Delay + two little previews of little ponies licking things

Hi everybody!

What:

I’ve been doing 12 hour days for a week to get the upcoming animation ready for release this month, but I can’t make it. 95 % of the necessary work is done though. Here’s the stuff I still need to do:

• Sound effects (I’ll rush them in a day or so)
• One scene needs much work still (maybe 1-2 days)
• Some details/backgrounds/fluids/expressions (idk, a couple of days?)
• Fixing errors I can only see in the final render (1 day I should hope, I have some problems with characters’ eyes flashing and I’m not sure why 🤔)
• Proper intro and outro if I have time. Not sure if they are necessary.
• I need to draw fluffy hooves for ~25 ponies... 😐 oh joy, can't wait for it.

To be honest, I could keep adding things and polish for another month, but  I fear people don't like waiting. I want to get this done as soon as possible, but I still want it to be good enough. So eh, a week or so, maybe?

If you have strong opinions about this, comment or send me a message.

Why:

• I spent too much time on some unnecessary things, when I should have prioritized others. Even though I get paid for drawing horse porn, I’m not a trained professional. I’m still learning, and I apologize for screwing up the schedule.
• This is the most complicated animation I’ve ever done. I can’t see the exact number, but I I’m well past 10 000 nodes (=~layers) at this point. That also makes Toon Boom more laggy that it’s ever been before. Even with only one scene enabled at a time, I get 10-30 second freezes every couple of minutes. Every time I select, edit or move pegs/colour palette, the software lags for a few seconds between any clicks or mouse movements. :D I’m gonna upgrade my RAM from 16 to 32 GB soon and see if it makes a difference (it should, considering TB takes 12 GB of RAM now, and my RAM is 97% full when I have the scene opened).
• Rendering time is ~20 hours. I can render previews at ¼ resolution which takes ~3 hours and helps a lot.
• The head model still isn’t as good as I’d like. Especially after seeing the movie I’m starting to question how much I should redesign it.

PS. The movie was honestly better than I expected. Although I have to say it felt a bit rushed towards the end. I really hope the upcoming show keeps up the quality, and we’re in for something awesome.

PPS. Having cutie marks only on the right side makes them look like blank flanks and I hate it.