The clash between vampire and... weird goat lady is about to begin (Patreon)

I'm very excited now because I just checked with the footage of the animatic and if the animatic is any indication of how long the video will be, we just passed the one minute mark. We're nearly half way with the sketches. If all goes well, I'll be done with sketching all the frames by the end of this month, or at least what I have planned. I have a feeling I'm going to have to go back and edit something things or even add new cuts, but we'll decide on that after I make the test video. So for now, enjoy these three new cuts I had just made.

Looking back at the last post, here is the finished version of Yuuma's cut where she spins her giant spork. I have no idea how to draw the spork spinning at this time so I just went with this buzzsaw looking effect since that's what it looks like in-game. I personally think it's missing something but I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps a few more frames to smooth the zoom out. I'll consider it once I do the test footage to see how it looks like with the other cuts.

One thing I do know that I need to figure out is how to transition from the scene of Flandre shooting projectiles to this one where she is reflecting them. My idea is to zoom in on her face with this frame:

Then it is followed her spork wiping the camera and into the cut of her spinning her spork. I did a test with a temporary effect and felt it was also missing something. I might have to actually animate this particular frame to show her swinging her spork as it zooms in, and looking at all the detail I drew, I dread having to do that. I didn't time myself but I'm sure this took me like half-an-hour to draw or something ridiculous. I even drew the left arm and copied and pasted it on the other size, editing just the arm a bit, and that goes for her head as well. These still shots take forever to draw so you gotta take shortcuts whenever you can to save time.

And yes, I'm aware I gave her a McDonald's spoon. I'll fix it to the correct size later.

I really like how this one came out, especially with the intended frame rate. Maybe I should add one more frame to the beginning part to smooth it out but I just love the way the second part came out.

The part where her hand is in front of the camera is suppose to have her summon her weapon. I plan on having flashy effects of the weapon appearing with flames coming out of it. It's going to look cool but that is a process outside the scope of sketches, much like the oil. We'll get to that eventually.

However, after I made it, I realized that you can't see the weapon in its entirety with this cut. Since this is the part where we see her weapon for the first time, I figured maybe I should zoom her out and show the entire weapon manifesting in her hand rather than just a tiny part of it. Ah, but hat's just more work and these cuts takes 1-2 hours to do. I'll just make my judgement later with the test footage afterward.

And finally, the last cut before Flandre and Yuuma clash their weapons and the fight truly begins. Except that perhaps this one does need more frames to smooth it out. It goes so quickly at this frame rate, even more so at the regular speed. It's a blink and you'll miss it situation. I got no choice, I got to draw more frames to smooth it out. It must be done. It's all for the art! We must suffer for our art to be perfect!

I wish my PC could handle those inbetween interpolation software.

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We're making real progress here but this is only the beginning. There's still so much to do but little time to do it. If it was up to me, I'd work on this all day long and get this out in no time. The last animation project I did, I used to work 8 hours a day and even that still took me 2 months to make one and half minutes of footage. But as many people keep telling me, I should take it easy, and you guys are right. I started feeling the brunt of just working all day long on projects. That's why I only spend like 4-5 hours a day on this project as I also have more personal projects. I must confess, as much as I love Touhou, I still feel lonely. The Touhou community is huge, and yet I still feel like I don't belong. I guess I must be jealous that Touhou is so popular but none of my personal passion projects are. But this has motivated me to figure out how to make my personal stuff more recognized. Touhou is an inspiration, how one man can make something so big out of something that started out so small.

But just as much, I want to see a Touhou 15 adaption so badly and at this point, I'm practically the only one capable of making it happen. I'll work hard for sure to make all our dreams come true.

So once again, thank you guys for your support. I'm still flabbergasted that I have this many patrons at this early, but I know in the future, I really need all the help I can get so I better start thinking ahead and planning for the big project right now.

More WIPs to come, and it looks like the schedule is around 3-4 days. Stay tuned.