Dear Insane Children, 

As Martin mentioned in the last update, we are “free” – but some of us are freer than others. While it’s true that we have freedom to move around the city… I’m lacking in a certain critical freedom unique to our household: Freedom to Sleep! 

I guess you could say I am free *from* sleep. I don’t even know if I am making sense. What I’m trying to say is, Leeloo is keeping us awake all day and night. Compared to Lucky, she’s a handful (multiple handfuls). But we’re hoping this phase passes quickly and we can get back to our regular sleep schedule. 

Speaking of schedules, yeah, we might be back to our regular Live Stream schedule soon. Mainly up to Martin… he has to decide when he’s ready to commit to visiting our house… and potentially ending up trapped here if there’s another sudden lockdown. 

Meanwhile…

The Alice: Asylum pre-production team continues to crank out tons of great art.

This is a character simply referred to as “The Lord.” You get to kick his butt… but in his brain. I don’t want to say more because (spoilers). But if you’re interested in knowing where he fits into the Asylum narrative, you’ll find him in Narrative Outline (right at the end). 

Alice does some freaky Otherlands stuff to him. Don’t worry… he deserves it. Awesome art by Adam. 

And speaking of Otherlands… the creature sketch above from Norm is an idea for the sort of monsters we’ll find lurking inside the mind of Radcliffe. 

A top hot guy with pens for legs who spews money. What did you expect to find inside the mind of a lawyer? 

And when you run into these kinds of monsters… you’ll need weapons and AMMO:

Those are ammo ideas from Gareth (yeah, he’s doing art on Asylum again!). These would be projectiles used by the Croquet Mallet weapon. 

Ok, that’s it for now. I need to go drink more coffee. 

From Shanghai with Zzzzz, 

-American 

Dear Insane Children, 

Font Lord here.  
It’s been a while since we chatted   🙂 

Just letting you know that now Shanghai lockdown is pretty much over, we are all trying to get back on top of things, which of course means clearing the backlog of Patreon rewards.

So those of you who have been waiting on the last few months of prints (that you can see in this post), and also those of you at the 3x$35 level, do not fret, we’ll be sending these out in the coming week or so! Which means that they will probably start arriving with you mid to late July.

We’re also going to be getting back into the swing of Live-Steams again in the not too distant future, likely to be mid-late-June, so please look out for updates about that.
I hope we can still remember how to be entertaining in front of the camera for 2 hours  😉

From Shanghai with freedom

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children,

You’ve heard of Chekhov’s Gun… 

…a dramatic principle that suggests that details within a story or play will contribute to the overall narrative. This encourages writers to not make false promises in their narrative by including extemporaneous details that will not ultimately pay off by the last act, chapter, or conclusion. (link to quote source)

And if you pay attention to TV and film, you’ll notice that when “a terrible threat to humanity” is proposed (Thano’s Snap for example), at some point, the film has to pay it off… no matter how awful the consequences. And it’s often during the return journey from this darkest of places (the nadir) that our hero proves she’s mastered her hard-earned lessons. 

So you know how we’ve created Shadow Alice – and how she threatens to destroy Wonderland and everything it represents?

Yeah, well, that’s a thing and it’s going to get paid off. And it’s not supposed to be pretty. But you can take some solace in the fact that heroes (almost) always rise from the darkest depths to reclaim their kingdoms. 

In the meantime… 

Shadow Alice is going to have her night. 

And it’s going to be a dark, dark night. 

And the best part? 

You get to PLAY her during this sequence! 

Some truly amazing art from Adam Narozanski for these scenes. You can follow him on Instagram to check out more of his work. We’re really fortunate to have his art included in the Design Bible. And even more fortunate to have YOU supporting Adam and the rest of the Alice: Asylum pre-production team. 

Today is 6/1/2022 in Shanghai. We’re officially OUT of Lockdown after 60+ days (we have some friends who were in lockdown 70+ days!). Yay for that! 

We’re also now around 6 months from the delivery of the finished Design Bible PDF (and related materials, etc). The next 6 months will be filled with lots more great art, design, and project updates. 

