A new year is upon us, friends! What better way to march out the 2021 than with some fresh new faces? Today, we have three character designs for our $10k-tier Kickstarter backers. Each were illustrated by Leigh Anna Frostad, Fable Siegel, and Tracy Butler.

Please give a warm Little Daisy welcome to Maisy, Minzoku, and Valerius!

But seeing as the Lackadaisy team has also gotten quite a bit of work done this past year, it’s also fitting that we revisit our accomplishments here at the dawn of 2021.

On March 16th, Spike Trotman of Iron Circus Comics teamed up with Tracy Butler and Fable Siegel to launch a Kickstarter to raise a minimum of $85,000 for the Lackadaisy animated short film. On April 17th, they had reached $330,256—almost four times their stated goal—thanks to the generosity of 5957 backers.

But it’s not like they started in March. For months, they had been laying the groundwork for the project, including hiring a good portion of the cast.

By May, Tracy and Fable had finalized the script…

…and continued to grind forward with Tai developing designs and Fable, Kelly Turnbull, Ashley Green and Ludo building boards.

Meanwhile, Frog and Newt leaned all the way forward into our 3D prop and background designs.

Not to leave our backers out, June brought us the emoji pack with designs by KazoodleKat.

June also brought us character designs, some sketches and some finalized into design sheets by Leigh Frostad for the animation crew…

…most of whom were hired during this time. And in addition to our Lackachat videos, we also started our Shop Talk series on the Lackadaisy Youtube channel. June was a busy month. As was July. Well, they all were, if I’m being honest.

In August, we celebrated Tracy’s birthday with a special video. Everyone put their heart into this on behalf of our the hardworking creator, but it was a good reason to celebrate in the midst of what was becoming a very long lockdown.

And remember, remember the third of September? That’s when we posted some great progress shots by Frog and Kasettetape.

We also posted some early animation work. Here’s one by Kayla Stith.

Plus we revealed our very stylish shot glasses.

October, meanwhile, brought some color to our art. Some in the form of work like this cousin slap fight by Katie Winchester (animator) and Zebirdbrain (cleanup).

…and some in the form of our first comic dubs: Lacrimosa, Lovecrafty, and Halloween.

Following spooky month, November was the month of the cleanup artist. Here’s one of our ref sheets built by Zebirdbrain.

For the fans, we also released our Character Designs Pack on Gumroad (it’s pay what you want, so check it out!).

And to celebrate the end of the year, we went extra hard on the videos in December.  There was the the Lackachat Weeb-Stream, the Huni-Daisy Red Nose Day Charity Stream, Shop Talk with Warrior Cats Animators, Acts 1 & 2 Animation Roughs, and finally our Pancakes and Sophistry comic dubs.

And now it’s January (and no vacation days in sight). Starting this month, 2021 will be the year our animators and cleanup artists shine brightest! Stay tuned!

Thank you for your patience waiting for our film’s completion. We hope you continue following our updates and share your favorite content with all your pals.

Happy New Year! Abyssinia! :3