Dork Age Doodles

AFTERWORD I’ve been putting off writing this for way too long, thinking I have plenty of time until suddenly: BAM! December was upon me and the final update of Empyrean Book I was uploaded while I had the worst migraine in years and couldn’t even scramble together a last minute afterword. But here we go. I’ll try not to care about sounding professional or eloquent, just so I can get it done.

First I want to say a big thank you to everyone who've read Empyrean, all the way through or just a little bit, I’m grateful nonetheless. And extra big thank you to everyone who’s left comments or nice tags in the reblogs etc. I’m awful at responding, but I’ve seen them all and really, really appreciate it.

I worked on the book on and off for three years and I’m pretty happy with the end result. Of course, this is just the beginning of the story. I have an outline for the whole thing, aiming for a total of four books of similar length which will, as you can guess, take a loooooong time. Which brings me to my second point.

Empyrean will go on hiatus for the time being. For how long? I wish I knew. While Book 2 is all scripted and currently in the sketching stage, I have no idea when I’ll have enough finished pages for an update. Once I do, however, I’ll probably update as I finish the pages, rather than wait for the whole book to be complete.

I don’t think I need to explain much of why this is. It’s simply being an adult. It’s having rent, bills and a cat with special dietary needs. And what Empyrean brings in joy it certainly doesn’t bring in money, so ever since July I’ve drawn almost nothing but freelance work.

Despite that, I still feel positive about the future of Empyrean. It’s already been published in parts in a small Swedish magazine and I’ve met people and opened doors that would have been impossible, had I not created Empyrean. Long time followers might remember how I’ve long wanted to be able to support myself by making art. And right now? That's exactly what I’m doing.

Finishing Empyrean will take many years and, in the end, it might never even get picked up by a publisher. But I’m at peace with both of those things. I draw Empyrean entirely for myself and would continue to do so even if not a single other person was reading it. Though … as long as there’s at least one such person I will keep uploading it too!

Lastly, I’ve been looking into self-publishing and hope to give that a try. No solid plans yet, just counting costs, looking at kickstarters and such. I’m currently neck-deep in a big project, but once that’s over I can start thinking about it again. When the time comes, I will of course post about it.

I think that is all. It got a bit longer and ramblier than I planned but oh well.