oh look, here’s 2012! First I wanna say thank you for the outpouring of support and encouragement since my heart surgery. The past couple of months of recovery has not been difficult. Sure there’s been the pain of a split sternum, but I actually feel like I’ve got off very lightly, as if escaping some kind of punishment. I guess that’s mostly because I sit in a chair drawing pictures for a living, and I can do that whatever the weather, whatever my health.

FX

The FX course is doing well with 217 members. If you want to learn 2D FX animation, you can join us at any time for immediate access. Check out the course page for info on how it works, what you can learn for a measly 85 cents a day and of course, how to sign up.

All course participants start at Week 1, with a new article/lesson coming every week thereafter. I plan on continuing this course until my brain dries out, so there’s plenty of content to keep you going. Here’s part of a splash animation lecture from the course:

Work

I’ve been working on a lot of things. Sometimes I think I have my schedule under control when suddenly, in the shower or drifting off to sleep at 3am my eyes will snap open as I’m reminded of another deadline that’s looming. I work up to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, so my working week consists of about 14 ordinary work days. Lately I’ve spent a lot of time working on the BCA FX course, maintaining the site and being active on the BCA FX forum. Each week’s lesson takes between 2 and 4 days to write and prepare.

On top of that I have two freelance commitments, together taking up about 7 more days. The rest of my time is spent working on Dashkin’s rewards and catching up on the game art. Speaking of which, here’s the first of the Kickstarter Dashkin wallpapers. The high-res versions of these are exclusively for our backers. If you’re one of them, all three of these new images will be completed very soon and delivered to your inbox in glorious MD (Massive Definition).

The main Dashkin focus right now is the Kickstarter rewards and the art for those. This includes wallpapers, posters, postcards and collector cards. The sketchbooks are still under construction but I intend on having the pages finalised and sent to the printers before February turns up.

Unfortunately a BiteyCastle holiday card wasn’t squeezed into the schedule this year, so what I started in October 2010 may finally see the light of day in December 2012.

My heart surgery’s over. It was just 19 days ago that I was on a table with my chest opened up to the eyes and fingers of surgeons but here I am, back at the computer with a mechanical part ticking away inside. I feel surprisingly normal, though it will take a while for my arms to be properly useful again. Right now they’re only good for drawing and typing (and Skyrim). In other words, I’m well and truly back to work and will be doing little else for at least 6-8 weeks.

Here are a few things about my experience that I won’t easily forget. If you’re easily scared, please read on.

Images

I had horrifying visions and dreams in hospital. Mostly whenever I closed my eyes I had flashes of decaying faces with terrified expressions, or extreme close-ups of open, dead eyes or ruptured skin. Occasionally something beautiful but oddly disturbing would play. One of these was a sheet of floral fabric billowing slowly in bright sunlight, but a hellish choral soundtrack gave the scene a nightmarish ambience that I’ll remember for a long time.

These were always slow and clear, as if 1000 fps in HD. Just a series of slow motion scenes that sat behind my eyes, waiting for me to blink or doze.

My guess is that the drugs had something to do with this, but they weren’t nightmares and I never woke in fright. Even when I dreamed that I woke in a mass grave, my own face tightly surrounded by blood-drenched soil and other dead faces.

Even though I haven’t painted in many years, I find myself inspired to create a series of paintings, based on these images which are still vivid in my head.

ICU

The ICU staff were incredible, though I was generally uncomfortable and in quite some pain. There were tubes and needles hanging out of my arms, chest and neck. There were monitors and cables all over me so I could barely turn my head without pulling some device across the bed and setting off an alarm. My room in ICU had no windows, no TV, not even a picture on the wall. After 3 days I was ready to risk injury and punch through one of those walls to get out. Without my visitors (Jeanette, Mum, Dad) walking into the room every day with their familiar smiles and normal clothes, I would probably have started flinging food and singing loud, angry songs like some insane prisoner.

The nurses in ICU told me they had always referred to my room as the sensory deprivation chamber. Thankfully, once out in the ward, I had more freedom and I did a lot of walking.

Night walks

My imagination has a life of its own but I’m not easily frightened. Even as a little kid, I was more fascinated than scared of what might be lurking in the dark. I always considered myself the scary one, rather than the one who’s scared.

In hospital though, I did something I never thought I’d do. A couple of nights, unable to sleep, I wandered alone through that huge maze of a hospital between 2 – 4am. The corridors, some of them easily 100 metres long were dark and empty, lit only at the ends.

