quick updates from Hatter's Domain for you this morning. 

First up (top image), Omri sends over the "final" version of the new Alchemy Dress. This is what we would see Alice wearing as she enters into Hatter's Domain. I like the addition of the Queen's Gift (the Queen of Hearts asks Alice to carry a "gift" to Hatter) in a glass bottle. Since her domain represents "Anger" I'm reminded of the phrase regar...

Livestream Incoming! And Crowd Design Uploaded!

Dear Insane Children, 

It's been an "insane" day for me... I had planned to spend most of the day signing art prints with the world's cutest signing assistant... 

But ended up fending off a flood of copyright claims against my "Alice: Madness Returns" Let's Play videos over on YouTube. Arrrrrg! 

2019-12-04 17:02:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Crowd Design Session #22

Dear Insane Children, 

A reminder that Crowd Design Session #22 will start at 6PM PST TODAY. 

Join us over on the Discord Server!

Don't be late!

From Shanghai with Discord,

-American

SO MUCH STUFF

Dear Insane Children, 

There's so much going on, I don't even know where to start!

New Artist Joins The Asylum

Dario Marzadori is a freelance concept artist from Italy who produces lovely illustrations with an emphasis on locations, architecture, and "things." 

His test sketches were focused on the Queen's Castle and turned out great (main images above). These contain the kind of detail I like to see when we start thinking ab...

The Alchemist

Dear Insane Children, 

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in a place where that makes sense! And to those in the other places, we can still give thanks! I give thanks (HUGE THANKS) to you, our Insane Children, for making all this possible. Not just the art, story, and design work we're doing - but the community, the collective creation, and the shared feeling of accomplishment. I've said it before but... I am having a BLAST working on this with you. And am hugely appre...

Sketches and Annotations

Dear Insane Children, 

I've been doing a lot of thinking about PTSD and Transformation. And much of this thinking - as with much of my creative output in recent years - draws on a personal encounter with Chaos I experienced a few years back. I won't go into detail other than to say these events resulted in a complete breakdown for me - emotionally, psychologically, and physically. Font Lord was there during the worst of it and can attest to how consuming, painful, damaging, and ult...

Bargaining Position

Dear Insane Children, 

Happy Off With Turkey Head Week! How's everyone doing? Lots of people traveling home for the holidays? Looks like a "weather bomb" about to hit the USA. Everyone stay safe out there. Here in China, we're planning a small family dinner - and, yes, we have turkey! - which will be Lucky's first Thanksgiving. Awww. 

Creative Dissolve

My work on defining the how-what-why of Hatter's Domain continues. In terms of words on paper, it...

The Results Are Pin

Dear Insane Children

Font Lord here again with the results of both the Patreon and Public surveys about what pins are most desirable.
Honestly, I felt a little silly making 2 pics about this due to how similar they are, but hey ho, here we go...

The approval rating written next to each one shown as a percentage.
The one you most want to kill highlighted in red.
The top 3 you most like to see as the special pin marked in green.

2019-11-26 06:19:45 +0000 UTC View Post

Very Pintresting !!

Dear Insane Children  

Font Lord here, taking some time from walking the grounds of Font Manor to give you all a little update on the current results of the enamel pin survey.  

From almost 400 votes cast in total, we have...
By a country mile, option D is the most unpopular.  
Seriously, we had to go and check that we'd set up the survey correctly it was THAT ...

Ten Little Pindians (Enamel Pin Selection)

Dear Insane Children, 

We have TEN PINS designed by Jen to choose from. 

We need FOUR for the Main Set. And we need ONE for the Patreon Exclusive.

 And then there were nine. We need to kill off a couple of pindians!  

To help with the selection process I've created a survey where you can:

• Rate Each Pin
• Select A Favorite Pin
• Murder A Pin
2019-11-22 15:59:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Teapots and Three Pins

Dear Insane Children, 

As our art/design team turn their attention to Hatter's Domain we'll start to explore elements of the story, visuals, and design you'll find there. 

Joey sends over an illustration of Hatter's Domain *before* the explosion which blew it to bits. This provides a foundation for the area around his domain and his workshop - a mixture of Classic English Countryside with a strong dose of 2019-11-21 04:16:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Looking in the Shadows

Dear Insane Children, 

I have several different Patreon updates drafted - one talking about the Enamel Pins, one talking about PTSD and Alchemy, and another one talking about Hatter's Domain... trying to get them done! But life keeps throwing distractions at me. For example, a huge amount of time today was spent on printing, signing, chopping, scanning, and mailing all the documents necessary for renewing China visas for m...

Crowd Design Episode #21 - Bargaining

Dear Insane Children, 

It was not an easy task but our mods (thanks AsteriaVisual and Magus!) managed to piece together a video for this week's Crowd Design Session. 

If you missed it live - or just want to listen to it again - click THIS LINK to check it out over on my YouTube Channel. 

In this episode, we did a deep dive into the narrative theme of Hatter's domain. "Bargaining" is the stage...

The Anger Monster

Dear Insane Children, 

A parting shot from The Queen of Hearts as we leave her realm and move forward into the Mad Hatter's Domain. 

Omri sends over the Throne Room illustration (main image above) which he says we should use as an Art Print. And so we'll do that! This will be the Art Print for November... as in NOW. 

If you're interested in this print and currently at the $75 Tier then, great, you'll get this print next. Or if you're at 3/$35 ...

Enamel and Eyeshadow

Dear Insane Children, 

As you're aware we've got Jennifer working on a collection of Enamel Pins which we'll offer as a "Set of 4 + 1 Exclusive Pin" here on Patreon and then as just the "Set of 4" over on Mysterious. Final numbers of pins and the "exclusive" details are TBD... as are the selection of pins on offer. 

Another interesting pin design from Jen arrived last night - seen above - Hysteria Alice as seen from above. Which got me t...

We're All Mad Here - Crowd Design Time!

Dear Insane Children, 

As we continue our exploration of the story, places, and people of Alice: Asylum, we now enter into The Mad Hatter's Domain. This area is representative of the "Bargaining" stage in Alice's PTSD. 

Over on the Asylum Wiki we have a few notes scribbled down including this tidbit: 

(Hatter) spends his days working on a (mad) plan ...