Unfortunately, I have to reduce the update schedule of Gaia for the next months. Gaia will now be updated in a “2 new pages per week – 1 new page per week – 2 new pages per week – 1 new page per week – …” cycle.

In the last weeks and months, I had to spent quite some time on the planning of the Sandra and Woo adventure and several other tasks. I also worked long hours on a very important scene of the current chapter “Shadowdancers” that I had to rewrite several times before I was happy with it.

Running out of my buffer of written pages would be disastrous and result in a month-long hiatus. Better prevent such a worst-case scenario in time.

A good position at the large webcomic voting site TopWebComics is a good way get new readers. As a little thank-you for voting for Gaia, you will receive the following bonus drawing:

After a slow start, I once again received a good number of great entries for the Sandra and Woo and Gaia fanart contest 2012. Since I also wanted to acknowledge clever ideas, I put two pictures on the places 4 and 5 which weren’t drawn as well as some of the other ones.

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Let’s begin the countdown of the best entries with the places 6 to 10 (in alphabetical order). All of them would have deserved to win a prize, but there were some pictures I liked even more.

by Ann Chua	by Anne Zimmermann
by Giulia Beck	by JoeL
by Daniel Lee

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Place 5 goes to Katrin Dort for her interpretation of the theme “dogs carnivores playing poker”. As one can see, the stakes are high and unwilling.

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Place 4 goes to Willie O’ Brien for this sweet drawing of Woo giving sweets to his mate Lily. There’s nothing better than candied bugs! If you’re raccoon, of course.

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Place 3 goes to Yenny Laud for the technically best drawn picture of all contestants. It looks like Cloud’s love life is really under constant surveillance of his two personal “Big Brother”s Yuna and Ye Thuza.

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Place 2 goes to Jessica Chiba, the creator of the webcomic The Cat and the Fiddle for the following drawing of Sandra, Cloud, Woo and Larisa. It’s a picture that gives you a good feeling after a rough day since you can feel how much fun they have.

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Place 1 goes to Archie The RedCat for this drawing of Sandra and Woo going for a walk in the forest. It deserves the big prize for the great lighting and the lovely drawing of Sandra. She would certainly adore this flattering portrait of her. Archie also send a nice drawing of Lilith which you can see below.

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All winners should send me an e-mail to novil@gmx.de with their Paypal account or German bank account information so that I can send them the prize money. In a pinch, I could also send the money with Alertpay and the payment service formerly known as Moneybookers. But that will take a while.

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Here are all the other entries I received. Several readers even send several pieces:

• Entry Nr. 2 by Archie The RedCat
• Entry Nr. 1 by Brittany Hause
• Entry Nr. 1 by Eliza Sándor
• Entry Nr. 2 by Eliza Sándor
• Entry Nr. 1 by Gregor Aldeon
• Entry Nr. 2 by Gregor Aldeon
• Entry Nr. 1 by Gruff
• Entry Nr. 1 by Marjorie Rishel
• Entry Nr. 1 by Melissa Vandenberg
• Entry Nr. 1 by Novella Locritani
• Entry Nr. 1 by Oscar Carlson
• Entry Nr. 2 by Oscar Carlson
• Entry Nr. 3 by Oscar Carlson
• Entry Nr. 1 by Rasyuqa Asyira Hafiidh
• Entry Nr. 1 by Sandra Buen
• Entry Nr. 1 by Taliesin Laughing Owl Tyndall
• Entry Nr. 1 by Vanessa Hawley

Thanks to everyone who participated!

A good position at the large webcomic voting site TopWebComics is a good way get new readers. As a little thank-you for voting for Gaia, you will receive the following wallpaper:

The entries for the Sandra and Woo and Gaia fanart contest are rolling in. In fact, I received more pictures today than during the first 29 days of April. I’m not sure if I made it clear enough that this isn’t an eBay auction where the last bidder wins . Anyway, given this chronological distribution, some contestants might need an additional day to finish their piece. So I will judge all entries that are in my inbox when getting home from work on Wednesday, 18:00 CET, 2 May 2012.