I just wanted to make a write filling folks in on where things are going. Initially, with the next couple volumes of TLWL, I had planned to re-introduce Lucas Watts, Henry Reese's now estranged best friend who cheated on him with his now ex-wife Christine Vincent ne' Reese at the tale end of the next volume, 13. Well, as what usually happens with me when I have a good idea...it took on a life of its. Rather than just bring him back into the story in bits & pieces...it's turned into a full blown side story where a series of events unfold with Luke as he tries to adjust to living in Los Angeles that was just WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too good to spread out. By & large the plans I have for Luke is still the same, they're just going to happen faster then I initially anticipated. In all honesty, I'm having a blast putting this side story together, as it allows me to not only introduce new characters on the west coast...including a character from another KE member who plays a pivotal role in Luke's story going forward...but it allows me to delve into the flawed and misguided nature of Lucas Watts.

For those who haven't read the previous volumes (of which you can catch up on it all by visiting the blog of mine made previous to this one), Luke puts on a brave face...but is an extremely damaged man. The product of a broken home, Luke's issues manifest in him making poor choices. Choices that over the 22 years he'd known Hank, his best friend would have to bail him out of. Lucas looked to Hank a brother, and to Franklin Reese as a father. Since betraying his friend and exiling himself from Empire City due to the fallout, he no longer has that safety net. For the 1st time in a long time, he's got to make decisions on his own. Decisions that if they don't pan out, he has to face alone. I feel the need to do this for Luke to go into his mental to state and reveal what possessed him to do what he did to Henry, and how he's coping with losing the only true family he's ever known. Without going into details or spoiling too much, Luke's tale will be a story of self discovery and coming to terms with one's actions. It was never my intentions to make Luke out to be a "villain" type character. He's just a fuck up, and fucked up in the worst possible way. His story is about taking accountability, learning from one's mistakes and coming out on the other side better. It's kind of a redemption story, but what he's redeeming is his own self worth.

TLWL Vol.14 will pretty much serve as the start of the "2nd Chapter" of the story. As I mentioned in a previous blog, the plan is to branch out and focus on the doings of the other characters and scenarios I've introduced outside of Henry, Bianca, Rory and Jaeleen...though there will be MAJOR events happening with our 4 main characters. Specifically an HUGE event involving Rory that's going to shake that side of the story to its core. Volume 16 specifically will be a milestone, as it will mark the passage of a full year since the night the 4 main characters came together and their lives were forever changed. It's in this volume to 2 of the biggest events to happen thus far will take place. As far as Volumes 14 and 15, those 2 will be solely focused on Luke, and the events within will span about a month. From there comes the 2 major events of vol. 16, and branching out to the other characters. And yes, even Lori Stiel and James Sullivan will reappear within the 2nd chapter of the story as well. In fact, I think it'll be quite surprising to those of you who have followed my collective work how this happens. (Spoiler: So far, I've only shown Lori interacting with Priya Persat and Zenaida Dupri, not Bianca. There's a reason for it...which will be revealed when she Lori shows up in TLWL again.)

Sooooooo yea. I've a lot of of things happening. And what's even better is I have the time to do it, and there's no blockage of ideas. I've managed to find a workflow where I actually have several volumes of all of my stories already done...in terms of the images. All that's needed is putting the actual comics together. In terms of TLWL, volumes 13, 14 and parts of 16 have all the images grabbed. (Why not 15? Well, I'm working on that as I typed this. I originally had planned for 15 to actually be "16", but again...I came up with so much good shit for the Luke side story that I decided to give Luke 2 whole volumes focused on him. 

I also made some MASSIVE changes to Luke since the last time we saw him. 1st off switching his head mod to the GEMale head. NeatMcGee's male head is nice, but the eyes are too narrow, and seeing as I tend to focus a lot on the face and facial expressions...I needed something with more versatility. Also, he's completely shaved his head. When last we saw him, he had cut it short, but since being in LA he's opted to go clean bean. He had also shaved his beard, but he's slowly letting it grow back out. I also gave him a completely new skin texture thanks in part to the skindef system and @HDiddy's body hair layers. I've actually been in the slow process of converting all of my story used characters to skindefs, since only the ABSOLUTELY MOST RAREST OF OCCASIONS will these characters ever be shared.

That's pretty much the shape of things to come regarding TLWL. This March will mark 4 years of me working on this story, and doing comics as a whole. It's CRAZY to think it's already been nearly 4 years. I delved into this while NYC was on lockdown from COVID, and I've not turned back. TLWL of all of my stories is my passion project, because it's an extension of ideas and stories I had come up with from the years I had played The Sims (TS3 namely) after getting out of the military. But I'll save that for another blog. MORE COMICS ARE ON THE WAY!!! Like...a LOT more. WE ROCKIN' BABY!!!