It’s almost October, which means it’s almost Shriektober!
As with last year, you don’t have to do every single day. Hell you can repeat a day for the whole month if you want. We just want you to have some fun making some art together.
Make sure that you tag your art #SWPOM or #Shriektober so that we can see and share your art!
It is our unfortunate duty to inform you that The Shrieking Wizard Co. is disbanding, and therefore High Hopes Low Rolls is ceasing production.
This may seem incredibly sudden, but we assure you this was not a snap decision and it was not taken lightly. The past few years have brought us moments of incredible joy and laughter, but they have also been really, really tough. We don’t need to tell you what the world’s been like. Eventually, the hardness of the world won out over us, and we have had to decide to close up shop.
If you’re wondering, the crux of the problem is the time:money ratio. We never seemed to have enough of either, and as those of you with bills to pay will know, that is an incredibly fraught position to be in. When you cannot cover your basic needs everything else begins to suffer; your mental health, your relationships, and eventually the quality of your work. The unfortunate thing about the creator economy is the demand for fresh content to drive constant engagement. Slowly, we found we simply didn’t have the resources to devote to it.
So, what does the end of The Shrieking Wizard Co. look like?
We want to make sure you have ample opportunity to make any inquiries, save any media or make use of any platform we have whilst we go about the difficult work of shutting it all down. With this in mind, here is a list of platforms with the details of their closing:
PATREON:
All charges from us have ceased. If you are charged again you will need to contact Patreon Support. If you are in our ‘Chompy Greg’ Tier, postcards for January will be shipped to you as usual.
The secret shop will be closing on 11/02/22, so if you would like to download a free copy of the Teve TV Module, please do so before then.
DISCORD:
The Discord server will be closing on 11/02/22. Please make sure that you have saved anything you need, and swapped any contact details before then.
TWITCH:
Our Twitch account (twitch.tv/theshriekingwizardco) will be deleted on 11/02/22.
TIKTOK
If you liked any of Matt’s shenanigans he will be keeping the account (though changing the name), so keep an eye out for any future nonsense.
REDBUBBLE:
Our Redbubble store will be closing on 11/02/22. Please make any purchases before then. Some designs may reappear in the future as we establish ourselves as individuals creatives. If you are interested, please follow us on our personal social media accounts for more details.
KO-FI
Our Ko-Fi will be closing on 11/02/22.
All Shrieking Wizard Co. social media accounts will become inactive on 11/02/22. They are our two Tumblrs (swpom.tumblr.com and highhopeslowrolls.tumblr.com), our Twitter accounts (@SWizardCo and @StoryofHHLR), our Instagram (@theshriekingwizardco).
Our YouTube channel, and High Hopes Low Rolls on Webtoon we leave for posterity.
If you are to find any active social media accounts bearing the name ‘The Shrieking Wizard Co.’ after 11/02/22 (particularly any asking for donations), they are to be considered scams unless verified by one of our personal social media accounts which you’ll find listed below.
If you have any queries or need to contact us after all these avenues are gone, we will be available through our website (shriekingwizard.com) or our email address ([email protected]) until the end of March.
The Shrieking Wizard Co. is a legal entity and as part of closing our doors we must now liquidate all of the Partnership’s possessions, and that includes any stock we still hold. You will find everything on sale in our store between 28/01/22 and 11/02/22. If you could help us one last time by taking a look, we would be most grateful.
None of us know how to live a life without art in it. If you’re still interested in how we live those art filled lives moving forward you can find us all over the web:
Most importantly we wanted to take the time to thank everyone who has shown us unbridled support and love over the years;
Thank you to our patrons, you have been a concrete foundation.
Thank you to everyone who helped us establish our Discord server, and our moderators both past and present; Sainety, Rowan, Dorian, Logan, Ignis, Hukkini, Tyler, Edenie, Corvid, Cabbashini, Atlas and Noir.
Thank you to everyone who purchased our merch, we shook your hand via international post.
Thank you to all our executive producers, but we owe an honourable mention to TabbyGrimes, Kimberly Anderson, Moth, Orca Morca, EverlastingRay. The EP lounge doors are always open for you.
Thank you to our friends and collaborators from the community; _Ink, CoolBoyShane, Jess Jackdaw, Dingo Doodles, Role4Damage, just to name a few. You really opened your arms to us, and we have never felt more welcome.
Thank you to our voice actors; Adam Hoskins, Philip Lee, Amina Koroma, Chloe Dungate, Tim Shelton, Charlie Passalacqua and Kiah Prior. You breathed life into our characters in a way that we never could.
