Due by Feb

I had a realization last month while sort of zoning out at work that, if the pace could keep going, a whole bunch of TAPAS stuff we're working on would all converge in February. So I prepared myself to have eight things finished by then! Then I realized, hm, nope, don't have the funding to just do all of those things at once, that plan needed revising. I thought I ought to blog about both versions of that plan just for the record.

Here are the original eight plans, told in a bit more detail than how I discussed them with insiders in our Facebook and Discord group.

1) Commissioning artwork of the main Keys & Kingdoms peoples. That's been going on and can be seen in the previous blog post: two of each species with some simple profiles on each. I'm currently moving on to the next stage of that, producing 4-6 more samples of each species and putting together videos on them, including talking about how I'd adapt their traits to D&D rules. One or two of those videos every month... by February I'll at least have most of them, so that's still going on mostly as originally planned.

2) Rehauling the character design system. Stacy is moving on to other things, and I think with that in mind, with the singular style of character design and how well we had adapted to it... that can't be replicated. I need a new artist and an entirely new, much simpler, character design system, with less focus on perfection. But I think I'm going to save that for a little bit later... say, after the K&K pilot. Seems like a natural thing to use the current designs for the pilot and update them later. I want to find a local artist who's easy to communicate with, and I'm already working on flyers I can hang up in places.

3) Consolidating and organizing all my story data so I can get the team together to plan things out. That's going pretty well, making strides every week... I was actually kind of nervous, but now I remember, yeah, not due until February. I think I can easily finish all of that consolidation by February. And we'll start writing then then, starting by planning out every season into the proper amount of episodes with proper storylines, and then from there writing every episode. In true fanfic style, we'll post chapters as soon as they're written. Guess that'll start in February!

4) The boys and I are out to make some voice-acting demos so we can pick up some freelance work! We just need another reliable local studio/engineer... for that and all future projects. Let's see... yup, that's coming right up on our revised schedule. We'll get to that very soon.

5) The first Keys & Kingdoms teaser. I think we can finish it by February, but I'm not out to release it yet by that point, because from the moment it releases we must begin running the fundraiser and working on the pilot! So, when it's done... that's when we'll prep the fundraiser. This one I've prioritized strongly, because we held a fundraiser for the teaser some time ago. It's about time we actually use that money.

6) Storyboards. Those to be completed by February: the Halfling Trailer, so we can start really working on it afterward. And both pilots, both Irregular Fantasy and Keys & Kingdoms. Having them all boarded so we can proceed from there. I'm making this priority number two in the revised version, number one being the teaser. Doing it now-ish will mean we have lots of foundation set by February -- hopefully we can get our production managers back to work out what happens next.

7) Mason is hard at work on writing I'm Telling Mom!, his next stage project. He's certain to have a workable draft well before February... he's determined to have it done as a staged reading, but I'm of the opinion that that's not a real project and he should do it as an audio play the same as Better Yet?, but, it's not up to me.

8) Playing some D&D... this proved quite impossible. I don't have time to prepare sessions, and I'm completely incapable of improvisation. But I still hope to gather some people together once a month or so to prepare "chapters" of this story, which has come to be called Keys & Kingdoms: Tales within Tales. Just something new set in this world; a nice and easy side project.

So... actually, yeah, there's no need to explain my revised version, it's... well, seemingly all of it except for #2 is still being done right now to be concluded around February! Very nice. I've divided all tasks into four segments: the stuff I do on my own during the week, stuff I do with the online team, stuff with the local team, and stuff on my own during the weekend. It's going okay.

Peoples of Keys & Kingdoms

Posting these everywhere -- Where is everywhere, you ask? Well, take a look at this: https://linktr.ee/tapasandstuff

Check the Linktree, if there's anyplace there where you have a profile but do not yet follow TAPAS, be sure to give us a follow.

So, might as well feature this here on the blog as well: I've commissioned these examples of all ten core races of the Keys & Kingdoms setting; a single pair of each, then we'll see more of them as I continue commissioning! I'll be making videos on their more specific stats as I go.

Art by Maria (@mariavyasene)

If we were rolling up a game of Keys & Kingdoms, what would you pick? ;)

Cast of Characters: Irregular Fantasy! Part 13

The conclusion of this series; we'll be introducing all of the currently-planned characters in TAPAS's upcoming series Irregular Fantasy!, based on David Morgan-Mar's webcomic Irregular Webcomic! In short, it's a typical RPG adventure set in a typical fantasy world, taking the silly atmosphere of the comic and making it our own.

Spoiler warning: While this presentation will try to avoid any details about backgrounds, plotlines, or relationships in order to focus entirely on the characters and not give away the story, some details that might be considered spoilers will inevitably leak through now and then.

It's our final chapter of this series, where we meet characters encountered in a later-ish story arc taking place in elven lands. And then... miscellaneous.

These character concepts were drawn by me and therefore aren't very good. Linework and color by Naty Jenfjord.

Click on the images to zoom in and read the descriptions.

