A mech sci-fi drama, Shattered Heaven has been the personal passion project of Adam Tilford since 2001. What started out as an Armored Core fan fic, eventually evolved into a full blown original story. Over the years it has gone through many editions and revisions. At its core, Shattered Heaven is a work of prose with its first 2 novels, Sins of the Soul and Shadows of Existence being released in ebook form on Amazon in 2011 and 2014. Two new revisions of these novels will be published in 2018, in both paperback and ebook format.
The series grew on the now defunct Armored Core forum, Armored Core Online where it garnered a small fanbase. Side stories written by multiple authors were created as a visual medium slowly began to build. By 2007, interest in creating an animated sequel to the 3 books had grew. Adam taught himself how to animate, albeit, poorly through Adobe Flash. Thanks to websites like Newgrounds, Adam found his way to 2 online voice acting sites, the Voice Acting Alliance and the Voice Acting Club. Stumbling into the online VO community, the first Shattered Heaven web series took shape.
Raw and unrefined, the series had 4 full episodes before being cancelled in early 2012. Changes in art style were starting to take shape to improve the overall quality of animation. With the help of a professional animator friend, Adam put the series on hold to reevaluate the project. A screenplay for a potential movie was written, one that would take place in between the first and second novel. Still using Flash as an animation medium, Adam experiment with improving the quality.
In early 2013, Adam took the advice of fellow animator, Chris Niosi (TOME) and scrapped the idea for a single animated movie and decided to reboot the animated web series idea. This is where the current Shattered Heaven web series was born. The first season of Shattered Heaven debuted in August of 2013 and completed its run in August of 2016. The story was revised to fit an animated medium as it grew. Changes in the story and characters inspired a full rewrite of the novel the series was based on, Sins of the Soul. Adam realized that have 2 different versions of the same story could cause a disconnect.
In 2017 a new direction was forged. Adobe Flash had served the series and Adam well, but it had outstayed its welcome. For the second season, the quality needed to be improved. Adam hit the ceiling as an animator with Flash. Switching over to Clip Studio Paint, the series saw a revitalization in terms of quality. While this was going on, Adam finished the rewrite of the novel which is currently out for editing. A new trailer for the second season along with clips from the early episodes were released to show the growth in animation quality.
2018 is expected to be a big year for the project. Its two novels, Sins of the Soul and Shadows of Existence are planned to be released along with an Epilogue graphic novel to Sins of the Soul. The second season of the animation is also set to debut later this year.
