whisperingaspenslog

[whisperingaspenslog]

Name change!

The more time went on and more of the story got written, 'whispering pines' made less and less sense. I was in denial about needing to change it for a long time. But better now than when the show is already out, right?

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Poster for my animatic series! Wasn’t originally a poster, but I figured the logo would work well here. xD This is meant to be the flat version of a standee scene, which I can hopefully start testing soon!

The shows about Payton (right), a schizophrenic trying hard to mask and Pizookie (left), a [redacted] trying hard to mask. Everyone who seems to have known them for a while seems to hate their guts.

Explanations for the name and trees (as well as a lore dump) below the cut

There is a reason the shows called whispering pines when there’s aspens on the cover. The whole mountain is covered in pine trees, well everywhere except a certain area. The aspens there are a big part of Pizookie’s (left) backstory, it’s essentially all he has left from back then. Payton (right) went through something similar, while he was left with a few items, most were lost. (he recreated his most sentimental items from memory. He made sure to include the old stains and repairs he remembered from his old coat and old stuffed bat. Just realizing I really should’ve included one of them here. xD

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Beta readers needed for Whispering Pines Episode 1 script!

The final form of whispering pines:

Will eventually be a series of animatics of 12 minutes per episode. I’m going to make 6 episodes before deciding whether or not to continue. Color and background music are currently up in the air. Full animation and voice acting are not currently in the plans.

Currently in the scripting phase with 12 scripted pages per episode. (only episode 1 is fully written)

About the story:

Potential warnings:

Murder (nothing shown) Psychological trauma Fire trauma (past fire resulting in deaths) 'Scary' mental illnesses and disorders

The story

Centered around a costume design college located in a mountain town. As the new semester starts, new and old students seem to be on edge by the presence of one suspicious student.

Genre

My sister, after reading the script, described the genre as ‘absurdity-in-reality’ . I'm honestly not really sure what genre to class this as. After reading about different genres, it’d probably fit under the physiological drama or physiological comedy. Might also fit under urban fantasy if you view the character’s problems a certain way. Those genres all seem to cover the central theme anyways.

The help I need

What I mostly need is someone to read it over and tell me:

would you want to continue after the first episode

what you think is happening?

what do you think happened in the past?

what you think the characters problems are?

was it enjoyable as a script?

do you think it would be more or less enjoyable animated?

do feel confused about anything?

These characters all have visual designs. (pictured below) Most, if not all, will have their designs tweaked later or will be redesigned a bit to fit the story better. 

(yes these designs are a bit rough at the moment, For most of these characters, these designs are their first drafts)

If anyone's interested, please either message, reblog, comment etc.! Just anything to let me know you'd be fine if I started messaging you with links and asking questions.

I'm going to leave this open for two weeks. If no one shows any interest, then I'm just going to continue to the next step without the feedback. xD

If anyone is interested then you'll have a week after closing to give any feedback.

#beta request #beta reader #beta reader wanted #beta reader needed #beta reader request #writeblr #scriptwriting #animation #not sure what to tag #sorry if I'm polluting any of them

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And with that, all reoccurring characters from season 1 have been designed!

I will no doubt be doing a second draft of almost all of them at some point, but for story and boarding purposes, this is good enough.

#chracter design #concept art #original character

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NEW SYSTEM FOR GUAGING COMPLETION

I've made a notion template with a timeline of different stages.

There's 56 stages all with various tasks. I need to complete the current stage before seriously moving onto the next one. Completing tasks from a different stage accidentally is perfectly fine. I'm just not supposed to set a goal for that day to get any future tasks done.

This is the template if you'd like to see the plan:

Currently on stage 1:

STAGE 1

GENERAL

[x] episode 2 has basic plot and goals

[x] episode 1 has at least 3 scene summaries

CONCEPTS AND DESIGNS

[ ] episode 1 has all characters designed

Just need to design one more character before I can move on!

Feel free to use my template! I created it since all the schedules and things I was trying to use made feel like failure. I'm chronically ill, I shouldn't have to feel like a failure for needing to rest. With the stages system I'll complete tasks when I'm able, no repercussions from a schedule.

#animatic series #production plan #notion template

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The almost all the side characters have 1st design drafts!

