Progress Update: The Valley of Necessity

G'monday, helpful humans!

The year is about to start! I mean, that technically happened several weeks ago, but it's like any given day—it doesn't actually start or end until you've woken up or gone to bed. And Tale Foundry's 2019 is on the cusp of actually starting with the forthcoming Patreon drive video. It'll be Talebot's first appearance of the year, and (hopefully) will kick things into high gear in the coming months.

So let's talk a bit about how 2019's shaping up, schedule, sponsor-y stuff, patreon and all.

Where are we now?

Still hard at work on the Patreon drive video. The script has been written, the audio produced and prepped, and a commission sent out to Felipe. Now comes the knuckle-cracking work of producing the assets I couldn't request from Felipe. After that I get to slide into more of my comfort zone and start animating things on the timeline, which is leagues more fun than the prep.

All this to say it's basically an actual episode of Tale Foundry, just without the educational, writerly bits.

Apart from all that, there is the special patron-only bookmark that'll come attached to this video. Excitingly, somewhere in the world those things are being produced at this very moment. I can practically hear the machines going in my head, tracing shapes and cutting them, spraying reams of paper with ink, stretching foil. Admittedly, it's not a gorgeous sound. Still, music to my mind.

I'm very excited for these things. I think they'll mark an important point in Tale Foundry's story.

What's next?

ACTUAL TALE FOUNDRY CONTENT. 

By the four winds, it's coming. I promise. Terry Pratchett is right there on the horizon. We just have to get through this final valley of necessity, and all should be clear for the show to move forward at the breakneak speed of...

Well, for now, a video every other month. That's what I'll be able to manage reliably, guaranteed, given my current resources.

Of course, this could easily change to a video every month, depending on how the drive goes. But not getting ahead of ourselves, for the purposes of making things easy on sponsors that may be coming onto the show soon... 

I'll now be uploading videos on the first day of every other month. 

Even if they're complete.

So you can expect this drive video on the first day or February, and then the first Pratchett video on April Fool's... which is perfect, thematically speaking, and I am not bemoaning the wait at all.

Not much to report beyond that this time. Stay tuned, though—come Thursday I'll have another Patreoncast for you, which has been a really fun, shockingly intimate format for me. It's good to ditch the script and the pretense and just... babble for a bit. I'm glad you all seem to be enjoying it as well.

At any rate, here's to the coming year, and kicking it off right! I hope you've got exciting plans for 2019 as well. If you've anything you feel like sharing in the comments about your year plan, feel free! I read everything.

—Benji