TOME: Terrain of Magical Expertise.
So for those of you who aren't aware of the history behind this, at its core, TOME is a re-branding of the very first big Flash Movie project I ever did on Newgrounds, TvTome Adventures. Back when I was a teenager and really obsessed with "cyberpunk" stuff like Reboot, .hack// and MegaMan Battle Network, I created a series with characters all inspired by friends I'd made on the very first message board I ever posted on. The series, at the time, was using mostly ripped sprites from various video games edited to look like the characters I had designed, as well as some puppeted animation with graphics I had drawn myself.
My original plan from the beginning was that I had always wanted this concept to be a game. However, I had realized that I'm still far too inexperienced to know how to properly develop design for a full-fledged game and instead decided to try what led me to doing animation in the first place...producing it as a webseries! This new incarnation of TOME features all original content, including writing and animation from myself, some incredible music by Kajetokun (the "Over 9000" guy who's a VERY talented musician) as well as some beautiful artwork and backgrounds by Dave Smith (known for GG-Guys and his work on the NiN10Doh! collabs) and Fooly (who's been a longtime artist on Fireball20xl). This version will also be FULLY voiced, by a very stellar cast of actors I'm proud to work with. We even did a cheesy "Theme Song" performed by lead actor Blake Swift (Shadyvox) and myself. From the first episode I've completed thus far, the style of animation is a combination of traditional cinematics and "machinima"-like movements, in the sense that you're seeing the in-game engine of the TOME world with conversational and action sprites. This time however, everything is hand-drawn by myself and the small crew I'm working with, no edited sprites from pre-existing games, no ripped music, this is ALL us. The cast of characters have all been COMPLETELY updated or in some cases totally reimagined, especially the main group of five. Alpha and his friends are all really entertaining and fun from the response I've gotten behind the scenes, so I think you guys will really enjoy what I've done them all now.
The first episode is going to be an officially endorsed Newgrounds project, so major thanks to Tom Fulp, Mike Welsh and Mindchamber for the help. What I would LIKE to do with this project is produce one episode per month and have it be an on-going series, but that will all depend on how the reaction is to the first episode, so I'm depending on all of you to spread the word! I'm going to be premiering the first episode at Youmacon during the "Kirbopher Flashstravaganza" at 9 AM on Saturday. The first episode will then be viewable online for all to see hopefully the week after that and then I'm leaving it all up to you guys! If you were a fan of the original series and are excited about this new incarnation of "TTA", spread the word and support the project! I have a LOT of plans for some cool stuff to do with this series, including a way for people to have interaction with the world of TOME itself, but you'll have to stay tuned on that one. In the meantime, enjoy the trailers, hope to maybe see you at Youmacon and look forward to the first episode being posted this month!
Oh yeah and don't forget to like the official Facebook page! There's some neat stuff on there too. ;]
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