Happy early Halloween to all of you. Last month's newsletter was received very well, and I enjoyed writing it, so I figured I'd make it a regular thing around the last week of every month going forward. Despite the release of Pokemon Legends Z-A, I somehow still managed to get a lot of exciting work done with the team this month! Can you believe it?
Smiling Friends vs Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
In case you weren't aware, the video for Smiling Friends vs Don't Hug Me I'm Scared releases publicly TOMORROW at 1 PM EST (around 22 hours from this newsletter being posted). My current Patreon model does not share the full video early because 1. it's rarely ready a notable amount of time before the release date, and 2. I believe in encouraging people to show up to support the premiere even if they are a patron. Initial premiere viewership and interaction (likes, comments, chats, etc) tells YouTube the video is worth watching and helps substantially with its performance in the first couple days, which is invaluable. So if you could show up and make sure to leave a like and comment when the video comes out, I'd really appreciate it! The video is over 5 minutes long with intros and outros considered, and it's fully animated by the extremely talented CyanCoat. I've shared some snippets of the video already, but there is so, so much more to discover. It's one of the coolest things the channel has produced so far and I cannot wait to release it.
As a fun little bonus for being done so early, the animator and I put together a short little alternative scene for the battle. It will be released publicly in a few weeks time, but I've decided to put it on Patreon first for you all to enjoy in the meantime. It should go up shortly after the posting of this newsletter. Let's just say... Charlie is really happy about it.
Mr. Krabs vs Tom Nook
There have now been two family emergencies occurring to two different primary members of the production team of this battle. What a cursed project! The good news is, while this did delay the audio from releasing early on Patreon like I promised last month, it is fully recorded, and it will be the first AvA of hopefully many more to come that is mixed and mastered by the series' new audio engineer VVDSOUND! You may recognize V from his work on the Pokemon Cypher 2024 by shofu and the associated EPs featuring the artists of WDFA. He's probably my favourite audio engineer in the nerdcore adjacent space and I am super excited to be teaming up to further level up the musical elements of AvA that are becoming increasingly important to me. After the rollout for DON'T SMILE has slowed down, I intend to put out a public community post on YouTube explaining why this project has been so delayed and announcing its early release on Patreon - subsequently, I hope to release the audio the first week or two of November. By the way, as of this morning, Animal Crossing: New Horizons FINALLY had a huge content update and Nintendo Switch 2 version announced for release January of next year. Perhaps we'll aim to have it out around there? No promises.
Gumball vs Baldi
I announced this project a couple months back now, and I'm happy to report that it is well into the recording and animation stages already. It's a much smaller and simpler battle than the preceding Smiling Friends vs Don't Hug Me I'm Scared and the following Pomni vs Jevil (which will be touched on briefly in the next segment), but it has ended up becoming one of my favourites, and I am particularly excited about the incredible video being animated by two of the incredibly talented creators behind the fan episode of Gumball "The Basics" that released last month. I'm also happy to announce the voice of Gumball in the project! I'm teaming up with young social media star and up-and-coming rapper SASHA to bring Gumball to life. You can check out some of his music and remixes here! Also, the Darwin voice actor from the aforementioned Gumball fan episode is reprising his role in this battle as a bit of a hypeman for Gumball, and Baldi will be voiced by yours truly. We are aiming to have it out for the end of November currently. I will keep you all posted about a more specific release date and the imminent early audio release pretty soon.
Pomni vs Jevil
In classic "me" fashion, this project turned out to be substantially more complicated than I was initially anticipating. Oops! Day to day, this is currently my top priority, as it's not as far along in the pipeline as Gumball vs Baldi to be mainly delegating the workflow. The good news is that it's coming along super nicely so far, with some of my favourite production in the series to date, and a fair bit of the pre-production busywork for the video has already been completed. TADC community member zayJax recently updated their very popular Blender model pack with an entirely new Pomni, which means we are going to be using it (and some of the other new additions) to make the video even more show-accurate than it already would have been. Also, the lead animator for the project, GamingPlush64, has been working on some custom models and render techniques for DELTARUNE projects, including Jevil for this battle! Check it out!
New Channel
I've finally made a second channel! It's simply called Effarby and you can be one of its first subscribers here. This channel's first upload is going to be a separate upload of the second half of Smiling Friends vs Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, which I am calling The Smiling Song so as to keep it in line with the naming convention of the songs from the DHMIS webseries.
(By the way, "The Smiling Song" is also releasing separately on streaming services alongside the full song, for those who would prefer to listen to it in isolation.)
I plan to release some kind of behind the scenes/additional content every week on this channel, including storyboards, demoes, and potentially even higher-effort content like director's commentaries. Let me know what you would like to see posted on this channel, and I may use your suggestions!
Wrap-Up
Thank you SO much to all of the new Patrons who joined in the past few weeks for Smiling Friends vs Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. I really am humbled that people are passionate enough about what I do to spend any kind of money on it. You guys absolutely rule! I am looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible tomorrow at the premiere, and I also encourage you to check out the many, many other projects by other rap battle creators releasing tomorrow as a part of the community's yearly Halloween event. It's going to be a really fun day!
See you soon!
-Eddie