Here are the lines! Our heat went out today, so that put me quite behind trying to figure all that out. We’ve had the worst luck with our boiler out here, our landlord keeps apologizing profusely, but I feel bad for him. It’s only 2 years old, but it’s not his fault, the person who installed it did a horrible job so it constantly breaks. There’s a whole thing here in the UK when you rent you have to have a leasing company that the landlords are required to pay a percentage of the rent to, but they do absolutely nothing LOL. It’s such a hassle to get them to fix anything you end up going to your landlord for everything. Ours is a super sweet, older British gentleman, some people are not so lucky with good landlords, so I’m thankful for that!

Anyways, I mentioned last week that I would go into why I’ve been so mia lately. I’m currently 34 weeks pregnant, our son is due Christmas Day (I love Christmas time so I was over the moon when I first heard the due date.)

I have thankfully had a very healthy, normal pregnancy. No problems with the baby or any severe issues with me, but I had more of the not so fun stuff with pregnancy. The first three months I had severe morning sickness the doctors were worried I had HG (morning sickness where it lasts your entire pregnancy). Thank God I did not! It faded in the second trimester, but I couldn’t move at all those three months. I basically was in bed/on the couch 24/7 playing LoZ, watching kdramas, or sleeping. I also lost about 10lbs, I’m already small so this obviously worried the doctors. I lived off of crackers, fruit, and ginger drops those couple of months lol. Sitting up was not an option so I couldn’t draw really at all. This put me behind on some big commissions, so those started to take precedence over the comic. The second trimester was great, but due to the news a ton of our family came out to see us and wanted to travel England while out here. I am now into the third trimester and have caught up on most of my commission work, I still have a few big ones I’m finishing up, but am only slowed down by hip pain I get from sitting too long, so I can’t work as fast since I have to get up and move/workout every 30 mins compared to 2/3 hours.

So know I am very passionate about this comic still and am trying to update every Wednesday while I can. Obviously when the baby comes I’ll have to take a break from posting regularly. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Thanks for being patient with me during this time and continuing to be interested in my comic. I know I’ve been horrible at keeping things updated, but I also wanted to wait to announce the pregnancy.

Jared and I have been traveling with my family in town the last few weeks, and I forgot to send my new ipad all the stuff I needed for the comic to work on it properly. The classic case of, you think you thought of everything you needed before you leave but you always forget something.

We finally got our internet settled today. Thank you for understanding while my husband and I dealt with the no internet situation!

Whenever we need a service done or something fixed here in the UK is when I really miss the US and our customer service. It’s not that people are rude or bad at their jobs here, it just takes forever to get something fixed and any slight inconvenience they reschedule for another day. I don’t want to say it’s laziness, I think it’s just a cultural difference here. People are very lax is what I’ve come to realize, which is nice in some situations, (restaurants and pubs not rushing you for example), but not when you need something major done lol. We had one technician not bring the right tools and rescheduled, then another rescheduled because he needed to access our neighbor’s backyard and our neighbor wouldn’t be home for an hour, then another rescheduled because of the rain. This was a first, usually the rain hinders no one here, because, well it’s England after all. Thankfully, it’s up and running and all good now! I was worried we were about to have a repeat situation of last year when it took almost 3 months to get our shower fixed, but thankfully it wasn’t. I’m convinced God is teaching me how to have more patience out here lol.

Thanks for being patient with me while I get back into the swing of things! The last few months a lot has happened and I decided to take August off from the comic to recover.

Currently I will be uploading the comic weekly again, that may change but I will keep everyone updated here.

Hope everyone has had a lovely summer!

Edit: We had family come in as a surprise last week, (I had no idea, Jared surprised me), so I’ve been delayed on the next page. We have some more coming in tomorrow and we’re currently in London. I’ve brought my ipad along with pages 1 and 2 of chapter 3, so I’m hoping to post those soon for you guys!

This is about 80% done, I need to finish fully rendering Tamiko out and fix the door light just a bit. It’s been insanely hot this last week in the UK, we broke down and got a small AC unit. I can’t do what I endured last summer lol.

Final page for the chapter! Currently working on the colors for tomorrow. Next week will be the chapter 3 cover. I have a few ideas I’m trying to decide with.

Thanks for understanding that I needed a break! It was a much needed one for sure.

Edit 5/10: I will be getting the last page out sometime within the next week. I got a horrible flu last week and am finally feeling normal again. I had already planned on taking the rest of May off of the comic and will start the next chapter in June.

Next page is the last page of the chapter, woohooooo! I’m definitely going to take some time to color this chapter before fully moving forward. I’ll have more details on that on the next page.

Sorry I don’t have much time to really type, I’ve been really busy, but here’s the sketch for the page!

Below is an image of from a small video I made for fun between commissions. Take it for whatever you want 😉

Edit: I’ll be taking this week off to finish some commission work, hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Here is the rough sketch for this page! I’m hoping to color this and the last page a bit before our trip, but commissions come first. I have a few big ones I’ve been working on finishing as well that I’m excited to finish.

We’re getting close to the end of this chapter. Looking back, I could of split this chapter into two possibly, but I think you never know until you really draw it all out. I’m excited for the next chapter too. It’s gonna be a fun one.

Happy early Easter! I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend/Holy Week!

Working out the colors and lines right now, but didn’t want to keep anyone waiting any longer.

I’ve been busy with commission work and my birthday passed this last week. Jared and I are going to visit Chatsworth House this weekend in celebration. I’m really excited to see the Peak District here in England, just in time for Spring. For those who don’t know, Chatsworth is where Pemberley was filmed in Pride and Prejudice.

Fellow readers of Lost in the Vale, will know Luke and Delica. For crystalcurtis who won the contest, I did the piece below. I loved being able to draw them:

I also did this inbetween all my commission and comic work. All the Adrien and Emaré fans will surely enjoy it.

Happy Palm Sunday everyone!