Squirrel Power Update - June 4 (Patreon)

I have finally started working on Squirrel Power again after a few months of focusing on commissions, job hunting, and other life stuff! But what do things look like going forward? Well, allow me to explain.

Animation is a very time consuming process. I knew that going in, which is why I was able to make an entire teaser trailer (two teaser trailers, technically), over the course of one to two months, and that was just for half a minute of animation, if you include the title cards. Realistically, if I were to continue working on this project entirely by myself, it would probably take nearly half a decade, if not longer, to finish one episode (depending on the quality of the animation, of course). For a quick reference, it took the team behind the Lackadaisy series three years to finish their wonderfully animated pilot, and they have an entire dedicated production team. For another reference, the creator behind A Fox In Space, an animated series that takes place in Nintendo's Star Fox universe, works more or less alone, with a few assistants here and there, and...well, just look up the release date of the first episode and compare it to the second episode. Let's just say things took a while.

My initial projections after finishing half the script for my own pilot put the estimated length at around 20 minutes. That's a lot of animation, but I can't really see the story I want to tell with these characters being any shorter, or else things would feel rushed. If I really want to do this, I might have to look into putting together a crowdfunding campaign to get more people involved (and pay them fairly!), and seeing as how I have never done something like this before, it'll probably take a bit of research to figure out how to do it right.

In the meantime, I gave the characters a bit of a redesign, and I think they look better than ever! Olivia's got some nice fur patterns, Flint has even more edge, and Ashley...well, apart from her own small fur pattern change, I'm not sure how to improve her, she's already pretty solid~

Right now the goal is to finish the script and get to work on the rough animatic, which may take a couple more months. Fortunately I have figured out the secret to big projects like this one. First, start. Second, don't stop. And third, if you do stop, try figuring out how and when to start again. It's just a little bit every day, at the end of the day!

I'll see you all when I see you. Stay cute! <3