THE WILL OF MONSTERS

56) Animation Progress

Jarrad is making a tough decision against his more cautious nature... but yknow what? Life's full of risks. And sometimes you have to risk something or someone to accomplish your objective.

I promise Im still animating! TVPaint has been treating me VERY well over the past couple years! One day Id like to purchase the full version and really utilize it's full strength! 

This shot will appear in the upcoming trailer! I have some more tiny changes to make but after its ...

55) Kuki Krumbles Update

I already know Im juggling far too much but this little update to this character is to prep my work for success. Kuki is bar none my favorite character in the TWOM cast and I'd like to use her in the crowdfunding video (which would be separate from the next trailer) which would show off the film's world and different sprawling cultures!

Benatic_Bro pumped this out CRAZY quickly ...

54) New Trailer Slate

I've been nursing this little guy for a few months while I produce a rough cut of my film's trailer. I've been steadily building all new footage and animation for the trailer and storyboard revisions are very nearly complete for the film as a whole. I recently started a new job though and its thrown my work schedule for TWOM way off. 

I now get home at about 3:30pm now but my days start at 5am which is a HUGE shock to my system. Not entirely happy w/ this new schedule if Im being f...

53) The Boundless

VERY slow and obviously crazy month due to me starting a new job and computer issues (I just needed a new cooling unit but it took a few days to get right). 

Russia (more accurately, Putin) invaded Ukraine today, creating a deadly war-torn environment in a world already tense and tired from the pandemic. I dont know much about the conflict. Putin's regime seems to want trade routes that it lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union. America, my home, seems to have wanted to partne...

52) Jarrad Ironstride and LadyGValentine

Newcomer LadyGValentine has been busting out storyboard-revisions for the action-packed sneak-peek of TWOM! She's done an excellent job so far and even found a way to make Jarrad cooler? 

Somehow I forgot to send reference of Jarrad when he's not wearing a hat, something Im typically better at doing. So naturally, LadyG illustrated her best interpretation of Jarrad ...

51) New Trailer Rough Cut

Hey gang! Happy New Year! So the grant money from Maryland's State Arts Council FINALLY came through during new years so I spent a great deal of the week drafting up a rough pass of the newest TWOM trailer. I cant show it in full here unfortunately since I need to keep things under wraps. But I'll give yall a peek at it before the big drop.

Im going to stick to Patreon for now. I dont have alot of spoons to dedicate to switching to an entirely different funding platform. I WILL at some ...

50) Patreon or Ko-Fi?

Hey gang, as you might have seen from my Twitter post, Im thinking about moving monthly updates from here on Patreon to Ko-Fi instead. That might be months down the line, probably closer to the next trailer's release or it might be at the end of December... if at all. 

The reason being is I've seen some success with newbies popping into Ko-Fi and drop some cash which helps me ...

49) Month of Administrative Duties

Hey everyone! One of our good Scarecrow boys has thrown a very SPOOPY bomb!
I wonder what the explosion will look like! 

Im late on this one so I will cut to the chase:

I've still been quiet on social media as I manage assignments, get Pai's voice-actress ready via SAG-AFTRA and get some paperwork & admin tasks finished before the year is out. Alot of it has to do with making sure my copyright information for this project is up to date but much of it is realizing that ...

48) Amazing News!!

Hey gang. I've been spending the last few months trying to nail down a grant for this film and I got the word I've been approved for one by the Maryland State Arts Council for $3500! This is incredible news because not only is this free money (that is not coming out of my own or YOUR pockets) but it also helps me clear a requirement from a Fiscal Sponsor. Getting outside funds over 1K grants me access to some grants that were uh, locked behind a paywall so-to-speak.

This cash pays for a...

47) Important Update to the cast and Tier-List

Hey gang! I hope you've all been well! I'm trying to think up ways of keeping you guys engaged for this film. I do need to make this Patreon worth your while so I ask:

Would you guys be interested in joining my little Discord for TWOM? It is where some of my friends and fellow artists hang out and I run ideas about the film with them, stuff you guys dont see here since its more production based. Let me know in the comments of what other kinds of rewards you'd like to see here too. Other...