And finally, thank you very much to the Noot Noot Man, who commented on every. single. video. Noot noot to you, good sir.
You really helped us fuel this rocket for the stars, and we all feel we have forged some wonderful memories with this incredible community that sprung up around us.
Some parting words:
Jenny
I suppose when you have to sequester yourself away in a dark room to write something you know it’s because it's a hard and awful thing to write. The ending of something like this is unfortunately drawn out. There is at least a month’s worth of work to do, work that will be hard not necessarily because it is complicated, but because every task finished takes me closer to the end of this thing which I loved truly, and fully, with every fibre of my being.
It feels like I am grieving, which I suppose I am. I think that sounds dramatic, but I can think of no better way to put it. It is tough and it feels unfair, but I suppose that sometimes that is the way of it. Wanting something doesn’t make it happen.
When you make something, you extend yourself into the world. When you show others the things you make, you share with them that part of yourself. Thank you for taking such good care of me. I am sorry to have to leave you.
Matt
I remember the night we were signing our contract that stated that we’d be forming a company in legal terms, I was sat with Beth in my old bedroom three years ago in the before times, it was a loft bedroom with two giant windows that were staring out into space, I remember looking out at the stars and having this sense of an interesting future having just started another chapter.
Since then we moved into a flat, got a new car (my old one died a year ago), took the first steps into a pandemic, had my first weed scone and many other things, not necessarily in that order.
If you’d have told me that night that we’d find ourselves with thousands of fans I’d have spat out my scone all over my legs and maybe Beth.
I am incredibly happy to have shared so many of my days with you all, and to have forged friendships along the way.
I’m not gonna say goodbye because my smutty art will forever taint the internet, so see you around!
Amy.
I’ve never been able to write words well. And it’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to. But I just want to say thank you all for the endless support you all gave. It has truly been a pleasure.
Alex
Making things is hard. Making things as a remote crew of just 6 people in the middle of a pandemic is harder. And being able to do that hard work together over the past few years; and create so much stuff that we would have never thought a small team like us would ever be capable of making until we went ahead and made it? – Is something to be proud of. I’m proud of us, and I’m proud to have gotten to share these past few years’ work with some of my best mates; as well as with all of y’all who’ve supported this lil’ team along the way!
As heartbreaking as it is that our collective journey as Wizards has found itself cut short, I truly hope that you can all join us in celebrating what we were able to achieve in our time working together – and being glad that it happened at all.
Though this is the end of “The Shrieking Wizard Co.” as a company, each of us on the crew will indeed continue to create as we go into the future; both in our own corners of the internet and offline. We’d love to make things together again someday; but if-and-when we should ever find ourselves able to do so, it will be at a different pace, in a different place, and hopefully under more stable, pandemic-free circumstances.
Endings are tough, and melancholy, and I don’t know how to do them without crying. And although I’m looking forward to seeing what the future has in store for all of us as we move forward; in this present moment one of the saddest parts of writing all this is that there is no amount of thanks I could say that could possibly convey just how much every single one of you being here and sharing this wild, wizarding ride with us; mattered.
Still, even though saying it so simply might not express the full extent of the feeling behind it: Thank y’all. Very, very much. 💖
Beth:
The Shrieking Wizard Co. - and by extension each and every one of you - have given me the opportunity to do things I never thought I’d be able to do. I ran an online business, shipped our art all over the world, I voice acted? Who ever thought that would happen, certainly not me. I can never truly thank you all for this opportunity and for all the love, support and encouragement along the way. It was mainly me who packed all the orders, for the shop and for Patreon, which means I learned your names, the people that came back month after month to support our silly little dream, your generosity never went unnoticed.
The night that Chapter 2 came out back in August of 2020 was one of the most exciting and stressful days of my adult life. I remember sitting and waiting so scared that no one would show up, that no one would buy something from our newly opened shop. We sat together in Jenny’s living room, the first time we’d all been in the same room in over 8 months, and watched Chapter 2 for the first time as it went live. It was the most proud I have ever been, people were live reacting on the discord server, the orders on the shop started counting up and I felt like my little Wizard family had made it.
I’ve said it before and I'll say it again, I’m not a words man. That has never felt more apparent than right now because I cannot find the right words to say to properly thank you for all you have done for us.
