Hello everyone, long time no update, and I'm very sorry about that! Happy Easter! This is going to be a very informative journal, as well as a welcoming one to many new watchers, thanks and updates about the AatR comics and efforts in publishing, as well as other projects and an opportunity to contribute to an FAQ! Please, please read on, and I'll put in little headings and dot-points if you're only interested in certain things.

These are little bulletpoints of the headings that follow, you can jump to the heading you're mostly interested in if you want to. Sorry that there is a lot to read here, but I have a lot to update on, haha ;u;/


Welcome, and Thank You for the Daily Deviation
Where I've Been
Artists at the Ready; updates and printing
My Gallery and Other Projects
Building an FAQ, feel free to contribute


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Welcome

<sub>First of all, I logged in one day a little while ago after a brief absence to no-internet-land, to discover I had a sudden influx of messages. This was down to the very kind featuring of one of my comics as a Daily Deviation, suggested by ~RaeXBB4Eva and featured by ^dust-bite, and I am eternally grateful. Thank you so much not only to these two folks for the feature, but also to the fellow artists and writers who have taken the time to drop by.

I am especially honoured by those of you who not only looked at the strip that was featured, but who then took on the fairly mammoth task of reading the entire first volume of the comic that is uploaded here on dA, and those of you who left thoughtful comments on any of the pages, my profile, or in my gallery. I apologize for the delay in responding to a lot of those, but I will make it my personal effort to respond to as many as I can as soon as I can, especially some of the longer ones, because I have been so touched by the feedback. Never have I experienced that sort of interest in my artwork or my stories, and I am nothing short of blown away. If you have a message that you think I haven't responded to, feel free to send me a note here on dA!

Again, thank you all, so much for taking the time to visit my page and my artwork, it means the world to me.</sub>



Where I've Been

<sub>The reason I have been so especially inactive around here is that I've just finished up my final semester of studies! I am finally free! It has been a very very hectic time for me, as one can imagine, but I worked very hard and I am quite proud of what I achieved in these last months of my course. I also won an award at my school, so that was very surprising and very lovely!

Now that that is over with, I will still have to focus on a few other life things first. My family and I are moving back home to live with my mother and look after her, and from there I have some weddings to plan; not only my own, but I also have a wedding planning/design/dressmaking/decorating/whole shindig job, due in October (when my client is getting married!). I am very excited to be able to work on it full time!

Hopefully soon I will be able to give updates on things other than art, as I hope to open up an online boutique sometime within the next year for my fashion label. I'll be sure to keep posted about that, and I hope that I will be able to achieve more for my business now that I haven't got to contend with classes and assignments. I also hope that you will enjoy these as well!</sub>



Artists at the Ready

<sub>In terms of the tournament, I'm still on some shakey ground about continuing. I want to very badly, I have put so much into it and made many sacrifices, but as I mentioned above, I have been flat out and have literally been working 24/7 on my studies (in fact I've been bed ridden with illness for this past week, due to the lack of care I took for myself during that time... woops... |D;; ) and am subsequently very behind on the tournament in regards to my opponent, who has over a month head start on me.

That fact, combined with the terrible treatment other contestants and I received from the judges is not very encouraging that I continue. But I would still like to honour my opponent this round, who is the wonderful (and animating!) mister ~PhiTuS; at the moment everything on this topic is very up in the air for me, so I am sorry I have no clear answers.

However, even if I cannot participate in this round, I don't intend to forfeit the story I have been telling, as I've promised I will see it through to the final chapter. The end of round four/volume one was not the end, and there is another volume to go, with I anticipate at least four individual chapters. And perhaps a couple of exciting little twists and elements!

Another thing I have been working on in regards to Artists at the Ready, is looking at putting it into print. I don't want to do anything of the sort as a commercial venture, but I know a few friends who would like to have a copy, and perhaps most importantly to me, some family members who would really like to partake of this project I've been putting all this time into, but can't really get behind 'online comics'. I think if I had it in a published book format, they might actually be able to enjoy it as well, and I would like that. ;u;

I'd like to start gathering an idea of interest, and also if anyone has any experience in the matter. I've never put a project like this to print before, and my knowledge of printing has always been the kind on A4 printer paper with an impassable white edge, and that sort of thing won't do for this. So, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, feel free to forward them my way, and I'll see what happens from there. There are a lot of ends that need to be tied up with creative ownership (most specifically with my previous round opponents) and the like as well, but I figured I'd find out if it's going to be physically achievable first before I go worrying anyone involved with that.</sub>



Other Projects and Artwork

<sub>For quite a few newcomers to my gallery, I'm sure it looks like it's only here for the purposes of hosting my entries into the Artists at the Ready tournament. Some older watchers will know otherwise, although you may not have noticed that I removed almost all of my gallery a few months back.

I do actually have a lot of other artwork, it's just that it's all been moved into storage. I do intend to bring it back, and I do also intend to upload artwork here that isn't purely Artists at the Ready related; just that for the past year or so I haven't really had the time to draw much else! Haha. If I leave the tournament however, I'll be able to operate on my own schedules, and you may be able to expect other things. For now, my gallery will remain as it is and only showcase AatR, but I will now slowly begin to bring back some select pieces into my gallery until it is repopulated with my favourite pieces. There is also someone whom I owe a great deal of artwork to, who has been incredibly patient, and that must be one of my first priorities.

I also have another project my family and I are working on gradually, on a different website. I'll publicize it here once we've moved house, I've made my mind up about the AatR tournament, and once life has settled back into a slightly more normal schedule when I will be able to update there regularly. So far in this testing stage though, it has been enjoyable, and it allows a bit more interaction with the public, I think!

As for other projects further in the future, I guess we'll see where time takes us, but I'll be sure to let you know!</sub>



FAQ building

<sub>Lastly, I noticed a lot of questions in many of the comments I have received, and while I've done my best to answer, I saw that quite a few of them were similar or related, or at least could have been dealt with with a single answer. So, that's lead me to think that perhaps I should set up some sort of FAQ here on deviantArt to answer some questions about my art, my story, or myself, or anything really.

If you have any questions which I haven't answered, or something that you think should be on the FAQ, don't be at all afraid to drop it here on the journal, and I'll be sure to add it to an upcoming FAQ journal post! I promise I won't bite, and I've never made an FAQ before, so I'd appreciate the help to fill it!

I do think that that's all now, this is a very long journal, and I greatly appreciate if you've taken the time to read it. Once again, thank you all so much, from the very bottom of my heart! For dropping by, for adding me to your watch lists or for commenting on my artwork, even just for taking a look. I hope I will continue to produce things that you will enjoy looking at and reading here on deviantArt!

Thank you, and lots of love!

~ Little Bird</sub>