Anime is one of my favorite things. I have been watching anime since I was young. The funny thing is that you can see anime when you are young and it has no effect on you or you can watch it and become an avid fan. I grew up with such shows as Akira, Robotech, Voltron, Ghost in the Shell, Gundam, Gatchaman, Transformers, Dungeons and Dragons. I like anime that is art driven and plot driven. Things like the Simpsons or Family Guy do not interest me because the art is so poor and though the stories might try to appeal to a mass audience, I personally think the premises are stupid and shallow. But people like those shows so I will leave those for them. I like shows that make you think, have a heart, may even tackle difficult subjects and maybe have a dark subject matter somewhere. I am creature of scifi and cyberpunk and I want grydscaen to reflect that from a deep place. So naturally, what did I want to do? I wanted to create an anime of grydscaen.
So the first thing I did back in 2006 was to go to art school. I applied to art school and went in as an animation major. I wanted to focus on 2D animation and learn the process, everything from character designs, storyboarding animatics, 2D animation, rendering, 3D modeling, skinning, rigging and turnarounds. I reveled in art school for the 2 years that I was there almost getting my degree. I was 3 classes off from getting my degree but because I was also working full time I had to get back to work and drop art school. I eventually went back and changed my major to graphic design and went for 2 years but in the end with all the violence that happens at some schools I decided to stop going to school because I already had a Bachelors and Masters degree, I did not need another degree in graphic design. But even though I stopped I did learn how to animate and how to design logos, marketing, storyboards, and more. So I got what I came for. That was enough.
So now that I had the tools and knew how to animate it was time to tell my story. I had started writing short stories in the grydscaen world when I got out of college. One of these short stories “5000cc’s of Black Market Neurocyne” made its way into the anthology grydscaen: tribute. The story stars Raven the hacker stealing a case of the drug neurocyne and getting a jack from the Packrats. This along with the 5 pages of the grydscaen comic book were where grydscaen started. The grydscaen comic book that I drew in the 9th grade featured a scene with Rom being hired as a Packrat hacker. This first scene with Rom would lead to Rom’s character design which was used for the grydscaen manga which was created in 2014. The grydscaen manga would go on to be the storyboards and character designs used for the grydscaen anime.
The grydscaen anime is a 20 minute anime based on the short story “A Storm’s Coming” from the short story by the same name from grydscaen: tribute. Tribute was released in 2014 to great reviews and was an anthology for the grydscaen series. Rom is featured in 3 short stories in the anthology.
The grydscaen anime also has 4 trailers that feature facets of the 20 minute anime. The anime features Rom, the LGBT homeless teen who is a Level 9 hacker. The story in the anime is about Rom and Xander Storm, the Zone Police officer fighting to save Rom after a psychic killer targets Rom on one of his rampages.
The process of making the anime required the manga to be used as a storyboard, the colouring rules and character designs for Rom and Xander, the backgrounds from the manga and the dialogue. We had to record the audio for the anime and come back with a soundtrack with sound effects. All this had to be done in a relatively short time frame to align the release of the grydscaen anime with the grydscaen mini movie which was going to be playing in cinemas in New York City, Brooklyn, Virginia and Los Angeles, and the release of a shining reviews from major reviewer sites for grydscaen: tribute which lists it as a featured book.
After the audio was recorded, the character designs and colouring were set and the backgrounds coloured it came to actually animating the story. Since 2D animation is relatively expensive, a 30 minute scene from an anime series can cost up to 1 million US dollars per episode, we needed to make sure that we could actually get a 20 minute anime done. We searched for a animation house that could do the job and were in bidding with a few. Finally we found a company that would use my manga, audio and character and background designs to do the story without spending 1 million dollars an episode. It was an uphill climb but it got done.
The process took about 3 months to come up with the anime. There were also animated trailers done to highlight the anime. The process required going back and forth multiple times using my drawings as the outline for the action. I was in constant contact with the animators as the process went on and they stayed very true to the manga. I wanted to make sure that the story was told accurately.
When I originally set out to do the manga I didn’t actually think that I could do a full 48 page manga by myself. But with all the hard work and the 2 weeks it took to do working at it nonstop I was able to finish it. With the mini movie being played in cinemas, the anime just highlights the story from grydscaen: tribute. Each scene had to be checked against the manga to ensure cohesion to the story.
The process was hard and required constant vigilance and a keen eye for the story. Knowing manga and anime like I do and having been trained in the process I was familiar with what it would entail. I am glad to be releasing the first trailer from the grydscaen “A Storm’s Coming” anime in a few weeks. And I hope you enjoy it. I sure will. It is great to see my characters come to life and actually move and talk. I never thought this would come true. From the very start of writing grydscaen I wanted it to be animated, turned into a manga and come to life. Now I get to see that happen. I hope you stick around and enjoy it with me.
