Episode 11 Update - 04/30/23 (Patreon)

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I apologize for the lack of updates as of late.  Here's where we're at with the episode:

I am knee-deep in character animation at the moment. There are six scenes to manage: Scenes A, B, C, D, F, and X

Scene X has had a huge amount of progress since last update.  I now have a way clearer vision of where I want it to go and it's almost at the next point in its progress.  I have to finish up the skeleton of it before I pass it off to someone else.  Progress has been huge here.  For the longest time I've been struggling with the vision of what this scene is supposed to be and now I finally have it.

I have now established a solid back-and-forth situation with a character animator that is able to take my direction and turn it into character animation that meets my standards.  This is revolutionary for me, because it's been very hard in the past to find a character animator that can work with me and meet my standards.  He has been working extensively on Scene A with me, and at this point, it's very close to getting finished.  He is working on the final character of Scene A using my keys and directions.  However, while this animator is skilled, he is still not the fastest, as his quality of work takes time.  Additionally, he is costing me $1500 a month to hire, which is currently more than the Patreon is making.  Luckily, I still have a good amount of Patreon funding saved up that should last throughout the rest of the process.  At the moment, this animator is a godsend.  I am hoping that by the end of the series I will have invested 100% of the Patreon funding and more on the project.

Scene D is also further along.  I was working with an animator on that as well, and the more emotional points are looking very solid.  Still, though.  Even though I've made solid progress, there is a lot to do on this scene.  It's not only the longest scene of the episode, but likely of the whole series, clocking in at just under 10 minutes.  This is going to be my primary focus in the coming weeks.  If I can get enough of this scene done, I can pass it to the animator right after he finished up Scene A.  Getting this scene done will make me so much more confident about the episode as a whole.  Once I finish this, everything else will feel downhill (hopefully).

Scene F is the very most important.  I've created the skeleton and instructions on how to complete it a long time ago, and require an animator more skilled than me to tackle it.  Fortunately, the skilled animator I had in mind has agreed to take it on, but only after their current workload is finished.  I was previously told to contact him mid-April but it appears he's still working at the moment and needs more time before he can take it up.  I cannot touch this scene or finish it up without all the hard parts done first.  Right now, I'm just waiting for him to finish, as my project is next in line for him.

Scene C has the hard parts done for the most part, but needs a lot of solid character work on it.  I don't see this one being a problem at all and will likely tackle this after D.

Scene B hasn't been touched at all since the layout phase.  I'm not sure if I trust anyone to animate the Caterpies the way I want.  I'm probably going to do this one last and by myself.  I'm tempted to see if the animator working on Scene A can tackles some of it, but whenever I look at it, I can't see anyone but myself doing it.

I apologize for being so behind on updates.  In February and March I faced a lot of personal setbacks that have delayed my progress.  I hope down the line I'll be able to elaborate on this, but right now I really can't.  I was hoping that April would be better for me, and it was, but I'm still not where I want to be right now production-wise.  Every time I wanted to give an update, I got really stressed out about how behind I was, and the more I pushed the updates back the scarier they got.  I really dislike when my personal issues interfere with my work and they've really been crippling me as of late.  I've finally found and have been working with a therapist, which is helping a little.  I've made it very clear to him that my primary goal is efficiently finishing the episode, and we've been making progress on my habits, albeit slowly.

As of late, the episode has been bottlenecked by my slowness and inefficiency.  A lot more gears have the potential to be moving right now, and I'm currently very frustrated.  I am going to keep trying and progressing to the best of my abilities, but I sincerely apologize for how slow it's going.  I wanted to finish by July, and I'm not even finished with Scene A yet.  If it's any consolation, the stuff that is finished is looking really good and I've not once sacrificed quality.  I just hate keeping you all waiting and delaying like this.  In the very least, I want to keep you all updated.  Thank you for your patience with me.