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It's Here at Last! Tell EVERYBODY.

Greetings, Featherheads!

AP here, checking in from the Chapter House, where a fire is crackling in the hearth, Aedan is busy drawing in a corner, and we’re exceedingly pleased to announce that after two years of good, hard work, the Wingfeather short film is online.

I honestly had no idea what I was asking of Chris Wall and his family, nor of the whole animation team, when we started. If I had, I might not have had the guts. Unless you’ve made an animated film, there’s no way to understand the mountain of work and skill and passion it takes to bring something like this into the world.  It only takes 15 minutes to watch, but it took countless hours to make. All that to say: HUGE thanks and congratulations to Chris Wall, Tom Owens, Keith Lango, Nicholas Kole, Aedan Peterson, all the painters, designers, promoters, all the folks at Magnetic Dreams—and to YOU, for contributing to the Kickstarter campaign, telling your friends about the books, and for spreading the word about this thing.

So here are the next steps. First, share, share, share. We’re putting up the film on YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and Amazon Prime for free. The idea is for you guys to basically assault the interwebs with this thing to get as many views as possible. The more views and shares we get, the better our talks with the studios will go.

Second: pray for us, if you’re the praying type, as we make these decisions. As a dude who writes songs and books and makes movies and stuff, one of my favorite verses is Psalm 127: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” If God doesn’t want this to happen, I don’t want anything to do with it. But if he does, if it draws attention to him and his goodness, if it wakes people up somehow, then let’s build this thing like our lives depended on it, and make it awesome.

I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Merry Christmas!

AP

Christmas greetings and a countdown

Merry Christmas! We hope that wherever you and your family are, your home is full of good, warm things that fill your days there like cider in a mug on a winter night. :-)The Wingfeather Saga Animated Series short film goes live in exactly twenty-four hours! Tune in all over the internet tomorrow at midnight (PST) to see it. We'll have links for you right here on the site. Until then, enjoy your family and this down-to-the-second countdown timer![wpcdt-countdown id="18244"]

T minus 8 days!

The animated short goes live all over the internet in only eight days! Are you excited? Do you have your viewing party planned? Scroll down for ideas!Madame Sidler's Party-Planning Guide

  1. The first thing you will need for your party is FOOD. Cheesy chowder would be perfect for eating during this episode, but there are a lot of other dishes to choose from as well. What about sailor's pie? Totato soup? Butterbread and blueberry gooeyballs? Hotcakes and bacon? Some of those recipes can be found right here at the site (just click the links!), and others can be found at Mountain Mama's site (click here). If you've got a favorite dish from Aerwiar which we haven't featured yet, make it and send us the recipe! And of course, being Hollish, I recommend a variety of bibes.
  2. Decorations! If you've got posters handy, those would be great. Or you could make your own posters using our downloadable coloring pages. Anything sea dragon-themed would be fun as well.
  3. For activities, try making Peet's sock hands, or your very own treasure map! If after watching the short your partygoers are eager to find out what happens next, print out some coloring pages and let them color while you read from the book. For more ideas, check out our book club kits.

We cannot wait for you to see this short film! There are still a few copies of the DVD available to purchase (although at this point they aren't guaranteed to arrive by Christmas). And just to stoke your excitement, let's watch that trailer again. ;-)"The games are starting soon enough!"—The great Thumb of the Honkmeadowhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzMTp8QuTMs

Igiby Cottage tour

Who wants a tour of the Igiby Cottage? Click below for a full 360º view of the interior. (To see the whole thing you will have to be whooshed to Facebook, or to Instagram.)These backgrounds for the animated series were painted by John Loren. Aren't they amazing?Click over to Nicholas Kole's Instagram for more behind-the-scenes info on the Igiby cottage art and other fun things. :-)Team Featherhead update:Chris told me this morning that the trailer has now been viewed OVER 100,000 TIMES! ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND! That is amazing. It's hugely encouraging for the animation team to see all of those shares, because that tells them how much YOU love what they're doing. And the more shares we have, the more likely we are to catch the attention of a studio who will want to help us produce the whole series. So thank you! Keep it up!We know it can get tiresome to share the same thing over and over, though, and maybe you want something new to shove in your friends' faces. The team is working up some new exciting things to share, and meanwhile, please feel free to invite everyone to tour the Igiby cottage with you. :-)One request: If you've already seen the short, we would LOVE it if you'd write up a short review. No spoilers, please—but the next time you share the trailer, add a few words to tell your friends what it's about and what you love about it. We'd love to share those reviews back through the main Wingfeather channels, so if you'd like to be quoted set the post to public. #teamwork

Andrew and the Christmas tour have a couple of days off, and then hit the road again on Wednesday. Is the tour coming anywhere near you? Check out his music site to find out!

Bancroft Brothers podcast

Andrew, Chris, Keith, Tom, and Nicholas sat down with Tom Bancroft, cohost of Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast, to talk about the process of animating Aerwiar and the Igibys' story. A lot of what they discuss also came up at the premiere during the Q&A panel, so if you missed that here's a chance to catch up. But in this podcast they also dive into some deeper and more technical aspects of the art and animation style, so this conversation is not to be missed if you're curious about why and how they settled those creative decisions. Get ready—this is an hour and nineteen minutes of pure animation geekout. (Every time I hear these guys talk about the process I'm more grateful for each one of them.)Head over here to listen!Have you seen the trailer yet? Watch it RIGHT NOW, and please share it with your friends!

Andrew's Christmas tour starts on Thursday! Dates and ticket info are available at his music site. He'd love to sign your books. ;-) And if you're not near enough to one of the shows, this year there's a livestream! Info at the Rabbit Room!

The trailer is alive!!!

You guys, yesterday was a phenomenal day! So many of you posted, and thousands upon thousands of people watched the trailer. We've lost track of how many thousands—last night it had been seen almost 75,000 times, but that number keeps rising! Chris and Nicholas (who was rocking the Twitter crowd all day long) are thrilled, and so am I. I'm proud of you guys. Proud of all of us. :-)You know what else was super cool yesterday? Seeing reaction videos! If you've got a video (or photo) of yourself or someone else experiencing the trailer for the first time, come over to one of our social media pages and post it (with permission)! Highlights from yesterday's reactions included an entire fifth-grade class and an eight-month-old baby (so cute!). :-)What will happen if we keep sharing today, do you think?!Keep these links going! And thank you!Facebook*InstagramVimeoYouTubeTwitterhttps://youtu.be/fzMTp8QuTMs

The stories are true.