*checks calendarWell...oopsie....Holy moly dayo! Where the FECK did May go eh?
Apologies for the delay, gang. I was aiming to get this out last week, but alas, After Effects is a cruel mistress.
So I'm back, and here to give you our usual production update.
Let's start with the big one.
🎬 Otachan! Call to Action
ALL THE ANIMATION IS IN. WAHOOOY!
It only took like...
Four months.
Oopsie.
Well, six months if you count the writing stage.
But considering we've ended up with something like 70+ cuts of animation and a runtime of around 7 minutes, I'd say that's not too shabby.
(please agree)
You guys have been following the development of this project for a while now, so I won't retread all the same ground again.
What I will say is that this one has been really special to me.
It's scratched a lot of creative itches and somehow helped me reconnect with my estranged adopted daughter.
Otachan.
🎨 Otachan! Production Progress
Now that all the animation is in, I basically time-skipped the entirety of May.
That whole month was spent completing the Inbetweening and Colouring stages.
With those now wrapped, we're moving fully into Composition & Finishing.
Which means I'll be spending the next week or so pulling late nights, keyframing, compositing, and building out all 70+ scenes.
I'm very tempted to stream some of this work in the Discord while I do it.
I have no idea whether watching me push keyframes around for six hours would actually be interesting to anyone...
But the option is there.
In the meantime, please enjoy some of the composition tests.
I'm genuinely proud of how they're turning out.
I think this is the closest we've ever come to recreating the feeling of a genuine VHS-era OVA.
That's due in no small part to the amazing character design work from Zako, alongside our colour design wizards Shibi Laser and Badbrix.
Low-key, I feel like this project has taught us a lot.
Lessons that will be incredibly useful whenever we eventually move onto our next big OVA project.
But I won't get ahead of myself.
For now, the roadmap looks like this:
Finish Composition
Finalise the Episode
Title & Thumbnail
Release
And that segues very nicely into...
👕 Otachan! Merchandise
I spent most of May designing merchandise.
Lots of back-and-forth with T-shirt samples.
Lots of tweaking.
Brother i never want to look at 96% cotton 4% elastane vs 100% cotton samples again.
I mean thats a lie, i do but you get the point.
Lots of trying to get the quality exactly where I want it.
At the same time, we've been preparing artwork for the entire range.
I won't spoil everything just yet, but we've worked really hard to fully load out this next merch drop with as much cool stuff as possible.
We'll be doing a dedicated merchandise post soon where I'll show everything off properly.
For now, please enjoy a few sneak peeks of what we've been cooking.
🌐 Otachan! Website
Outside of the products themselves, I've also been working on the website.
This is always a massive time sink for me.
Because every time I sit down to build a store, my brain immediately says:
"What if we made this unnecessarily interactive?"
Instead of just making a normal storefront like a functioning adult.
But that's no fun.
I want to design a weird esoteric storefront, that makes it very difficult for the end user to make a purchase.
So I've been building, testing, redesigning, and generally overengineering the whole thing.
I've just wrapped the latest version of the site design, and honestly it's been a really interesting learning experience.
It's definitely still a little rough around the edges.
But I think it's a noticeable step up from my previous attempts.
*cough* do NOT visit www.otakuvs.com and check it out and tell me what a shitty job i did.
Side note, congradulations to Guxegut. For somehow managing to hack the mainframe and buy a an Otachan! Plushie. I'll make sure to send you the extra cursed one.
Now, with all that done - it means we're rapidly approaching the finish line on two major goals:
Otachan! Call to Action
Otachan! Merchandise
Leaving only one final loose end...
📦 Otachan! Patreon
Not much to report on this front just yet.
Please bear with me, gang.
This is still the final major item on my list.
But the good news is that once the episode and merchandise are wrapped, I can finally give this my full attention.
Im looking forwards to just sitting down and cooking up something nice and fun for you all.
💜 Thank You
We're so damn close.
And honestly?
That's a weird feeling.
I don't want to overdo it with the philosophising this month.
Not everything has to be some huge life-changing revelation.
So I'll leave you with the usual.
Thank you for all the support so far.
Thank you for continuing to read these updates.
And thank you for sticking around and yucking it up with me in the server!
I can't wait to finish and take a week off watching shitty movies with you all!!
Let's keep it going. 🐇💜
— Yusef / OtakuVs