TV 2.01 is stuck in production hell. It’ll be another 20-40 hours to get things thinged enough to render the first page of the next chapter, then another 20 to 60 to who knows to set up for 2.02 through 2.06. 2.07 through 2.15 are, fortunately, rendered and ready for line art.

The launch assets for this chapter are the timesink from hell. The fact that I quit smoking and haven’t ingested nicotine (first-hand, anyway) since January 2nd has complicated things, but the fact is I am seriously burned out on asset development and was even before that kicked me in the head.

I’ve sort of “budgeted” for this – I’ve said previously that TV.2 production would likely kick off in February and it looks like that’s going to hold. So I’m technically on schedule. I’m also at the point in which I feel like I’m technically scaling a cliff with my eyelids. It’ll be awesome when it’s done and rolling. Whenever that is. I plan to try to “dial it down” for TV.3 and TV.4 – this kind of work used to be fun but at this point I really need to stop with the uniques and start moving towards a Bethesda-style toolkit that can be continually repurposed for new environments.

Not that that’s a problem I’m facing at the moment, mind you – production has hung up on a one-off that has to look good, and decisions I made about production quality and the production values of Transitional Voices back in 2007 are holding things up. I’m holding things up, re-learning caffeine, re-learning focus, re-learning how to work and be productive and how to get things done without one stimulant effectively nullifying another.

Nine pages rendered, fifteen pages framed and lettered. Script revised some more, still has a couple of small-but-serious issues that need to be addressed. All of the boring-but-necessary page setup work is done; the next step is pages or stop, and I do not intend to stop. I hope to have a page up in February, and I hope to have the major environment for the first scene ready to go within the next few weeks. I want to be in serial production for ATC’s tenth anniversary, and that’s still a possibility.

TV.2 production start – Return To Color – is, in the immortal words of Porkins, “Almost there.”