46) Compositing Month

Started this month feeling a great deal better about the work being done on the 3D end of that last shot. I felt REINVIGORATED when I got into After Effects and I think working in Blender really helped me get a stronger handle on the depicting fast movement. Look at Cham go! This is one of my favorite shots so far!

Im still working on getting a grant to help balance my financial needs for this film. I'll have more info on one I got feedback for soon! Thanks for hanging with me guys. You...

45) Chase Scene in Blender

In my hubris, I chose to do a VERY complicated shot requiring a true 3D-camera instead of trying to mimic After-Effects very limited 3D space. This shot will host Pumpk & Cham running for their lives and will be part of the Sneak Peek trailer Im putting together. Im happy to be working in Blender. Its a cool little program and it can do so much apparently.

This month has been hard, especially receiving the news my application for a grant to help pay for some more work was denied. I...

44) Storyboards by Julia Heliou

Julia Heliou is a new bright star in storyboarding and she has been nailing alot of shots I send her way.

The gang above is about to have their first round against the Craven-King and Pumpk has a fairly unorthodox idea!

I havent been able to update as much since a very time-consuming shot has taken most of my attention.

Im trying to think of ways of keeping folks engaged here but sadly my attention is already split between this project and my job.

I can only do b...

43) "Let Me See What You Have!" A KNIFE!! :D "NOOO!!"

Who's knife is this?? WHO LEFT THIS HERE??!! FOR WHAT REASON??!!

More than the flash-bombs or even the mean little crows, this little dagger I think holds the most significance to the story than any other mcguffin. Go find @Lucky_chandl! Their artwork is super good and they've been workin with us for a little bit.  I have some more ideas I'd like for them to work on so keep an eye out for more items.

42) Finished Leap of Cham

This took me a bit to figure out but I had fun ironing everything out in this shot. Cham's leaping for a bomb that fell and I wonder if he'll be able to catch it in time to counter the incoming crows!

Im running very slow lately so yall will have to forgive me. I had to bring some jobs from other artists to a halt since my wife and I had to pay for our cats dental surgery and help her mother's latest health bout.

I started looking into some creative agencies to help market this f...

41) GO FOR IT, BOY!!

Its been QUITE a month! Between losing my wallet, the backlight on my Cintiq going dim, my bank information going haywire, the air-conditioner going out for a month and a few health scares with the fam, Its been an extremely trying start to summer.

I have been increasing my progress on my shots with Cham though! Really trying to push the timing and motions of this particular shot. He might look like he's moving slow but once I begin adding the background and camera fx in compositing, I ...

40) Catchin Up To Yall

Ooof.

May was something else. I've worked out three shots last month, including the one yall see above. Im still fighting with some weird picture/image issues with my Cintiq since its been cutting off or dimming out of nowhere. I think it needs a new bulb, honestly.

For now, here's the finished shot of Cham being whisked away by Pumpk. I'll give yall some more updates as the week goes on. Thanks for hangin with me through my technical difficulties. Still trying to figure out why ...

39) Back to the Grind!

This shot is of Cham reacting to a Flash-Bomb going off before someone snatches him off screen! WHO COULD IT BE??? Well its only one of three people.... could it be CHAM'S EVIL TWIN BROTHER.... SAM?? (lol, as if).

I feel like Im apologizing to yall every post now. It took some time but I managed to finish off the Production Tracker for our film, the thing that trook all month to complete and the team has begun utilizing it. One artist even mentioned how thoroughly detailed it was, remi...

38) Project Management and..... A PITCH??

 I feel like I've been apologizing to ya'll alot lately. The last couple of months have been VERY busy and I've needed a better way to communicate instructions to other artists vs just doing Google Docs. What you see above is a screenshot of AirTable which allows you to fully customize your tasks and truncate them into an excel spreadsheet or even a specialized grid of thumbnails. Its wild and a few members of the TWOM team seem to be really excited for it. Hopefully it'll speed up our p...

37) March 2021 Summary

Hey fam. Sorry Im late. This has been a pretty hard month since I had to juggle A LOT of tasks in production, specifically on the admin side of things. Animation is going well... a bit... TOO well, actually. Sarah has been pumping out brand new backgrounds (which I will show soon) and Casey exploded with a large batch of storyboards, a lot of which ya'll havent really seen yet since I've been so busy trying to mitigate all of our tasks.

