New Short

Earlier this week, we released our first movie of 2012: the second Wonders of the Universe short "Attack of the Foodmatron." It once again stars Rodney as he argues with one of the ships various computers. Like the first, this was mostly the voice actor "Omahdon" ab-libbing. As well as Casey giving input this time around. We hope you enjoy it!

Since we probably won't have a podcast for a little while, I thought I would lay out our current and plans for the new year!

Wonders Episode 3

After Episode 2 wrapped up, Mark was ready for a break. So instead of jumping right into a new short, we focused on script writing for a bit. We really got into the swing of synergizing with the process. Working with the real time, multi-person editing Google Docs REALLY helped. The challenge with this one is we still had one major character to introduce, but we also wanted a fun adventure to happen to cap off the Maiden Voyage story arc.

Luckily, it was just one new character: A eccentric robot named "Rut.2" (voiced by Chris "Kirbopher" Niosi). It's a more character driven episode for the most part... but the climax should be pretty exciting!

Wonders of the Universe Episode 3 is currently titled "Shanghai Moon" and is being animated by Christopher Boe. We're hoping for a release in the coming months.

Wonders Episode 4

I know it's a bit weird to be talking about the next one when the one we're working on is still pretty early in development... but since Chris is animated the current Episode, Mark wanted to get started on the next one as soon as he could.

Episode 4 is still in script-writing stages... but don't be surprised if its released fairly close to Episode 3.

Joey's Wonders Short

Some preliminary work has been done on Joey's (That's me!) short. I was about to get started on a storyboard when.. BAM! Another project presented itself and I spent some time on that. What is it? Not saying. This is probably the last you'll herd of it before it's released.

The longer-than-usual short, titled "Meet Lin'zee", stars my favorite character in Wonders, Lin'zee Starshine. Not going to say much about it, but it'll give some background to her and her species.

On a personal note, its a bit intimidating animating a full cartoon after so long of being inactive. The Hobbit was what... over 4 years ago? In a way I'm glad I stepped away form big animations... but that also means I'm terribly out of practice.

But, I still have some art to do, voices to get rerecorded, and backgrounds to wait on. I'll be sure to give updates when I start!

Website

In the age of YouTube, having a website for a up and coming animated series is a bit less important than it was in the past. But we still have plans to release one down the line... and have some ideas to make it a bit more interesting.

The site will be Wonders centric... but it'll of course have places for all our movies. Expect things like character bios, artwork, fanart (If we ever get any!) and quite possibly comics. We'll also have our Toonwerks related podcast there as well as blogs/news posts.

Non-Wonders Stuff

It's no secret that everyone on the Toonwerks team is in love with the Wonders' universe (no pun intended), but that doesn't mean we don't have other things on the table. The success of the Minecraft Documentary spurred talk of a follow up for example. We have some directions we could go in with that in the future.

Casey has a solo project that will probably be released under the Tookwerks label. It's a cartoon based off old action serials like Buck Rodgers. It's called Captain Atomic and the Commandos of Action! It's not a big movie, but Casey loves that kinda stuff so he wanted to try something with it. Like me, this is also the first full movie he's animated in years! It might become something ongoing if it does well.

More solo projects aside, we also collectively want to work on a project that's non-Wonders related. This will probably be a one off cartoon based on one of several ideas when we first formed the animation team. I have no idea what it would be, or when it'll become a thing... but it's something to look forward to!

Onward!

2011 was a big year for us, and 2012 looks to be even bigger! We hope you've enjoyed what we've done with Wonders of the Universe. We even came across a blog reviewing it! Once again, we hope you enjoyed the short, and stay tuned for more info about Episode 3!