Dear Insane Children, 

American here – back again! Whew, feels like ages since I posted anything. But I hope everyone was entertained and informed by the guest posts shared by Alex. 

Been crazy busy around here with National Holidays, warehouse moving, meetings, sick relatives, hospital visits, travel, and more… but I think things are finally starting to settle down.

And with that… it’s… 

LIVE STREAM TIME! 

Yay, there will be a Twitch Live Stream (also streamed to YouTube) this week. 

You can join us via my Twitch Channel or YouTube Channel. But if you’re interested in prizes (of course you are!) then you’ll want to join via Twitch! 

We’ll check out all the Alice: Asylum latest art/design stuff; we’ll talk about updates to our Business Development efforts; and there’ll be PRIZES and fun. Yay!

Shared in this post are a couple of new sketches from Adam. These depict possible ways to render the girls (Alice and Lizzie) playing just prior to the moment where they take a tumble, break a tea set, and some blood is spilled. 

I suggested in my notes that it might be better to render this as the girls spinning each other – hands locked together and twirling in circles around the room. I remember when I was a kid causing a lot of damage with that particular move. I think they even use it in “pro” wrestling! 

The cat certainly looks like “Rawr, get me the eff out of here!” 

I this scene the cat has more of a calm, “Nope, nope, nope,” look about him. He knows it’s time to run away but isn’t going to give the humans the pleasure of thinking they are the reason his legs are moving. Cats. SMH.

Anyway, let us know in the comments which cat/girl pose you think works best. Of if you think the spinning idea is as awesome as I do. 

Hope to see you all on the live stream this week! 

From Shanghai with Nope, Nope, Nope, 

-American 

Hi everyone, Alex here with an update on Alice: Asylum pre-production work.  

With so many moving parts on this project at any given time, there’s always a lot we can cover.  

Having spoken to American this morning (Update: he’s doing well and kicking butt, he’s still just wildly busy), we’ve got a lot to share with you all.   

Heads up. Spoiler-y artwork update at the end of the post.

Firstly, Joey has just submitted a final illustration for rounding out the level design for the boss encounter with Bill the Lizard.
This is the beautiful opening image for this post above.

With Joey’s work, I find it fascinating how it can be dreamlike, nightmarish, distorted, but still retain a child-like innocence simultaneously. Her execution and style in her art speak volumes of her talent.
We’re lucky to see her process below here too. From loose initial lines, through to final artwork.

I’m sure you’ll agree, she’s nailed the atmosphere and design of Bill’s den. Let Joey know how you feel about her work in the comments.

Next up, we’ve got some early concept sketches of the Liddell Family from Adam.

A young Alice, her older sister; Elizabeth, (“Lizzie”), and Alice’s Mother gather around the aftermath of a mishap resulting in Alice unintentionally hurting herself. They also thoroughly yeet the family tea-set.

Without getting into heavy spoiler territory, memories of Alice’s family members are further explored in Asylum, intentionally deeper than ever before. If you want to brush up on this scene and explore some of Alice’s past, it can be read in the Narrative Outline, (pages 52-55).

For now, marvel in Adam’s sketch work. His use of body language is excellent. Effectively communicating the pain in Alice, the warmth in Lizzie, and the mixed emotion in Alice’s Mother.

We’re actively discussing this scene and working on it between Adam, Omri and Myself, so if you have any feedback for us to consider, now is the time. Please be cool and considerate with spoilers in the comments if you’ve read the story.

Also from Adam and Omri, here’s a Chaos Clock prop design that was submitted recently.

Individual prop designs like this are useful in establishing aesthetic and recurring assets in the game-concept art. This was based on original designs way back from American McGee’s Alice (2000).

Personally, I’d like the Chaos Clock in Asylum a little darker in aesthetic to match the early 2000 era vibe… but that’s basically me being a broken record on this project. I like my concept art with teeth. Literally and figuratively. “Make it darker” is my thing.

However, it’s important we balance those sharp edges with the beauty, wonder, and whimsy we expect from Alice’s broken Wonderland. The benchmark I feel is; “Make sure it looks like it could rip your face off. And also make sure it can be framed, admired, and hung up in a beautiful high-end art gallery”.

Those needles sometimes sway more in one way than the other, but if there’s a healthy mix of both, and other visual counterpoints that help strike that balance, we’re in good territory visually for Asylum.

The Chaos clock is intended to be a clear visual cue of the Shadow manifesting in Wonderland. Showing both the level of corruption across the world and the time left before everything is consumed.

It’s our Doomsday Clock. We might have more work to do on this one to communicate those elements, but I think it’s a great start.   

What about you? Weigh in if there’s any feedback we should consider on this one.

This concludes our “Spoiler-Free” section of the artwork review.

Scroll below to get into the spoils.

Still here?

Adam and Omri have turned in an updated pass on the fate of everyone’s favorite scientist. Not yet finished, but it shows the process of our selected scene choice.

We went with Option C. and worked on Rabbit’s pose to match Alice’s.

