Episode 9 Progress - 3/22/19 (Patreon)

Hello all.  It's been a hell of a week.  Here's where my progress on the animation of the episode currently stands:

As of this morning, I've now finished 8,000 frames.  With the addition of the opening sequence, the first seven minutes of the episode are now complete.  As you can see from the chart, the animation workload is divided into four parts, the Beginning, "Smash", "Smoosh", and the Ending.  The beginning is now finished.  

"Smash" - which is arguably the most difficult sequence, has been in the process of being animated for about a month now.  It's now in the hands of one of the animators I've hired to work on this episode.  I've been giving him feedback on a weekly basis.  In out last correspondence, he's intending to finish it by the end of March.

"Smoosh" is a relatively easy sequence.  I'll be working on that next.  This leaves the ending, which is 9,000 frames.  Some of them being extremely difficult.  But unlike the beginning, which I had to do entirely on my own, several characters in the ending sequence have already been animated by other animators on my team.

Unlike last week, where I went very hardcore with the workload at the cost of my own sanity, I took on the workload on in a very organized manner this week, making sure to take breaks.  Thank you very much to those who reached out to me with your concern.  I'm now ready to return home and keep working at a regular pace.  I think I really needed this work marathon to kick me into gear.  

In other news, I've been working with a composer for several months, and as of yesterday, all of the music for the episode is now complete.  This will be the first episode to feature an entirely original score.  I, personally, think it adds a great deal to the episode and I love how it sounds.  I hope you enjoy it too!

I'm not going to try to guess a release date anymore, as I have since missed every deadline by misjudging the workload.  So instead, I'm committing to these weekly updates.  Thank you for your continued support.

-Shipp