But today we had a super-fun photoshoot and I thought I'd discuss the process! Especially as I'm now a member of David Morgan-Mar's Discord server, and for the first time I've presented his fans with the concept of Irregular Fantasy!, our adaptation of his comic, Irregular Webcomic! They're a quiet bunch, but it's still pretty cool.
So, here's the story of what we're working with so far. We're making a teaser! It's fun. For myself, I'm getting a little tired of watching it over and over as we continue adding elements, but that's doubtless a natural part of the process. New people with new enthusiasm always help remind me that the material is fresh and solid!
Voice actors Allison Hutson, Mason Ellison, and Aaron Joseph Schmitt
served as the models for the same characters they play: Alvissa, Mordekai, and Dwalin.
AJ also modelled Lambert, while production manager Dominic Regner
posed as Draak and Kyros.
All are posing for this frame in the storyboard,
in which the heroes are first seen!
Sadie Allen was the teaser's storyboard artist.
And these reference photos should help us produce the final art that replaces the storyboards, with the artists using the poses and the model sheets to turn our crew into the characters for the final animated comic.
Every character has a model sheet like so.
Stacy Lord did our final character designs.
We rented a bunch of props from the theatre for use in the shoot. Not all of which we needed! For starters, we only shot one character at a time, so we really only had to rent one sword. So... I regret spending like 10 bucks for two extra swords, but these things happen sometimes. We also didn't need the theatre's axe, for AJ came to the photoshoot having crafted himself an exact replica of Dwalin's!
The equipment sheets, displaying the design of the heroes' weapons.
He also made a version of Draak's club, but he made it actual size; we instead had Dominic wield the rented scepter so that he would look as massive as Draak. And of course, AJ attached the wings from Dwalin's helmet to his woolly hat, so hopefully that'll help with drawing those wings from different angles. I forgot to put a cape on him for modeling Dwalin, but he doesn't jump around much or do anything that would require elaborate cape physics, so the artists will probably be fine.
Draak warns Kyros not to kill-steal.
Dominic models both sides of that exchange, with AJ as his stand-in.
Height charts like this will be made for every scene, so that the artists
can scale the characters to each other perfectly. The heights have no
basis in the comic, I just picked some relative sizes that I liked.
Since Alvissa is very tall and Allison is not,
Mason tortures his knees to give her an eyeline
as Alvissa glares at Mordekai disdainfully.
And when it's time to shoot Lambert, Mason stands on a box
so that the halfling can be seen to look up at his colleague.
Lambert chides Mordekai for speaking for the entire group.
This moment of Mordekai clapping a hand on Lambert
was the only time we had two characters model at once...
...AJ kneeling down to halfling size
so Mason can lean on him.
Alvissa's acting at the very end of the teaser is especially good,
as Sadie whipped out a digital posing mannequin to help her in
the final stretch. Said she wished she thought of that earlier!
In the future, no posing mannequins will be needed: we'll storyboard with pitiful stick figures, then do a photoshoot, then storyboard properly.
Allison performs Alvissa's final statement. You know, in that getup
she looks like if Black Widow had gotten her hands on Captain
America's shield before her solo movie.
Alvissa's shield in her model sheet would appear to be somewhere between the little one in the storyboard and the big one in the photoshoot... shouldn't be too hard to get it sized right in the final product, hehe.
It was important to make sure we had facsimiles of the characters' weapons for the models to wear, as we had no model sheets for that, they were improvised for the storyboard: Lambert with his sword on his hip, Alvissa wearing her sword likewise and her shield on her forearm, Kyros hanging both his orb and rod from his belt, Mordekai with his sword and bow crossed on his back beneath his cloak, and Draak and Dwalin simply carrying their weapons in hand.
From the looks of the photoshoot, it all works. I wasn't sure it would, but everyone looks awesome. We needed to use a lot of tape, so it's not exactly practical, but it's neat. Movie magic! It was important to me to feature all the weapons in the teaser so the audience knows these are genuine adventurers, but all the same, I wanted them to be able to act with their hands, swiftly proving themselves more emotive than they are in the comic. So we storyboarded them with their weapons like so... honestly, in the show I figure they'll just pull their weapons out of thin air when they need them. Easier to draw that way.
The temporary Hall of Dworin background art, used for
promotional images, and a super-high-definition version
to serve as the real background for the teaser, which takes
place entirely through King Dworin's eyes as he looks
down upon the adventurers.
For this teaser is not precisely canon. I mean, we might keep the weapons onscreen, we'll see if the characters can stay dynamic that way. But the real Hall of Dworin will be much more extravagant than this, and the circumstances under which the characters learn of their quest will be slightly different. Indeed, the directions to the Golden Citadel, lifted directly from the comic here in the teaser, will also be slightly expanded in the adaptation to give us more world to explore!
The comic mostly ran on jokes, so I'm building a world and story from its foundations which will ultimately be a little different. I compared it once to an 80s action cartoon with a thin plot being rebooted in the 2010s by people who were fans of the original as children, and make the writing deep and epic. Not that I think Irregular Webcomic! is "thin" - it's a comic strip, and a brilliant one. But for whatever reason, the inspiration struck me, and I'm turning it into more of a comic book.
Promotional renders of the characters.
So it's some combination of adaptation and, like, creator-endorsed fanfic. A story which, incidentally, will take some aspects from all corners of Irregular Webcomic!, not just the fantasy world that takes up a slight majority of its pages. As it's set in the fantasy world, some themes will have more prominence than others.
The Irregular Fantasy! logo - or, optimistically, its first iteration,
featuring some imagery which will be significant in the early story...
We've also been working on finishing up the audio and music for Irregular Fantasy! and its sister series, a TAPAS original, Keys & Kingdoms: The Choices. We hope to release teasers for both simultaneously. The Choices is a story to unveil the Keys & Kingdoms universe, a longtime project of ours which is meant to combine, well, the two places we spend all our time: the endless realms of Dungeons & Dragons, and the faraway land where Disney fairy tale musicals take place.
The cast announcement for The Choices.
Well, reannouncement, we announced the cast a year and a half ago,
but we mean it this time, hehe. Really gonna finish the thing.
Or at least a teaser.
Recently-released character profiles for The Choices.
We're doing a fundraiser currently. It's a Keys & Kingdoms fundraiser, nominally, though, you know, we'll probably dip into it a bit to finish both teasers, because... they go together. Different universes, different styles, but they both represent the next phase of TAPAS, to debut... at worst, this year.
I especially hope that Irregular Fantasy! breaks out big this year, for the final day of this year happens to be the 20th anniversary of Irregular Webcomic! I'd love to commemorate that with a release, and I do so hope that it's the release of something bigger than the teaser.
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