March Update: TV-series news & new projects in development!

Dear Patrons,

Hope you've been well! It's that time of the year where time just passes by so fast (at least in my view). I can't believe that we're already well into March! At the top of today's post, I've put a little Evelyn animation that I shared on SoMe during last month, but as you scroll there'll also be plenty new stuff to see.

TALES OF ZALE (TV-SERIES):

First and foremost, I have some news to share with you on the status of the Tales of Zale TV-series, however. It's neither good nor bad, but I think it's nice to keep you updated. 

We had an in-person visit from the broadcaster here at the end of February. They are very enthusiastic about ToZ, and the support is really heart-warming. But of course business is business, and things have to get past the financial department too, which is a whole different beast. 

We're basically asking for the highest minute-price they've ever put down on an animated show, due to the series being hand-drawn frame by frame. That doesn't by any means make it an impossible feat, but it does present an extra set of challenges. For now, they've basically requested that we wait with moving the project forward until late summer or autumn. 

Their official reason is that they want to gather data on how continuous storytelling is received, since they have currently started running an animated series with an ongoing story just recently. If I may add some speculation though, I don't think that's the whole reason. That particular series has a very different execution from what we're offering with ToZ, so it's limited how much insight it will offer. I think it is more likely that they are trying to drag their feet until the end of the year, because the political prospects of getting tax rebates on animated production from next year onward are looking promising. 

Without getting too far into the technicalities, basically, many countries offer tax rebates on certain types of production in order to make their industries more competitive globally and to keep talent from moving elsewhere. In fact, EVERY other European country other than Denmark has some sort of tax rebates on their animation productions. That means that it costs up to 25% more to produce anything animated here, on top of the high living costs requiring higher wages. The fact that there is as much of an animation industry here as there is, is a testament to people's talent and blood, sweat and tears - but after multiple studio bankruptcies in the past years, it's become clear that that alone is not enough.

There's no guarantee that the tax rebates will pass, but it's something that is being pushed heavily for. And with ToZ being on the more expensive end, and the rebates potentially being so close, I think it would make sense for them to try to hold off till they pass, if possible. But again, these are just my own speculations.

With you all keeping up with the series, I just wanted to pull back the curtain and be transparent with what's currently happening.

NEW CONCEPT ART:

For this latest indie animation day, I decided to share a piece of concept art made by Paula Huerta, who was interning with us at the time of this ToZ visual development:

In the very early stages, we were brain-storming key images to use for concept art and look-tests, and this was one of the motifs we picked. It's a slight homage to Lion King's tree trunk montage. After the overall thumbnail was picked, Paula did some different color variations:

She went on to do a very rough early version of the motif, but we had to realize that it wasn't quite hitting the style we were going for despite using the right brushes. Among the issues is that the image is too busy and murky.

We decided it was best to start over rather than working on top of the current picture. In the next pass, Paula started with blocking out the overall picture with the colors:

It was also around this time that she started doing vegetation explorations. This helped us define the detail level of the backgrounds. We wanted plants that were distinct enough to add some character to the background and world, but still vague enough not to pull too much attention. And then it had to match the characters' shape language on top of that!

I especially liked these last nettles, so you'll see those popping up in multiple backgrounds. In one of our early thumbnail explorations from way back, we basically had Zale swimming through a sea of nettles, and I really liked that image, so it's one of those plants that I'd quite like to bring into the series in some way.

I helped out with a little character draw-over to make sure we got them on model, and then Paula finalized the image, getting it on style. This was her first concept image during the internship, and it was really cool to see how she took up the challenge!

CRIMSON KNIGHT AZAZEL:

Last month I posted some work-in-progress material for Crimson Knight Azazel, and I went and continued developing further on it this month. I've been feeling quite productive, since sketching and exploring tends to produce a much higher volume of work than, say, animating.

I started cleaning up some of the sketches that I was more keen on, and tightening the color scheme and shape language more.

I made a little intro to the project bible to help set the scene (although I still haven't made the last illustration yet).

I've done a lot more color explorations, although I just put a few highlights onto this page. My big break-though moment on the visuals was realizing that since I want a very saturated, strong color scheme, linework was really unnecessary - and actually mostly got in the way.

Keeping this in mind, I started cleaning up "Cecil", the main character, picking out her colors. Although I would probably tweak her color scheme based on lighting, I was really happy to find that she actually works really really well in most backgrounds I can think to place her in.

"Cecil's" colors are mostly over towards red, pink and purple, and these colors are picked out with the intent of depicting most of the ordinary world in blues, so she will always stand out in those situations. On the other hand, when action ensues I want the world to get more red, so I made Azazel very blue, so that he'll work better in that environment. Of course, these are just over-all guidelines, and a lot more still needs to be explored.

I made some initial sketches of Cecil's mom, Sarah - although I think I still need to explore her a bit further before I work out her colors.

Then there's Cecil's friend Jay. Now, his colors were a real challenge to pin down. I asked for opinions from all over, and all of them differed!

I ended up going with something in the reds, again keeping in mind that the normal world will likely be more blue. But I'm not 100% happy with this color scheme yet, so I think I will return to it with fresh eyes at a later date, possibly after exploring some more color thumbnails with context.

Tato, on the other hand, was a good deal more easy. Just like Azazel, I want all of these demons to be towards the blue or purple, with one focal color. In Tato's case, the focal color is orange.

I also sketched Jay's dad, Marcus. But just like with Sarah, I need to explore his design a bit more before I start giving it color. I went pretty old-school on the uniform in order to get a cool shape language, because I find that current military uniforms are a little bit too boring to look at. But this one didn't quite come together, it's a bit too all-over the place.

So just as a point of comparison for how the visual development has progressed, I made this sketch last year and colored it like so:

But in the end, I think this style of coloring is much more viable in the long term:

As a bonus, here's some initial explorations as a beserk-mode. This won't be in the project bible!

EMMA & THE YOLKS:

Now, Crimson Knight Azazel isn't a project that I plan on pushing forward until Tales of Zale gets made. But as things are looking right now, I do have some time to kill before I can continue on ToZ, so my producer suggested that it may also be a good idea to potentially develop a short film in the meanwhile. So I dusted off an old idea and made a short project bible:

"Emma & the Yolks" is a short for smaller kids, younger than anything I've worked on before. Most of all, I want it to be an opportunity to challenge myself to depict a world as seen with fresh eyes, and push the texture of the animation accordingly.

ROUND-UP:

Both E&Y and CKA are more "opportunistic projects" for now, in case the right funding scheme should come around. They are good to have ready, just in case - and it feels really nice to apply some of the experience from ToZ. 

I'll still chip a bit away at Tales of Zale with some animation tests, but I'm limited in how much I am able to do until we get further green-light. So developing on these other projects can be a bit of a creative relief in the meanwhile. Let's see where my curiosity takes me, though!

And fear not, I still have plenty of Tales of Zale development work to share while we wait for news, so you'll still get your monthly dose! We're also planning on taking the project to Annecy to chat with some potential partners, so we won't be standing completely still.

But for now, thank you again for reading! I hope you enjoyed some of these behind the scenes :)

All the best,

- Sif