Giga was originally a girl but then I realized the group would be 3 girls, 2 enbies, and 1 dude, and that just seemed too off balance for me. xD

Pizookie- The always confused one, also the one you probably shouldn't piss of. Second oldest of the friend group

Freya- The "I don't care if you're coming with me or not but I'm going to do what I want even if it's stupid"

Giga- a "you do you but I'm totally going to laugh at your idiocy" kind of guy. Selectivly mute (not sure if I'm getting the term right, feel free to correct me) Usually communicating through sign or text to speech. The most noise you'll get out of them is bat-like squeaks and chirps. The oldest of the friend group.

Payton- The spacy friend who seems to do weird and suspicious things all the time

Eloise- The over protective mom friend

Marvin- the "let's do stupid shit, it'd fun!" friend

Verna- ugh, kids these days. Eloise's grandmother as well as Pizookie's and Payton's clueless boss.

#chracter design #concept art

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CURRENT OVERALL PROGRESS

Significant changes have been made! The number of episodes has been cut in half! From 36 to 18. Realized there was no way of ever finishing 36 episodes, even if I left them all thumbnails, in my lifetime. Hopefully it doesn't end up feeling too rushed this way!

WRITING

Full script per page:

Season 1: 13/ 72

Season 2: 7/ 72

Season 3: 7/ 72

Summary per episode

Season 1: 6/ 6

Season 2: 6/ 6

Season 3: 3/ 6

Have plot points per episode

Season 1: 6/ 6

Season 2: 6/ 6

Season 3: 4/ 6

SIDE CHARACTER DESIGN

Season 1: 1.5/ 5

Giga: NOT STARTED

Eloise: DONE MIGHT REDO

Verna: DONE

F Roommate: NOT STARTED

M Roommate: NOT STARTED

Season 2: 6/ 6

Witch Doctor: NOT STARTED

Tech witch 1: NOT STARTED

Tech witch 2: NOT STARTED

Goat ghost: NOT STARTED

Season 3: 3/ 6

Tech High priestess: NOT STARTED

Payton’s brother: NOT STARTED

Payton’s in-law: NOT STARTED

Kitchen High priestess: NOT STARTED

Kitchen witch 1: NOT STARTED

Kitchen witch 2: NOT STARTED

Spearmint: DONE

CURRENT STORYBOARD PROGRESS (THUMBNAILS)

Season 1: 2/ 216

EP 1: 2/36

EP 2: 0/36

EP 3: 0/36

EP 4: 0/36

EP 5: 0/36

EP 6: 0/36

Season 2: 0/ 216

EP 1: 0/36

EP 2: 0/36

EP 3: 0/36

EP 4: 0/36

EP 5: 0/36

EP 6: 0/36

Season 3: 0/ 216

EP 1: 0/36

EP 2: 0/36

EP 3: 0/36

EP 4: 0/36

EP 5: 0/36

EP 6: 0/36

#progress update

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Scenes 2 and 3 of episode 1

These are meant to be more thumbnails rather than the full animatics. Which is why the first 2/3 is lower quality. The file was originally tiny before I changed the way I make these.

I'll get the first scene done eventually! >:0

#animatic #storyboard

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Thumbnail sketches for future scenes

Possible (?) standee merch

#scene concept

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CURRENT WRITING PROGRESS

Full script per page:

Season 1: 13/144

Season 2: 7/144

Season 3: 7/144

Summary per episode

Season 1: 8/12

Season 2: 9/12

Season 3: 5/12

Have plot points per episode

Season 1: 12/12

Season 2: 12/12

Season 3: 5/12

#scripts

[whisperingaspenslog]

CURRENT WRITING PROGRESS

Full script per page Season 1: 8/144 Season 2: .5/144 Season 3: 7.5/144

Summary per episode Season 1: 12/12 Season 2: 10/12 Season 3: 4/12

Have plot points per episode Season 1: 9/12 Season 2: 10/12 Season 3: 3/12

[whisperingaspenslog]

Welcome to the Whispering Aspens Progress blog!

Here's were I post most of the work I do on this animatic series! There are potential spoilers ahead!

What is this project?

Whispering Aspens is an animated series that will be kept at most, as colored animatics. As this project is run completely by one (chronically ill) person, full animation is just not possible.

Completing this project might not even be possible, but being chronically ill and unable to work, I need something to make life feel fulfilling.

Trilled-llama is my main blog if you're curious.

