Critical Role is in cahoots with the animation studio Titmouse in developing The Legend of Vox Machina — a canon prequel that flows into the beginning chapters of their 1st major Dungeons and Dragons campaign — and Critters are ecstatic. Critical Role is a huge name in the D&D community and have been streaming their sessions on Twitch and YouTube since 2015. The collaboration began after Critical Role launched a mega-successful Kickstarter that far surpassed the initial asking budget. The Legend of Vox Machina was originally set to air in the fall of 2020 on Amazon Prime, but has since been delayed.
Titmouse founder Chris Prynoski began his career working on MTV shows like Beavis and Butthead and Daria and later opened his own animation studio in 2000. Titmouse gained popularity for their work on Adult Swim shows like Metalocalypse, Superjail! and The Venture Bros., and continued to produce other popular titles like Big Mouth, Niko and The Sword of Light, and The Midnight Gospel.
The Legend of Vox Machina will be voiced by the Critical Role cast and has teased some celebrity cameos. They've assembled an amazing team of writers and, along with the crew at Titmouse, good things are sure to be in store. Originally designed to be a short animation project, Critical Role now has 2 seasons planned totaling 26 episodes. To further hype the show's production, they've began posting a series of mini-documentary shorts on Kickstarter so fans can have a peak into what goes on behind the scenes in making this incredible show.
Critical Role & Titmouse Are Bringing D&D Magic To Life
An important part of a good team is the camaraderie the binds them together, and like Critical Role, Titmouse is comprised of a group of nerdy friends doing something they love. This has made the collaboration almost effortless, as both parties had an instant connection. It helps that Titmouse's Chris Prynoski, Supervising Director Sun Jin Ahn, and Art Director Arthur Loftis are all D&D fans, and Loftis has been a Critter for years. He streamed each of Critical Role's major campaigns and even backed the Kickstarter before he knew he'd be working on it! Thankfully he's the one responsible for the look of the show and, even in the early stages, is doing it justice.
Loftis has even included some specifics that Critical Role founder and Dungeon Master Matt Mercer forgot about. The content in the 1st campaign is so extensive that the cast is having to go back and listen to the podcasts as a refresher. It's tedious to compress so much subject matter, but Critical Role is confident that Titmouse is excelling at this while staying true to their vision.
Ahn's role is to make the setting come alive by translating the storyline into visuals to create an integrative world. Keeping the big picture in mind, he and Loftis are breathing life and the appropriate emotion to Mercer's imagined settings, like Gilmore's Glorious Goods in the metropolis city of Emon and the sacred Sun Tree in the city-state of Whitestone. To do this, Titmouse is taking established maps from the 1st campaign and drawing inspiration from real places, so the continent of Tal'Dorei feels as authentic as possible despite being a fantasy setting. The amount of work and attention to detail given to the environment so far has already blown the minds of the Critical Role cast. Proper framing, composition, light, and color are all elements that enhance the storytelling so viewers can really experience what the creators are trying to convey, and Titmouse executes this beautifully.
Titmouse has described this endeavor as a dream project, so Critters can bet that the passion they and Critical Role have for this series will result in something extraordinary. They've been hard at work for over a year, but there is still a ways to go to ensure that The Legend of Vox Machina will be everything the creators envisioned and more.