We've Attached Grey DeLisle to Fate Saga!

We are excited to announce that Grey DeLisle has been signed on for the role of Bianca, Fate Saga's elven sorceress. Grey DeLisle is known in the animation industry as the voice behind many famous characters including Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender), Daphne (Scooby Doo), Lois Lane and Queen (Justice League).

We're still attaching great talent to our cast! Thank you all so much for your continued support! Check back frequently for updates!

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Johnny Yong Bosch has signed on

We are excited to announce that we have attached and signed Johnny Yong Bosch as the voice of Cain. Johnny Yong Bosch is known in the animation industry as the voice behind many famous characters including Kiba (Wolf's Rain), Vash the Stampede (Trigun) and Ichigo (Bleach).

Fate Saga is soon to add other amazing talent. Check back soon for more information!

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Curse

This is an awesome, belated Christmas gift from my dear friend, Tracy MacLauchlan, co-creator of The Taffetas.

"I wanted to give the idea that even though the character is standoffish, there is a lot of darkness beneath the surface." - Tracy, from her DeviantART entry.

Thank you so much, Tito! I love it!

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Manic Rori by Kevin Hobson

This fan art of Rori was a gift from Kevin Hobson - her wolf form mirroring the style of Monster Rancher. Rori's laughing rather manically here, an interesting break from her usual humorless self! Thanks so much, Kevin!

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The Duerian Magic School Exterior by Monty Bess

The Duerian Magic School (which will eventually be re-named) is the facility where Malachi teaches. The school is for anyone with special powers who struggle with controlling them (magic, psychic ability, even lycanthropy).

The student body mostly comprises of children since, by the time they reach adulthood, they're much more set in their ways and it's much harder to adapt. Malachi is the head professor and teaches the elite class.

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Fate Saga Episode 1 Concepts: Farm Animal Designs by Adrian Gonzalez-Roque

So Fate Saga's first episode includes farm animals. Here Adrian is trying to see how we can design the animals so that they fit into Fate Saga's environment, mesh stylistically with the characters and are both simplistic enough to animate but detailed enough to not feel too cartoony.




One thing I really like about Adrian's work here is how emotive the animals are, while relying much more on their posture than their eyes or facial expressions. It'll be hard to tell for sure how well the animals, environment and people mesh together until we do a concept illustration for the first episode, but here's where we're at for the animals so far!

Fun fact: Scott Smith does animal sounds and has been doing research on Ox sounds. This will eventually make for an interesting voice session!

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Laryngitis

I feel your pain, Cain. I feel your pain.

Last Friday, I caught a sudden bout of Laryngitis. My vocal chords felt like a giant, heavy ball of mucus and I couldn't talk for a few days. Luckily I was able to go to the doctor right away and was fine enough to get back to work on Monday (I teach Mondays and Wednesdays), but that weekend was mostly spent wasting away.

Then Tito and Jess (close friends of mine and co-creators of The Taffetas) surprised me with this adorable, gorgeous and hilarious comic as a get-well present and it made my whole weekend! Thank you so much, guys!

You can also see this comic along with Taffetas concept art (and jam!) on Tito's blog! Go check out their blogs and bask in their amazing artwork!

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My Little Buddy

This adorable piece was drawn a long while back (maybe a year ago?) by my talented friend and Taffetas' co-creator Tracy MacLauchlan! It's using Cyrus' old design and color scheme. I can't help but gush at how sweet and serene Cyrus looks here (Tracy has such a knack for expressions and posing!) - such a contrast to some of his more axe-crazy looks!


...like this one, which I drew probably around the same time period. It's interesting to look back on old artwork (whether it was done by me, Tracy or anyone else) and seeing how things develop across time. I can tell that this was before the pilot went into production because Cyrus has the old green/brown color scheme. I have a thing for earth tones.

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Lifepath

Ashley Sahler, the voice actress for Fate Saga's leading lady, Larkspur as well as the seductive sorceress, Bianca, has starred in a student short film called Life Path. Please check it out!

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Fate Saga Updates

It's been a long and hectic holiday season, opening to an equally hectic (but hopefully productive!) New Year. As you may know from the blog, Fate Saga has been chugging along, slowly but surely, as we work on concepts for the first season. Although we have gathered some interest from prospective companies, we are hard at work to find additional or major sponsorship so we can pick up the pace of production. I am also looking for ways to help make Fate Saga more self-sustaining, in the form of merchandising or incorporating other features (such as live stream or tutorials) into the posts. The merchandising I will look more into once the character redesigns are finished.

Between November and now, with the help of my crew members I've been focusing on tightening the plot, putting together scripts, and redesigning the cast. One blessing and curse of 2D is that your only limitations is the depth of the artist's drawing ability. So as my crew and I gain more experience as artists, we were confined by old designs. Once the model sheets are done, we can start focusing on official artwork for Fate Saga again - without having to worry about the designs suddenly becoming outdated.

Monty Bess (our environment concept artist) has been hard at work designing Fate Saga's world, and some of his brilliant work has been featured on the blog, with more on the way!

I have been lucky to have the help and critique of my crew members, colleagues and even our fans and voice actors, including Craig Helfer, Scott Smith, Celia Sullivan and Ashley Sahler! It has been great to get such feedback, and it's been helpful in tightening the new character designs and making sure that all of the characters look different from each other and yet fit together in the same world seamlessly. I want to extend a big thank you to Tracy MacLauchlan, Yesenia Carrero, Ochumilla Travieso, Kishia Houck, Jamie Lewallen and Megan Miller for their advice, critiques and well wishes during this time.

Here are some of the updates to look forward to in the next coming weeks/months:

• Model sheets for Rori's wolf and were-form, Larkspur and Cyrus. Possible model sheets for Malachi, Seiron, Drax, Armand, Bianca and Lukas, but once the main 4 heroes and Cyrus are done, we can start on some of the promotional artwork
• Animation tests with the new designs
• More fantastic environmental concept art of Fate Saga's landmarks by Monty Bess
  
• Episode synopsis for the first season, complete with concept illustrations
• Merchandise designs for this year's convention season
• Revamping the Pitch Book
• Revamping the blog itself

Thank you everyone for your interest, excitement and support! Lets make this a productive New Year!

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Guile Model Sheets

Guile's design hadn't changed much since the Fate Saga pitch to Warner Brothers back in March 2011. In preparation of the model sheets and to make sure that there weren't any design changes necessary, I drew test sketches, a comic, illustrations and did a test animation (more as a demonstration for the class I was teaching than as an official test, but why not kill two birds with one stone, right?)

His model sheets are a little different from Rori's and Cain's in that I didn't dedicate an entire page to his hand design, and instead kept it on the first page. This was because I didn't feel like his hand design was complicated enough to get into detail with.

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Bianca Firin' Up by Tracy MacLauchlan

A few weeks ago Jess, Tracy (the co-creators of The Taffetas) and I were doing a fun drawing session where we'd basically just make requests of each other and draw it. During the session, Tracy drew this awesome picture of Bianca based off of her recent lower cut (AKA skankier) redesign.

I love how sassy she looks!

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