The Draw #19: Valerie Hernandez

A running series for the TAPAS blog. I wrote down names on little slips of paper, the names of everyone currently in the TAPAS Facebook group and Discord server and will be drawing one name every so often to write about them and their history with the group.

Today we're looking at Valerie Hernandez! If I recall correctly, I first met her as the costume designer for Is He Dead?, a production where a lot of good things got started, it's been mentioned a few times in this series. She's been costume designer on many productions I've seen, and been onstage in many others. Never seen her do both at the same time. That'd probably be too much to work on all at once.

I found out later she runs her own theatre group, Square Peg Group Troupe, with many other QCT friends I knew being members. It was Valerie who initially suggested the Wolfmeyers for the roles they played in Better Yet?, which earned both her and Square Peg itself special thanks credits in the production, as Adrienne was also a member. That's Valerie's only TAPAS credit to date, but that's because we haven't finished much stuff.

In 2020, she played a big hand in spreading the word about Keys & Kingdoms auditions. And in 2021, we worked together on QCT's production of Beauty and the Beast -- she played the Wardrobe. Because... she's usually wardrobe. I just got that.

She's helped with fundraisers and other promotions, from her own experience fundraising for Square Peg, and has generally helped keep me going during the many occasions I've felt like giving up on this whole enterprise, helping me sort things out and figure out how to manage myself.

Valerie with Mekia, working on costumes for 2024's Shakespeare in Love.

The Draw #18: McKenzie Eby

A running series for the TAPAS blog. I wrote down names on little slips of paper, the names of everyone currently in the TAPAS Facebook group and Discord server, 41 people altogether, and will be drawing one name every so often to write about them and their history with the group.

This... is gonna be a sad one. McKenzie is one of those people who has left the group since I started this series, but she's such a vital part of the group's history that there was never any doubt that I had to do an entry on her anyway.

I guess I'll start with the bad news. In January of 2024, McKenzie told me and Naty that she didn't want to be friends anymore, just to continue collaborating on TAPAS stuff. Over time, we came to realize that wouldn't work -- her artistic output was just as unreliable as it had always been, and in the absence of her friendship and affection, it wasn't worth it anymore. In October of 2025, we asked her to leave the group, and she did so gladly, admitting it was a load off her mind.

I'll try not to speculate on her motivations, they're baffling to me and I don't want to turn anybody against her. The only thing she said that made any sense was that she feared she was becoming abusive, and it's true that she said a lot of very nasty things to me in the last few months of our relationship. I don't get why she couldn't just... stop doing that.

So what's the good news? I guess that's the story of the time we had together. McKenzie was a member of the chat room of artsy animation fans that came together in 2013, where I met Naty and many other good friends. By the time I started TAPAS in 2018, McKenzie had grown into my very best friend, and the person I credit most with making me believe I could really create the things I was aspiring to. Along with Naty, she was one of the central members of "Team Salmon", what I call the core group of TAPAS, those who were part of that original chat room.

Here's a picture of McKenzie, myself, and Naty, the first time the three of us came together to meet in person. We were an inseparable trio.

McKenzie was the central creative force on... just about everything we did. She storyboarded, she did character concept art, she had so many ideas for piecing the stories together. And then suddenly things went cold in 2023, a few months before we were scheduled to visit her at her home for the second time. We tried to be absolute model guests to mend whatever rift had grown between us, but it failed miserably, and having us at her home drove her over the edge, and she broke it off with us.

I'll never understand it and I really don't know how we're going to do this without her. While she had difficulty completing her art tasks on time, she was always on the ball with world-building and character motivations. When I finally manage to arrange all my notes together... part of me hopes I can get her back for the writing staff, if it's at all possible for her to work with Naty again after all the tension... Naty resents her departure very much.

There would be no TAPAS without McKenzie Eby, and I hope that, once I get on my feet a little more, there doesn't have to be a TAPAS without her, ultimately. I'm probably just fantasizing. All the writing and directing tasks that still have her name on them will probably have to be passed on to someone else someday. I'm still not over it. It's been a rough couple of years.

