Dear Insane Children,
I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend wherever you are! Here in Shanghai, we celebrated Lucky's 100 Days and birthdays for myself and Yan's mom. Which made it a busy weekend full of babies and balloons. Yay!
Back in the Asylum...
Crowd Design Delay
We're moving our next Crowd Design Session to Th...
2019-12-16 15:59:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
American here from The Future in Shanghai. It's Thursday here and I've managed to get a TON of work done on Pirate Jam planning. Yarg! Updated the Planning Documents, made some improvements to our Participant Agreement, and worked out a roughly accurate route for the 2020 adventure. Blimey!
2019-12-12 03:19:53 +0000 UTC
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Dear Insane Children,
A couple of quick updates from Hatter's Domain for you this morning.
First up (top image), Omri sends over the "final" version of the new Alchemy Dress. This is what we would see Alice wearing as she enters into Hatter's Domain. I like the addition of the Queen's Gift (the Queen of Hearts asks Alice to carry a "gift...
2019-12-10 03:19:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
It's been an "insane" day for me... I had planned to spend most of the day signing art prints with the world's cutest signing assistant...
But ended up fending off a flood of copyright claims against my "Alice: Madness Returns" Let's Play v...
2019-12-04 17:02:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
A reminder that Crowd Design Session #22 will start at 6PM PST TODAY.
Join us over on the Discord Server!
Don't be late!
From Shanghai with Discord,
-American
2019-12-03 01:17:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
There's so much going on, I don't even know where to start!
New Artist Joins The Asylum
Dario Marzadori is a freelance concept artist from Italy who produces lovely illustrations with an emphasis on locations, architecture, and "things."
His test sketches were focused on the Queen's Castle and turned out...
2019-12-02 08:15:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in a place where that makes sense! And to those in the other places, we can still give thanks! I give thanks (HUGE THANKS) to you, our Insane Children, for making all this possible. Not just the art, story, and design work we're doing - but the community, the collective creation, and the shared feeling of accompli...
2019-11-29 09:15:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
I've been doing a lot of thinking about PTSD and Transformation. And much of this thinking - as with much of my creative output in recent years - draws on a personal encounter with Chaos I experienced a few years back. I won't go into detail other than to say these events resulted in a complete breakdown for me - emotionally, psychologically, and physically. Fo...
2019-11-27 03:37:30 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Happy Off With Turkey Head Week! How's everyone doing? Lots of people traveling home for the holidays? Looks like a "weather bomb" about to hit the USA. Everyone stay safe out there. Here in China, we're planning a small family dinner - and, yes, we have turkey! - which will be Lucky's first Thanksgiving. Awww.
Creative Dissolve
... 2019-11-27 01:09:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children
Font Lord here again with the results of both the Patreon and Public surveys about what pins are most desirable.
Honestly, I felt a little silly making 2 pics about this due to how similar they are, but hey ho, here we go...
The approval rating written next to each one shown as a percentage.
The one you most want to kill highlighted in red.
The top 3 ...
Dear Insane Children
Font Lord here, taking some time from walking the grounds of Font Manor to give you all a little update on the current results of the enamel pin survey.
From almost 400 votes cast in total, we have...
By a country mile, option D is the most unpop...
Dear Insane Children,
We have TEN PINS designed by Jen to choose from.
We need FOUR for the Main Set. And we need ONE for the Patreon Exclusive.
And then there were nine. We need to kill off a couple of pindians!
To help with the selection process I've created a survey w...
2019-11-22 15:59:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
As our art/design team turn their attention to Hatter's Domain we'll start to explore elements of the story, visuals, and design you'll find there.
Joey sends over an illustration of Hatter's Domain *before* the explosion which blew it to bits. This provides a foundation for the area around his domain and his workshop - a mixture of...
2019-11-21 04:16:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
I have several different Patreon updates drafted - one talking about the Enamel Pins, one talking about PTSD and Alchemy, and another one talking about Hatter's Domain... trying to get them done! But life keeps throwing distractions at me. For example, a huge amount of time today was spent on printing,...
2019-11-20 08:55:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
It was not an easy task but our mods (thanks AsteriaVisual and Magus!) managed to piece together a video for this week's Crowd Design Session.
If you missed it live - or just want to listen to it again - click THIS LINK to check it out over on my YouTube Channel.
In thi...
2019-11-15 01:07:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
A parting shot from The Queen of Hearts as we leave her realm and move forward into the Mad Hatter's Domain.
