Wednesday, May 30, 2012

TOME Episode 04 and what lies ahead...

Took way longer than I thought, but it's done.

TOME Episode 04: "Fraggedquest" is released to Newgrounds, as well as the Traveler's Guide just for archival purposes. Thank you EVERYONE who helped put this episode together. I got wa too ambitious with it and it ended up being way longer than I expected, but I genuinely think it's our best one yet. Also, I apologize for any glitches in the animation and sound. I'm going to try and get the YouTube version completed next week and some of those issues will hopefully not be a problem anymore. Thanks for understanding and I hope you enjoyed the episode for what it is.

So people are probably immediately thinking, "when does Episode 05 come out?!" Well, the next step isn't that simple. Believe me, I'd LOVE to keep just making the episodes as I had originally planned and continue through the series like normal, however, that's probably not what's going to happen. While I appreciate everyone who's enjoyed the series so far, and even the people who weren't fans of it that offered critique to help it grow...the fact is, the show hasn't done well enough to immediately warrant continuation, nor is it helping me progress as an artist, as much as I was expecting it to. I love the story and characters; the prospect of going further with what I have planned and the appearance of new plot elements and characters is still an exciting thing for me, just as it must be to its fans. However, I need to make the next step in my career. I'm now over a full year out of college. The biggest things to my credit of noteworthiness are my contribution to Skullgirls, a bit of odd voiceover work here and there, and the ONE festival screening I had with Balancing Act that resulting in the freelance gig I'm currently working on. TOME, unfortunately, is not something that has done well enough for me to survive off of monetarily, nor has it caught on big enough in its popularity for IT to survive...at least, not yet.

Rest assured, I don't want to simply abandon TOME at this stage. I knew Episode 04 was going to be a checkpoint and I knew early on into production that there was a possibility of it being the last, hence why I went with a different story concept instead of my original script for Episode 04 (which has now been bumped up to 05). The next step I want to take with the series is something on a much bigger scale. I can't go into much detail, because what I have planned is still in very early stages and absolutely NOTHING in confirmed yet, but it's more than simply upping the quality of the animation. Down the line, I might even need your help. As soon as I have ANYTHING that I can share publicly, I'll let you know. In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do. My freelance gig needs tending so I can get it done within June and I may have another music video gig coming up soon. I'm not goin' anywhere yet, so keep it tuned.