character design, Promotion and Casting

Seriously, you try making sure that every character you make is unique when all you have to work with is morphs and deformers. Most times you have to see the end result in your head and hope your visuals are correct. There's no complaint from me, espescially when the end result is what you want, but still the work involved is not for the impatient. Ariel has undergone so many changes since her time in the small press underground comics of Great Britain and Canada. But this is a near mainstream attempt to update something old school. There has been a lot of re-invention about these days. Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica to name a couple, and I'd harldy put Ariel in their league, but as always with these things, it's important to understad that stagnation improves nothing and creates nothng new.

For a start, I have appriciate that whislt Ariel will have it's old school fans (perhaps a strong word for such an underground relic of a comic), I am aiming to attract a whole new mainstream and young audience who perhaps wont appriciate the old school humour. At the same time it's important not ignore your roots. Comprimise is always hard. Hopefully I am getting to happy medium.

Lets look at promotion shall we? Long gone are the days where I can excuse myself for shoddy workmanship (Whilst Ariel had it's fair share of praise, I would be the first to criticise it's shoddy artwork, shortcuts and even bad over cliched scripting). Image is important, and I found it important to emphaises that Ariel is more than a Devil-Girl waring an idealistic school girl's outfit. She is a personality, half human and as a direct result, ultimately flawed character in an equally flawed Universe. Whilst the opening premise of Ariel is comedic, even parody, it is ultimately a dark series that covers life and death situations, even long term consquences. It is and always intended to be a story with a beggining, middle and an end. Whch is why the pilot, stragngle enough, is titled "The End". It is a story that takes full circle and only by watching the series will you begin to understand to contrived web that ties us to the beggining. Anyway, I digress. Promotion is an important tool to attract attention, and my intent is to subtly reveal elements of the Ariel series as work continues without giving away the over all plot. even the cast wont know what to expect until the end.

Speaking of which, lets move onto the casting process. I have long been an admirer of Azure's dedication to the voice acting profession and I dopn't envy her har work over at:

http://www.voiceactingalliance.com/

It has long since been a valuable resource to me and I hope to take advantage of it again. I have noticed a plephoria of improving talent over at the forums there since I have been there recently, and have no doubt that the cast I eventually choose for the roles will provide a more than professional job. All I can say is that it wont be easy to make the final descions. But it's an expierence I am very much looking forward to. Thanks to all contributing to this project, I look forward to hearing your voices soon.