dreammeiser

[dreammeiser]

🌈Dream Along With Me FAQ!☁️

Hello, Hi! I decided to do a little FAQ since I get a lot of the same questions in my ask box! Beware... I have the tendency to yap... I will update this from time to time as more questions pop up!

✨ Question: What made you want to make DAWM? 🌈 Answer: So when I was very young, I had landed an internship at Jim Henson's, but I wasn't feeling satisfied with my work there, it wasn't scratching that creative itch. That's not to speak ill of it, when you're an intern you're not given that many tasks that are "higher stakes", that's just standard at a studio. When I was talking to my pops about this, he recommended I make the project I wished I was working on. Earl (full name Early Early Oxenfree) was my character that I was fixated on at the time, so I decided to give him a story and make him some friends. Take a gander at some of the (non-spoiler) concept work I started out with :oD (Don't worry, one day I'll show the other concepts when I can)

Pictured: Top Left: First version of Earl, circa August 2009. Top Right: June 2012 Earl Redesign. Bottom Left: Creature Doodles, Character Concepts, Earl Concept Doodle on Music Box. Bottom Right: Fiona Character Sheet (then called "Nautica" but scrapped the name because I didn't like it), circa 2018. ✨ Question: Why dreams and puppets? 🌈 Answer: Because I like them 😆

✨ Question: Is this an ARG/Mascot Horror? 🌈 Answer: No, it's an indie animated series :o)

✨ Question: Is this going to be like Five Nights at Har Har's? 🌈 Answer: No 😂 but if you enjoy that you might like DAWM?

✨ Question: Why does Archie have blue hair/yellow skin? 🌈 Answer: Because I like that combo. 😆 I mean why not? That's my favorite blue-- it's the same blue as my bird, Kraken! The choices for Archie's sweater and pants would've been a nightmare to track in animation so I had to go with something more simple. Yellow happens to be a skintone in 80s animated television that was popular at the time because of how eye-catching it was. I'm not going to make him look worse than he could be just because Marge Simpson or Yellow Guy or Sid the Science Kid or Joy from Inside Out did it first, that would be bad character design, babey! Primary colors are timeless and iconic combo for good reason. They're eye-catching and give contrast with colors in their simplest form, which is one reason they're prevalent in childrens' animated media and "kidcore" aesthetics.

Pictured: Left: Various Archie sweaters and pants combos. We ended up picking the blue and pastel striped pants with the plain cream sweater. Right: A photo of Kraken enjoying cheek rubbies

✨ Question: You worked at Jim Henson's?! What did you do there? 🌈 Answer: Yes! I was inducted as a muppet in summer of 2010! Kidding, I was just an intern. I was assigned to paint UV Texture Maps for paintings and props in the background. I also... modeled a pumpkin for their Halloween episode... One 😂 You can see one of my paintings in "Sleep? Who Needs It?!". It's a little funny because they picked the one painting (of three I made for this episode) I was not proud of... But uh, I also got to color one of the pages for the Archaia Dark Crystal comic and that was really cool <:o)

Pictured: Top: The painting used in the episode "Sleep? Who Needs It?!" and how it appeared in show. Middle: The unused other painting options. Bottom: From Left to Right, Texture I painted on a Teapot used in show. An unused UV Map for a cereal box. One colored page out of the Archaia Dark Crystal comic.

✨ Question: Why does Roy have 5 fingers on one hand and 6 fingers on the other? 🌈 Answer: It's all the better to high-five you with, silly! His handshakes are one finger friendlier! ;oD Hehe okay but silliness aside, when I was designing Roy, he was meant to look unsettling and off-putting to funnily contrast his sunny disposition, and was aware that folks judge people that are born a little different (it's unfortunate and honestly sucks but that's a whole other can of worms). One of the things I did was give him an entirely different finger count-- It was to make a little fun of gen A/I, which is unsettling and off-putting itself. Later though, folks pointed out he could be polydactyly representation. I love Roy and think that's actually pretty cool!

✨ Question: What were your inspirations for DAWM? 🌈 Answer: The Muppets, Sesame Street, Osamu Tezuka's works, and Moomin were some animated/puppet media off the top of my head that always stuck with me my whole life and have influenced my retro inspired work the most. They all had such sweetness and charm to them, and all felt like a found family :o) My favorite trope. Puppets were also just deeply meaningful to me because they were physical forms of creativity and childlike wonder you could hold and play with! I thought whenever you made one, you put a little bit of your heart and soul into them.