Wandering out of my own ward, I felt invisible as I passed the nurses stations. The one or two nurses on each station peered into charts, or computer monitors and didn’t see me pass. I passed a security guard in one of the wide corridors and he didn’t even look me in the eye. I felt like a ghost as I wandered into areas of the hospital I shouldn’t have, all the dark doorways along the way gaping at me as I passed; the tiny red and green lights of monitoring devices sparkling within, sometimes the sound of a rattling breath, rising and falling, or the hot, heavy smell of a person who’s been in bed for too long.

All this time, I was wearing a wireless monitor that sent my vital signs to the nurses station. I was told those monitors only have a range of 30-50 metres but as far as I know, I set off no alarms on my long night walks.

The Prisoner

Just down the hall from me in the same ward, two policemen sat guarding a room, drinking coffee and reading books. “Just like the movies, huh?” I quipped as I passed, and they both laughed. They were guarding a prisoner who they said had survived being stabbed in prison and was recovering from the surgery. The next day I saw them walking him in chains. The guy was monstrously tall. Easily 7 feet. I’d love to have made some witty remark to him but in my fragile state, feared being lunged at by a proper criminal, even if he was chained up.

Back to work

I worked hard to convince the doctors I was ready to go home. They wanted to keep me in for 9, even 10 days but thanks to all my walking and “enthusiastic” recovery, they allowed me to go home on the 7th day after surgery.

So here I am! It will be approximately 3 months before I can draw a longbow, dig a hole or climb a tree. Work-wise though, I’m almost back at full speed, ready to finish Dashkin and finalise the Kickstarter rewards. I’m extremely grateful for the patience of those waiting on their stuff, and touched by all the messages of support from people I know and even people I don’t.

If we all survive the apocalypse in 2012, I plan on making it a big year for BiteyCastle and Brackenwood.

The BiteyCastle Academy 2D FX animation course is now open! The place is all warmed up with almost 140 members, throwing back tankards of piping hot secret knowledge nectar and churning out their effects assignments.

It’s $24/month for a course that animators would elsewhere pay through the nose. In fact, if you’re a passionate animator, you may have indeed paid big $$$ for a workshop that, I have no doubt, you wished went for longer.

For $6 a week (!!) at BCA FX , here’s what you get in your first month alone; bearing in mind that each of these articles is packed with instruction, illustrations, examples and videos and several assignments to choose from.

 By month 2, you’ll be ready for something a little more advanced with 5. Water Ripples, 6. Flag Motion, 7. Impact Dust, 8. Droplet Splash. On top of all this, of course, you get access to the BCA FX forum where animators of all experience levels are helping one another, sharing their work, reference links and software and animation expertise.

Incidentally, you may remember Shape, the big fella from hitchHiker 2. He dropped in a couple of days ago and did a guest lecture, belting out this quick 12-minute dust animation demo.

WLM

In case you were wondering, to turn BiteyCastle Academy into a membership site I installed a WordPress plugin called WishList Member. Being a plugin, it’s incredibly easy to set up and if you’re interested in creating a coaching or tutorial site, I cannot recommend it highly enough. On top of that, the technical support and training videos are better than anything I’ve ever dealt with. Thanks Ryan Allen for putting me onto it.

Now available at Newgrounds!

Bitey Shirts

The Brackenwood shirts are back up in a range of sizes, colours and designs. Check em out on the NG Store, thanks to the hard work of those excellent people at Newgrounds.

Dashkin is coming along. When I return from my little adventure we’ll apply some finishing touches and get the beta out there for testing. In the meantime, here are our Kickstarter backer credits. If you’re one of these people, check to see that we’ve spelled you correctly. If there’s any problem, please drop us a line through Kickstarter so we can fix it ASAP.

 

 (btw, yellow names are those backers who chose no reward)

The other rewards are slowly coming together. Plushes are packaged up ready for post, the BCA FX Course is in full swing, the prints and digital rewards are on their way. Thanks for your patience and again for your fantastic support.

Here’s something I did almost a year ago (Oct 2010) but somehow forgot to mention here. I guess it’s because it was all very hush-hush at the time, but Dragon Age: Legends has been played by a zillion people on Facebook, and was one of the first games on Google+, so I guess it’s safe. From memory, after the storyboard was approved, the animation took me 48 days.

