Ok! Some of you perceptive people may be wondering why last week’s page was numbered 266, while this week we’re up to 288. I did a bit of a reorganising of the first 100 pages of the comic for story clarity, and also added some new pages (maps and covers, not scenes) which has bumped the page count up. I’ve also added all the existing covers to the page count, so it’s more reflective of the actual number of pages. Anyway, a change log if you will:

Added
Main Cover
Map of Ashul
Map of Ashul City
Chapter 2 Cover
Map of Imara
Map of Rishara Caan

The story’s been condensed down into 14 chapters (from 15) so we’re on chapter 14 now. A lot of the news posts are still wonky (for example, talking about it being page 100 on what is now page 112) and I’ll be fixing those gradually. All filler and fanart has been removed from the archive, and fanart has been moved to the gallery.

I’ll be adding covers for chapters 3, 4 and 5 soon, as well as city maps for Dakaia and Seras Daya. There are spots reserved in the archives for those and I’ve renumbered with that in mind, so pages 62, 63, 81, 97 and 158 are currently “missing”. I’ll also be changing the emblems on Ashul armbands to match the new design shown on the Ashul map. Phew.

TL;DR: The comic’s better, now featuring more maps! If you were planning on going through the archive, now’s a great time to do it.

I’m going to be rearranging some (read: almost all) of the pages in the archive over the course of the next week, so bear with me if there’s scenes and pages out of order, since unfortunately I have to do this with the site live. It’ll all be sorted by the next update though, and there’ll be some new content in the archive too! I hope you’re excite, because I’m all of the excite. The goal is for the story to read a bit more smoothly and add in some maps. Maps! \o/

Also, I had to go back through the archives to check out Danil’s runes since I haven’t drawn them in ages. Man, the old comic pages look sort of terrible. On the plus side, there’s no way I could have properly drawn a page like this when I started. Feels good, man!

Working on maps and other bits and pieces of concept art this week. Hopefully I can post some of it soon! I still haven’t figured out how best to present extra world building info through the site yet – a wiki? Some sort of encyclopedia or lore section? I’d like to do something a bit more visually coherent than a wiki, but I think that might require more coding ability than my rather bare bones knowledge. ohhh weeelll

Dee-Con was awesome! I met a few readers (special shout out to Jamie for being lovely) and Dave Shirley who is super nice. But mainly I drew a lot of portraits. Oh man, so many portraits. They sort of swim in front of my vision when I close my eyes.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really get any photos – I pretty much had to use the camera non-stop for taking pictures for portraits, and then drawing from for portraits. I am definitely charging more for portraits next year. Portraits portraits.

Edit: Forgot to say, I did a relatively massive run of prints for the con and managed to pay them all off while still having loads left. While it does mean I’m all set if I want to go to another con, I was thinking of possibly selling some over the site. Thoughts?

Uff, sorry about the delay on this page. I wish I could blame it on the ridiculous unseasonable snowfall we just got, but mainly I’m just having trouble juggling everything plus con preparation. It’s a confusing new world for me, but hopefully it’ll work out in the end. As I said in the last post, I shall be at Dee-Con this Saturday! If you stop by and mention you’re a reader I will totally give you a high five.

Edit: Can confirm I’ll be selling prints at Dee-Con! I left the printing quite late so I wasn’t entirely sure, but I have them to hand now and probably won’t be selling them over the site, so… do show up! They came out pretty damn fine, if I do say so myself.

I just realised I should probably mention I’m going to have a table at Dee-Con on April 7th! If you show up I will draw you things in exchange for money! Exclamation mark!

I’ve never been to a con before, so I suspect this is going to fascinating/terrifying.

Architecture
Reflections
Water
Perspective
Architecture reflected in water at a wonky angle

This is the most difficult thing I’ve painted since that damn airship from chapter 9. The worst part is that it’s all my fault. My secondary concept for this cover was Danil giving a thumbs up with a toothy grin, though, and I didn’t feel it had that… you know… je ne sais quoi.

Though by this point I’ll just be pleased if the cover reads as anything at all.

And that’s that chapter! *dusts off hands* The website was down for some unknown reason for some unknown length of time, so sorry if you tried to visit and there was nothing here. My host is rubbish and made of dumb.