Murder Drones Intermission Archives

MD Intermission: Scene 9 Thumbnails

These thumbnails are way less detailed than usual, but tbh this is how thumbnails should look anyways. I'm just extra as hell.

I also wanted to talk a bit about this scene from Intermission which is my favorite one of the entire episode. You know when you write a story and there's one scene in particular you really want to get to? This one the one for me. This scene was an exercise of being able to convey an exchange between two characters with as little words as possible. Scripting this scene was especially hard because I kept having to try to figure out how to write a silent conversation. Eventually I gave up trying to script it.

Instead, I sat in front of my bedroom mirror and just acted with myself. You can't talk, so try to get your sentiment across only with your body language and expressions. I think as an artist it's really useful to watch yourself and how your body moves when trying to express feeling. There were some things my face would do that I didn't notice until I started watching myself. After I acted out that whole thing by myself, I sat down and drew what I saw from myself.

I believe silent moments are just as important as ones with dialogue. Especially here where I have two characters who don't know how to talk about their feelings very well, if at all. I wanted them to talk, but I also knew there's no way they healthily could've had a full-on conversation. So instead, they sit in silence and have a tacit exchange with the only words they say to each other being "I'm sorry".

I'm happy this scene was received so well. It was my favorite to board because it carries so much emotion.

Also how long did intermission take? And how did you pace yourself? I have adhd and I’m so terrified of burnout from hyperfixating on the projects I have is why I’m asking!

I really enjoyed Intermission, I hope you are taking a break and I hope to see more projects, Murder Drones or not from you in the future!

Thank you so much!! I'm happy you enjoyed it!!

I also deal with ADHD, so I may be able to provide some helpful advice.

When it comes to storyboarding, what I found is very important is is consistency and having a plan. Before I begin boarding, I break my project down into smaller steps. First, I write a loose script in my notes app of what I want to board. Nothing fancy, just random ideas that come to me. The lack of fancy formatting helps alleviate the pressure of commitment.

Once that's done and I feel like I have the bones of my boards, I proceed to make thumbnails. This can be on paper or in my drawing program.

Here are some rough thumbnails of the first scene from Intermission. I just wanted to get a general idea of what I wanted to board. And once again- the formatting is sloppy, but the lack of formatting makes it feel more laxxed :3 Once you have your boards mapped out, then you can finally start boarding! Just follow the map you made. You don't have to follow it to a T, but I find it's better to have a guide to follow rather than shooting in the dark.

As for consistency, as someone who deals with ADHD, hyperfixation tends to drive me. So with that in mind, for Intermission I made boarding part of my daily routine. I told myself I would board every day. How much? However much I'm feeling like. That can vary from a single 5 minute drawing, to 8 hours of boarding. Listen to your body. If it says it's not feeling it today, then only draw one quick thing. If you're in the zone, keep going! Progress is progress either way. It's just super important to maintain some form of consistency, and to not make the project feel like a chore.

...

...And then SHIT! I mean friend! YOU and your beautiful team filled me with love for the first 8 minutes, tore me apart, tore me to pieces, put me in a blender and then put me back together with a hug.

I mean shit! Uzi with the guilt of having hurt the only people in her life who did ANYTHING good for her, N in the middle, "either I hurt her or she kills us" the hug he gave her with the sincerest relief that she was okay, because he couldn't bear to lose her.

SHIT V reflecting her old self who looks her in the eyes and apologizes for her mistake. The empathy between V and Uzi (they are my favorite ship, in general I like the idea of the three together but having Uzi in the middle, personally for me V and N are like brothers) and then V breaking up because she is alone in the world and N is practically the only thing it has... God, I don't have enough words to express how many things I felt with that chapter, as a lover of animation and someone who wants to work in the medium I tell you with all my heart that I admired you and I love the way you (again) finished me off! Please take care of yourself and keep doing what you love, because even if it is in the most superficial way possible, I will support you ⁠♡

:,))) Thank you so much for these kind words. They mean so much to me. Everyone's does. I'm a writer at heart and I wanted to do all i could to show the love and tribulations the main Murder Drone trio face. I love showing the humanity in characters, whether it be through pain or love. I hope to keep making stories that make people happy.

RAAAAH THANK YOU NYEHEHE

Your Voice of V is so Charming

Ghost Voice is soo Adorable

Tomota almost sounded like N to me

It's sooooo Gooood!!!

MD: INTERMISSION [SC5 Thumbnails and N Dancing GIF]

From the User Manual Anon

Blinks

Okay maybe I should rephrase that initial post AKSJSJS

Admittedly, for context, I can be a bit hard on myself, so I defaulted to language that was liiiiittle intense. I shouldn’t say the first script is BAD but rather it’s incredibly rough. Which once again, is okay! Cuz improvement was made (after many…MANY drafts HAHA

And actually I was so busy standing on my silly soapbox that I forgot to mention I detail I wanted to-

When I finally gave Ghost my script to beta read and give me feedback on, her biggest note was that I made Uzi too emotionally intelligent. While she is a smart girl, she’s still a little emotionally constipated. I had to dumb her down a bit in that regard. Make her less self aware. Ghost said the way Uzi spoke sounded like she went to therapy which felt weird. I think something that was difficult was trying to write characters who don’t know how to properly convey emotions in a healthy way.

First Script versus Final

The first script is rough. I'm not saying that as an excuse, to put myself down, or to look for consolation. I'm saying this as a matter of fact. After surfing A03 on New Years Eve at 3 AM I decided I wanted to get back into fanfic writing. However, I realized that storyboarding a Murder Drones short would be even better!

A short.

This was originally going to be 3 minutes long I kid you not. I opened my notes app, sleep deprived as all hell, and threw so much crap at the wall for the sake of making my brain vomit out as much as it could. I made sure to not edit any of this either. This is the untouched original script from 6 months ago, dents, fissures, and all

Why am I saying all this? Because I know I have a lot of baby writers who follow me. I want to make a point to say that making something rough is the first step to making something even remotely good. I cannot stress this enough. So many of you only ever see the finished product of a project in all its polished glory. I really want you to know that making imperfect things is okay. You can't grow unless you start off super rough. Even the final product isn't perfect!! And that's okay!! It's! okay! to! not! be! perfect!!

I'm emphasizing this so much because I wish more people told me this when I was first starting out as a writer. Being bad at something isn't the evil so many people say it is.

Let yourself be bad at the thing you want to get better at!! It's okay!!

I even had to make changes to the final script in the boards- the final animatic doesn't follow it to a T. Please let yourself grow and change. It's okay I promise you. I'm still learning too, and I hope this can offer you some comfort wherever you are in your writing journey.

I really hope Glitch and Liam see it. That would be very nice 😭

This may be obvious by now, but V and Uzi are my favorite pairing in the show. They’re messy in so many ways and I found that so intriguing. I’ll go more into depth about my process on writing V in another post.

I’ll admit that a lot of my fascination with these two is the result of me kind of just sitting in my head thinking about them. The show doesn’t provide us with a lot of V and Uzi time, which I can understand given the fact that they’re on a considerably tight budget. They have to be economical with how they choose to spend screen time. With that said though, I did want more of them so badly. Badly enough that I decided “Screw it, if I want something I’ll do it myself.”

Did I dedicate 6 months of my life towards this project just for the sake of seeing V and Uzi interact? Yes. Yes I did.

Am I delusional? Of course I am. I’m a writer.