From Shanghai with Freedom, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Here’s an update to the updated Hysteria Dress design by Omri.

Of this new design he says: 

i read all the comments and suggestions and the one common theme was to totally ditch the original design and create it a new. because all the comments were about the things i actually KEPT ????. yes it’s based off a straightjacket which they usually have a flat hard front and a complex back. i also believe once i’ll get to the art you’ll understand how i want it in game.

imagine this as a counter for the Harvest dress. In Game: Pure glow White, red shiny puffy and dipped in blood. the “Icon” is the last key received in Madness, for Lizzy’s room. White hair as many of the requests were to go with white hair and boots. If the bottom is white the top should be too.

Let us know in the comments below what you think!

From Shanghai in a Gradually Easing Lockdown, 

-American 

Dear Insane Children, 

This image – is from Omri – and is an attempt at a redesign of the Hysteria Dress for Alice: Asylum.

Omri felt there were certain elements “lacking” in the design seen in Alice: Madness Returns.

I like this new version but I told Omri we really need fan input on this sort of thing so… let us know in the comments what you think!

From Shanghai still in Lockdown,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Things have been a bit hectic here in Shanghai since the arrival of the new baby! And I apologize for being a bit slow on posting to Patreon as a result. But just because I’m distracted by Baby Things doesn’t mean our team of artists and designers is slacking off!

Main image above is a collab between Adam and Omri – depicting this scene from the Narrative Outline: 

A FINAL INTERMISSION (HUB-WORLD)

MAD HATTER’S DOMAIN (BARGAINING REALM) – HATTER’S WORKSHOP

Tick-tock.

Alice steps from the Hall of Doors and quickly returns to Hatter’s Workshop. Alice now knows the secrets of the darkness, and what has created it.

Hatter is in a distant state of mind. He explains; Only 1 Moon remains. Tick-tock.

The chaos clock in Hatter’s workshop is nearly completely consumed by the shadow. Everywhere Alice looks in his workshop, darkness is seeping in, through window sills, under doorways. All other entrances and exits from Hatter’s workshop are blocked.

Alice has everything she needs. All that is left to do is complete Alice’s quest and assemble the fragments she has collected and find her way home.

Hatter reveals a sarcophagus, emblazoned with winged beasts.
A mighty Gryphon is carved on its hull.

And it’s a beautiful scene! 

Omri also delivered an illustration where we see Alice gazing upon the memory of her family home – in a place we refer to as Slumber. 

From the Narrative Outline: 

Through a cloudy transition, Alice and her Rabbit enter Slumber and find themselves in scenes last seen at the start of the game – a snowy British countryside with Alice’s family home in the distance. It is a starry night but there is no moon in the sky this time.

Alice

My true home? I’ve been here many times before. What have I missed…?

We PLAY as Alice runs across broken floating islands in the Slumber realm. Her Rabbit plush leads her through an environment that is broken, unstable, and tremors sporadically.

Chaos seeps in through every crevice. This world is dangerous and breaking apart, the Chaos has followed Alice here. They head towards a rising plume of smoke in the distance.

There are some additional elements Omri designed for this that you’ll see in the Design Bible. Really stunning! 

And Norm, Omri, and Alex are working on some action illustrations for some critical scenes towards the end of Asylum where we see Young Alice confront Shadow Alice. 

Awesome stuff!

And last but not least, Adam is working on … um, something that contains a lot of spoilers. 

I’ll just let the gruesome images speak for themselves. Avert your eyes if you feel the need!

And a bit of Oz… Gareth delivered a sketch of Richard Umbra’s lab. And we’ve developed some interesting ideas for his character in general… excited to share those details soon!

In Shanghai… we’re still in a lockdown but things are getting better. The city is reporting 0-Society-Covid which means infections are no longer spreading and most places have no new cases. Today (Monday in Shanghai) marks the start of re-opening. But we probably still have a few weeks (at least) before things are really back to normal. 

Meanwhile, life continues. 

From Shanghai with Love, 

-American