Things have eased up a bit more for Fred over the last couple of weeks, and he was able to get some good work done, including a couple of comics and some character work for the visual novel. You can read more in the Rant that Fred posted to the Megatokyo website here. It’s nice to having things moving again, and with Fred’s son starting school again soon, we’re hoping to get some real momentum going.

Fred drew all of the Erikas for Piro’s first day at Megagamers. Erika is wearing cosplay of Mai Kawasumi from Kanon there. Nice to finally see Erika in the game.

Fred also drew a few more Yuki, Asako, Mami, and Tsubasas where we thought they would help. The way we have been working is that Fred created thumbnail storyboards for how he wanted scenes to look, then I script that into Renpy and we give him a ToDo list of basic character drawings, backgrounds, etc. Fred draws those up and adds some additional poses or expressions as ideas strike him. We integrate those into the game, and then go back and add a few more where we all think they’re needed. It seems to be working reasonably well so far.

Fred also got started drawing the Pings for the first day at Megagamers and the following night and morning. To the right of that Twitch screenshot, you can see Fred’s current ToDo list. We have actually reached the end of Book 1 for the Piro canon route with the ToDo list, which feels pretty good. Fred still needs to actually draw all that stuff — tons of work to do yet, but at least this is a milestone that is in sight now.

Fred also storyboarded the OP for the Piro route. DarkMorford is going use AfterEffects to produce the whole thing and add special effects and whatnot. The above gif was a quick sample that Fred put together to show DarkMorford the kind of thing he was looking for.

Unfortunately, development on the BakaQuake scene has hit a bit of a snag. Java had been planning to do it using the Quake 3 engine for Machinima but has struggled to find a decent editor that he can use. We will have to change gears and try another approach.

As always, you can watch Fred work on the visual novel, comic, and other stuff live on Twitch. Join us for the live draws. They’re a lot of fun.

Sorry this is taking so long. Thank you all very much for your patience and your support.