I was only given a loose description of events and characters to adhere to, so I had free rein to do my thing. Using ToonBoom software I designed, storyboarded and animated everything from scratch. The sound was done by EA’s audio contractor. Hope you like(d) it!

When it was released, one particularly violent scene was cut out. This is the uncut version complete with all the gore of flying organs and bone shards.

edit – thank you everyone for the wishes! I feel like I’m already in a room up to my neck in flowers and cards.

Short version - I was told today that I need to have open-heart surgery as a matter of priority, which means in the next couple of weeks. Yeah I know, it sounds like a joke and I kinda wish it was. I’ll be in hospital for a week and the recovery process will take 3 months but I could be back on the computer as early as 4-6 weeks after surgery. I will be preparing enough content for the BCA FX course to auto-release while I’m out of action, so that’s going ahead as normal.

I’ll do my best to get the other Kickstarter rewards out but chances are that shipments for physical rewards will be delayed by 6-8 weeks. I’m really sorry about this but I’ll do what I can before the big day.

That’s the gist of it. For a longer version, read on..

How?

OK so I was born with a faulty aortic valve that hindered the proper flow of blood through the heart. No big deal really, heart murmurs are quite common and I had an active childhood. When I was about 14 my chest tightened up, vision clouded over and I collapsed on the sports field at school. To cut that story short, I underwent surgery to push the faulty valve aside (effectively destroying it), allowing blood to move through the heart a bit better. That surgery was done entirely via a small incision in the main artery above my right leg.

That fixed things in a way, but throughout my life at the peak of exertion my heart would tell me when to back off, and I did. Even so, I’ve always stayed in shape, been very fit & active, competed in martial arts tournaments, loved walking, running, playing squash, climbing, hitting and throwing stuff. Even 3 years ago I was at the gym 3 times a week and in pretty good shape.

However, in the past couple of years there’s been sharp decline in my cardiovascular system. It’s at the stage now where I can’t even walk 20 metres on flat ground without stopping to recover for 10-20 seconds. Anyone who saw me at ComicCon last year might have noticed that instead of marching briskly around from booth to panel to pub to hotel, I was frequently pausing for breaks. You know something’s wrong when octogenarians surge past you in the street.

Today the cardio specialist at the local hospital showed me the differences between my heart and a perfectly healthy one. He carefully explained how my aortic valve (the ruined one) is now all crumpled, complicating the flow of blood. After walking for 30 sec there’s not enough oxygenated blood being distributed around my body and I get an overwhelming feeling of fatigue and that tightness in the chest from so long ago.

Anyway the long and short is that they’re going to split me down the middle and replace the shitty valve with an artificial one. Blood naturally sticks to metal bits so I’ll be on blood-thinning medication for the rest of my life. The upside is that after recovery and rehabilitation I’ll finally be able to run, hike and cycle again! That’s something I’m really looking forward to. Anyone for ComicCon 2012?

It took 3 weeks but BiteyCastle survived its enhancement surgery and is once again fully functional. The changes were entirely under the hood so there’ll be very little, if any noticeable difference for visitors. The main problem was outdated system components and redundant software so there was an increasing number of errors and only a matter of time before it died like a rockstar choking on its own vomit.

Now then, we’re getting ready for the Fifth of September when the BiteyCastle Academy FX Course opens its doors. Thanks to the success of the Kickstarter campaign, the FX course will be off to an explosive start with 110 members. They’re the quick-fingered folk who made that $39 pledge to be first to get their spoons into the golden nectar of FX knowledge sweetness.

If you missed out on pledging for the BCA FX course reward, don’t worry. Space is not limited. The course officially begins in September and anyone can subscribe, but you should know: the course assumes some knowledge of basic animation concepts. You may feel a little left behind if you’ve never picked up a pencil or tried to animate.

Brace yourself! September 5th is the day we’re aiming for.

This site is currently being overhauled so you may see missing bits, some slow loading times, etc. When it’s complete, you’ll see a few changes, but best of all I’ll teach you FX animation!

In the works there’s an ongoing 2D FX Animation Course, but for Kickstarter backers, there’s a special deal. There’s only 2 days left in the campaign so rush over HERE to check out the details.

And now the personal explanation:

BiteyCastle will be undergoing some maintenance over the next few days, throughout which the site may be down intermittently or loading slowly. When we’re done, it’ll be extra super fantastic and there’ll be a few new additions that will ripple your face with awespasms.