This is premise of the series:

              Payton acts pretty strangely, if anything seems even slightly weird, he will ignore it until someone else acknowledges it first. Typically coming off as extremely rude or just oblivious.

              Pizookie also acts kind of weird, strange things just tend to happen around them with no explanation. For example, the lights tend to flicker if their upset and any electronic device they work on will always be left with strange functions the device shouldn’t physically be capable of having.

Potential Spoilers below the cut

              Eventually we know why they act so strange. Payton is schizoaffective and is actually quite observant, he just doesn’t always know what’s real or not and Pizookie is an witch with magic powers who’s been living in the woods with other witches. They’d both been hiding these things for fear of scaring people away.

So essentially, Pizookie realizes Payton is clearly noticing their magic but thinks he’s just cool with it. Meanwhile, Payton assumes he’s hallucinating all of it, and realizes that Pizookie has probably figured that out, but they don’t mind.

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CURRENT WRITING PROGRESS

Full script per page

Season 1: 8/144

Season 2: .5/144

Season 3: 7.5/144

Summary per episode

Season 1: 6/12

Season 2: 4/12

Season 3: 3/12

Have plot points per episode

Season 1: 6/12

Season 2: 7/12

Season 3: 4/12

[whisperingaspenslog]

A bat mascot type character in the whispering pines universe. They're essentially a more goth version of mascots like pusheen and hello kitty, they exist to look cute and sell merchandise. Payton of course loves this little guy.

Not quite sure what to name them, thinking something like batty butler or something. Yea I'll keep thinking for now though xD

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#prop design

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Map of the town. Hopefully it's clear enough that it's in the mountains. Not sure if the town should be called whispering pines or not.

#concept art

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Witch information

All witches are born fully animals to animal parents but as they age they turn more human. If a witch dies of old age they will look completely human.

As their name implies, all witches have some form of magical ability. 

Witch’s amulets are given to them at a young age. Witches will naturally latch onto an idea and can often not stop thinking about it, often neglecting their needs. The amulets allow them to switch thoughts more easily. Without the amulet the thought will consume them and their body will look more like their magic type the longer they go without it.

Hair where a human’s would typically be are replaced by a material in the witch’s magic type. (For example: a fire witch might have fire hair or a tech witch might have a glitchy pixelated look for their hair)

A witch's magic type changes over time with the individual's interests. Magic type is something the individual witch is highly passionate about and loves sharing their skills with others.

Magic in this world typically consists of contracts between a witch and spirit. Spirits typically ask for items or favors in exchange for their help. 

After the witches magic type develops, their body will form a defense mechanism with their magic type as a base. This defense mechanism wards off anyone if the right terms are met. (ex. A tech witch whos body is electrified but only released when touched, or a kitchen witch’s body producing a pleasant aroma when crying) 

However, the witch themself has a hard time controlling this power. If they can manage to control it, it will still be present to a certain degree.

There are theories about what witches truly are but none of them have very much evidence to support them. These theories range from a human reincarnation gone wrong to witches being part spirit having the most evidence. The evidence being: both spirits and witches can change appearance from simply willing it and spirits being more willing to talk to a witch than any other living being.

Witches are typically pretty rare. Only about 50 witches to 100,000 humans. About 4,048,419 on earth in total

The number of witches born is most likely actually extremely high but due to the nature of their growth and strange behavior, many are either abandoned, killed, or tortured to death. Among the ones that manage to escape and find safety in a coven, the trauma they faced before often leads to poor mental and physical health, resulting in suicides and other deaths.

Witches cannot reproduce naturally very often. Two specific conditions MUST be met in order to produce offspring. Which are: both parents must be the same species of animal and very close in age if not the exact same. Due to the nature of witches' rarity, these conditions have only been met a few times throughout history. The children however were not like regular witches, when born, they were the same % of human to animal as the parents but at the growth stage of a newborn. It is unknown if these children had any of their own.

Due to the above, witches tend to see sex as not needed. Many go on puberty blockers and often get reproductive organs removed. 

Witch terms:

Home coven: the coven that found you and raised you

Chosen coven: the coven that you chose to to live with and they welcomed you to stay 

Sibling: any witch that has the same home coven as you

Counsin: a witch who’s chosen coven is your home coven

Child / kid: The abandoned child the coven you reside in took in

And thats everything about witches for now.

#world building