Directions of Destiny

As you may have noticed, I've managed to put up a new layout for this site like I said I would in the last entry! I hope that it makes it much easier to get around and more visually appealing for you. :D Also like I said, with this big ol' blog space on the front page, I plan to update more often throughout this year with various sketches and art and stuff related to the comic as I flesh out the script for the rest of the story. Please check back every now and then if you're interested!

As a bonus, here's the line-art for the two header character art I've done so far. Instead of using a pen to ink the line-art, I drew the sketch in blue pencil and "inked" it with pencil, and so I like the nice softer effect it leaves? I plan to add header art for the rest of the characcters too in my spare time.

A lot of things were going a little haywire in the background over the last few days as I was putting this up, but I think most things should be working properly now? If you find anything that doesn't work, please comment in this entry to let me know about it, or if you have any suggestions you should leave a note as well :>

I have come to give you a report! I-it's not good news, but it's not bad news either really. It's...okay news?

After years of on-and-off hiatuses, I think I've finally come to realize that I'm probably just not built to tackle school and regularly update an on-going comic at once. D: That said, I have one year left and I'm graduating next December if everything goes as planned!! (I-if it seems like I've been in college forever, that's pretty much been the case.) BUT that doesn't necessarily mean that I won't update the comic at all until then!!

I started this comic out in a really haphazard manner, and even after so long, sometimes I would go straight into drawing after only scripting out a few pages in advance. It worked in getting me to just DRAW, and my comic-drawing skills have improved a lot from when I first began, but now I really want the story and the concept to hold up with the art!

Over the past several months I've been developing the Alatus Institute further, working out the details to the building exteriors and interiors, adding more structures to the campus, and fleshing out the surrounding landscapes and towns around the school and stuff. I've also been taking out two birds with one stone by making many of my school projects directly correlate with my plans for the comic, and lately I've been really into drawing environments, so what I hope this leads to is an Alatus Institute that is much more REAL.

Another idea I've been entertaining is turning alatusinstitute.com into an official school website, where information about the school can be posted along with other fun things, like blogs for each of the student council members, and regularly updated minicomics! Although minicomics aren't substitutes for real comic pages that progress the main story, they ARE a lot easier to draw inbetween classes and don't require any planning. I really want to go through with this idea soon so that I can at least share the fun I'm having with my characters before the real comic pages continue updating.

Finally, I've been thinking much more about storycrafting and plot structure over the past year. I've been reading a lot of books on writing, and from there I've been further solidifying my story--laying out all the scenes in the entire comic from here until the end and making sure every scene is constantly driving towards the finale and no panels are wasted on boring things that make a story drag! I've been making a lot of notes on the rest of the story that will get organized and polished into full scripted thumbnails which I plan to show my friends so that I can get some good feedback before drawing them out and publishing it online. I'm really pumped about taking writing more seriously!! :D

With all these things going on in the background, I really don't want to keep it all to myself! In two weeks winter break will come, and the first thing on my agenda is to redesign this website. It'll feature a more accessible and streamlined layout that is more blog-friendly so big-ol' written entries like this won't feel so cramped. I also want to post a lot of the concept art I've been doing, plus random sketches of the characters, and maybe occasionally story thumbnails and things like that to get reader feedback! It'll make things much more interactive around here, and by constantly updating with what's going on and getting lots of input, I hope that it'll make the comic even better!

I hope to have the new site done in January 2010, so check back often :D Until then, if you have anything you'd like to see in the new Directions of Destiny website and/or the Alatus website, or if you have any issues with or comments on the current layout, comment back and let me know!!

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 :')

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(?)!!

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