Pre-release Updates and News

Hey guys, a lot has been going on so I though it'd be a good time for an update. Stuff about the upcoming animation, the status of merch shipments, and other community happenings.

Welcome New Patrons + Keychains and Care Packages

First of all, I'd like to welcome the several new patrons joining us in the past month. I hope you guys have fun scrolling through the 3+ years of exclusive posts & content on this site.

I still get a spark of gratitude when my Gmail notifies me of a new pledge ala "New Patron! Meet X".

Many of you who joined are eligible for the Special Offer and will be receiving a bonus keychain, even if you only pledged for that initial month. This also goes for Care Packages. Please message me ASAP if you have a preference of Oxob style or Bog style keychain.

Today I plan on streaming me pumping out thank you card sketches, and prepping shipments. I may be contacting some of you to confirm certain international addresses. The rest of you (who live in the US) should be receiving envelopes around premiere time.

The Bonus keychain offer is nearing expiration (3 days left!), so I encourage anyone who wants in to check it out. It's the only way to get limited time Oxob or Bog merch, after which will be publicly unavailable.

Status of the Animation 

The linework and inking of Story #6 is 100% done, meaning we are strictly in the polishing and error-correcting phase of the production. This polishing phase still needs 2-3 more days until it's ready for final compositing, where I'll be outputting the final video in  2,560 x 1,440 resolution (1440p) and adding sound effects. 

The boosted resolution is needed for all the extra rain weather detail going into the video. Which means this will be the sharpest-looking release yet! Downside is that I'm now running out of disk space, and had to delete some movies off my hard drive.

So the animation is rapidly reaching gold status, which leads me to the next topic.

Reminder of Display Names

For all patrons pledging at the Fancy Name Credit tier ($15+) and up: If you have a preferred way to display your name for the credits, please message me on Patreon. Otherwise, I will default to your public display name, with abbreviated last names. I'll be finalizing the credits early next week (April 6th), since I have to upload the animation about a week before the premiere.

Release/Premiere

As I've been copy/pasting everywhere I can on social media: Gildedguy vs Oxob will be premiering on April 14th (a Tuesday). There will be a Twitch premiere at 5PM (EST) followed by an Anim8 premiere about an hour later. The following day (April 15th), the animation will be available to watch on YouTube.

You've probably noticed a pattern of Anim8 being mentioned a lot - they're actually an up-n-coming online platform with close ties to Hyun's Dojo. Anim8.io is a media sharing site focused on web animation, with a scrollable feed and video uploads.

They've offered to sponsor Gildedguy vs Oxob and develop a brand new "theater" feature just for our premiere! Soon we'll have a dedicated "count-down" page so everyone will know exactly when to tune in for the Anim8 release. It'll be like another watch-party, alongside the Twitch stream.

April Fool's

This year's April 1st upload is...well, if you saw it, then there's really nothing to say.

Stream Commissions + Fun

From the gallery, you can tell I've been busy designing and drawing up more avatars for the Twitch stream. The list of regulars is rapidly growing, and it's a delight to see familiar names get some illustrated treatment. 

In case you are wondering, viewers obtained these custom icons by racking up loyalty points (mostly by spending time in chat), so these were not paid for like a traditional commission. I decided a while back to discontinue this due to how time consuming it is. Instead, I am considering opening up a line of paid commissions + a self-upload feature to manage demand.

Despite this, it has been very fun to train my art-improv skills with all these different characters and requests. If I weren't doing the animation thing, my 2nd art-career choice would be caricatures and portraiture. Drawing friends and family (the way I see them) in a humorous, flattering way is something I've enjoyed doing my entire life, and these stream commissions have been surprisingly compatible with that joy.