The Draw #17: Michelle Jenfjord

A running series for the TAPAS blog. I wrote down names on little slips of paper, the names of everyone currently in the TAPAS Facebook group and Discord server, 41 people altogether, and will be drawing one name every so often to write about them and their history with the group.

Up next we have Michelle Jenfjord - my sister-in-law as of my wedding this past August. She joined the team around 2020, when we started working on storyboards for the Keys & Kingdoms pilot.

There were eight scenes to do, one for each character and then a conclusion. They were split among five artists; Michelle quickly volunteered for scenes 3 and 4, those starring Cristela and Stacky, in order to spare anyone else from doing the pilot's nude scenes.

The best part was definitely the various civilian designs that she put into the background of Cristela's scene of first entering civilization. I lifted many of their looks directly when designing concept art for the real extras to be designed for the final product, whenever we get to that. Had a good time adding some colors and specific animated face claims for these characters who will surely recur in the background, not just appear in this one scene.

One day I'd certainly like Michelle to continue designing some characters. I've designed a lot of the upcoming major characters myself for the cast blogs you can see scattered throughout the 2023 and 2024 tabs, but I don't want to be the only one who has ideas.

The storyboard process was a rough one, taking about 18 months altogether, every artist having their own struggles with getting through it, some getting more frustrated about it than others... Michelle hasn't contributed any further art to TAPAS ever since and I feel I've probably put her off the idea altogether after the storyboarding experience.

I need to find the balance in my directing. I started out too shy to correct anyone's mistakes, and that resulted in, well, the final product having mistakes in it. So ever since then, I seek to make sure everything actually goes right, and some people think I'm too blunt and judgmental and mean about it. I'm not judgmental about mistakes in the slightest, I just don't know how else to, like... correct mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Sometimes I ask for a mace and somebody draws a flail; sometimes someone gives me a slingshot when I meant a sling. I can't just not say anything, but clearly I still haven't put my finger on the right thing to say.

I hope we can get past all that and see Michie in the TAPAS world again sometime, I don't like leaving people behind after they've contributed. She's still in our Facebook group and Discord server, at least. Best wishes!

The Draw #16: Allison McElroy

A running series for the TAPAS blog. I wrote down names on little slips of paper, the names of everyone currently in the TAPAS Facebook group and Discord server, 41 people altogether, and will be drawing one name every so often to write about them and their history with the group.

Okay - I started this series two years ago with the intent of doing it daily and finishing it in just over a month. I did 15 of 41 installments over the entire course of 2024 and none in 2025. I wish people would stop telling me that the way I fall off and never finish anything is "okay". In no universe is that okay. I need people to have actual expectations of me. My expectations for myself are not too high, it's ridiculous to say so.

So I'm back and will once again be attempting to do this daily. Some members have been subtracted from the group in the past year and one person has been tentatively added. Can't be sure how many installments this series will ultimately have, but it'll be in the vicinity of the original 41.

Today we're looking at Allison McElroy, née Hutson. Her story of joining our crew is a really fun one: when I was gathering the cast of Keys & Kingdoms to record the pilot, Adrienne Fisk, one of the stars of Better Yet?, dropped out of playing Stacky. I was a little bit devastated. I went to Mason and I lamented about how I'd felt Adrienne was the key to the character and how would I ever find someone else who could be so effortlessly funny, sexy, and nerdy all at once.

Allison's name came up instantly, which was very intriguing.

This would have been around mid-2021, I think... timelines are hard... when the theatre was re-mounting their production of Chicago which had been nearly ready to launch when the pandemic hit, and Mason was working with Allison on that. I believe Allison was the one who tells the climactic "Lipschitz" story in "Cell Block Tango". I met with her after I went to see the show and she joined the cast!

Later on when Jen had to drop out, I looked over the team and found that Allison was easily the best candidate to replace her as Alvissa in Irregular Fantasy - resulting in her taking up Jen's former distinction of being the only person to star in both projects.

So she came into the studio and laid down her voice along with the rest of these guys, including singing "Stacky's Ballad", a big solo song. She was very interested in the recording studio and I believe she started working with the engineer, Isaac, on her own musical projects at some point before he left town.