However, based on the feedback we received in the threads on the earlier Patreon post, we are going to show Hatter struggling and fighting more against the Chaos at the base of this image.

We don’t expect it to go too well for the old boy, and the end result of Hatter’s struggle against Chaos will be further communicated in the next pass. Stay tuned. We’re about to get gruesome.

—–

Anything to run past us? Drop it in the comments.

We’re keeping a close eye on all open communication channels, and it was great to see such a large level of engagement from our community in the last few posts. Your feedback helps guide our decisions and the actions we take as a team, so keep it coming.

The next update will be a doozy, (I’ll be literally drafting it up as soon as I send this one off) so we’ll all chat again soon.

Cheers,
Alex

Hello again everyone, Alex here with some updates from the shadows.
(And a word from Font Lord at the end)

It’s crowd design time. We’re opening up some old wounds here with a new weapon concept.

1. Umbral Scythe – Initial Weapon Concept

I won’t go into too much detail here regarding the weapon lore to avoid serious spoilers.

However, if you do want to travel down to Spoiler Town read the Narrative Outline here. (Pages 128-133 specifically).

There comes a point in Asylum where this new weapon, the Umbral Scythe makes its horrible debut. Forged of darkness, this is a weapon wielded by Alice’s Shadow Half.

American had requested the Scythe feature some form of “tentacle” motif, and I’ve tried to work this in visually so that it doesn’t override the main function of being a Scythe-based melee weapon. It can also be thrown as a spinning death wheel, boomerang style.

The narrative outline details a few other nasty tricks up its sleeve, but for now, we’re asking the question of aesthetic.

Currently, Umbral Scythes come in four tasty flavors.

A) Chaos
B) Dark Vorpal
C) Embering Ruin
D) Ruin

The choice is; which is the right design in your opinion?

Which version best suits the character of Shadow Alice as the default weapon skin?
Where do we take the design from here?

Or does a concept here nail it?

Sound off in the comments below.   

When I designed this weapon concept, I felt it depends really on what we want to primarily communicate visually in Shadow Alice through her weapon choice.

I’ve got my favorite, but I’m interested to see yours.

For easy reference, here is the current collection of concept art from the character development of Shadow Alice. Created by Omri, Joey and Myself.  

2. Carpenter and Walrus // Chaos Consumed

Next up, the original designer of Alice’s iconic look from over 20 years ago, Norman Felchle has been working on concept art for the boss encounters for the Carpenter and the Walrus in Asylum. They’re crazy good and we feel they hit that right balance of macabre and fantastical.

Appearing at the end of the “Cataclysm” level, Omri and I are playing around with showing destructible environments in this particular boss combat arena.

The current idea of this particular boss fight is to have both Carpenter and Walrus become GIGANTIC, and not to have Alice face these foes directly in combat.

Rather, Alice uses their own attacks to destroy the floating islands in the level, and against one another, thus sending both the chaos-infected Carpenter and Walrus tumbling into the abyss. Expect some cool concept artwork from Omri soon.

—-

Lots more artwork coming in hot from the team. Expect some big narrative updates, business dev stuff and Mysterious news shortly!
Stay tuned, plenty more madness to come.

Take care of yourselves and each other out there. <3

– Alex

—————————-

And now a word from your friendly neighborhood Font Lord.

October is almost upon us, so that means here is your (slightly late) warning about what the next art print is.
For September Patrons. charged in October.

The super creepy BIRTH OF JABBERWOCK

Apologies for the late alert, but you still have about a day to change your tier if you really really want this print    🙂

– Cheers

Hi everyone, Alex here with a break from our regular programming in American’s stead.
For those new here, I’m the Project Manager, Narrative Co-Writer, and Design Bible Lead Designer for Alice: Asylum.  LIVE STREAM UPDATES

Firstly, there will be NO LIVE STREAM this week. The next Livestream will most likely be the 7th of October 10:00am (GMT+8). We’ll keep you posted as the confirmed date rolls closer.

The reason being, things are chaotic in the Mysterious camp this week. Between American taking care of Lucky, Yan’s pregnancy, juggling back-to-back negotiations with more than one of the world’s largest video game publishers, all during tax-time, and simultaneously preparing for the leadup to one of the busiest national holidays in China, our captain’s plate is understandably full.

When chaos rains on our little madhouse, it pours.

Please join me in wishing American and his family all the best as they take care of business and then some.

Speaking of chaos, here’s some new artwork from the team.

1. The Jabberwock Boss Fight
The incredible image in the title section of this post comes from our concept artist Adam Narozanski. For those who have read the Alice: Asylum script, you’ll know the Jabberwock isn’t here to play around in Asylum.

From the choices previously presented in his initial sketches, Adam has also flexed on his speed-painting skills at the request of our lead artist Omri Koresh.

The sketchier, looser styling is great for capturing motion and action, so we’ll most likely be seeing more like this as we go. It’s a cool showcase of Alice using the scenery to hide here too.

2. Chaos Infected Enemies // Update
Joey Zeng has been working on an updated pass on each of the Chaos Infected enemy concepts. These are twisted manifestations of Alice’s time in London, roaming around Alice’s memories of a fractured “Flooding and Burning London”.

