MoTR Production Update: Week 20
- 1rregularcharlie
- Jul 29
- 13 min read
Ahoy sailors! Ngl, most of the last 2 weeks has been busy work.
And the temperature finally dipped! Before rising again. :/
So yet again, I am sweaty and gross 24/7.
If I've not made it abundantly clear by now, winter is MUCH better than summer. Particularly when it's sunny and cold. Love those days.
Current Status:
General:
That said it hasn't all been busy work! We released the first MoTR Scribble Short and have a plan to complete one every 2 weeks. The Design and Animation Guide is MOSTLY done. Dready got a redesign. We've rewritten and reviewed the script for episode 1. Katherine has done some more work to The Grand Vagabond model and I am now onto the arduous task of... re-formatting a bunch of Storyboard Pro and hating past me for NOT NAMING HER LAYERS! >:(
More details to come!
Scribble Shorts:
Yes! Let's start with this. So, we're currently in the process of creating 3 FULLY animated shorts and a single Episode for Member of The Revelry. With that said, we're well aware that the success of this series will come ENTIRELY down to our ability to gather an audience.
This will sink or swim based on the response from the public.
So, we've long been planning to create some "shorter" shorts. As in some shorts that are just for fun, don't take long to make and feature the MoTR cast. I kept putting it offer however whilst focusing on other things, as much to-do list grows and grows.
But with some kind prodding from Olivia (voice of Lamenter) I decided to stop finding excuses and figure it out. So I got everyone to post shorts from instagram, tiktok and youtube that might have audio that could work for a MoTR reimagining.
So we found one we liked, ripped the audio and did some light editing. All swear words are censored and we needed to add our own MoTR original element. In this case we added a segment of Campus angrily yelling at the cast to get out of the kitchen in their native HORSE TONGUE.
Check it out:
Our hope is that these will help get eyes on the project and increase our chances of succeeding. Shorts do tend to propagate and spread far further than comics and the like. Which does make me wonder if it wouldn't be better spending my Sundays that I usually set aside for my web-comic wouldn't be better spent working on MoTR shorts? I guess we'll see how the first couple do before I make that decision.
We want to release one of these on the Wednesdays where I don't do one of these updates. The other rule is that these shorts take no longer than 24hours to make. Prevents me going overboard and being a perfectionist about them. That and the horrible thought of Natka giving me a verbal smack in the back of the head for being too particular.
We've already got the next one planned and I'm ready to get cracking on it as soon as this update goes live. It's gonna be a fun one.
We even added a line for Finn (the voice of Eliot) to do. :D
The Animation and Design Guide:
So this has been a big focus for the last couple of weeks and it's development has led to the defining of certain elements that were previous more nebulous.
A BIG example of that is with Katherine's suggestion to create a guide based around the environment. Which I thought a great idea.
I realised quickly however that the environmental aspects would be better suited to there own guide that both myself and Katherine could contribute to together.
So I began working on that along side her, when she gets time, as the Animation and Design guide is by enlarge complete. Though no doubt we will have to come back to it semi-frequently and update it as we continue the series.
Nature of the beast I suppose. ;D
The Environmental Design Guide:
So, as per Katherine's suggestion, we began work on the Environmental Guide. The purpose of this guide is actually to aid 3D Environmental Artists we work with now and in the future to adapt to the style and to understand the visual aesthetics of the series.
Not going to lie, I was a little stumped.
I've been so focused on what I know (Character Design and Animation) that I wasn't really sure what to touch upon for this guide. As such I decided to begin with more of the aesthetics of the environment and we're planning on having Katherine describe the more technical aspects to her 3D modelling at a later date.
The Aesthetics:
General:
So this has actually been something I've meaning to properly define for awhile now. Frankly I should have done so far before now but here we are.
Let's briefly touch upon the world lore I knew from the start.
This whole series takes place in a metaphysical realm simply called: The Dream. Named appropriately because it's where we go when we dream. It's where all of our experiences end up. There's a lot more too it, but I'll leave it there for now. ;D
Within that realm there exists Spirits, that have organised broadly into 2 separate Courts. The Court of Misery and The Court of Mania with a wild untamed frontier between these courts called The Seas Between.
Below are the sigils of the Courts:
The Golden Grin is the sigil of The Court of Mania. The Silver Sob is the sigil of The Court of Misery.
The Sigil of The Court of Mania. The Sigil of The Court of Misery.
I've always wanted to have each Court be easily recognisable. Part of that is accomplished by having each Court comprised of 3 separate Houses, each with their own associated symbol and colour.
The Houses of The Courts:
The Houses of Mania:
The Houses, and their colours and sigils, that make up The Court of Mania are as follows.
The spiked red halo of The House of Wrath:
The crowned orange peaked halo of The House of Pride:
The sunny shiny yellow halo of The House of Passion:
The Houses of Mania:
In contrast to The Court of Mania houses we have The Court of Misery Houses.
The cool wavy cyan halo of The House of Apathy:
The navy blue tears of The House of Grief:
The staring purple eyes of The House of Fear:
You've probably already noticed that the sigils for the houses are all based around a ring and that sigils of the houses of Mania, tend to have a lot more sharp straight lines than those of Misery.
