ANIMATIC? VIDEO? PREVIEW? Dedede's Dream Buffet: The Rough Cut

Hello! I think it's finally time to hone back in on this old project for a moment. It's the Aqua Teen Kirby Short that almost-but-never-quite was!

A few months ago, I reached a Paintreon Stretch Goal that dictated I would resume progress on this video. Lots of people are fans of the Kirby Shorts I've done using audio from Aqua Teen Hunger Force with Kirby characters animated over it, and this was one I was planning on finishing but never got back around to, so it seemed like a no-brainer. So, what happened? What's going on? Why's it still hanging over me?

I've actually mulled it over a bit, trying to determine why it's been such a difficult nut to crack for me. I have a pretty basic skeleton of how the animation was planned to play out, as you can see here! I was hesitant to just share it all in full until now because I didn't want to spoil it all, but I figured this was long, long overdue. I'm planning on making this post public in the next month or so as well. So why haven't I just finished it?

Well, honestly, I think I realized that, as it's presented right here... it doesn't excite me all that much! I think there's a little too much fat to it. For instance, there's the whole sequence of Kirby doing the obstacle course at the start. I don't think it's really all that funny or interesting... it's "cute" but kind of in a snack food TV commercial way (fittingly, the source audio IS from a snack food TV commercial). I was watching this, realizing it was a decent amount of animation to complete that didn't really contribute much, and didn't really alter the joke of the original.

That's kind of an issue to me, honestly. With all these videos I try to really add some extra layer to the joke that wasn't present in the original audio. This one kind of borders on just being Kirby for the sake of it---Like, I think it's still in-character and everything, but I suppose it doesn't give me much of a "spark" beyond that.

Aside from that, I think the whole thing with Dedede trying to roll around is sort of cute, but largely excess. I would just trim that to a shot of him walking out, looking out at the course, seeing from a glance how perilous it is, and then giving up. That's funnier and less animation-consumptive.

So... What now? What's next? What's gonna happen to this one, if I've apparently lost so much luster for the idea? Well, I'm considering a few options:

• I could patch up this basic skeleton to the barest minimum required and just release that to fulfill the stretch goal requirement

• If the response from this animatic is just SO positive and it's in demand, I could push through the effort to make it truly up to snuff with my usual output

• I could just do NOTHING... if no one really feels all that passionate about it or this animatic suffices as is, I can make it public here and leave it at that.

• OR I could do something else entirely? Something else to fulfill this promise? I don't know what it would be. It would have to be something you all voted on, democratically.

As a final note, I really want to know... What is YOUR take on this? You, the loyal Paintron who was stood by me in this time awaiting the fate of this cartoon?

As a TL;DR here, I'll just say that progress on this has been dragging largely out of a lack of passion for it, which I've felt kind of guilty over since I literally promised this and thought I would still see the merit in it. I knew it was a bold promise to make, and even still I underestimated it.

In the future... it's going to be hard to make this sort of promise again. At least on this scale. Finishing animations is no joke and realistically I'll have to set the goalpost wwaaaayyy higher to truly justify setting EVERYTHING aside. It's really difficult to prioritize something like this over projects I feel more urgent passion for, or am just frankly getting more money to be involved with.

Please, let me know which course you'd like to see me take here! I'm really doing this for the sake of you, the person who has chosen to sacrifice attention and money to my wellbeing, and I don't wanna get stuck fulfilling promises that you aren't all that interested in to begin with.