This broken level we’ve since come to call “The Cataclysm”.

All enemy designs are looking wild here. We might dedicate time to exploring further depths of varying Chaos consumption on these enemies, but at this stage, we feel this captures the themes of the enemies sufficiently. Moving on.

(!) SPOILER WARNING!

The following concept art shows scenes we would consider major spoilers in the Asylum Narrative. Don’t want to see it? Don’t scroll.  This is the last artwork sample in this Patreon post. Some project management stuff, (also full of spoilers) follows afterwards.

Still here? Let’s go.

3. The Demise of the Scientist – Hatter’s Fate
Adam has once again submitted some concept artwork for key scenes leading up to Alice’s encounter with the Jabberwock.

Pictured here, is the moment Hatter buys Alice more time to escape. He initiates a rising platform moments before the Chaos unleashed by the Shadow consumes them all in his laboratory.

Alice and her rabbit escape.
Hatter does not. Adam’s early concept work is phenomenal in capturing these dynamic scenes as always.

Our Creative Process and Your Feedback:

To me, it’s always fascinating seeing the creative process come to life for these scenes.
The process that allows us to make these decisions as a team, also allows us to utilize your feedback actively while we work via the Patreon.

American and I first wrote this scene with Hatter’s demise in the Narrative Outline.   Once the narrative ideas we write are locked and approved by American, I’ll then brief a specific request to illustrate key scenes for usage in the Design Bible.

Initial art direction and art-task briefings are created by me, then once greenlit by American, Omri will allocate any available artist to create the artwork, and provide additional art direction and notes before the work is undertaken.  This happens all within our project management software. Each art task follows the same process and conversation.

When the first sketches rolls back around from the artist (in this case Adam), we all review the sketches, float the ideas and choices with the team and with the Patreon, (like we’ve done here) and proceed accordingly based on feedback.

The final say always rests with American, (we’ve built the process that way) but in his stead this week, Omri and I have agreed that (C.) best captures Hatter’s demise, frames the characters well, and represents the narrative best.
Here’s a sample of an art brief, team conversation, and process direct from our project management software.

Do you agree with our choices? If yes or no, why?  Let us know.
Adam will be proceeding on this again shortly, so let us know your thoughts if you want to lend your voice to the design discussion.

—–

TONS more artwork and updates are incoming.
We’ll chat again soon!

Cheers,

Alex

Dear Insane Children, 

Been a bit quiet around here, huh? A full week since the last post! Well, there’s been quite a bit going on. 

First, yes, still lots of great art being produced by our Alice: Asylum pre-production team. 

Omri sent over a really cool (and massively tall) image of the Memory Mines. It’s a sort of Rorschach test… do you see the bound-up lady in there? ?Or a statue on a pedestal? ?

Omri also turned in a colored version of the Carpenter update… 

And the team is just starting to sink their teeth (pens) into all those new art tasks we shared a couple of posts back. Expect a lot of great new art to start flowing soon. 

But beyond all the great art… 

This week will mark the starting point of a series of high-level pitch meetings involving our Hollywood partners (Radar) and our Financial Advisor (Marc) with some very big investment banks and funds. We’ve put together a great-looking pitch – one that includes plans for TV, Film, Games, and Merch. Landing a deal here could accelerate the work we’re doing on projects like Alice, Oz, and more. CROSS YOUR FINGERS!

And as previously mentioned, we signed a lease on an official warehouse space for Mysterious… Here’s Lucky overseeing an inspection of the freshly painted floors… 

This expansion means our merch team (Yan, Jennifer, and two new employees) can shift their focus more towards design. Since starting Mysterious in 2015, we’ve handled a large amount of the packing/shipping from within our own home. This new space means we can move that work outside (5 minutes away by car). And it means less time spent by myself, Grandma, and Yan on the actual packing/shipping stuff. That makes more room for design work but also… 

We have another Insane Child on the way! Due date is sometime in May/June of 2022. We’d love it if Lucky got a little sister… but I’m actually OK if we get another boy… hehe. 

Until further notice, this child is codename “Lili” – which is what we called Lucky until he popped out into the world. Let’s see if it sticks this time! 

Beyond that… taxes, visa renewals, the usual shipping (and then some – super busy these days!), Grandma’s brother is ill (leaving just me and Yan to watch the boy), oh, and… I am scheduled to go camping in … 2 hours! 

LOTS GOING ON! 

As always, it’s great having you along for the ride. I’m expecting a lot more great news and growth in the coming months. And I really appreciate your support and encouragement. 

Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings! 

From Shanghai with Excitement, 

-American 

Dear Insane Children, 

We’re going LIVE over on Twitch soon… 

twitch.tv/americanmcgee 

We’ll review Alice: Asylum artwork, give away prizes, and … watch American suffer and die of a miserable cold. Woo! 

This might be a short one. But we’ll try to pack it with as much info as we can. 

From Shanghai with Cough, Cough, 

-American