Some reflections and what's to come (Patreon)

(Written by Silvia Torres, comic co-creator)

After six months of work, we have finished chapter 5, so the moment to decide what course is Sweet Lullaby going to take has finally come. 

Even if we were always aware that it was risky to continue in 2020 (more than a decade after HTF and SL's boom in popularity) we can now check if the risk was worth or not. Without reflecting the feelings of my teamates, I think the answer to this question would be a sure no for the artists and a maybe for the comic in itself.

Originally, we were hopeful that by reviving a project as popular as SL came to be, we would gain the necessary support to continue the way we intended, and while we partly managed to do that during Chapter 5, I have to say the risk got to dangerous points on several occasions, specially when pandemic began.

Despite how difficult It's been to sustain my family with just savings and an average of $100 per month in my case, we found the way to make it work at the end...more or less.

Don't get us wrong. Shadows of Light was able to exist thanks to the support of all our patrons, and even if the the result was not exactly what we thought it could be, we are still very happy to have managed to finish our pages in full color. This revival failed to attract the nessesary audience to continue the way we had planned, but despite this, we think it wouldn't be right to leave such a long project without a proper ending.

So with that said, we have decided that the best for all would be to go from a full color comic, to a grayscale one, at least for chapter 6.

Although we love how the comic looks in color, it is necessary to recognize the time it requires to do it, and how difficult it was to adapt the full color format to the schedule and pace of work of each artist. The way we made this last chapter taught us how important it is to organize our time, as well as how unsustainable it has been to keep the process to one page per week. It is too much waiting for you and too much work for us, so if we want to see the end of this story during this same year, we have to speed up the process by moving on to a format that's easier to make.

In addition to how they look, we are also planning to change the way we work on the pages, keeping a reserve before publishing them, rather than doing that as soon as we finish. There is also the possibility that we will expand the artistic team, but that will depend on how the work will be from now on. 

For now, we will be focusing on finishing the two scripts that remain, and while that happens, I will also be giving some maintenance to Patreon, which has been somewhat neglected during the production of Shadows of Light. We will be sharing the process in detail soon, new PSD files, more character guides, new rewards, and even more concept art while we wait. According to our calculations, this will take about a month from now, in order to begin production of Chapter 6 in late April or early May, if everything goes well.

It's been a complicated road, but here we are. We're still here and we're very thankful with you for all your help. We sincerely hope you agree with the changes, though if you have any suggestions, feel free to share them with us, we'll be glad to listen to anything you have to say.

Take care, everybody. And best of luck with everything in life ❤