Good Morning, Fam!

I take a deep breath as I write this ...not because of any anxiety but simply because I'm allowing myself to take one. It's been roughly four weeks of some very intensive, heads-down work...and know I get to say it...

Here's where the fun really starts.

Before we get to that, I have to share what it took to get here for those of you who haven't been able to follow the live streams. I promise this is the short version.

I set out a few weeks ago to actually find my art style, or at least its humble beginnings, and my character at the same time. And thus began this learning artist's ride on the struggle bus. A lot of failures, a lot of learning. 

Finally, I decided to back away and try a fresh approach. Something I hadn't considered until now: Of all the art I've consumed, where did I spend the most time? What did I enjoy the most? What could have some real impact on my art style, without feeling the urge or need to copy?

The answer was Dark Decco, the art style that made everthing so stylistic in the Tim Burton Batman movies as well as Batman: The Animated Series. Yeah, no surprises there. 

So I grabbed a bunch of reference images from a Google search and began drawing them freehand. Outside of needing to dial in some proportions, my hand literally took right to the art style.

So once again I gave my self-portrait another go, and it happened.

First me, then Aria, and now Richard as you can see from the image above. Things have been snowballing in the art department.

The characters won't be 100% complete until we have all four of them on screen together and can make some final design choices and refinements. And there will certainly be a few adjustments as I bring them together. 

That brings us to now.

And now, as I mentioned above, is where the fun starts. With the art style truly decided and in motion, we can now start to work on everything else. This also means I have some serious decisions to make in terms of how we communicate going forward, as well as where we focus our content. 

So here's what we'll do...

Going forward, we're taking the full stance of being Game Developers, with the other projects such as the YouTube series and live streams supporting that project. There are actually several reasons for this, but to keep this brief: It will work the best this way and create the best workflow for ALL of the projects. 

A lot of our communication channels are going to light up, and I'll post on the blog as we get going on different platforms, and what we'll be doing on each one.

Please know you can count on a couple of things to start up quickly...

• More Blog Posts: What you're reading right now will become the main source of detailed information and updates on how things are going. This will include both Game Dev updates as well as general updates for the community. Also, as the character work starts to ramp up, please know the blog is one place where we'll always keep it real. 
• Member Exclusive Sneak Peeks and Bonus Content: Between the characters developing and the YouTube series launching, there is going to be a lot of sneak peeks and bonus content coming for Members. I'll give details on the YouTube series below.
• Agents of Chaos: After Dark: This new series launches this Friday on our main YouTube channel! Battle and I have been quietly cooking up a new series where we play 80s - 00s PC Games and "play it where it lies." This means very little editing or quick cuts, and a whole lot more improv and gameplay for 20 minutes at a time. We've already recorded and edited 16 episodes, so I'll post a little later this week on exact times. 
• Agents of Chaos Member Bonus:  Battle and I have been recording Member exclusive videos at the beginning of many of our recoding sessions. We've titled this series "Please Stand By" and we'll drop them along with early releases of the videos, available before they hit YouTube. Again, watch the blog this week for more details!

And there's a lot more... including the upcoming comic, another potential Agents YouTube series, the new Merch lines, and several upcoming live stream enhancements ...but this is exactly why I mentioned the blog is coming alive. There's going to be a lot to show and tell, and a lot more fun community involvement.

Fam, I'm insanely excited for all of this and what the next phase is going to bring. And I'm just as excited to be doing this with all of you. Thank you for your patience while I worked through a very heavy compression point so we could get to the good stuff. 

Have questions? Feel free to ask them in the Discord or right here on the post! 

With all my Love, Fam!

Jamie