Catching up!
about 8 years ago
– Thu, Jan 18, 2018 at 12:42:00 AM
Hey everyone –
Thank you for being so patient with me these last couple of months. The delays have been due almost entirely to illness; and the wait for updates due mostly to my hoping it would improve far sooner than it did.
In November, I was dealing with some serious asthma issues because of control burns in the local forests, which developed into bronchitis, and then, midmonth, I got the flu. The worst I've ever had. It weakened my immune system so much I got pneumonia in December, and even as that improved due to my being as careful as possible, I still required daily albuterol treatments – which gave me the shakes, and made it very difficult to draw.
All I could really do was rest, hydrate, take my meds, listen to my doctor, and heal as soon as I was able – and now that I've been back at work for about ten days, and have gone a week with no albuterol, I'm finally able to resume working on finishing up THE DRAGON KNIGHT.
That's my update, and my primary focus from now until I finish it. When I have, everyone will get the PDF to read and enjoy while the printer completes the books. As I finish the art, I'll be posting it here. I'd have written this update a few days earlier, but I wanted to start showing art as soon as I could – so here's a preview of the two pieces on my drawing board: Tummeler the badger on holiday, and one of the Don Quixote pieces. Hope you like them - more coming. :)
In gratitude, your friend in moxie –
James
...and flooring the accelerator
over 8 years ago
– Sat, Oct 28, 2017 at 09:34:21 PM
First, I appreciate everyone being so patient. Among the personal reasons I have been hesitant to update sooner – including a few things I've appreciated everyone respecting my privacy on – is that after the other medical situations were resolved, I still couldn't see very well. The heavy antibiotics had made my vision blurry, and there was no way to know when it would clear up. I wanted to post an update when things were well and truly moving forward, and the end of Summer moving into Fall was, simply put, difficult.
At the beginning of September, my eyesight finally sharpened up again.
I finished some smaller pieces to get back into the swing of it, and once I knew I could actually do the art, I've jumped in again with everything I've got, and this is my main priority until it's done.
Expect more art updates over the next couple of weeks. I'm formatting the text of the book now, and will be dropping in the illustrations as I finish them. With each batch, I'll share them in an update – and then when I send the file to the printer, I'll also be sending out the link for the PDF of the completed book THE DRAGON KNIGHT.
I feel like, after a very difficult year, I finally have my mojo back. I promise, I'm going to make it worth the wait.
With thanks,
James - drawing like a house on fire
Back in gear
over 8 years ago
– Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 08:34:22 PM
Thank you all for being so patient with me. I'm going to be posting a pretty hefty update later tonight. The short, fast version: good things are (finally) happening. More tonight.
Finishing the Art
over 8 years ago
– Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 06:49:37 PM
Hey everyone -
There have been a couple of comments and some direct messages from a few of you who have been disappointed with the delays on this book, and while I'll still be responding to those directly, I wanted to make sure everyone knows where things stand.
The delays have been almost entirely about finishing the art, and have been almost entirely health-related, and the other issues that have had to be dealt with were personal, largely unexpected, and pretty much impossible to avoid or delay dealing with. A major shift in my personal life happened that has affected pretty much everything about my life and work – and it happened literally the night before this Kickstarter was launched, and has been a continuing situation that will ultimately all be for the good – but as I said, it HAS affected my work and my productivity. I'm very grateful for the patience you all have extended to me while I've worked through this.
On the health issue, I came down with pneumonia halfway through the campaign, got mostly better in November, then got pneumonia AGAIN Thanksgiving weekend, and it had me mostly bedridden through the holidays. In January we discovered that a simmering jaw infection due to an abscessed tooth was the cause of the lowered resistance to the pneumonia, and the infection got so bad it required an ER visit, morphine, massive doses of antibiotics, and then a surgery before we could do the procedure to deal with the tooth.
My compromised immune system has been a bit of a mess since that procedure earlier this year, and the fire season here has had me dealing with ongoing asthma issues, more medications, and the possibility of pneumonia again, all of which had an awful impact on my productivity – and then, even as I was preparing to write this update a couple of weeks ago, the infection resurfaced on the other side of my jaw in a pretty terrible way, and the antibiotics are only just now starting to get it cleared up.
All throughout this, I've done all I can to keep up with working on the book – and posting things the printer has completed, like the covers – to the point that all I need to finish are the illustrations. A few people have commented that I seemed to have shifted over to working on my Patreon instead – but the Patreon (which is also running behind) is about works-in-progress, which includes some of the other things I've been able to write/design when I haven't been well enough to draw. This book just needs me to finish the art. And to that end, here is the one thing I can promise: when it is finally delivered, this book will be the best work I can do, period.
That's been the one promise I've kept on ALL of my Kickstarter projects. Some have shipped early. Some, like the massive StarChild book, shipped a year off schedule. But the one thing I never compromised on was the quality of what I delivered, in both creative aspects and production. THE DRAGON KNIGHT will be no exception.
I've cleared other things out of my schedule and workload to be able to focus on staying as healthy as I can so my work time can be as productive as possible – and this art is what I'm working on now. We're going to ship out some of the higher-end rewards, like original art, that didn't need the completed books to ship, and as soon as I finish the last of the art and drop it into the layouts, EVERYONE who is waiting for it will get the PDF.
I'm not offering a proposed delivery date right this moment because things happen, like this resurgent infection, that I didn't expect, and I want the information I give you to be about progress, not excuses, however valid they may be. So please, just bear with me. The next update I post will be the layouts for the rest of the art, then progress shots, and then the finished art – that way, you can see where the book is at. And then we'll post a planned shipping date when the printer has the finished files.
Just bear with me, and I'll get it done – and we'll all have the beautiful book we all wanted when this project started. And again, THANK YOU for being so patient with me.
Your friends in moxie,
James & Team Dragon
Progress: the covers are done!
almost 9 years ago
– Tue, May 23, 2017 at 07:37:43 PM
The covers for the special Art Edition are completed, and the dustjackets are finished as well! Working on finishing the interior design and art, but it's moving forward, and looking really sweet. Thanks for your patience, and your support!
James & Team Dragon