You might also be asking "What about the other colours?"
That's a great question.
Anyway...
Specific Aesthetics:
Now we more onto the part that I hadn't put to much thought into before I was asked to define it. The Specific Aesthetic designs that separate the two Courts and The Seas Between.
I've always envisioned the two Courts being each others mirror. One is the opposite to the other and the Courts honestly probably choose to portray themselves that way on purpose.
As such I began this Environmental Guide by defining that.
The Seas Between:
As I described earlier The Seas Between are effectively the great frontier of The Dream. They are wild, untamed and the Spirits that reside there generally don't favour one Court over the other.
As such I wanted their buildings and general aesthetic to be a mix match of everything with a great big dollop of whimsy smooshed in. They're meant to evoke the feeling of nostalgia and old storybook tales of mushroom houses and a geniune rustic feeling. So I doodled some building examples and created a general aesthetic board for this particular setting:
The Seas of Mania:
The Seas of Mania is just a catch-all term used to describe the region of The Dream where that Court of Mania holds sway.
As a result the region tends to have aesthetics leaning towards the grand and ostentatious displays The Court of Mania loves. Again I drew some examples of the buildings I'd expect to see. Lots of spires, Gothic and Rococo inspired buildings all disjointedly slammed together into a dizzying, overly detailed, slurry. Almost like the buildings themselves are trying to one up each other.
There's a strong focus on bright, invasive, ever present lighting too. The bloom is insane and eye straining at all times.
The style is meant to evoke the more imprialistic times of The Neopolionic Era. Specifically the areas that flaunted their great wealth and grandure.
Colours asociated with The Houses of Mania also tend to be more popular and more saturated in The Seas of Mania.
The Seas of Misery:
Again, The Seas of Misery is simply a term used to describe the effect region The Court of Misery holds within it's sphere of influence.
Because of this the region it's self is known to be dimmer compared to rest of The Dream and gets dimmer and dimmer the closed one gets to The Court of Misery itself. Lighting is very particular and usually doesn't get cast far often simply used in neon signs.
In contrast to The Court of Mania, The Seas of Misery tend to favour far less detailed and grand structures with a focus on simplisty. Hence it's focus on aesthetics of Brutalism and Contemporary Modernist architecture. The buildings themselves also still tend to be arranged to maddening maze like layouts to confuse and demoralise. Almost like the structures are trying to keep you, forever.
My general idea for The Seas of Misery are heavily inspired by Black Velvet artwork and in particular the Black Velvetopia level from the fantastic game Psychonauts. Seriously, play it if you haven't.
Colours asociated with The Houses of Misery also tend to be more popular and more saturated in The Seas of Mania.
The Results:
Because we've now established the design aspects of each Court and regions under or not under their control, we should have a far better grasp on the designs of characters and environments from each area.
Which directly lead into...
Redesigning The Dreadnought:
So with the regions now defined there was one character is desperate need to redesigning. The Dreadnought.
First let's look at the old design:
As we can see with the old design, whilst it does have the general skeleton and inky blackness motif of The Spirits of Misery, the giant Cathedral on it's back is a lot more Mania coded than Misery.
I always found also that defining it as a spirit of the Fear of Sharks and Cathedrals was a bit... rushed.
With that in mind we took to redesign them to better reflect now established design structure of Spirits of The Court of Misery.
The Rough Concepts:
Deciding I didn't like the previous definition of The Dreadnought as a Spirit of the Fear of Sharks and Cathedrals I instead reworked them into a Spirit of Thalassophobia; the fear of deep water. As instead of a shark as it's base creature inspiration we considered deep sea creatures like Eels and Angeller Fish.
We also pretty quickly settled on a Lighthouse instead of a Catherdral upon it's back and Katherine made the great suggestion to have the lighthouse coming out of a coral reef.
We went through A LOT of concepts and discussion before we began to settle on a design we liked. Have a peek at our failed experimentation! :D
Dreadnought rough concept 1 Dreadnought rough concepts 5 Dreadnought rough concept 6, by Natka Dreadnought rough concept 2 Dreadnought rough concept 4 Dreadnought rough concept 3
As you can see, we went through a lot of concepts that mix and matched different ideas. The entire team actually chipped in their thoughts.
The lighthouse was quickly approved, keeping to that Brutalist style.
I was stuck on making Dread more "shrimp" like for some reason which Natka, rightfully, wasn't a fan of.
It was also Natka's suggestion to have the reef angled backwards instead of forwards. to make Dready feel more streamlined.
I also did consider changing Dready's front fins to actually clawed hands and creating the ribs out of the coral itself as sperate islands along the body. No one liked it and I concur.
Still after much trial and error we found a design we liked.
The Final Design:
Here is the final offical Dreadnought design we agreed on.
I'm actually really happy with what we finally landed upon. It keeps the skeletal motif present across all Spirits of Misery, The purple of Dready's House of Fear and the coral reef being worked into the spine actually came out really well.
There's also a tiny Lamenter chilling on the railing of the lighthouse:
Still need to get round to updating The Dreadnought on The Forces of Darkness page. I will probably need to draw a unique image for it as it's very hard to fit currently. :/
It's added to the to-do list.