I wanted the Dreamalong Gang to have the charm of Jim Henson's and Tove Jansson's characters, but I wanted them to have the humor and intrigue of Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, and Welcome to Night Vale. DHMIS and Night Vale actually inspired the story the most because they were both a really nice mix of absurdist humor and horror! Sleep Paralysis Demons were a point of intrigue for me that I thought were perfect for a Dreamscape setting, so I started working on including those.

I will mention too that seeing Welcome Home encouraged me to post my art again, seeing it made me feel nostalgic, but also incredibly happy to see people appreciate Muppet-inspired art again <:o) I fully intended to just keep all of this to myself because being in the public eye is spooky, but I know that's something I wanted to change, so I just started throwing spaghetti at the wall... this time, with feeling!

Pictured: Top Left: Sesame Street Illustration done by Maggie Swanson! Top Right: Muppets Illustration done by Joe Ewers! Second Row Left to Right: Over the Garden Wall, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. Third Row Left to Right: Gravity Falls, Welcome to Night Vale. Fourth Row Left to Right: Astro Boy, Moomin (1990) ✨ Question: What programs/apps do you use to make your animations and paintings? 🌈 Answer: So for paintings, I use Adobe Photoshop and I experiment between animating with Adobe Photoshop, TVPaint, and Toonboom Harmony. I have been animating more with Toonboom lately though! For editing programs, I have been using either Adobe After Effects or Premiere Pro. I used to use Capcut, but they put a lot of effects I used under a paywall >:o0 Peepee....

✨ Question: Is yumeshipping/self-shipping allowed? 🌈 Answer: As long as everyone being shipped is a consenting adult, it's all good. Have fun :oD

✨ Question: Can I draw fanart/cosplay as one of your characters? 🌈 Answer: YES... My team and I love seeing fanart and we've been dying to see some cosplays! 😭 I would only say, don't send it to me if it is NSFW leaning, please 👁️👁️

✨ Question: Can we have a Content Warning List? 🌈 Answer: Yes! I may update this from time to time if it changes, if that's alright, but as far as what has been planned/written... Here are the trigger warnings so far:

Body Horror, Friend Loss/Death, Neglect, Religious Horror, Abusive Households, Blood/Slight Gore, Cleithrophobia (fear of being trapped), Suicidal Ideations, Depersonalization/Derealization (these are kinda/sorta... it's hard to explain without spoiling), Oneirophrenia (Dream-Reality Confusion), Manipulation/Brainwashing, Disorientation.

These are honestly tentative as well, I don't want to be doing something someone else is doing accidentally 0o:>

✨ Question: What were your inspirations for the characters? 🌈 Answer: Here's the inspiration boards for them :o)

✨ Question: Do you have boundaries surrounding the project? 🌈 Answer: Oh, I mean kinda? It's just something to be aware of, I know not everyone will be respectful but I appreciate the people that make the effort <:o) Thanks for asking! I'll paste them in from my Instagram Stories.

✨ Question: When will we get the pilot episode? 🌈 Answer: It's hard to know when or have an exact date, but I can tell you we currently have a goal of releasing the teaser for it by end of this year. Our goal is to have the pilot out next year :o)

✨ Question: Where can we best follow your work? 🌈 Answer: I mostly update on my instagram through posts and stories. 0o:

✨ Question: What's the best way to support DAWM? 🌈 Answer: Memberships and one-off donations on my Ko-Fi go towards myself and our team. We're thinking of a GoFundMe or Kickstarter to fund the pilot... Not sure yet <:o0 But for now, Ko-Fi helps a lot. Thank you so much for asking 😭💖 So far, you've all helped pay for voice work and puppet materials, we appreciate you so much <:o)

✨ Question: BUT ARE THEY GAY/HOW OLD ARE THEY/HOW TALL-- 🌈 Answer: Yes yes and yes Archie - He/Him, early 30s, Biromantic. 5'10" Mae - She/Her, early 30s, Panromantic. 5'5" Earl - He/Him/They/Them, late 20s, Demi/Pan. 5'7" Honeybell - She/Her, late 30s, Ace. 2'11" Fiona - She/Her, early 20s, likes women. 6'2" Mufflin - He/Him, late 30s, likes men. 6'7" Teddy - He/Him/They/Them, late 30s, Panromantic. 6' Bertie - He/Him, mid 30s, Grey, likes women. 8'5" Lunette - She/They/He, mid 20s, Panromantic. 5'6" Oddrey - She/Her, early 30s, Biromantic. 5'8" Roy - He/Him, late 30s, ???. 5'6"

[dreammeiser]

Go support some cool people!