And that's it for this Irregular Fantasy! series. As of this posting, we've put out the pilot in literary prologue form, and from there we're working on more of that to get the story out of our system while we continue the slow process of creating the motion comic.

The Draw #12: Jack Stegman

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.

Today we're going with one of the OG members of the TAPAS team, Jack Stegman.

One of my oldest friends, I met Jack at Red Rocks Community College. My icebreaker was that I was putting together a fandub of The Order of the Stick - that really never panned out, but I think I might look into TAPAS doing that once the whole series is over... it's still going, it's a 20-year-old D&D stick figure comic at this point, but it's definitely in its final story arc.

Jack was eventually invited into the chat room where I met all my DeviantArt buddies who eventually became Team Salmon, the core crew of TAPAS and Stuff Productions. From there she was a big part of Whirlwind, our D&D campaign - I intend now to make the setting of that campaign the base setting of the AE:GIS game system, and for all the players to take part in retelling the story. Just as a story, we don't have time to campaign it, but we will be playing some semi-canon games to help us build the settings, starting soon in the Keys & Kingdoms universe...

Like Ziya in the previous entry, Jack's had a prominent place in some of my Jackbox Party Pack videos - oh, and a reaction to Killer Bean Forever that we filmed four years ago that I never got around to editing, I really ought to do that sometime...

In short, Jack's not a creative type as much as most of my people, but she is... forever one of my people.

The Draw #11: Ziya Herman

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.

Ugh, I've fallen behind on this. I fall behind on everything... it's really irritating. Anyway, today we're looking into Ziya, my oldest sister and a very quiet member of the TAPAS Discord group. I was almost 10 when Ziya was born, so this is someone I've spent a lot of time being a caretaker for, and then every year getting more and more equal, and now we're both adults. Which is weird to think about. Not that she's in her 20s now, it suits her, it's weird that I'm in my 30s. That doesn't suit me at all.

From what I've heard about her college experience, these days Ziya is into horticulture and Japanese studies. For TAPAS, I asked her to provide some concept art, and she did complete a piece for a background elf character but felt that it wasn't good enough... I thought it was perfectly fine, but respected her wishes and had Naty re-do the concept.

Honorable mention to our little sister Aramie, who's not on the official list of names to draw, but has participated in the group to a roughly equal extent as Ziya - Aramie finished her concept art piece, though, neither had time to do more. School stuff. And the concept art stage is all wrapped for now.

And of course they're both prominent voices in Keys & Kingdoms - we recorded the voices for the pilot, er, quite some time ago, a time measurable in years rather than months. Recently finished these character poses so I could finally put out this particular promo! Agh, this can be frustrating sometimes. I like making progress, but it's hard feeling like, if I had any ability to concentrate, the pilot would have been finished in 2020 and we'd be deep into the series by now. But that's probably not true. I'm probably doing the very best I can with the resources I have. We're getting there.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Ziya's contribution to my channel's Jackbox Party Pack gaming videos, always an MVP there, most memorably one particular Joke Boat punchline in our third anniversary special that left everyone else rolling on the floor. I'll always relish the sound of the collective crackup. We haven't done any such videos in quite some time, perhaps we'll jump back in someday.

All right, back in with these; I'll once again try to start doing them on a very regular basis.

Cast of Characters: Irregular Fantasy! Part 12

A continuation of this series; we'll be introducing all of the currently-planned characters in TAPAS's upcoming series Irregular Fantasy!, based on David Morgan-Mar's webcomic Irregular Webcomic! In short, it's a typical RPG adventure set in a typical fantasy world, taking the silly atmosphere of the comic and making it our own.

Spoiler warning: While this presentation will try to avoid any details about backgrounds, plotlines, or relationships in order to focus entirely on the characters and not give away the story, some details that might be considered spoilers will inevitably leak through now and then.

Doing something a little different here, we're tackling characters from another universe, for the Irregular Fantasy canon will indeed contain a multiverse, and as far as elements of that which will come into play in a plot-relevant fashion, none will be more important than those from the Cliffhangers universe.

These character concepts were drawn by me and therefore aren't very good. Linework and color by Naty Jenfjord.

Click on the images to zoom in and read the descriptions.

The Draw #10: Sidney Shackleton

A less-new series for the TAPAS blog at this point... 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.

Sidney Shackleton is yet another team member I met on Spamalot -- he played the roles originated by Christian Borle, the various "seventh Python" roles: the historian, the minstrel, the dead body that claims it isn't, and the effeminate Prince Herbert. He really brought on the charm for the whole thing.

A few years later, we reunited on Is He Dead?, playing two of the protagonist's three quirky apprentices.

This is an image I've shared on the blog before... made the front page!

From there, the story's about the same as that of his wife Jen. He was Mordekai in the Icewind Dale soundsets, TAPAS's first project, but unlike Jen, I haven't really seen him since he had to drop out of that role.

I hope to get Sidney and Jen in for cameos in the Mordekai short -- shouldn't be too long that we're finishing up the song for that, but still no leads on a new place to record -- and bigger characters later on.