Be assured that in true Bitey style, the Dashkin game has lost no momentum and the new Kickstarter backer rewards will coincide with the new stuff on this site when we return.

You can’t wait but you must!
In the meantime, I’ll post updates as regularly as possible on Twitter and Google+

The purpose of the following video was to inform my YouTube subscribers of the Dashkin Kickstarter project and answer some questions.

That was 24 hours ago. The funding was sitting on 46%.
Now, at the time of this writing, Dashkin is 78% funded on Kickstarter.

update July 31: we have reached and exceeded our funding with 17 days still to go in the campaign. Thanks for all who pledged and/or spread the word for us! There’s still time to pledge if you want some of those rewards. New rewards coming in the next update.

We’ve taken a ton of pledges, been retweeted and shared hundreds of times, including by Mr Canabalt himself, AdamAtomic (OMGAH!). A handful of top-end pledges mean that the game now has 1 Producer credit and 2 Executive Producer credits. It’s been a very, very good day.

As mentioned in the video, we have plans for any excess funding. However, in the YouTube comments, someone questioned the console/Steam games path, asking whether the game will remain free. The answer is that this Kickstarter campaign will fund the free Flash version of the game. It’ll remain online, free to play on bitey.com, Newgrounds and probably everywhere else, right up until the robots inject us all with mercury and flood our cities.

Any funding OVER 200% will go directly towards rebuilding the game from the ground up, in preparation for other platforms. That version of Dashkin is likely to be much better, bigger, more expensive and insane than the Flash version. That’s the version that’ll have a price tag.

Stay tuned!

Since we embarked on this quest in November 2010, our BIGGEST step towards a release was taken today. Sean and I launched a Kickstarter campaign for Dashkin!

If you don’t already know, Kickstarter is a site through which ordinary folks like you and I can pledge a few dollars to help fund an artistic project. It’s an all-or-nothing deal though. If our funding goal isn’t reached by the set date, no money changes hands.
(See this Kickstarter Basics FAQ)
(Also, how pledging works)

So we’re offering rewards to our backers, people (like you!) who pledge whatever amount they wish to help us fund our project. Depending on how much you wish to pledge, rewards vary:

• “Special Thanks” credits in the game
• Downloadable prints
• Bitey plushies (hand made by MoriChax!)
• One-off original Bitey drawings (by me!)
• Downloadable Brackenwood music packs
• Bitey t-shirts
• Stickers
• One-of-a-kind life-like Bitey mask (hand made by me!)
• Limited edition wooden Dashkin figurines (hand carved and numbered by me!)
• “Brackenwood Wildlife” collector cards.. the list goes on.

oh look! Here’s one now:

This is essentially the proper serious clever version of what I did on Waterlollies. I offered a “special thanks” credit at the end of the movie for people who made Brackenwood donations. Even today, looking at the huge list of names at the end of Waterlollies, it’s plain to see the outpouring of support, for which I was not prepared and am forever grateful.

If you’re interested in helping us out, stamping your name on the Dashkin game or taking away a little piece of Dashkin memorabilia, first of all, THANK YOU! (I smile-scream and squeeze you). Next, head over to our Kickstarter project right now and check it out, particularly the backer rewards in the right-hand column. Most importantly, if you tell your friends and help us spread the word, Bitey and I will visit you in your dreams.. and this time it won’t be a nightmare.

Dashkin Progress

Things have certainly changed and evolved over the course of this project, but the biggest change by far occurred just a few days ago. Our original sponsor no longer exists as the group of people with whom we set out to do business. We were kindly given two alternatives: put Dashkin on the shelf for several months to see how things pan out, or take our game to another sponsor. Considering the Dashkin-loving community is still waiting eagerly for news of a release date, we chose to cut and run. So for now, we’re completely independent again.

(edit: don’t get me wrong. If it weren’t for that original sponsor, we would have released an inferior game 2 months ago. The people there are fantastic and I’d work with them again in a second if I could. We have them to thank for the game we have now)

The first and most obvious option is to find a new sponsor. The alternative is to self-publish. The downside of the latter is that we don’t get paid upfront for our efforts thus far. It has now been 7 months since we started on Dashkin and the two of us have reluctantly begun to take on other work to pay some bills. This loses us a lot of momentum and also pushes back the release date. The upside of self-publishing is that we get full ownership and a game marked only with our own brands.

We’ll see where it goes from here now, but rest assured we’re both still working hard on getting this game finished and released.