But Thank you anyway, I hope that our paths will cross again one day
Jazz:
I’d just like to start off by confirming for a fact that I did indeed spend my earnings on many varieties of cheese. I’d like to make a promise to you all right off the bat - If I ever become insanely rich, I will buy the biggest wheel of cheese ever and invite you all to eat it with me, not unlike President Jefferson’s “mammoth cheese”.
Man, we did so much stuff that I’m so proud of; One time we gayed the pray away, that was fun. I created some interesting and quite honestly concerning personas for myself (Borik Jackson taking the top spot, but Petch deserves an honorable mention too). We created some beautiful animatics that I will look back on for years to come and be proud of. So many people worked on those animatics and I think that’s what I love about them, it has a little piece of everyone. My friends made a freaking comic! I’m so proud of them and the outstanding quality of the comic, it’s truly beautiful!
Back in 2020 when the world was on fire – (*insert Elmo in the fire gif here*) – Phil and I made an autumn vlog. It took me a good while to finish that vlog and it wasn’t the most amazing thing in the world but I really loved being able to do it! I was able to go out for walks in the forests and parks in my hometown and say it was “for work”, how awesome is that! I got to share one of my big passions with a whole bunch of people from across the world. I was so excited that someone might want to hear about trees and mushrooms and flowers.
I guess what I really want to say is thank you for listening, thank you for watching, thank you for giving us the space to share our stories and passions with you all. The most amazing feeling of all of this was being able to share this with you. The amount of support and encouragement that we were given by all of you is something I could never have imagined.
I’d like to give a special thanks to our executive producers (you know who you are!), all of the amazing voice actors who helped us make the animatics what they are, to the players of High Hopes for helping us create this story in the first place and letting us use their wonderful characters and to Olie who composed the most beautiful music.
This experience was unique and wonderful and beautiful, thank you for coming on this crazy ride with us. I am sad to see this chapter end but I am excited for the future. I have learned so much from Shrieking Wizards, most importantly to appreciate every moment and opportunity that comes your way because you never know what incredible adventures you might have.
Lastly, thank you to the five friends who walked by my side for this chapter of my life, you showed me how much I am really capable of.
for the SWPOM Silau! a dragonborn bard, who is the most over the top design I have ever made and the backup vocals and drummer with my sister @adragoncat's character Ven!
Just heard of SWPOM and made this in a like hour 30 mins. got punk approval from my formerly full on punk dad
Name: Ven
Subclass: College Of Valor
Theme Song: "Fences" by Paramore
faked their death to have a restart at fame and is rocking out with @rosespark2 boi as the lead singer. also is trans and will beat you with a bat if you call em by their dead name intentionally
I hope you guys had a splendid festive season! I decided that we could use this year to work on our character design skills! Specifically D&D character design, because that’s always fun! Each month’s SWPOM prompt will be a new character class - you can either draw something new, opr your current character, or even a class swap! I also wanna see archetypes and multiclasses! I wanna see it all!
But SWPOM doesn’t have to be an illustration, it can be in any medium you see fit! The format for SWPOM will remain the same: each month we'll’ give you guys a new prompt to interpret how you wish. If you post your art, you guys just need to add #SWPOM on whatever social media you use, or you can upload your art to the SWPOM channel in our discord server!
We’ll be following each month’s prompt (from February onward) with a speedpaint or livestream where we sit and talk about the character designs we’ve come up with and potentially their backstory!
At the end of each month I will be gathering art from the #SWPOM hashtag to put in a slideshow that will be featured on stream or in that month’s speedpaint. If you upload to discord, please leave a username and the social platform you use so you can be properly credited. If you don’t want your art featured, please say so in the description! The deadline for the slideshow will be the 20th of each month.
I do apologise for being a little late - I wanted to make sure I had everything ready for you guys before we got started. I can’t wait to see everyone’s creations!
For today's drawing I decided to create this ghost/spirit made of smoke.
I was listening to the song "Savages" from the Pocahontas soundtrack and the scene of the movie with the two big clouds of smoke reflecting the characters shadows is just so good I had to do a drawing kinda based on that.
But instead of shadows being reflected, I went with "smoke gaining human form".
Day twenty nine of shriektober/inktober! Today’s prompt was smoke, so I drew the resident pyromaniac, Fira, cooking. She knows how to cook, she swears! It was someone else who must’ve lit the pot on fire while she wasn’t looking.
Day thirty of shriektober/inktober! The prompt was windmill, so I drew the Valley Windworks from the Sinnoh region. I’m super excited for the new games that are coming out and I can’t wait to play them!
