Violet vs Dummy is Out in the Wild!

Twofer Twenty Twenty Fer

WOOHOO! A second animation released for 2024!

It’s hard to believe that we got this one out in the same year as our 30-minute story back in May, but alas, it was done. And so is the year of 2024 itself! In this post I’ll be reflecting a bit more on the previous projects and what will be coming later in this new year of twenty twenty five.

A Jolly Good Production

You can watch the new release right here!

And if you prefer to see live chat reactions from the premiere, click here.

The production of this animation spanned about 6 months, minus the 2-year break from whence the pre-production and storyboarding began. A good few minutes of the intro were already done by the time Gilded Animation, LLC took over on the project! So that gave us a comfortable amount of time to animate the battle, ending, and polish everything.

Although I wore many hats, it was actually quite fun to act as a rough animator instead of being the director (Rebekah/Rebonk, who also did a bulk of the rough animation). When she was working on the storyboards and pointing us toward her vision, I was able to focus on the craft of animating movements. There are a handful of scenes I feel like I leveled-up on. It was also refreshing to step away from my golden knight character and animate Violet and Dummy’s big expressions!

Rebekah, on the other hand, had a brand new set of responsibilities. She had to learn a few things from the past half-year being a first time director and creative leader of a project like this. I’m sure she has a couple of fun stories to tell (some involving tears of anguish). I’m supah-dupah proud of how the animation turned out, and how she was able to get her story (with all its small details, nuances, and emotions) onto the screen for viewers.

We had a more limited team size this time around, which made the overhead and expenses less stressful. I believe this was the perfect sort of project to wind-down from the previous epic. With the reduced run-time, I was able to spend a bit more time on the premiere side of things, including the ambitious GildedGala!

A Circus Town RPG

I often get the itch to do gamedev. Usually that itch is scratched from doing maintenance on the 3D streaming overlay, but when there’s time, I love to develop new things. The new thing this time around was a much improved GildedGala multiplayer role-playing experience.

The first version allowed lots of players to walk around, chat, use items, and do fun interactions in a virtual space. But it was quite limited in many ways.

• There was no account persistence or progress, so if the page crashed you lost everything.
• There was limited item/cosmetic customization, so players were not very visually unique.
• And there were no mini-games, combat, economy, or quests to engage with!

All these things were remedied with the 2nd GildedGala, which lasted for 2 days last month. The game had a lot more progression and customization. I wanted players to feel like they were building their character up somehow. The addition of combat, more zones, and theming contributed to the world-building. And it seems like players had a lot of FUN!

The game provided a great space for viewers from the community to hang out and act goofy. And hey! It actually raised a good bit of money from generous viewers and players.

I do love myself an integrated donation bar.

I put a good few weeks of labor into improving the experience this time around, a cost that was nearly half recouped. So my dream of a Gildedguy Stellapent Cier MMORPG is not quite sustainable yet. That’s okay though. I’ll keep building upon these Gala-prototypes until it’s an experience worth supporting in the long run.

Reception

So here’s something funny – Rebekah (the director & my wife) is very unlike me. In addition to being quite outgoing and beautiful, she doesn’t hunt down reactions and comments like I do. Whenever I post anything, I religiously pour over ALL the feedback: not only the comments, but the live-replay comments too. I vanity-searched YouTube for any reactions to Violet vs Dummy, and I check my Discord servers for any mention of the new release. It’s not the best habit, but I just get so much joy and satisfaction from looking at that stuff!

Rebekah doesn’t really do the “comment search” thing. I mean she’ll skim, but she hasn’t really dived into the various rabbit holes. I don’t exactly know why, but I guess it’s healthier than what I tend to do. Most of the time it’ll be me checking the comments, and I’ll pick out and read one for her.

This is all assuming that in private, she isn’t a feedback-freak like me!

Anyways, I believe a lot of the audience could relate and understand Dummy’s feelings in the story. In my opinion, Violet vs Dummy does have parallels to the real world, and what artists can feel like when putting their work out there. We are performers of sorts, and do rely on spectators for our income, validation, and fulfillment. With that reliance comes an inevitable risk of rejection, and some deal with it better than others.

What’s Next?

Not entirely sure!

While on Christmas break, I spent some time writing up several project ideas, just to get my options on paper. Some projects were coding based, while others were pure animations. Some were serious and deep, while others light and fun.

Regardless of what I pick, I’d like for the next project to allow me to experiment with animation techniques, whether it be a drawing style or a new software. I feel like my work needs a rejuvenation of sorts, and I want to go out of my comfort zone.

We’ll just have to wait and see!

Thanks for checking in!

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