STREAMILY AUTOGRAPH SIGNING!!!

THE TIME HAS ARRIVED! Join me and @downydig on stream right now, as I sign autographs, and we chat about all sorts of shenanigans!

[dreammeiser]

🌈🌧️ Through Hardships and Fair Weather, Until The End, Mae will Always Be Your Loving Friend 🌧️🌈

[dreammeiser]

We stole a pie!!

It's refreshing to meet a group of friends that genuinely have each others' best interests at heart. I'm excited for the future, we're going to make some really cool art together! 💖 @syntheticcharmva @elviraaxen @the-narrator-father

[dreammeiser]

BALBIN

[dreammeiser]

I wanted to answer this ask because it popped up very late in the night for me, but I also wanted to cut off the part that linked the blog to me because I ain't gonna give them the attention they want. Thank you for reaching out to me about this! I saw that they're a bunch of pro-shippers, which I've been very vocally and publicly against having in my viewership (as has Clown!), so... we shouldn't care what they think! It's also kinda funny because uh... I have been very upfront in the past that I was encouraged to post my work because of Welcome Home. It made me happy that there was an appreciation for our brand of puppets when I was coming back to social media :o) They also don't realize that the people they're white-knighting for are the same people they're insulting in that same ask, because a fair amount of people from the Welcome Home team also work on the DAWM team, so a knock at my work is a knock at the Welcome Home team's work as well. I just haven't announced their roles in this project, ha! But ya know what? I can't control what people think of me, or what they think of my project. I have been pretty open about it on my social media, but that only does so much. Sometimes people wanna just tear ya down because of their own insecurities or issues. Their hatred doesn't define us. I will continue to do my best to treat the folks around me with love, will continue trying to be mindful of how I leave folks and the spaces around me, and I will continue creating and working with my friends on this project, because that's the kind of energy I want to put out into the world and it's what I wanna see more of.

In a time where hate is often put on a pedestal and amplified, let's turn our backs on that behavior and engage in spaces where people nurture each other and do their best to be kind instead. People that are secure in themselves do not feel the need to tear others down like that.

[dreammeiser]

HOUSING UPDATE!

Hey there, Hopefully the last update i should need to make on this!

If you've been keeping up, around New years eve, my father left our home, sent myself, my sister, and my mother emails effectively showing he resented all of us, Never loved me, nor my sister, had hooked up with some woman he met six months ago, lied to us constantly through our lives, and then threatened to effectively try and take the house we all worked so hard to get and pay off, out from under us, since tgen we put up a good legal defense, and thankfully he's seeming to remain as inattentive with this as he was with everything SO

GOOD NEWS! legel proceedings have gone well, it appears we're likely to get a default judgement in the next weekish, which means our house and my family will be safe. Bad news! The lawyer and mortgage payments have absolutely knocked me out financially. I've been living close to the bone, but recently the payment for the lawyer, and a recent bill being substantially larger than usual has gotten me in the red. Thankfully only a about 200 dollars in the red. IF you can spare it, please consider donating even a dollar.I don't want this terrible father of mine to be the reason i get in debt. (This whole emotionally wrecking situation literally drained my savings, I've been living off them with all our family shop's income basically going to paying the lawyer, mortgage and bills.)

Any help, spreading the word or donating even a dollar would be a huge help right now.

Where to support.

If you want to support another way feel free to support my ko-fi I'll be posting audio clips, wip covers, funny random voices and other odd fun things going forward to give thanks to supporters.

[dreammeiser]

“Can You Keep A Secret?”

[dreammeiser]

🎉🎊 Kaloo, Kalay! ‘Tis the Fools of April Day!🎊🎉 Who would you bring to the Festival of Fools? :oD

Dreamalong has a version of April Fool’s Day that celebrates tomfoolery and pranks and is considered the Tricksters’ day! Mufflin and Mae had to take out their favorite Tricksters out for a day on the town! Yippee! Wahoo!

