A few of you may have noticed I've been "cutting back" on appointments lately. totally legit reason for this. By and large unless they're HUGE peices like Joe Zdenek's book cover or well... book covers... they aren't cost effective for my time. And I'm talking the hourly rates. Not often but sometimes I see people try to dive for the appointment rate because its "cheaper" in the 'short run'

Fact: it takes me between an hour to two hours to complete a $50 full-color digital peice. LESS only if i remain undistracted.

The hourly rate as it currently stands is $15 an hour, a rate that will be going up. (don't worry current appointment holders will be grandfathered in at their current rates until the current project is completed)

(A small note to the... 3 of you that i owe work to you still and just havent done appointments, one of you i've met at AC and know we're cool the others, totally sorry about that guys sometimes I just plumb forget, I will be trying to get sceduleing together so i can work on those and get them finished up.)

Fact: the money i make as my stream regulars are well aware, does NOT go nearly as far as you'd think. Living on my own and being supported 100% on my art causes stress, stress levels that require me to have some downtime when i stream almost every night. So any appointment-work i take from here on out has to meet the following criteria:

Will it take me more than 6 hours?
if yes, then the project will qualify.
will it cause me to loose my sanity?
if no, you will be informed, there are just some subject matters and fetishi that make me queasy.
Is the customer fun to work with, known for being relaxed but also reasonably picky but not to jackass standards?
if Yes, your clear to proceed.

A big thing lately is that i've had to balance people i LOVE to work for and people i HATE to work for, currently I'm at a point where my personal sanity is taking a slightly higher priority than pulliing in a few extra bills just so i can pay my rent and live without fear of getting evicted or have my electricity turn off.

I've been really leinent in the past with people, and there are people whose characters are a pain to draw, HOWEVER the people connected with them are awesome so even if the characters are uber detaield and i have to remember a million things about them, i don't care.

The people I'm going to put my foot down on though are the people who treat me like shit while i work for them. They are thankfully few and far between but they are still present in my customerbase. This also goes for people who disrespect me in any way during my streams. Jade will be policing the stream when she can, after the "crazy people 49" incident people were once again made aware of the fact "you don't want to see me when I'm angry" And while its funny and people tease and joke about how Fox goes Nuclear when she's pissed off, that attitude from me is NOT conducive to good business. It should NOT happen to where *I* am showing that i'm irritated let alone angry. Lately I've not had alot of mods around I'd like to say that's my fault, and it is, but I won't get into details.

I'll be working on the store a bit to make room for the newest stuff as well, the Speedpaints will be a nice addition but thier prices fluxuate so its going to be intresting to see how I juggle that.

Anyway more updates from me probably later today on various new products, upcoming events, etc.