The consÆ lack of promise caused a great shadow to fall over our spirits. Without the money or resources to begin a full-length feature as we had planned, our productivity slowed considerably. It was around this time that I began developing the initial designs and story of \bApprentice,\b but Jerry nixed the whole idea pretty quickly. Eventually, in November, we began brainstorming for a short video that we could produce in time for the next convention, that could showcase our ability, but still be done with the available equipment.
Since Jerry had deigned to allow me to do the character design for the as-yet unplanned short (since he would do Annie May), I drew a few possible heroines, and Jerry picked a shaggy-haired girl and envisioned a jungle-themed story, which we tentatively called \bThe Hunted\b (until we found out there was already a movie with the same name and general theme). He planned to make it letterboxed and black-and-white to conserve on hard drive space and increase processing speed, while at the same time providing an "artistic" feel to it. I didnÆt mind the idea of letterboxing, but I considered B&W to be excessive, and the subsequently proposed "duotone" to be little better.
\b\c04The Toaster dies\b\c00
Anyway, after drawing a few reinterpretations of the design, he began storyboarding. I reinterpreted the revised designs, resulting in what would have been the final character design, but it was at this point, less than a year after buying the thing, that the Amiga broke down. This was a crippling blow, since we had planned to use LightWave to render backgrounds, and neither of us were capable of painting traditional backgrounds.
Due to the corporate trouble at Commodore, it was difficult to find a place that serviced Amigas, and the prices of those that would were prohibitive (we tried several places). The most promising prospect seemed to be a friend of JerryÆs from work, who took the Amiga, presumably to get an estimate. We never saw any result from his alleged effort (eventually we got it back and sold it as parts.)
\b\c04JerryÆs lethargy\b\c00
The breakdown was the deathblow as far as Jerry was concerned, who would not invest any more money for White Radish, and indeed, his faith in WR seemed lost for good. Several times I prodded him, but he had decided to wait until we could afford the necessary equipment to do anything more. This was very disheartening, as I saw little hope for that in the foreseeable future. Moreover, he had recently gotten an enjoyable and better-paying job at a photo retouching place, and said he wouldnÆt mind just making a career of it and making parody-dubs in his free time.
By January of æ95, I had made a few upgrades to my own computer, getting a faster CPU and more RAM, and I was using the new version of Photoshop to repaint the existing frames from \bThe AlchemistÆs Daughter,\b as Jerry had erased the original painted frames. I intended to continue animating it, as an exercise if nothing else.
