July 2023 Update- (Patreon)

Hey All, time for the July Update-

*UPDATE FOR THE PREVIOUS MONTH*

So last month we showed the .gif of Vivi running, though keen eyed observers pointed out that she was missing her headband.  We have so rarely drawn Vivi from the back that we didn't even pick it up until it was pointed out so we've now got it in there!  Thanks again to everyone who pointed it out!

MSA Video News (This Month)-

As for Video news proper this month, it was certainly a busy one for us, and we can share some milestones that we've reached pretty recently.

• All Animation for the intro section has been cleaned and completed.  This one was.... MOSTLY the case for actually a fair amount of time by now, we just had one particular shot that was left over that we put on hold as we worked elsewhere in the video.  Now that we've gotten back around to it and finished it off, we can at the very least say that we've got that taken care of.  There is still definitely work to be done in the Special Effects and Background Art side of the equation, but we can at the very least say that we've got that done.
• Animatic work for the Epilogue, and as such, the entire video, has now been locked in and finalized.  This one is definitely a big milestone for us.  We now know exactly how many shots are in the video and how long the video will be. Here's what the breakdown looks like-
  
  Intro Section: 1min 8sec / 28 Scenes
  Main Section: 4min / 117 Scenes
  Ending Section: 2min 17sec / 30 Scenes
  Total: *7min 29sec (*Not including the credits sequence)

Given how the original Ghost video was roughly 4 minutes long, this final video in the arc is practically double that.  We believe all of it is pretty necessary though.  It's our intention to wrap all of this up as cleanly as possible, so we can't exactly leave things off with some kind of cliff-hanger this time around.  To be clear though, while we just finalized our animatic (literally as of like 5 days ago as I write this), we've already gotten rough animation for a handful of these epilogue shots underway.

With all that said, it's perhaps best to say that we can't realistically expect to have the video completed and out by time of this October, and based on some personal life events coming up before too long, I can't confidently say it'll be this year in general.  We still have a ways to go and seeing as we've been working on what's functionally two videos worth of content in one, it'll be tough to nail down an exact release date for a while.

As always though, we greatly appreciate everyone's patience and hope our end product lives up to the wait.

Non-MSA Related News-

So as mentioned in the last month, I mentioned a """SPECIAL""" day of mine that was coming up.  For those that missed it, the """SPECIAL""" part of the day was the fact that I turned 40 years old this year (Yes, I am an old-ass man).  I spent my birthday streaming Tears of the Kingdom over on YouTube using a VTuber model I personally cobbled together in a rush for roughly 2 weeks.  The vod for that stream should be up on my Youtube Live page I think in the event you want to watch what I did there.  I'm still far from used to streaming in both presentational and technical senses, but I came away feeling they were pretty necessary steps towards getting myself out in the public eye more.  One of the reasons I was dead-set on getting that stream made was to have some way to provide SOME form of additional content that I could provide as we still have work left to do on the video.  I still don't quite know how I'm going to schedule things in that regard but I would like to try to get at least one or two streams in a month.  There's a whole host of other reasons I want to try to do more of these streams, but this post is already getting a bit long, so in the mean time, I put some of the concepts and WIPs for the model up for the Patreon post pictures this month.

FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT ORDERED THE DEADBEAT PLUSH-

Despite saying August, the Makeship Deadbeat plushes have actually started shipping and have actually already been reaching people!  So if you haven't gotten yours yet apparently they should be coming in soon!

Colossalcon Texas – August 18th – 20th 2023 – Round Rock

Last up for this month's news round up, Mystery Skulls will be attending this year's Colossalcon over in Round Rock, Texas.  While I'm not lined up to be a guest, I'll be dropping by to go visit him for the concert, and as such, will be try to around to meet with anyone that shows up there!  Assuming he has some kind of booth situation (I'm not even sure of that at the moment), I'll try to hang around there in case people would like to drop by and say hey!

With that, I'd say its about time to wrap this month's news up.  Thank you, as usual, very much to everyone who continues to support us here, and thank you to everyone that showed up to the stream to wish a Happy Birthday or do some art based on the Vtube model!  If you happen to be going to the Mystery Skulls Concert for Colossalcon, maybe I'll catch ya there as well!

-Ben