[dreammeiser]

The Ko-Fi and its memberships are live :o)

If you'd like to support DAWM and its team, please take a look at our Ko-Fi, all support and shares are greatly appreciated! 💖🌈

Right now we are prepping to gather materials for our puppets :oD

I also wanted to bring to your attention @syntheticcharmva's GoFundMe! If you enjoyed our last animation, the voice of Roy G. Biv, Synth, needs some support while navigating through a scary living situation! Synth deserves the world, and all support and shares are greatly appreciated!

[dreammeiser]

📺Your Willing Submission is Smiled Upon by Roy and The Lost Signal! 📺

🔴🟢🔵

MAJOR THANK YOU to all those that participated in my Celebratory 10K DTIYS over on Instagram! It was amazing how many of you turned up for our Roy G. Boy! The Bivster! A lot happened between the deadline and now, a move, a loss, fires, health complications, but I wanted to make the announcement post special for your outstanding patience, love, understanding, and outpouring support.

🔴🟢🔵

✨Credits✨

The voice of Roy G. Biv is the amazingly talented @syntheticcharmva! @bit-b on Bluesky helped with the Audio Engineering on Roy's voice! A huge thank you to @shantimochi for clean-up animation and coloring and @eddieentertainment for the background art and prop design on the cloud fridge! Please give a big round of applause and love to everyone that helped, they're incredible people to work with and I love them lots! <:o)

[dreammeiser]

If the Characters from Dream along with me were to meet the gang from Welcome Home, who would you think would get along great or the best with who?

Oh this was fun to think about!! It'll be long... excuse the word wall!

I think Archie would get along best with Julie Joyful and Barnaby Beagle! Julie and Barnaby both have friendly, goofy, fun-loving energy that Archie enjoys being around :o) Earl, Mae, and Lunette would love these two hooligans as well for obvious reasons! I feel like their energies would bounce off each other a lot in a funny way!

Mae would have an appreciation for Sally Starlet and Eddie Dear! Sally's bombastic theatre energy would draw Mae in and excite her! Eddie is relatable to her as the two are the apparent people-pleasers and Mae would sympathize a lot with his struggles. Mae would also be very drawn to Wally for reasons she can't explain, she just finds him charming and handsome :o) Poppy would also be a warm presence to her, and she'd view Poppy as an older sister/motherly figure to look up to.

Honeybell would hang out exclusively with Frank Frankly and they'd gossip with each other and share little theories about the friends around their neighborhoods HAHAHA! She'd also call Sally Starlet noisy to her face. (rude)😭 I think she'd also be drawn to Poppy's caring heart too!

Fiona would try to get on Howdy Pillar's good side to gain another client, honestly HAHA. I think she'd take Julie, Barns, and Wally on joyrides on her vespa, they'd all have a fun ole time (except Wally, who might not enjoy this) right up until she crashes it. She'd offer to deliver Poppy's baked goods to everyone around Home and Dreamalong (and give Mufflin a damn run for his money)

Teddy would try to flirt with Julie before getting an epic Frank smackdown. I don't think anybody from Home would like Teddy. 😂 Perhaps he'd be tolerated by Barnaby and Howdy (moreso frienemies with Howdy). He'd have a rivalry with Sally Starlet that's petty and stupid. He harbors a raging jealousy of Wally.

Mufflin and Bertie would absolutely not go near Howdy with a ten foot pole-- Bertie would probably get some underhanded insults from Howdy for being a slow speaker, and Mufflin is experienced enough to spot a jerk when he sees one 😭 Mufflin wouldn't know how to feel about Wally, torn between feeling off with him and wanting to comfort him.

Roy would find Howdy delightful and get into staring battles with Wally before breaking out into wild, unhinged laughter.

[dreammeiser]

Hi! I hope you're doing well in the pilot animation but if you don't mind asking, what is mae & honeybell relationship is like?

AH THANK YOU I am looking forward to what we'll be releasing this year for you! A lot of life's ups and downs have caught me off-guard this year but I'm back in the stride of things!

OOOO YAY A MAE AND HONEYBELL QUESTION!! Let's see... let me ask them... They're slumber party pals 🥹💛💜 Honeybell is Mae's wise, intellectually dependable friend that she can depend on for life advice, and Mae is Honeybell's soft filter on life that helps her face her daily burdens.

