Hello everyone!

I apologize for, once again, being a day late with the Progress Report. My brain was hijacked by a particular storyboard idea late Monday night. I wanted to share it with this week's Progress Report, but I couldn't manage to finish it until earlier today. And so, here we are.

Speaking of Monday, the final 4k render of the first episode of To Breed And Bond was completed this past Monday, and is waiting for its Early Access release this upcoming Friday, June 12! Ahead of that release, today I am also giving you all a quick early look at the To Breed And Bond Chapter 1 teaser trailer, which will be publicly released alongside the first episode's Early Access release.

So with that all being said, let's go over what all got done this past week!

Right up to, Overbreed. I haven't made any progress on it animation-wise, still been busy with getting everything going for the Marie/Honoka project. More on that in a moment. Cinder did get her next section of Sombra audio in this past Monday, but I haven't had a chance to go through it yet - same reason why.

Milly also gave me an update on how things are going on her end this past Thursday. The memorial service for her family member who suddenly died a few weeks ago was scheduled to be this past Saturday, June 6. Milly noted that once that is over, she was hoping to get back into recording for Overbreed. I intend to message her end-of-day Friday, ask how she's doing and if there's anything I can do to help, as well as ask how the recording for Overbreed is looking, if I don't hear from her first.

In regards to Short Love Story, I have managed to put together all of the Marie dub sequences. They were sent off to Candy for dubbing this past Sunday. Much like the Honoka dub sequences, they were a bit more involved than I originally expected, involving a lot of reconstruction to make the dub easier for her to track.

I have made progress on processing Mimi's absolutely fantastic Honoka audio. The first 4 episodes are fully processed, with 2 more remaining to be done.

I still need to get together Innie's recording package, but it should be much quicker to put together than either of these. I should finally be done with juggling all of this by end of day Friday. Of course, until the Marie and Innie audio comes in...

In retrospect, it seems like juggling two projects at a time is absolutely my maximum. Pharmmetra and Overbreed is fine. Pharmmetra and Marie/Honoka is fine. But Pharmmetra, Overbreed, and Marie/Honoka? That's a choose-two, and right now Overbreed has been the odd one out.

This has been a particularly intense secondary project to juggle, just due to its nature: 6 episodes, each of which are basically two entirely different videos running simultaneously, with Marie's side of the events and Honoka's side of the events being entirely independent of one another. While the final video interweaves them, for dubbing purposes, I split them out to be full videos independent of each other, which is why they needed so much render doctoring.

Primordium should be a much simpler project to get set up by comparison, with it only being 4 episodes (or 3 episodes, if I can't figure out the last episode...), and them only be single-tracked. They shouldn't require nearly as much render reconstruction, since their episodes focus on their action holistically - there isn't constant cutting back and forth between different characters doing different things.

With all that said, once all of the Short Love Story recording work is finally taken care of, I will be able to return that secondary focus to Overbreed.

Which actually segues nicely into discussing To Breed and Bond! As I said at the top, the final 4k render of the first episode is done, sitting on my hard drive, waiting for the final audio mix, and for its release to Early Access.

That second-to-last bit is going to be a bit interesting, though. My sound designer, Tonedeaf Lewdness, ended up taking this week away with his partner, from the 8th to the 12th. He didn't manage to get the audio to me before the 8th, and you may notice that the 12th--when he is set to return--is also the day we're schedule to go out into Early Access.

He assured me that he will be able to get the final mix to me on the 12th. I suppose we'll see, won't we?

He did manage to get the final mix for the trailer to me, though! I mentioned last week how I would rather a finished public trailer and unfinished early-access video, than an unfinished public trailer and a finished early-access video, and he strongly agreed with those priorities. He laser-focused on getting the sound design for the trailer absolutely spot on, including recording an original track for the trailer to fit the tone and energy of the piece.

But rather than just tell you all how much of a fucking banger he put together, and how awesome the trailer's audio came out, I'd instead just show you!

Click here to check out the final trailer!

I still haven't come up with a title for the chapter yet, and honestly, at this rate, I may just not give it one. There's nothing wrong with a simple, clean "Chapter 1." I might just keep that "Chapter 1" on the back card of the trailer, with the release dates, and call it a day there.

And finally, this all leads us back around to the very tippy-top of this Progress Report, with the preview image and the storyboard idea that's stolen the past 2 and a half days of my life from me:

I've mentioned my ambitions for Demonseed a few times before, and those ambitions have not lessened any over the months. It is a story that I deeply love, with characters that I absolutely adore. And while I was making dinner Monday evening, I was jumpscared with a sudden flash of two exposition sequences for it, establishing the setting, characters, and motivations.

That sudden flash turned into a 6.5-minute storyboard,

Which you can watch in full by clicking here.

I am not really certain what I want to do with this storyboard, but I feel like it is critically important context for Demonseed.

On the one hand, it serves to set up the context and the stakes around Galwyn's plan to fuck a demon lord, the why behind it all. It establishes how neurotic and helpless her sister is, and how Galwyn is fiercely protective of her and is absolutely not a pushover. It sets up the context behind Galwyn's absolutely harebrained scheme, how they face discrimination on all fronts as poor half-elf daughters of a prostitute, and why Galwyn is willing to go to such extremes for power, and why she wants that power in the first place.

On the other hand, it is 6.5 minutes of pure exposition. The closest thing we get to anything scandalous is Galwyn's salacious legwear and her tight leather one-piece struggling to contain the unlicensed dump-truck she is poorly attempting to smuggle through customs behind her. Most of the storyboard sits on the diametric other end of scandalous, with a thwarted harassment scene and two separate emotional breakdowns.

I am absolutely not ashamed of the exposition as it is, and I have no plans to try and cut it down or simplify it. Demonseed is a wholly original universe and IP, and so there is a lot of worldbuilding that is needed to properly set everything up. And given how extreme Galwyn's plan is, and how determined she is to see it through even as it continues to go wrong over the course of the story, I think it is important to establish why she is so damn stubborn about it. What this plan means to her.

But as I said, I am not sure what I want to do with it. Do I pull an Overbreed with it, and make an Episode 0 that is separate from the main chapters, as an entirely independent exposition piece? Do I make it be the first episode of the first chapter, and just expect people to take over 6 minutes of non-pornographic exposition in a pornographic chapter?

And then relatedly, what form should it take? Should it be a fully voiced and animated video? Or a kinetic novel, with voice-over and sound-effects over an unanimated slideshow? I don't know, and I would love to hear peoples' thoughts on this.

And by extension of course, I would love to hear peoples' thoughts on the storyboard as a whole. If you were already interested in Demonseed, does this peek into the world and the characters make you more or less interested? If you weren't interested in Demonseed before, does this storyboard change that at all?

At any rate, that's all for this week's Progress Report! Until next week, everyone!