Slime Mansion

So May came and went and many of you probably noticed that updates have not occurred yet. >__> Sorry about that! I shall now break down my excuses in a nice clean bulleted list :'D

• School got more hectic as the semester came to a close
• I got a job working as a graphic artist in my school's graphic services department
• Fanime Con was the weekend right after finals (HELLO EVERYBODY I SAW WHO WAS THERE!)
• Preparation for Fanime Con (and in turn the rest of the summer conventions) took up the better part of May
• Commissionsss

That's basically the gist of it. The good news is I finished the semester with four A's and one B, and the comic is coming back Thursday, June 18!! In the meantime, I'll go back to updating the blog on Slime Mansion starting Monday with stuff I've been working on lately again. See you in two weeks here! @_@

EDIT JUNE 18: HAY GUYS THE COMIC IS BEING UPDATED TODAY!! ...IN A LITTLE BIT LOLOL :')

Not actually a real book cover though; this was a project done back in Spring '08 in my Illustration class. The assignment was to pick a book and create a new book cover for it using illustration techniques and mediums we learned in the class. I asked my professor if I could use my own book (so that way it's more relevant to the rest of my gallery 8D()) and she OK'd it, so this was what came out of it!

The whole thing was done in gouache on a big 18"x24" piece of I think watercolor paper that my professor gave to me, and one of the most distressing aspects about the project was finding a scanner for this thing! XO Originally it was scanned in pieces and put together on the computer, except the colors were totally crappy when I did that. Eventually we found a Kinko's with a large-scale scanner which I had to pay like $10 to use, but at least it gave me an image that was actually presentable! @_@

Incidentally, I did some more work on my Art Archives from Wednesday and now I have an automated script set up to thumbnail anything I upload and display onto the server on the fly. ;D This'll give me more motivation to upload my sketches cause I won't have to worry about thumbnailing them all the time now!! Woooo @_@

Ha ha, um, hey guys, it's been a while. D: I finally have a bit of free time this weekend though cause spring break is coming up and most of my major school projects are out of the way for now, so I got around to finally writing this blurb explaining my absence.

Basically, I'm still alive? It's not QUITE the dire barely-surviving situation that many of you might have expected though, for better or for worse. The story goes that my grandma left for Taiwan back during winter break soon after finals, and since my mom works two jobs and my little brother has tennis practice til 6PM on most days (HEY GUYS MY LITTLE BROTHER MADE THE HIGH SCHOOL TENNIS TEAM WOOOOO), I'm basically the maid/housewife now, lol. Also, four of the five classes I'm taking this semester are studio art classes which have double the hours and workload of normal lecture classes, so I haven't had a whole~ lot of time to do much else.

But I want to!! I feel like it's been so long since I worked on stuff for myself, and I really really want to be able to work on this comic especially, but every time I think that I'll have some time to do it, there's always some other project or household chore or some hungry mom or brother to feed that needs my attention more.

...That being said, um, screw that!! I'm gonna try to work on the comic anyway, because it makes me happy!!! ...is what I'd like to say, but it was easier to work on the comic before with my lecture classes cause I could bring them to class and just work on them while I listened to the teacher, but I can't really do that in studio classes since we're expected to actually work on our projects the whole six hours. :/ And most nights I want to just skimp out on cooking and get take-out instead, but in this economy and our current household financial situation (we're in debt is all I'll say ha ha), it'd be really irresponsible of me to needlessly spend money.

Still, I really do want to do more comic work! I even told a lot of people who bought my book that I'd have the second volume out by the summer conventions, except that's looking...less plausible now. But basically, my goal is to try to get the first two chapters of Unit 2 done by the end of the semester so I can do another little mini-book like I did in 2005 with the first two chapters of Unit 1. So if I want to do that, I'll have to SOMEway or another get my ass hauling on it in the immediate future, which means that updates ARE coming.

Sooo for now, tentatively, I'm saying that there'll be updates again around May. It could be sooner, it could be later, but I can't say for certain yet. I do know that my grandma's coming back finally some time in the middle of April though, so pretty soon I'll be relieved of my maid duties so I can dedicate more time to comic-drawing at home. :B

In conclusion, I apologize for keeping so many of you in the dark, but I have not and WILL NOT abandon this comic, because it really is like a child to me. In the meantime, I'll be periodically updating my personal website again with stuff I've been working on for school as well as general life updates, so you can tune in to that if you want while you wait. :D For the rest of you, see you again in May(?)!!

Hey, check it out! I got interviewed at Animenewsnetwork! Evan, the guy who interviewed me, was somebody I'd met at Otakon this year. I had gotten interviewed a few times in the past, but I'm still a bumbling mess. Fortunately Evan managed to make sense of it and translate it into a coherent article.

One thing that readers might get confused about is him saying that I'd been reworking Directions of Destiny since printing the first volume--it doesn't mean what you think it means!! I'M NOT REDOING THE FIRST BOOK AGAIN I SWEARS! I just meant that I'd been reworking future chapters of the comic that I had previously planned in my head before, and also fleshing out the details of the overall plot. So that's why I'm finally starting Unit 2, because I feel more comfortable with where the story is going now. :D

ANYWAY, GO READ THE INTERVIEW YAY

First thing's first: updates will most definitely be resuming come next Thursday, August 28th!! I've been making more breakthroughs in the script for the overall story lately, so I am very excited to get this thing back up and rolling! I've got the next several pages inked already so there should be absolutely no excuse for me to not finish something.

Also, I finally got my butt moving with finishing streamlining the layout for this site! This includes all the sub-sections like the Guestbook and Links, and but the whole site is now a lot more unified! :D What haven't been streamlined however are the Shop and the Forums--for the shop, I've simply linked to the Mansion Boutique at my portfolio site for now, and for the forums, eeehhh that will just have to wait. 9_9

Additionally, I've also updated the Gallery with all the current illustrations I have related to Directions of Destiny, as well as FAN ART!! Some of which have been sitting in my E-mail Inbox for over two years waiting to be put up @w@! So definitely give those a look :D

Links have also been updated to reflect most of my current webcomics reading list.

Otakon came and went and as always it's fantastic meeting all the Directions of Destiny fans in person! I'm sorry I ran out of copies of the book to sell, but I will definitely attend again next year, but this time with plenty of both Unit 1 and Unit 2 in stock!!

I'll see you all next week with the update!! 8D