The holidays are over and the new year is upon us! That means it’s time to move forward with the next installment of A.R. Dragonfly and that also means it’s time for your January progress update!
First off, I want to thank everyone who picked up a copy of either Final Hope or A.R. Dragonfly during my Christmas sale a couple of weeks back! I truly hope you enjoyed the stories that I told in those books! Of course, right off the heels of the sale, Vol. 2 of A.R. Dragonfly launched and right on the heels of that, Vol. 1 of A.R. Dragonfly received its first-ever review!
Needless to say, December was a whirlwind month for my books but it was a good whirlwind. However, just because we got to experience all of that, it doesn’t mean the work doesn’t stop!
I am happy to announce that I have gone through and finished all the initial edits to Volume 3 of A.R. Dragonfly! As I was going through, I decided on expanding Lynn’s character a bit. I gave her a side occupation, refined her personality and gave her a bit more substance as a character. I hope everyone enjoys the changes that I made to her as they help build on the core of what her character was conceptualized at.
I know for the first two volumes of A.R. Dragonfly, we’ve mainly seen Amber either at home or at the store. Sure, we spent some time in an arena but those two locations have been the default locations for the story. While that continues onward in volume three, we have an all-new location to help open up the world a bit more. This also comes with the introduction of, yet, another new character in Takumi Karume who will make his debut in Volume 3!
Volume 3 is also a bit of a slower volume than the first two. This is intentional for pacing’s sake. Volume 1 was all about introducing the main cast, world-building, and setting up the main conflict. Volume 2 was expanding on the conflict, building the rivalry between Dragonfly and Khaine, all while offering up an action-heavy volume to help build up that quicker pace.
Volume 3 looks to pull back the reigns on the action. In most stories, the third volume is dedicated to character development. I’ve given enough teasers of development throughout the first two volumes. It’s time to start explaining some of our characters and why they are the way they are. I haven’t explained everyone but a couple of our main characters get some light shed on their pasts. Where backstories weren’t explained, personalities were fleshed out. As I aforementioned, Lynn had a little more depth added to her while another character started to come into his own.
Volume 4 is planned to pick some of the action back up as Volume 3 sets up an entirely new conflict while keeping some of the old ones intact. All in all, I tried to make this an info dump volume but not to the point where everything you got was just information. I feel it has a nice balance between information and rivalry/story progression.
Now that Volume 3 is in 2nd Draft, it allowed me to come up with the character art. I have another 10 pieces of art submitted to Zara. Just like with the other volumes, the book will be released when it’s done. I’m not a fan of putting a release date on work that I have full control over. When the art gets closed to being finished, I’ll start adding the extra content, Part III of the History of Nara chapter, Fun Facts, References List, etc.
So if I’m doing all of that then, what’s next?
Write Volume 4 and conceptualize Volume 5! Volume 4 is going to be incredibly fun to write. I have some great stuff planned for that volume and I have some pretty ambitious goals that I have set for myself art-wise. As you know, Zara handles the characters while I am responsible for all other non-character artwork. I loved the 2-page spread I did for the ending of Volume 2 that I decided to do something even more ambitious for Volume 4 but that’s for another time. I’m getting ahead of myself.
Just know that things are moving forward and everything is still right on schedule!
As always, you can keep tabs on what’s happening on my Progress page.
Thanks for reading! I’ll be sure to provide more updates as things develop!