At the end of that year, I worked with her in a production of Beauty and the Beast; she played one of Gaston's trio of groupies, which I found very amusing, as those girls served as the basis for Stacky's design.

Allison also took part in the photoshoot we did to provide reference poses for the Irregular Fantasy teaser, portraying Alvissa physically as well as vocally.

That teaser, we actually finished and released. That was a long time ago. Haven't made a lot of progress since then. Haven't spoken to Allison much either. I keep hoping to bring her back to perform "Elvish Lament", Alvissa's song from an upcoming Irregular Fantasy short promo... but we just can't seem to finish that song. Every time we finish it, it just... comes out bad. So we're back to square one and looking to take a third attempt at putting a melody to the lyrics. And I'm starting to think maybe Allison shouldn't sing it anyway. It's in Swedish. We might need Alvissa to temporarily have a vocal double who speaks Swedish.

So, not sure what Allison's been up to lately. I know of course that she got married last year, that's great. And, as alluded before, she leads a band called The Whatevers who seem to be doing pretty well lately, but I've never had the pleasure of listening to their music.

I've asked her if she knows of another recording studio we can use now that Isaac's out, but on those occasions when I reach out to every team member, well, Allison's among those who doesn't really engage, so, not entirely sure how she's doing lately. Actually, the entire Keys & Kingdoms cast are among those who tend not to answer, which is the kind of weird and unsettling pattern that my anxious brain can't let go.

I suspect that after five years, they just don't really think any of these things are really going to happen. I can't really blame anyone who has that mindset about me, but I'm really trying. I hope this blog post finds Allison and the rest of the team well! Check the 2024 tab for the first 15 installments of this series, and I will again be attempting to put these out daily.

Characters Redesigned

Here's a new promotional banner-type image for Keys & Kingdoms: The Choices! There's a story to go through here...

Let's see, going through the logs, it seems it was mid-2024 that our art director, Stacy, first became out of commission due to various life stresses, unable to continue designing characters for further installments of Keys & Kingdoms and Irregular Fantasy. Eventually I determined that I would have to test out some freelancers, hire some new people to do it. After a few false starts, I eventually found a Mexican artist called Yeray.

There's a saying: "cheap, fast, good: pick any two". Now, when it comes to the quality of these projects, good is not optional. Yeray's other attribute is that he's cheap, meanwhile it takes him a few months to do a small batch of characters. That works for me just fine, my mental health still tends to overwhelm and I'm pacing myself.

Now, what I realized was that the esoteric character-design system I had concocted with Stacy was simply too complex for anyone else to adapt to, so I re-concocted a simpler system and had Yeray start by re-creating the main characters of both projects. And that's where we are now. Here are the new official height charts for the teasers of both projects:

What I like about Yeray's work too is that it manages to capture the intended art styles to a much greater degree than they did before: Disney-esque for Keys & Kingdoms and 80s TV cartoon style for Irregular Fantasy. Stacy managed to capture it pretty well but it still bore her distinctive fingerprints - which totally would have worked out in the final product, but in her absence I'm happy to lean harder into what I was originally envisioning. Despite Yeray's slow pace, Stacy has remained unavailable to date, which is sad and concerning, I do hope she gets to feeling better soon.

This will probably be the last serious piece of work I put into Irregular Fantasy for a while. My mental health has strongly gotten in the way of my creativity for the past several years, and I'm trying to focus on just one thing at a time, and since the Irregular Fantasy teaser already exists, I'm going to start by focusing on Keys & Kingdoms, getting its teaser and pilot completed before then returning to work on the Irregular Fantasy shorts and pilot.

As for the banner image up top, that's the work of Overex Agency, who did all the character art for the Irregular Fantasy teaser. They're in Venezuela, which our stupid president is invading, so... I appreciate their commitment and I hope for their continued success and safety.

I have a lot of plans, still working on writing up the stories and putting them up on Archive of Our Own, a relatively short-term plan so we can at least get them out of our systems before going to the real trouble of animating them in the future - but I do still hope for those stories to have plenty of visual aids, at least a decent design for every major character. Makin' it happen.