Mae's naivete frustrates Honeybell though, and Honeybell's impatience with high-energy antics makes Mae feel somewhat repressed sometimes, requiring more of a social battery for their interactions. There's little things about each other that annoys the other but they try to accept each other for their faults! They still love each other! :oD

Mae: Earl said something about mixing rubbing alcohol and bleach to get tough spots out, I might-- Honeybell: GIRL NO!!!! NO!!!!!

[dreammeiser]

From one creator to another, This question has been in the back of mind for a while and I'm currently working on my own project. When you first made Dream Along with Me, what do you think drew people to your project?

How can aspiring creators pitch their ideas and gain their audience?

Ooooh hi! Let's see, I think there's a lot of things that factored into what drew folks to DAWM, there are a couple criteria that could help you and other creators in drawing an audience :o)

Firstly, know who your audience is! Do you want to appeal to children, teens, adults? More than one group? Figure out what your audience likes, what's trending with them, and try to factor in what you like yourself. You're part of the audience too!

Secondly, have something sort of like a pitch bible or a proof of concept that shows what the intended product is about and how it will look. One of the first things I ever uploaded for DAWM that blew up was the animation test I made of Archie and Earl simply walking together. The goal with that piece was to see if their designs were feasible for animation, showcase their personalities and designs, and hint at the underlying unease/discomfort in their story in the form of a tiny antagonist on Earl's shoulder.

Thirdly, show what your story and characters are in as little words as possible... Show more while saying less! I know I talk a lot in my asks but even what I talk about in here doesn't give away much, in all honesty! 😆 Just fun tidbits! Leaving the story and other elements a mystery will create intrigue! Planting little breadcrumbs and seeds for thought will also give your audience something to ponder while they wait for updates :o)

Fourth, be very clear what the identity of your show and characters are. The audience should be able to tell what the characters are about, a hint of what the story will be, and it should follow some sort of logic! Your main character/protagonist is going to be one of the draws, as well as your villain. As an extra little tidbit on your main hero, ask yourself why it can only be that character, why no one else in the cast can take up their burden ahead.

I hope this is helpful!! :oD

[dreammeiser]

I'm curious about Lunette Lullabye! I'd love to learn more about her, it could just be silly things or her favorite stuff! Please and thank you :o)

Lune/tte Questions make me happy <:'o) I get to blab about them!

Pictured Above: Lune/tte without their hood!

Lune/tte is extraordinarily... supremely... tragically unlucky. <:'o)

They're a curious little creature, which unfortunately lands them in a ton of trouble, all the time.

Their first language was not the common tongue! They spent a lot of their life mute and isolated, growing up knowing limited vocabulary in another language (that only pertained to crafting and toymaking), so even now after a couple years of learning to speak, they forget words and mix them up. (They forget a good amount of things in general)

Due to some plot-relevant circumstances, they essentially got the living-puppet equivalent of nerve damage and physical disability/chronic bodily pain.

Has a knack for finding and repairing broken playthings!

[dreammeiser]

At one point you did mention that Babette is one of Teddy's 'evil exes'. How did they both break up? Why did they break up?

I am airing out Teddy's dirty laundry today it seems... 👁️👁️

So, Teddy is very oriented towards a certain plot-point goal, on top of finessing his magic feats and Ghostmastery Craft. He tries to make time for his dating life, but what ends up happening a lot is that his partners end up getting neglected, and him being somewhat of an egotistical flirt often makes them even angrier 😔

Babette Yaga is one of his more hot-headed exes geared towards total annihilation, yes, hahaha! She's a lover scorned! She comes bearing grudges! A recurring theme with a lot of his "Evil Exes"!

Left: Old Babette concept sketch! Right: A guy that sucks

[dreammeiser]

Will DAWM be fully animated or like half animated and half comic?

I'm so excited for it!

I'd love to explore different avenues of storytelling with this project! I think I'd like to present the main story in animated form, but would like to create games, comics, and zines for it. Maybe even do something with my website? I have a lot of ideas for these, but for now am focusing on the main project. :o)

(little snippet of a doodle I made of Roy; his book's title is, "Are You There, God? Just Kidding. It's Roy.)