Status update

My work project continues. I can tell you now it's a movie for Netflix (but I can't spill anything else). I still don't know when it will end, but I'm going to see it through. It's my first time working on a movie. I was cruelly and coldly not asked to work on the Bluey movie, but then shortly after I was invited to work on this one (maybe they felt bad for me?).

I mentioned in my last post I've been writing a series called Pleasure Island Tournament Arc. At the moment it's 8 episodes, but might end up being 9. Each episode is intended to be 2-3 minutes long and ideally most episodes will contain a major fight, and fights won't spill over between episodes.

There will be a few preliminary fights, and then my quarter finalists are as follows, not in the order they will fight:

Fernando
Randy
Big Plums (he's the guy thrusting Fernando in the title image)
Mother Superior (haven't drawn her yet)
Stroganoff (also not drawn but he's a hunk)
Horatio (also not drawn but he's a twink)
Bucket Hat (Gooseman disguising himself by wearing a bucket hat)
Undecided 8th combatant

I don't know if I have it in me to animate such a large story but I think breaking it up into discrete episodes that all have payoffs (to some degree) of their own would make it easy for me, because I can release them as I go and keep my energy up and hopefully people's interest. When finished it would combine into a 20-something minute monster.

At the moment I have written drafts of 6 episodes, some quite advanced but some will change a lot I think, particularly the ending. There's a soft patch in the middle where I'm not sure what will happen yet.

Anyway I may not ever animate it but it's been a great exercise, I've thought for a while that I need to write more ambitiously and think outside of the 2-5 minute cartoon shape, but I've been too passive waiting for ideas to come.

In the past I've always told myself I can't do lots of action because it will take too long. I'm writing this series to be heavy on action and lighter on dialogue and plot, because I want to try some fight scenes. If I do it I will simplify my designs, rely much less on rigs and symbols and animate more expressively. Basically my style guide would be the dragon ball tournaments.