K&K Pilot Storyboards

The TAPAS special feature this week (I say "this week" as if I successfully do a special feature every week... not even close...) is one that I was a bit worried about when I posted the last one. I simply couldn't find where on my computer I had put the storyboards for the Keys & Kingdoms pilot! I worried I may have gotten rid of them, but no, I have successfully located them, and today I'd like to walk you through that pilot and tell you all about it.

Scene 1: boarded by McKenzie Eby & Naty Jenfjord

We open in an interrogation room of some sort, where some unseen investigators are questioning Airi, a small gargoyle. She explains that she was recruited by her best friend Zaya to locate a mystical sun talisman...

In flashback, set to the song "Get It Done", Airi explains how Zaya had finally pinpointed the location of the talisman she'd been searching for her whole life, how she put together an adventuring party and they made their way through a dungeon, rifling through a storeroom...

Where Airi secretly finds the talisman. Worrying that her entire bond with Zaya might be over and done if she finds her objective, Airi impulsively snaps the object in two, which causes a fireball to ripple out from it and burn the dungeon down.

Scene 2: boarded by Casey Gosselin

Some time later, the slender fey being Zaya is in the interrogation room, and explains that the dungeon they were exploring belonged to her enemy, Jax, a servitor of the fiery god Apep.

She explains how she broke into the dungeon compound, broke open a clock in the storeroom hoping it contained the talisman. She didn't find the talisman and Jax got away, and with that going on, she resents being held in this interrogation room now.

Scene 3: boarded by Michelle Jenfjord

Next in the interrogation room is the ethereal Cristela, who says this all began... the day she was born.

She explains her life story: born in a jungle grove -- alone as an adult, as is the way with fairies --  which she protected for some time before deciding her true calling was to enter the civilized world and recruit others to her cause of defending the natural world.

When pressed, she admits she knows nothing of any actual relevance.

Scene 4: boarded by Michelle Jenfjord

Next in the chair is Stacky, the lone human in the party but far from the most normal one. Asked for information on the other members of the party, she whips out her guitar and launches into "Stacky's Ballad", singing the praises of her fellowship.

Her musical number abruptly comes to an end as Stacky gets booted out of the interrogation room.

Scene 5: boarded by Naty Jenfjord

The next occupant of the interrogation room is Natha Lee, the awkward elven sorceress looking absolutely terrified at the trouble she's in.

She recalls how Zaya urged her to break the clock and finish the quest. She wonders briefly if Zaya wasn't being completely honest about the quest's objectives, but decides to have faith and trust her leader about the good that could be done with the talisman, and the evils Jax is planning.

Scene 6: boarded by Sadie Allen

Now we interrogate Kinzie, a tiny pixie. As we flash back to a fight scene in the dungeon compound, Kinzie nitpicks the petty flaws of every member of the party.

Except for Natha Lee, who we see broke down with fear, but whom Kinzie insists is all right.

Scene 7: boarded by Casey Gosselin

Finally, we share the interrogation room with Maer, a roguish elf. She's a bit surprised to learn what the others have claimed, and clears up the issue, mostly with Zaya's portion of the story.

The dungeon compound they traversed was in fact an ordinary mansion, and their enemy Jax, a foot-tall, rat-like myshka. Though admittedly, Maer isn't certain how the mansion burned down.

Scene 8: boarded by Sadie Allen

The city guardsmen who detained the adventurers let them go, apparently just being too lazy to prosecute them for the destruction of a mansion no one uses anymore.

The adventurers gather together now that they're free to go. Zaya apologizes that the quest wasn't as epic as they may have hoped, but swears that the sun talisman is really out there if they can find Jax and take it from her.

Everyone agrees to stick around, except for Maer, who backs out.

The rest are ready to find that evil priestess and put the sun talisman in good hands... but Airi, knowing what really happened, can only look away guiltily.

Wedding and Special Features

Making a post to share some pictures. For starters, I've just gotten married! Here's some pics of me, my bride Naty, and our wedding party.

While I'm here in Sweden getting married, my buddy AJ is looking in on my cats. They always hide from him under the settee and they're so cuuuute.

Let's look at some special features, enough to make up for the few weeks I've neglected to post special features. Be sure to check our Linktree for other places I may have posted these special features. Let's look at some older stuff - storyboards!

Sadie Allen's storyboards for the Irregular Fantasy teaser, and the final result as seen in the video's thumbnail! See it here. Can we get the video to 1,000 views? Or at least 900. It's been lingering in the 890s for some time.

I wasn't able to find the entirety of the "Keys & Kingdoms: The Choices" pilot storyboards. Hopefully they're still on my other laptop. I don't think I'd have been so short-sighted as to delete them. If so, at least every frame of them still exists in the fully-edited storyboard video that features them; as it is, to make this segment of this post, I had to pick out storyboard pics from earlier blog posts. Hopefully I can find the rest another time.

dance scene by Naty Jenfjord

Airi nocking an arrow by Casey Gosselin

characters walking along by Naty Jenfjord

Stacky in a song number by Michelle Jenfjord

group shot by Sadie Allen

The only K&K storyboards I could find in my computer were from "teaser 2", which has been cancelled, there's only going to be one teaser. Still going to make the storyboards for it a special feature later on, as we went to the trouble of boarding them all and did some of the voice work. Something exclusive for the patrons, yeah?

Stacky preparing some exposition for the audience, by Naty Jenfjord

full group shot of the seven heroes by Naty Jenfjord

the seven heroes setting down for dinner by McKenzie Eby

And here's some concept art. From what I've seen, concept art is really detailed these days. But I'm going more by the original meaning, where it's the earliest conception of what a character might look like. Here's some concept art for characters of Irregular Fantasy!

King Dworin by Naty Jenfjord

Ted by Naty Jenfjord

Dwizella by McKenzie Eby

Cthulhu by me

Chief Dwangus by me

Big Bad Dwohn by me

I made concept art for lots of other characters in order to create the character blogs, which you can check in the archives of the blog, from August 2023 to July 2024, with Naty and McKenzie having digitized and colorized all the pics.

Here we have the height chart of the Irregular Fantasy model sheets by Stacy Lord - we're redoing the model sheets one final time to make the model-making process more accessible to newcomers, and after successfully getting redone Keys & Kingdoms models from YerayYL (seen here still not quite on a real height chart), I couldn't find anyone who could produce satisfactory Irregular Fantasy ones, so, I'm hoping Stacy herself can tackle that.

And finally, I wanted to take another look at one of the earliest phases of Keys & Kingdoms character design: the artwork of Matt Fair, who I commissioned after seeing an avatar he'd made for a fellow member of the Dominic Noble patron Discord. Find him here. Apparently he's "Rusty's Sketches" now. Got nervous when I couldn't find him for a second there! But then I found his new name by seeking out our old DMs. Yay.

Now, his results made me realize what I was really after -- I had forgotten, in the early stages of designing the characters, that I was going for a Disney-esque art style for the Keys & Kingdoms world, and Matt's style was certainly not that. But some of the details original to Matt's version made their way into the characters' true, final designs!