Writing

My vision for Loose Canon was to emulate the energy and pacing of an animated television show. I studied screenwriting books (How to Write for Animation, by Jeffery Scott; Save the Cat, by Blake Snyder; and Directing the Story, by Francis Glebas, among others) and rewatched beloved cartoons and animes to take notes. I divided the novel into six "episodes": the first five episodes consist of three acts, and the special finale episode I wrote in four acts.

The narrative follows Spark and Vahaadi's misadventures as they tangle with the effects of supposedly "fictional" worlds colliding. In a "monster of the week" style format, each episode features the tropes of different genres bleeding together, which Spark and Vahaadi must race to combat. 

I completed the bulk of the outlining and first draft as part of the National Novel Writing Month challenge in 2014 and spent the next three years refining with the critiques of alpha readers and beta readers. Don Miles, Kristina Kugler, and Jace Whatcott edited the final manuscript. 

Character Design

Concurrent to the writing, I worked on visual designs for the characters. Spark and Vahaadi were mostly realized before this work began, but required adapting from their original contexts to the new story.

I designed supporting characters as they emerged in the manuscript. Early on, I saw the possibility of building references to different types of media into the "loretreader" characters to represent the genre of story they originated from. Spark's bold colors and sharp edges are reminiscent of the action bubbles of comic books. Vahaadi's tapered curves and rolled up carpet call to mind a scroll of calligraphy. With this in mind, I designed Elweyn, a wise owl-cat who serves as a mentor to Spark, to resemble a gilt-edged tome. 

The idea of visually associating characters with objects thematically related to them expanded to include more than just media. Mr. Sabo is a scheming provocateur. His cartoonishly villainous design is inspired by gambling and games of skill. He has the shapes of each type of chess piece, all four classic card suits, and the pips of a 6-sided die distributed across his design. 

A recurring element that emerged in the designs of the characters was a diamond motif. This started simply as a love for harlequin patterns, but I came to associate it with trickery and multifacetedness. In the context of the story, this motif represents mystery and secrets; the characters who have diamond elements in their design are dangerous, and not who they seem.

Illustration Style

As development of Loose Canon progressed, I wanted to establish a consistent art style for the illustrations that would appear in the published novel.

In addition to committing to the proportions I would use, I needed to settle the rendering style. I used illustrations of Vahaadi to test three different styles: lineless, painterly, and what I called an anime style, which I defined by crisp-edged shadows and thin black lineart. I loved the look of both the lineless and painterly styles, but decided to pursue the anime style because it was faster to produce consistently.

I was inspired to extend the motif I'd established in the character designs into a lighting effect in my illustrations. Instead of rendering the highlights in characters' hair as subtle streaks as I would normally, I painted them in as hard-edged diamond shapes. 

Audio

I knew a full-cast audio production would add a whole new dimension to the novel, and bring it closer to the feeling of an animated cartoon. To pull it off, I would need voice talent, music, sound effects, and audio engineering.

Voice Talent

My voice talent came from three general sources.

First, I tackled the overall narration myself, as I knew the subject matter best and could also make adjustments to the prose if I needed certain sections to flow more comfortably.

Most of the characters' voices were provided by friends excited by the project, either at my request or volunteering themselves. Some sent me recordings they'd made with their own equipment, and others came by my in-home studio to record with me.

For the rest of the characters, I hired voice talent through various channels. I reached out to content creators on Youtube, contracted performers through Fiverr, and posted listings on Casting Call Club. At this point, I'd had several years of experience commissioning visual artists for one-off art commissions, but this was an exciting new frontier for me. I was fortunate to have only good experiences, and met lots of phenomenal creators in the process.

Music and Sound Effects

I used free sound effects from SoundBible and freeSFX. My good friend, Anne Werner, composed many of the transitions used throughout the audio. I licensed the music I used for leitmotifs from FreePlay and Premium Beats. Sam Dillard composed a custom theme song for Loose Canon, which I used as the opening for each episode. 

Audio Engineering

With audio from so many sources, editing them together was a monumental undertaking. I was quite new to the world of audio engineering and learned a ton in the process. I repaired plosives, corrected for background noise, equalized volumes, compressed and amplified where needed, and fine-tuned timing. Music needed to be faded in and out, and even rearranged in spots. Some characters had special effects applied to their voices. I later hired on a more experienced audio engineer, Sam Williams, to speed up the production time. 

Website

I investigated existing platforms to use as a home for Loose Canon, but decided it was important to me to be able to customize every aspect of the storytelling experience. I built the site with a self-hosted WordPress using a customized Divi theme.