Ep1 Rewrite:
Okay so this portion is going to be light on the details for obvious reasons (no spoilers), but we've managed to go through and rewrite and rephrase the script we had for episode 1.
The general sequence of events remains exactly the same but we've added a lot of dialogue and hints towards a larger world that I had initially kept fairly light. We realised that if we want our audience to get attached we can't be so cagey with greater lore aspects. After all that's where a lot of the fun of theory-crafting comes from right? ;D
We've also slowed the pacing at the start with a lot more shots that are designed to build atmosphere that will be an interesting challenge to animate.
Actually a great deal of ACT 1 of the episode has been rewritten or rephrased to add lore elements or add to the atmosphere. I'm looking forward to boarding those new shots out and seeing how the VAs respond to the new dialogue and events.
ACT 2 remains largely the same because it's where the pacing begins to increase and we really don't have time to sprinkle in more dialogue or lore elements. Though perhaps we could find some time to do some environmental story telling? Something to consider. With that said the boards I made for ACT 2 were actually the first boards I worked on so to say they are rough is putting it mildly.
Large potions for the boards will have to be updated regardless, as the layout of the top deck of The Grand Vagabond ship has been altered and the 3D modelling has progressed. As a result the current boards are highly inaccurate to the space available.
ACT 3 has some small edits involving rephrasing certain lines and adding on more detail to others. Generally though it doesn't involve to many new shots and keeps the pace were it was previously.
ACT 4 is basically an after credits shot that features, pretty much exclusively, Lamenter. We weren't massive fans of how the orginal was structured and concluded that it didn't give enough intrigue. So we completely scrapped it and reworked it. In doing so we created B.B. as a character and should be able to give Olivia (Lamenter's VA) some more lines to sink her teeth into.
My hope is that with this rewrite we've made a more engaging first epsiode that will grip an audience tightly and inspire them to push for more. >:D
Storyboard Pro:
So I mentioned in a previous update that we discovered some addons for Blender that would allow us to storyboard within that program instead of Storyboard Pro as I had been doing.
We realised that converting Storyboard Pro files to Blender was possible but it was an involved process that required renaming layers, setting keypoints at the begining and end of every board and then extensively cleaning up those scenes and shots in Blender itself. As such it would be far simpler to just, in the future, storyboard within Blender itself.
More so because the animation would be added into the Blender files, replacing the boards once completed anyway.
Welp, my year long subscription is almost up and instead of paying another £600+ for another year of Storyboard Pro (jesus christ) I've cancelled my subsciption and am in the long boring process of converting all boards created for every aspect of Member of The Revelry into Blender ready files.
And it's a lot of busy work.
Made all the harder by past Charlie NOT NAMING HER LAYERS.
So that's gonna be my focus outside of the Scribble Shorts for the forseeable future. We don't want to loose any of the hard work done so far after all. Even if large parts of it will be changed.
Still paying £800+ a year for ToonBoom... urgh.
3D Modelling:
So, whilst Katherine has been making progress on The Grand Vagabond ship, it's most been comprised of cleaning up linework and going over her earlier work in regards to the props on the top deck.
Because it that there's not much in the way of images I can show you. Though I am happy to saying were nearing the point of UV mapping and properly texturing the ship which I am very much looking forward to. The process of which will no doubt inform a great of The MoTR Environmental Guide.
Oh also, Katherine is offically our intern. :D
Which actually got me considering something else.
To start a Studio or to not start a Studio:
So this question has been floating around my mind for a while now. It would be a very big step for me and for MoTR. I've always liked the idea of building and running a studio in which we get to create the cartoons and games we want to create, with the people we want to work with. But it's always been a very daunting prospect.
I mean I really don't know much of anything about running a business. I know how to make cartoons, tell stories and not give up on good ideas. That's what I'm good at.
And in today's current climate one really needs a large and dedicated following to make a bet on founding a studio. Got to sell the merch to someone after all. And without that income how can one pay salaries and rates to those who work so hard to make a vision come to life.
That has actually been the primary reason why I've been largely soloing the developement of this series.
Never the less the idea has never really left my mind. Added onto the fact that bursaries and loans tend not to be given to individuals but rather companies (atleast in the UK), I can mark of paying for animation software as business expenses and it greants an air of legitamacy, it's becoming more and more appealing. Though I'll admit I'd need to do some serious research before making such a leap.
I'm going to keep considering it. Certainly if I pull that trigger I will need to have an action plan ready to launch immeadiately.
Atleast I know what I would want call it:
IRREGULAR INK
The Coming Weeks:
Traditionally in this segment i would lay out what everyone will be focusing on in the coming weeks but frankly, I might retire this segment for the time being.
We've all got stuff to work on and we know what it is. I don't want to put indirect pressure on my team via these updates anymore.
I can say at the very least I will be focusing on The Scribble Short for the next few days and then back to the task of converting Storyboard Pro files to being Blender compatable.
At which point I will finally move back onto re-boarding for Episode 1 in preparation for getting the cast in to do there new lines. :)
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