Hello, friends! Bridget here. Just doing a quick checkin on our current two projects we’re working on: Yexu and WAFA! Quick recap of what those projects are:
Ye Xu
A short animated music video, directed by our good friend and collaborator Brian Park.
It’s roughly 4.5 min long, will be 3D animated, and is set to an absolutely incredible song by the stellar Jyun Jyun (called Ye Xu) you can listen to on their soundcloud.
We Are Fantastic Architects
Abbreviated to WAFA, this project is based on a TV story that Xing and I created, this game is a 2D Story-based RPG in pixel style.
We created a demo of one day of the game, and envisioned the entire game as taking place over 7 days. More on that later!
So the big challenge Broom Cupboard wanted to take on over these three months was: Can we successfully work on two projects, simultaneously, with team overlap, over the course of 3 Months? In so doing, we found this to be SUPER DUPER HARD! Which should seem obvious, but hey, that’s never stopped us from being super ambitious before.
Above is some gorgeous concept art for Ye Xu by Xing. Xing is simultaneously leading WAFA and working on concept art. Time management, scope, communication, clear deadlines, and frequent collaborative checkins have been key to making sure these projects go smooth.
Recently, we just had a good tough talk about production, making sure to keep our scope focused. As part of this, we centered our goals around one focus: Make sure that by December 31st, we have a rendered version of every single shot in the film, looking as good as we can muster!
Above are a bunch of art assets, outlining the various rooms of Dubs, the architects trusty turtle in WAFA. As we worked on prioritizing WAFA, we reset our goal to have at least THREE DAYS by the end of December, as opposed to all 7 we have outlined in our story.
We also re-prioritized how we were going about building the game: instead of going day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and then 7, we instead ordered it as 1, 2, 7, and then if we have time, add in 3, then 4, 5, and 6 as development time permits.
Above, you can see an absolutely gorgeous test rendered out by Zori for our take on the Look and Feel for the film. Building on our first short film, we’re going for a 2D/3D mishmosh for a stylized, ink-wash esque aesthetic, with super stylized colors. We can’t wait for you to see it!!
That about wraps it up for me this week! Erin also made some rad as heck business cards for Broom Cupboard that we threw around all over the place at CTN and have adorbs little pixel art versions of all the Broom Kids on the back. <3
While doing two projects at once is super tough… it’s also really educational! It very much pushes us to work hard to communicate, stay focused, manage our scope, and do our work.
Speaking of… I should go get some more dialogue in for Day Two of WAFA, so I better head out.
Til next time!! -Bridget