Hi there! Back in the beginning of the year shortly after uploading EDY-EM: OVERLOAD, I said that I’ll start posting updates on the progress of my next big personal project, a pilot for this trailer of Music Makers.

…Well, here’s one!

Character Designs

Way back in February, I got down mostly final designs for the main characters that I will animate for this project. Recently in the past couple weeks, I went over and did a few refinements on the designs, generally simplifying details to make sure that I don’t get too crazy animating these robots. It matters a lot given the length of the animation, which I’ll get to shortly.

I also put down simple references for background characters in the first few scenes of the animation. I normally don’t make a lot of one-note designs at the same time, so it was interesting to work on this many while keeping them distinct from each other. One of the character designs is actually a revamp of an old character I made back in ’22!

Storyboarding and Animatic Stages

Starting around early spring and into mid-summer, I worked on the script and storyboard for this project, then I later worked on a rough animatic. I think the general ideas came out pretty well, even if it’s at a very rough pass at this point. Similar to EDY-EM: OVERLOAD, it’ll be animated to the timing of the music, but the setting and some of the shots will likely have a different overall look and feeling compared to EDY-EM. I’m pretty excited to work on it regardless, especially on some shots!

My biggest concern regarding going deep into this project would be the length of the animation, as it’s definitely the longest animation I will work on so far. There are also some types of animation that I’ll be trying out for the first time. It’s very intimidating! It’s partially why I’ve been hesitant on committing more to this project, but it’s also why I’ve worked on a few other animation projects this year.

Project Cadenza and Other Things

Recently for this year’s Robot Day, I worked on a pretty simple animation as a submission. It got frontpaged and an honorable mention in the final results! (Thanks MindChamber!)

More importantly, this animation serves two-fold as: 1) a prologue to Music Makers by establishing a small introduction to the setting, and 2) a personal assignment on working under a limited timeframe. The amount of time that I had to work on File 00 is around the same amount as the trailer for Music Makers. Given my personal opinion and reception to File 00, I’d say that working on this helps me build confidence on working on longer projects.

I’ve also worked on that Kamen Rider animation a little bit back, which was meant to be part of an unfortunately canned collab. The amount of time I’ve had left to work on Kamen Rider O’s! is similar to Project Cadenza, so I also was working on a similar deadline and with a similar goal to that project: to work relatively quickly. There’s also another animation that I’m currently working on, but I can’t give out details on it yet. All of these projects have helped me prepare to work on the pilot for Music Makers.

That's it!

I’m expecting to start working on rough drafts for the shots once I finish the animation I’m currently working on, probably around the start of winter.