Progress Report - August 4, 2026 (Patreon)

Hello, everyone!

This week's Progress Report is going to be rather short, as I don't really have too much to report on. So let's just get right into it, shall we?

Right up top, I haven't heard anything from either Milly nor Cinder over the past week, so there's been no new audio coming in Overbreed. Which is just as well, because - as the preview image may suggest - I haven't exactly had the time to process said audio anyways, nor really make any forward progress at all on Overbreed.

I did manage to make a little bit of progress on Primordium, though nothing too terribly notable. The biggest change is that I put together a second revision of the Episode 4 ending. This iteration, which you can click the link previous to watch, reduces the runtime from 2:14 to 0:45, which is almost exactly one-third the previous runtime. It obviously strips out a lot of character, but considering this is the tail end of the fourth episode of an entire chapter focused on establishing character (among other things), I feel like that's a fair trade-off for a more streamlined narrative setup.

I'm still not entirely happy with it, but at least for now, I am not going to try to revise it any further. It is at least serviceable in its current state.

And then, of course, there is the 18-animation elephant in the Progress Report: the Marie/Honoka introduction sequence.

I noted on Bluesky the other day that I really need to figure out a better way to do introduction sequences than montages, because fuck me are montages labor-intensive. For the Marie/Honoka Short Love Story chapter that will be starting its release schedule in the next few weeks, I decided to have the intro be a SparkNotes of the entire series' plot. I think I've mentioned this before, but it is a fixed story comprised of anywhere from 8 to 10 chapters (depending on exactly how I split it up), with a concrete beginning and end.

And I decided to make the intro represent all of the major plot beats through a series of 2-second animations. 18 animations in total, complete with full scenebuilds each (though obviously the scenes haven't been made yet). Each of which gets a whopping 2 seconds of screen time. For an intro sequence that will only be seen in the Chapter trailer, and in the Chapter filmic release.

As the preview image inquires, why do I do this to myself?

There is genuinely and unironically more animation work going into this damn intro sequence than there is going into the actual Chapter it's for. The Chapter is only comprised of 7 episodes, the first 2 of which feature just Marie (the pilot episode released many months ago) and Honoka respectively; and the remaining 5 of which have both Marie and Honoka separately animated, for a total of 12 unique animations across the chapter. Compared to the 18 unique animations of this intro sequence.

So yeah, that's where all of my energy has been going this past week. As of writing, I have the first 11 animations built. My goal is to have the remaining 7 animations finished by end-of-day Thursday. And then by end-of-day Sunday, I am hoping to have all of the scenes built and lit, and if not ready for a final 4k render, at least have them ready for a quick final pass to get them ready for a final 4k render.

And then of course, in the space between Thursday and Sunday, Friday will see the public release of the fourth and final episode of the first chapter of To Breed and Bond. And then Monday will see the release of the filmic cut of the first chapter.

The Friday release is going to be interesting on my end, because my power utility is planning to cut power to my region all day Friday, from 8am to 4pm. Which means I'll be spending all Friday in the dark (or, god forbid, going outside and touching grass - the horror). And, perhaps more importantly, spending all Friday not working on getting the release ready, because I won't have power.

Luckily, the only work I need to do for that last release is cutting the release trailer (which is just the first 45 seconds of the episode), uploading to the Micros page, and posting to Twitter and Bluesky. None of which is particularly intensive work. So I can probably get it done in the evening once power is restored. But still going to be interesting.

At some point in the near future, I am going to want to bring up the first reckoning with my release schedule with all of you. If not to get any immediate thoughts, to at least get people thinking about their answers.

It's nothing too serious, despite the ominous title of "reckoning" - just the fact that, when 2027's schedule closes, we will have 8 Micro series having been introduced, with at least another 3 potential Series on the docket (my original Parawhores IP, the Fallout Vault Iris project I mentioned last week, and the Claire/Jill Refuge sequel series that I've been tinkering with).

All of which is to say, with 11 Micro series revealed, and only being able to make 4 Chapters a year, we are going to eventually need to figure out what makes the cut and what gets left behind.

But I'll be honest with ya'll, I just don't have the mental bandwidth for that right now. This fucking Short Love Story intro sequence is pretty much maxing out my capacity right now, and I'll be honest, is stressing me the fuck out. I just want to get it done as soon as possible, so I can move onto other, less daunting shit - like producing and releasing full episodes every 2 weeks for 2 months straight.

Next week, I should be in a much better position mentally for us to tackle more heady subjects like that. Unless of course, the Short Love Story intro sequence takes longer than I am expecting it to, in which case I will be in a far worse position mentally, as it will now be encroaching on my allotted time for working on the Chapter itself.

But we'll burn that bridge as we get to it.

That's all for now, everyone! Until next week!