Hey, sorry for the long time without updates. I've posted in the shoutbox, but the spam has gotten so bad, that even if I spend a day cleaning it all out, the next its full again. I don't really know what to do about that; the actual website maintenance isn't exactly my area.

On the upside, I've been working on TaL, though its taken longer then I planned. This is in part because I want the things I post to be as good as possible, and I've been spending time teaching myself more things I need to work on. I had hoped to have the page done by Christmas, and then by New Years.... and didn't meet either date, so I thought I'd give you a little sneak peak now, and let you know that we're alive, and things ARE happening.

In other news, school has been a little too intense. I've been taking 15 units a semester, and its left me no time for, well, anything. Next semester, I'm signing up for less, mostly to have more time that I can work on TaL. :)

To put things out in the open, here's an overview of what we have going for TaL:

Continuing the Main Story. This is number one, and what is currently being worked on now. The inks are about 75% done. After that is coloring, and this page has no dialogue so after that, its ready.

Quality Increase: This will likely make things take a little longer at first, but will go faster as I learn and get used to things. There were a few pages, you probably know which ones, which I rushed, figuring that timing was more important then quality, and as a result, they're unclear, and frankly, just look bad. I don't want that. I've started getting feedback from friends in the rough draft stage, to make sure each page reads clearly as intended, and is the best it can be. Furthermore, I've been studying inking, including hand inking (though Chapter 2 will continue to be drawn on the computer.) Which takes me to the next part....

Chapter 1 Remake: I want to say now, that after feedback etc, the remake of chapter one is taking a backseat to Chapter 2 again. However, we're still working on it; reworking the script very intensely, (enough that I think even old readers will enjoy reading it again) and doing storyboards. I'm not even on the stage of sketching, much less inking, HOWEVER, I will be hand inking chapter 1. To prepare, I've been practicing and training with quil pens and brushes, which, thus far, has resulted in 3 11 x 17 pages full of attempts at consistent straight lines, both thin and thick. Boring as hell, but you have to start somewhere. :)

New Website: Ideally, this would fix a lot of problems, including that with the shoutbox spam. However, I don't have much news on what's going on with it myself. (The fact that the email form doesn't work half the time bothers me as well.) I'm just as in the dark as you are about when this is happening and what's going on with it, so I'm afraid I can't properly update you. The last website upgrade we did, never even got finished. Hopefully, that won't happen again. ^_^;

As far as what caused this long period without updates, simply put, it was a mixture of taking too many, too difficult classes at once, and the fact that my immune system seems to have deteriorated this semester, significantly. I won't say there won't be another late page of TaL again, not until I've got a buffer going that'll last at least a month, and I'm definitely not at that point yet. I will say, however, that I'm taking less classes and one this bad shouldn't happen again. (I also apologize for not keeping you guys updated properly; the shoutbox will clearly be insufficient until fixed.)

So! That's where we at. Page 55 of Chapter 2 is in progress, but being worked on.

Thank you guys so much for sticking with us. You're all fantastic and amazing, and hopefully, TaL will be every bit worth the wait. :)

Talk to you soon!

~ADK