So, I really hate to do this, but I don't have any choice, and at least it happened to work out perfectly with the end of a chapter: this is going to be the last page until at least the first week of 2021.

When I started posting this eleven months ago, I had all four pages of the prologue done along with all of chapter one. When chapter one was done, I think I was just finishing up page thirteen or so of chapter two. And right now… I only have the background done and half the characters sketched out for the first page of chapter four.

Part of the reason is, I hope you understand, a bit of a loss of enthusiasm. Not that I'm not committed to finishing this thing, but it's not all shiny and new anymore, it's down to the grind.

More than that, though, is just that things got more complex as the story went on, in terms of characters. If you look at chapter one, there's maybe a max of three or four characters per page. This page, alone, has fifteen characters. Which is just natural, given the story, and something I knew was coming, I just didn't completely foresee how it would affect my time to complete each page.

What I need to do, I think, is work harder at my composition skills. Get more done with less characters, in other words. The first panel here is a good example of what I can do, and I've already started applying that to the page I'm working on now.

In any case, with a month break, plus the extra time I'll get from taking off work during the holidays, I can hopefully build up at least a five page lead, and then keep that buffer in place from then on. At the very least, I can keep it going through chapter four and take another small break before the next chapter, and just keep doing that.

In any case, loving all the enthusiasm I've been seeing for this, and I hope I can keep things up for you moving forward. In the meantime, enjoy the holidays, and I'll see you next year.