Update - 06/18/26
I really appreciate the wellspring of support I continue to get. You guys are very nice. Here's where everything is at:
Bug Brigade, the Starter Squad spinoff, launched in May. It's really cute and you should check it out if you haven't already.
The signed, personalized scripts for Ep11 Top Patrons are complete and most of you have already gotten back to me on confirming your mailing addresses. They came out cool this time around! I'll be mailing them out shortly.
Episode 12's writing has progressed a lot. I've now been going back and forth with my other writers and fleshing out the most important bits. More importantly, I'm starting to envision some of the scenes quite clearly in my head. From what I can tell, this is going to be the most expensive episode and I don't know how I'm going to pull off some of the more experimental scenes, but I think it's going to be worth pursuing. Having this much time for it to stew in writing is really working. The episode is stewing and the best bits of it are coming through as it's given development time.
Given how long Episode 12 is going to be, I'm thinking more and more about splitting it into pieces and releasing them as I finish them. Given the structure of this finale, it can easily be split into 3 - 8 distinct parts. I was hesitant to do this for Ep10 and Ep11 because of the major plot spoilers involved in those episodes, but Ep12 is very different and I don't think anything is lost by splitting it. It's still early in the process. I intend to finish the script and record everything for the entire episode at once, but after that, I may focus production into large chunks at a time rather than attacking the episode holistically. If you're super against this idea and would rather I finish the whole thing and release it all at once, please let me know.
Fleshing out the Show Bible hasn't helped with the writing of this episode as I thought it'd be, and still feels like an extra thing. Regardless, I really want to finish it before sealing the Ep12 script off. However, I'm prioritizing getting out OEL and the 1-11 compilation for the time being.
"One Episode Left" is out of the "Outlining" phase and is completely in "Animation" right now. All I have to do is finish animating everything I have, and it's definitely more than half done. I really feel like I can finish it this month and I'm going to be primarily focusing on it. I've been livestreaming the animation process for a lot of it on shipp.tv and will continue to do so.For whatever reason, I felt obligated to doing custom sculpting/texturing/rigging work on my own for this. Some of this was because I could potentially use what I've done here in future projects and wanted it to be in my distinct style rather than just recycling game models again, but largely I did this in preparation for what's going to happen with Episode 12. In the mainline series, there is a noticeable graphical update between Episodes 7 and 8. I'd always considered updating the models one more time for Episode 12, and now I know for sure I want to do it. These past few months, I've gained a lot of hands-on experience with 3D modeling and rigging and pushed myself to gain more familiarity. For the graphical update in Ep12, I'm definitely going to be hiring out someone even more experienced rather than doing it completely on my own, but doing everything myself for OEL has made it even easier for me to understand everything. Already, I've figured out ways to streamline the way my rigs are structured. Now I'll be able to make the right adjustments and get everything I need out of the new models in Ep12.
All the merch is now ready for launch. I've since come up with a few new ideas for more shirts I wanna make, but everything I planned out is now ready to go, and I've even ordered a few things for myself to test them out. Here's a sneak peak at some of the designs I'm putting out. I'm going to be making this public as soon as I upload the 1-11 Compilation alongside One Episode Left, so I'm pushing to finish OEL as soon as possible. I had a fun idea for a merch promo as well, but I don't know if I'll be able to do it. Let me know if there are any other shirt/hat/accessory ideas you think you might want. I might be able to make them happen.
