With the final script ready what was left was to find a recording studio that is open from 22:00h until the middle of the night, or actually even longer, so I could record the audio with the other voice actors together.

Of course not in the same studio, but all of us in our studios, connected via video chat doing our lines. The reason I wanted to do this is I felt it would be easier to do if you have someone to talk to, adjust your interpretation of the script to whoever you’re talking to and to be able to make quick fixes right in the studio instead of having to re-record some parts if you find out afterwards that it just doesn’t work well.

One challenge was of time zones, considering that one voice actor is in Texas (MDT – UTC -6), the other elsewhere in the US (EST – UTC -5), one is in London (GMT – UTC) and I’m in Tokyo (JST – UTC+9). Eventually Nasim in Texas couldn’t make it for recording session, so we figured if Ginger could get up early in the US and start at 8:00 am, Shogo in London will be doing a lunch session and I’ll have to find my studio that’ll be open from 22:00–01:00.

And this is the beauty of living in Tokyo, the largest metropole in the world: even in the residential area where I live, there are about 5 small studios in the vicinity, that I can reach in 10 minutes by bicycle. All of them equipped with some serious gear, all of them very affordable.

The Cast

The voice actors haven’t changed, but the roles they’re taking have slightly.

Shogo Miyakita, a voice actor from London with a rich, deep voice will do the voice of Rudwin in British English. He’ll also be taking on some smaller parts like the Shadywoods innkeeper and Mossbeard the boss of the woodwose.

Ginger Sue, a very versatile voice actress originally from Texas, will be reading the part of Procella, one of the main protagonists in the series.

Nasim Benelkour, based in Dallas, Texas will be the voice of Leopold Hoffart, leader of the warlock gang and one of the antagonists of the episode.

I’ll be doing the voices of Frank and Humbug, two protagonists, and for all the riff-raff that’s left over, due to lack of budget.

What’s Next?

First of all now that I have all the recorded audio, I need to edit it, cut it, organize it, so I can setup all the takes in Final Cut Pro as ‘Auditions’ and switch between them as needed. Then I’m planning to assemble all the audio with the best takes into something akin to a ‘radio play’, to figure out the timing and make sure the overall length doesn’t exceed 22 minutes.

Next I’ll be starting to draw my storyboard. I’ll be doing that in a very minimalist thumbnail size, just to figure out where to place characters and how many angles/backgrounds I really need. I won’t use it for pitching to other animators, or lock the scene for other designers (budget restrictions force me to do it all by myself), so I can do a lot of the things just in my head that I would otherwise have to spend time writing down and explaining to people.

Once the storyboards are done, I’ll be creating final background artwork and a few more final character drawings for the smaller roles, I might intermix that with completely animating out some scenes, to keep things interesting, so I can switch back and forth between background artwork, rigging, and animating to avoid things becoming too monotonous and exhausting for me.

How long is this going to take? From my experience, we’re probably talking 5–6 months, depending on how busy I am otherwise. You know with doing work that is actually paid, and having a life and all these things that I do besides creating animation in what little spare time I have left…