Im not that new at production or direction but I A...

36) SQ-C Animation 95% Complete

The Cravens are hard as hell to draw out but I really like figuring them out! Its a huge exercise in getting the details correct according to the character models and all.

I adore how this came out cuz I tried to channel a very specific animator who's work I enjoy named Naotoshi Shida of One Piece, Dragonball and Sailor Moon fame. I wasn't able to work in his wibbly-windy-wobbly character movements in t...

35) Website Update and Slight Venting

Twitter got to see some preliminary character art of the main trio by the amazing Angela Sprecher BUT yall are getting the incredible redraws by Lucky who's art was closer to what I needed! I thought Angela's art had the wild, adventurous energy I was going for but the characters needed to reflect their in-film designs a bit more, so I asked Luc...

34) Cham Chase Progress - SQ-B, Shot 24 Animatic Update

Happy March, fam! Here's to another month of the film looking better and better as time goes on. Casey McDonald has been knocking out Storyboard Revisions by taking my crude little boards back in the 2017 animatic (probably drawn in 2013) and making them into something legible. She's sooo good! Check her out!

This is an early scene of Cham being hunted by the crows while he searches for food. I've always l...

33) SQ-B, Shot 1 - 100% Complete

Sarah Gavagan absolutely crushes another background shot for our movie! If you're a TIER 2 Patron, congrats! You'll be seeing a link to the workfile in your messages later today!

This lovely shot occurs in the beginning of the story and I wanted to give the impression that something is not quite right with the farmlands here, giving cause for Pumpk and Cham to show up in the first place. It was Sarah's idea to add some smoke to the ceiling beams to show that whatever happened to this ho...

32) SQ-B, Shot 39 Animation Complete!

Look out, Pai!!

Another shot 100% finished! I might come back and make a few adjustments but I'm moving on to a simpler shot! I'll move onto Compositing a little later. I wanna do as much animation as I can in straight-shot.

Enjoy, fam!

31) SQ-B, Shot 39 - Pai Waking Up Roughs and Commissions

Who knows what craziness awaits Pai now that she's finally waking up! I posted this on Twitter with the intention of supplying you all with a timelapse of this animation but my editing software wouldn't take MKV's for some reason so I spent much of the day converting videos to MP4's. So while I waited for those videos to finish, I went ahead and did some inks for you all only.

Also, you lovelies now have EXCLUSIVE access to ALL of the 2021-02-03 03:01:55 +0000 UTC View Post

30) Pai and Razz by XongBros

Pai and Razz jump for joy in radically beautiful picture by the XongBros. I've worked with these guys a bunch a long time ago when my brother and I tasked them to illustrate his web-comic Elements of Light but this is the first time I've commissioned them to do anything regarding The Will of Monsters and I'd forgotten how crazy they get with their art...

29) The Crows are ready for battle!

This was a fun one ! I actually enjoyed animating the mean old burbs but I wasn't expecting it to take me as long as it did on the compositing end. I consider this shot 85% complete. When Im animating, Im always thinking about what I could do to PLUS a motion or a scene so I took the opportunity to add a little bounce to the last crow coming into frame and even to some animations on Cham. My wife mentioned he was looking rather stiff before but I didn't want to add too much m...

28) Webcomic Page 2

Pai gets a little ahead of herself and Pumpk is havin NONE of it! We got some new members of the TWOM fam this past week so I figured Id share a new webcomic page with you lovelies! Social Media wont be seeing these webcomic updates any time soon since I wanna try and give you all the GREAT stuff as opposed to the regular updates on Twitter. Right now, the webcomic is JUST for fun. Its not canon and is simply a way for me to introduce these characters to you all in a very lig...

27) Cham and the Burbs

What's up, fam! Thank you all for your support! I've been workin on a relatively easy shot for Cham and these burbs.. Its about 58% done since I require a background and an additional animation of a bird flying in. Hoping it'll be done in the next month or so. This shot was boarded by me and REVISED by the amazing Casey McDonald.

I realized this morning that the streaming software OBS Studio ...