I'm back.

Dear, dear Patreons,

It’s been quiet from me- I’m sorry. I really am. To be honest I had recorded this whole 20-minute video explaining myself; however as was editing it it just didn’t seem quite right. 

I know that it’s sometimes so much easier to get by in written form, and that there are times when you’ve just got to look people in the eyes… but I think that I was overcomplicating things and taking too much time from what you’re actually supporting me for on this page.

Now as for what you’re supporting me for: the creation of new animations. Things have been complicated, and that’s part of the reason why you haven’t heard from me for so long. 

As you know I travelled to South Korea for a couple of months, exchanging at ChungKang College of Cultural Arts, where I learned about animation from Mike Nguyen, an amazing friend and mentor. I feel like I’ve underestimated what animation could do up until now, and that my eyes were really opened during the trip. I learned so much, just from taking it all in, though I was sad not to be able to produce any results that really lived up to the teachings there. I definitely know that I can tell good and lifeless animation performance better apart now, but building up the skills to show it in action is something that will probably take a long time for me.

Still, it was an absolutely amazing trip, and a happy place that I can always return to in my thoughts to brighten up my day and remind me of who I am and who I’d like to be.

During the trip I was mainly working on developing a story and pitch for a project that I’m so far calling RETROS. You will see a lot more of that project in the upcoming posts I’ve prepared, but basically my goal was to spend some extra time developing on it, giving that extra bit of story-polish that I often feel like a lot of Animation Workshop films are missing, and then get it through the TAW pitch sessions and get to produce it as a bachelor film throughout the next year. 

As you can tell from the past tense, things didn’t really go as planned. There were probably an array of factors playing in, many of which listing would only make me come off as paranoid. But in it’s essence it just wasn’t the right time or setting for this particular project. 

To be honest it took quite a toll on me. It felt like this project that I’d put months and months of blood sweat and tears into and tried to turn into a creatively rewarding idea for people to work with me on, was all of a sudden taken out of my hands in the blink of an eye. What’s more I suddenly had to adjust my thinking to the idea of working on somebody else’s project for the whole next year… a prospect that I usually find myself getting paid for if so. 

While in the state I was in I can guarantee you that my writing would not have been favorable for anybody. And so I stayed quiet, seeking and working silently until new paths opened up to me and my vision became clearer – and the answers I arrived at very much concerns you as Patreons as well.

So far I have mostly been marketing this page mainly as a way to support me in the creation of the next episode of Tales of Zale. Being quite an undertaking with it’s 10 minutes in length, this made sense at the time of the launch, and has definitely helped me in having to take on a little less freelance work, therefor letting me devote that extra time to the project. However my everyday-life is not quite as predictable as it has been, and as such I must repeat what I wrote in my last Patreon post, that this Patreon page will mainly serve to support me as an artist in my creative endeavors – now and in the future. 

In a year or so I will be done with my studies at The Animation Workshop. That marks the very first point in my life where I will be out of the safe structure of school systems and instead stand on my own legs- so I want to make sure I land right.

My long-term goal is to get to work as an animation director on meaningful projects, but that’s a difficult business to step into, and certain preparations are in order. It won’t all happen right away, but for this purpose I’d like to spend the next year taking in all the knowledge I can get from my last year of school, and preparing my projects for when I get out on the professional market. 

These projects are Tales of Zale and RETROS right now. Because I don’t know how my everyday-life will look after school I can’t yet lay plans for producing them on the side of everything else as I’ve done in the past, and frankly that’s not sustainable either. Where I’d much rather put my focus is on securing a budget for these projects to be produced on a fuller scale than what I’m capable of on my own.

This doesn’t mean that I’ll stop working on these (I tried taking a couple of months off from Tales of Zale in Korea, but felt so happy when I finally got back to it). I’ll still chug on as I always do—but for the next year my priority will lie in preparing more-so than producing. For example that means that rather than animating on ToZ right now my priority lies in polishing the animatic further and giving the upcoming episode scripts another round… (even though animation is still going on in the background… and if I know myself at all I probably won’t be able to keep myself from animating on it for very long… but hopefully you know what I mean!!)

You haven’t seen much of RETROS yet, but as mentioned you very much will in the upcoming posts. Either way, that’s basically the same deal; mainly focusing on pre-production material to make it more suitable for pitching to investors and alike.

That however doesn’t mean that all you’ll be seeing from me are pie-charts and budget plans from now on; actually the content on this page will likely not change all that much apart from gaining some variety. Character designs, storyboards, animatics, animation tests and alike are all things I need, and as such things you’ll see. The difference is just that for the next year at least this material won’t directly be going into a final product.

Continuing on the subject of what you’ll see on this page, I’ve already prepared some posts ahead of time. Tomorrow I will put up a post detailing a bit more on RETROS and sharing with you an exclusive pitch video explaining the project. Because of my long silence I’ll then start doing weekly posts sharing material that I’ve been working on for the past couple of months with you each Sunday, until I start running out of things to share in which case we’ll slowly phase back into the bi-weekly or monthly updates. We’ll kick things off with a Tales of Zale post this Sunday where I’ll be showing a scene or two from the animatic I’ve been working on!

…Thank you very much for all of your patience with me. I really hope that you will enjoy this upcoming material. There are so many thought and pictures I’d like to share with you all – now that I’m back it’s just a matter of getting on to write it all.

I’ll see you soon.

- Sif