Omri sends over the Throne Room illustration (main image above) which he says we should use as an Art Print. And so we'll do that! This will be the Art Print for November... as in NOW.
If you're interested in this...
2019-11-13 06:02:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
As you're aware we've got Jennifer working on a collection of Enamel Pins which we'll offer as a "Set of 4 + 1 Exclusive Pin" here on Patreon and then as just the "Set of 4" over on Mysterious. Final numbers of pins and the "exclusive" details are TBD... as are the selection of pins on offer.
Another interesting pin design from Jen ...
2019-11-12 01:35:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
As we continue our exploration of the story, places, and people of Alice: Asylum, we now enter into The Mad Hatter's Domain. This area is representative of the "Bargaining" stage in Alice's PTSD.
Over on the Asylum Wiki we have a few notes scr...
2019-11-11 02:42:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Alex sent along an exploration of a Boss Fight based on The Queen + Judgment. I thought you all might like a peek into the creative process back-and-forth and so share our exchange here...
Of this he writes:
A while ago I was asked to look into exploring game mechanics and attack patterns for the Final boss battle in ... 2019-11-11 01:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
One of the themes I discussed while at the recent Patreon Assembly in Los Angeles was the idea of Missteps as Content. And how this is a radical notion in a world of glitzy product launches, review embargos, and Rotten Tomato's faked freshness.
... 2019-11-05 07:50:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
It's 3AM in Los Angeles but I'm awake because my brain still thinks I'm in Shanghai where it's 7PM... so I'm up waiting for the sun to rise so I can head to LAX and catch a flight back to Shanghai.
Patreon Assembly was a lot of fun. I met tons of other Patreon Creators and people from Patreon plus our friends from Backerkit. I even bumped into artis...
2019-11-03 11:24:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Get ready for a Halloween Special Live Stream over on YouTube! Woo!
Hit THIS LINK to join us at 6PM PST on October 30th (9AM HKT on the 31st).
During ...
2019-10-30 06:59:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
As we continue our exploration of the Queen's Domain we linger a moment within the walls of Judgment. Omri sends along an updated variation on The Courthouse, which reflects our comments from last week. This new version is more ordered, clean, and purposeful - yet also manages to capture the labyrinthine nonsense we often see in overly-ordered ...
2019-10-28 03:01:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
If you've ever spent hours trying to open a bank account or dealing with the Department of Motor Vehicles then you'll know the meaning of "Kafkaesque." Omri sent along an image this morning which explores one possibility for the interior of the Courthouse we'll visit in the Queen of Heart's Realm. And it inspired me to respond with an alternate suggestion for h...
2019-10-25 01:54:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Omri sends along early concept sketches for a "Knave of Hearts" character we might find (and fight) in the Queen of Hearts domain. Of this idea he says,
Knave of hearts in the original Alice in wonderland story stole the tarts and Alice was blamed for doing it.
i think he can be a cool mini-boss. in h... 2019-10-16 00:23:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Fall officially arrived in Shanghai with "Qiu Feng" (autumn wind) which we felt strongly yesterday. It blew away the last remnants of summer's warmth and put us on our way towards winter. Brrrr.
I am not a fan of winter in Shanghai. It's a cold damp affair with very ...
2019-10-15 01:41:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
In this Halloween month of tricking and treating we have a special treat just for you...
Pumpkin Carving Templates!
These were inspired by the Cheshire Cat pumpkin in Omri's "Hallowed Alice" illustration.
And our Insane Ch...
2019-10-11 23:18:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Do you know what fills me with RAGE? The YouTube creator interface - specifically the part dedicated to setting up live stream events. ARG! Frustration!
Serenity now. Serenity now. Serenity now.
I've worked through the kinks and set up a Live Stream event for tomorrow at 9AM Hong Kong Time - 6PM PST on Wednesda...
2019-10-09 03:12:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Our favorite month is here! It's Halloween! Woowooowowowoooo!
Among all the spooky things we love about Halloween there's a special tradition here in The Asylum... 2 for 1 Art Print Month! Yay!
How's it work? Glad you asked!
Everyone at $75 for the month of October will recieve two pre-selected art prints. Those are
Dear Insane Children,
Golden Week 2019 is coming to an end here in Shanghai. While China celebrated "70 Years of Communism in the PRC" we hid out at home and played with the baby. Lucky did give us an excuse to venture outside during the holiday - he had a one-month checkup with the doctor. They weighed and measured him, recorded his movements, and gave him a stamp ...
2019-10-07 01:16:35 +0000 UTC View Post
