Hello From the Village!!!
Hey fellow Goblins! Hail and well met from the Village!
Matt here. Wanted to touch base with you guys and let you know what all is going down in Goblin-town. Soooo, let's break it up into parts. First:
Tarol's Health
After being delayed a bit (to say the least) by Tarol's little brain surgery (blah, blah, my head almost blew up, blah blah - he's so NEEDY) We're back on track and while Thunt still isn't 100%, we're cruising along and are getting back to where we need to be. Second...
The Website
We've updated our website since a lot of the digital goods are going to be delivered through that platform. We had some simple snafus with the providers that we were working with and with waiting periods for being able to move URLs, but now we are in the clear and everything looks shiny! Go look!
Please drive folks to that site if they want to know more about our project. It'll help increase our SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and make it easier to find Goblins Animated. Which helps the show. You'll see the new incentives page there. We're going to be delivering our wallpaper as soon as we figure out one last detail. We're taking the same care with the animation and the products we're bringing to you guys so just be aware that we're trying do everything well on the first time and sometimes building the pipeline takes a bit before we can run the oil through it. Which brings me to:
The Stuff
So because the Indiegogo platform doesn't allow us to just speak to specific backer groups, or to speak privately, we are organizing a whole bunch of individual groups through an external service so that we can make sure that everyone receives both their physical swag and their digital swag. This is a lot to sort through, from those who need to give their wrist measurements for the watches, to choices for the t-shirts, etc etc. Since a bunch of these digital levels will be password released, we want to make sure that it's simple, easy and secure. We should be able to do a wallpaper release very soon.
Meanwhile...
Phil has started to deliver his private lessons to backers (we're going to have some fun video of that). And we've sourced the Klik plushies, the pencils, and started in on the CAD files for our miniatures. Here are some of the quotes that are going to appear on the pencils. I think they're super fun:
and of course, the best one (for the best character)...
We're also developing the miniature figurine poses and seeing which ones that we like the most. Check this one out:
This isn't final (since we need to know which are better or worse for the extruder, more difficult to create, we don't like the final look, etc), but they'll give you a sense of the progress.
We're also still working on the shirts, the caps and the rest of it. We hit a snag with the dice and we had to ditch our source, so if any of you out in Goblins-land have a good lead on a dice creator that we can work with, please email us at goblinsanimated@gmail.com
Some of you have asked about the game 'Goblins of Elderstone'. The game is still being tested and isn't at final. As soon as we know more, we'll let you know more. Which brings me to:
The MEGA TRAILER
So the guys over at Surfer Jack are helping us move this thing along. That's Jeff 'Swampy' Marsh (of Phineas and Ferb) and Van Partible (of Johnny Bravo) lending us their team and expertise. We're moving forward with their recommendations and advice, and we're currently working on the designs for the characters so that we're able to animate them in a way that conveys the characters you know and love, but works with the strictures and benefits of working in a moving environment as opposed to a still one. Tarol started doing these great boards to give the animators a sense of what we are looking for:
It's a great launching point for the characters, but we realize that animation gets SUPER expensive SUPER quickly (this was really interesting to me as a filmmaker, because cameras have gotten so much cheaper over the years with such amazing image quality. But at the end of the day, animation is still folks in a room drawing picture after picture, so the cost reductions despite technological improvements aren't as great), so we have a steep learning curve about understanding what we can and can't do in the animation space. Swampy and the Surfer Jack team have been indispensable in getting us up and moving in the right direction.
That's it for now. Keep an ear out for our updates here, and an eye out for the extra backer surveys, etc in your email.
Thanks for being the best fans ever!
Matt, Phil, Dani and Tarol