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Thanks! The story is moving along, looks like it's going to be novella length about 40,000 words.  Just finished up a furry fantasy/adventure short story that will be appearing in an anthology slated to be out in the fall.
I'm also revising my CG illustration process.  Images will look more painterly and not look like they came straight out of a game engine.

Thank you for your comment! It's quite difficult to get input on a project so it's appreciated.

I agree with your point, concerning transitions- I will look into making them more organic and informative.

I disagree with having scenes with side characters interacting for the sake of adding extra relationship or background information or for atmosphere. I have considered various ways of adding extra narrative but, it seems to me side dialog will break the pace of the story. Also, it could easily end up with what they call in playwriting a feather-duster scene (side characters talking about the main character). On a side note, one of my pet peeves with furry VN writing is there is too much trivial dialog that doesn't move the story along; something I work hard to avoid.

That being said there are constant relationship reveals among the characters throughout the story, some in the dialog but a lot in the images. I realize that's an unconventional way to handle storytelling in the visual novel format but over the course of the story I think it will work. We'll see.

Now the story POV does change in chapter 4 from limited third person to episodically limited third person. Looking over the chapter again, I probably should tighten up that transition. It's complex but comparisons to children's books is a bit of hyperbole.

Again thanks for the input, it's very helpful!

Shunaka  

That's been done.  You should be all set now.

I'll probably do something like that- upcoming cutscenes will have some animation then, I'll go back and animate earlier cutscenes.  Really want to animate the pond scene in chapter 2!

Excellent!  That could well be something one of the furkin sages would say. Indeed,  you picked up on one of the primary themes of the story- renewal and what needs to be burned away to get there.

Thanks for the comment!

I never read the story 'Yes Ma'am'  I'll need to check that out.

I have considered adding side conversation branches to the story, but haven't decided how I want to handle that.  To me, the pacing of the story is very important which is why I haven't included branching choices so far.  Depending on how it works out I may have some text-based side stories to cover that.

As to NSFW,  eventually, there will be a version to cover that.  Mostly this will just be frontal nudity-  no full-on H-scenes though.  However-  some interesting bonus animations are likely! 

Shunaka

Awesome!  I hope your viewers enjoy the story.

Hi Spagok,

Thanks for your comment!

Children of the Pheonix is the official update/port of Westbranch Commune. There will be no further updates to the original WC since the story is continued in CotP.  I've left the WC page up for now in case there are any links out there still pointing to it, but it will be taken down soon. 

I'm giving the Itch message board function a try since some things I'd like to post really aren't dev log material.  I'll occasionally post story related information here and see how it goes.
This first post are bios of the two wolves in the story with a bonus image.

The darker-colored wolf is Kemchin,  He grew up in Montana and learned house repair from his father.  He found that career uninteresting and decided to attend culinary school in New York City.  He worked in a number of restaurants in the city and while it was extremely tough, particularly for a furkin he managed to work his way up to sous chef at a prestigious restaurant. Unfortunately, he had a run-in with a mob boss and had to leave the east coast in a hurry.  On his way back to Montana he met Simone who later invited him to Westbranch. Kemchin's favorite hobby is competitive weightlifting.

The lighter-colored wolf is Erin, Kemchin's mate. The two met at a competition though Erin was mostly an observer rather than a competitor. Erin grew up in Wyoming and had an unremarkable cubhood.  He took an interest in helping his fellow furkin and went to college to study psychology and counseling.  He had his own practice for a while but started feeling burnt out and eventually joined Kemchin at Westbranch.  He set up a new practice there and counsels both furkin and humans.

Thanks so much for your kind comments!  I'm constantly making small tweaks to the character models though at this point wholesale changes are less likely.  Redoing scenes can be done but that requires re-posing all the models which is somewhat time-consuming.   
At this point my main focus is finishing this story so I can start the next one.

Thanks for your follow and comment! Glad you like the art style,  with my 3D skillset, it just seemed like the natural way for me to go. 

Thanks for the comment!  Now that I've cleared away software glitches and re-launch, I'll really be cranking out story content.  To be sure, the plot will be longer and deeper.