I'd like to think I can work this onto a schedule, but I need to get a rythym before I can sight any figures. I will say, however, that if I don't have something new up by January, y'all can harass me.

That all being said, I'm excited to have this chapter done. I'm eager to rework these chapters at a slower pace and give each setting a chance to develop itself, I feel it's critical before I push into uncharted territory (hence bothering to rewrite). While this chapter still felt rushed, it's sort of meant to. As soon as Taya settles in, she gets shipped off again ^_^; Next time I can really stop and catch my breath and let the characters speak. And just from an illustrations standpoint, it'll be nice to move the narrative to someone other than Taya for five minutes - someone new to draw. And maybe I'll be able to branch off and have illustrations that act less as props and more as illustrations, with things like backgrounds and strong compositions and... hm. Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself again ;)

Oh, and the returning visitor will notice I developed Koneko a little bit more. Her design is slightly different, though it won't be aparent until I illustrate her more (and she's supposed to be short, but I've done a bad job at adjusting her proportions... it'll be more prominent next time, honest ^_^;)... but I also altered her speech patterns. I like to think she speaks more of a distinct dialect (cat-pidgin) and less of a random mishmash of languages. She still does use Japanese (note the stray "san"), but not as overwhelmingly often (yes, I'll get hopping on that glossary). And lookit, she has a culture now ;) To be really obscure, the name "Nyamal" is the official cross species term, whereas Nyamals themselves use the traditional grouping of "Nekojin". Er, yeah. You can tell I'm a linguistics nut, can'tcha?

...But I digress. ^^ I planned in advance this time and gathered a small collection of scribbles just for this omake. Plans for full out grand parody pages fell through, but they will be coming. It's just easier, I think, when I have more of a cast to work with ;)
• Sage Sketches - when I work on illustrating a chapter, I hit art block for panels fairly quickly. As a result, I often do quick and loose sketches - like these of Sage - to get warmed up.

• Final Fantasy Sage - and then there are the random doodle warmups, like this one ;) I dressed Sage as a healer from Tactics. I wanted draw more, but everybody else protested too vehemently... next time, perhaps ;)

• The panel that never was - ...er, just an illustration that hit the cutting room floor. While there were two illustrations that I scrapped entirely and redrew, this one just didn't make it in. Even if I decided to use it, it would've been the third redraw, methinks ^_^;

• Something silly - Just a few parting words from the cast (sans Sage, since I ran out of room ^_^;).

Annnd, that's all for this time ^_^

~LS, August 20, 2002