Patreon! And then a bit later, commissions! Woooo!

So for the last few months I've been going to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (it has a very unfortunate acronym, I've used that joke elsewhere, you don't need to do it here) and it is very good. I won't go into details but I'm in a much better mental place now than I was earlier this year and more able to cope when things go bad. Among other things part of my therapy is working towards getting me into self employment. I've tried it several times in the past and my anxiety and depression always got the better of me eventually. This time I hope to be better equipped to deal with that and I'm going to do things a bit differently.

One thing I'm doing is finially setting up a Patreon for myself. I avoided it in the past due to my anxiety to work consistently and the fear that no one would support me. I'm still working out the tiers and what I can offer so it's not ready yet. Another thing I'm wondering about is setting it as 18+. The age verification process seems to be OK although I haven't tried it yet. I has some basic ideas that I could do so that no adult stuff will be on the site but patrons could still influence certain things.

Oh yeah, fun fact, as a man in his early forties, I can no longer buy adult games on Steam! Steam's age gating is based on credit cards. In the UK credit cards can only be issued to 18+ but despite having a good credit history I'm shit out of luck because my monthly income is too low. I've actually had a credit card in past but I closed it long ago. Nowadays banks really don't like poor people.

Anyways, I'm still working out the details but I hope to have Patreon ready to go in December. I may do some small commissions next month as well but the big proper images I used to do will have to wait til the new year. Don't ask me about commission fees yet, I'm still thinking about them.

For those that missed it, I'm doing an alternative to my You and Me request theme featuring my other characters. No one seems up for my Annatasia (that is not a misspelling), but I knew Feral and Tigersong would be popular although I wasn't quite ready for the response involving the horror shark. I wasn't even going to include it in the list until the last moment I was typing out the journal. That thing wasn't intended to be a character at all until I had that SCP lore snippet pop into my head while I was making a quick pic for a stream announcement. Weird how things just evolve, right?

Anyways, You and Me request journal is still active although I am working on a You and Them request right now. We've had some terrible hot weather lately which hinders my ability and energy to work but right now it gotten quite a bit more cooler. Phew.

I was looking at some of my older images this morning, particularly those big commissions I used to do. I really want to get back to doing them but I'm not quite ready to take on commissions just yet. I also don't want to set up a new request journal for such a big image as I know I'll be flooded with replies as I only want to take on one. I'm having a think about it.

The You and Me requests are going quite fine but I am reminded that I also have other characters that are in need of updating. Some of them I haven't done any artwork of for years. Anyways, let's go have some fun!

My characters:

Tigersong - one of my oldest characters that proved to be quite popular. She's a female, yellow anthro drake with brown tiger like stripes.
Tigersong 1 (left side)
Tigersong 2
Tigersong 3

Annatasia - technically a transgender version of my - now retired - daemon wolf form who had been turned into a bimborg. Annatasia uses he/him and they/them pronouns.
Annatasia

Zu-Zu - a somewhat generic looking anthro shark lass. She is extra, extra stretchy. She needs a lot more character development.
Zu-Zu 1
Zu-Zu 2

Malice - an undead jackal lass. She's a bit like a vampire but not as lame. Her favourite drink is red wine (it's actually blood).
Malice 1 (contains blood)
Malice 2

Feral - a sex crazed herm dragoness. Has tits, dick, pussy, everything! Not suitable for any SFW scene.
Feral 1
Feral 2
Feral 3 (contains extreme insertions)

Maz Blackspear - originally a herm, she is now a female (IBSFA) gnoll. Female IBSFA gnolls have a pseudo penis.
Maz Blackspear 1
Maz Blackspear 2

Oil Shark - random image that turned into a SCP. It's not an actual, proper SCP (I'm terrible at writing) but I made a little bit of lore for it anyway. Technically not any gender but takes on the appearence of curvy, femine anthro shark covered in oil.
THE OIL SHARK DOES NOT EXIST

The RULES:

* Requests are your character in an adult (or non adult) scene with one of the following: Tigersong, Feral, Annatasia, Zu-Zu, Malice, Maz Blackspear, or the Oil Shark.
* Images will be done at 2000 x 2000 and may be rough in quality.
* Images may only contain close up body parts of each character.
* You can request a specific pose, sex act or fetish. Please don't ask for any extreme kinks.
* My characters are available for any gender.

To submit a request to this theme, reply to this journal with:

Your character name, gender and references,
My character of your choice (choose only one from the list above),
The scene or kink you have in mind (not required) or if you want a SFW image.

If you got any questions, reply here or note me!

With the winter season's Warmbeditis affliction rapidly giving away to the full power of the sun shining directly into my eyes (I'm now getting up much earlier in the morning), I suddenly have lots of time to do more things before noon...so let's change up my stream schedule a tad.

I'm thinking of streaming at 8am BST on Saturdays and Sundays. That will begin next weekend (15th of June) and I'll still do 4pm BST Sunday as well. I've been doing an hour for the afternoon streams but I may be able to do a bit longer in the mornings.

I'm currently working on a random request for Njasey today (hopefully finishing it off) and afterwards I'll be going back to You and Me requests. I'm also retiring the old request journal and adding in a new one: You and Them (the Secondary Character Pool and Monster Requests journals are still active). You and Them request theme will be your character with one of my other characters. I'll put that journal up later today because I got to go find their references in my gallery and a lot of them are REALLY OLD. Can you believe I've been on FA for 20 years? I don't delete old artwork, my gallery is huge.

From what I can remember right now there's the classic Tigersong (bottom left), Annatasia (a transgender version of my now retired alt daemon wolf form), Malice (undead lass), Zu-Zu (milf shark lady with very stretchy body), Feral (sex crazed herm dragoness), and Maz Blackspear (IBSFA gnoll female).

If you remember any other of my characters, please tell me and maybe I'll put them in the request journal. Oh, and of course the purpose of the You and Theme journal is a fun way to update those characters to the modern age.

I think I need to "up my game" so I'm looking for suggestions peeps think I need more practice on with my artwork. Anything at all! Except for hands (my arche nemesis so I don't need reminders on how much trouble I still have with them), and humanoid faces - future attempts are fine for horror images and I'm leaving it at that. We do not need more horror in non-horror pics.

Have you ever looked at my recent works and think "Hey, I love Antar's images but what's with this expression? Why does all his poses look all the same? Why don't Antar do more of X than Y? Antar's streams are boring, I want him to talk or are at weird times. WTF is IBSFA?" Etc, etc, etc.

I know one thing peeps want to see - why haven't I opened up for commissions? Well, I'm going to have to admit to this because I'm getting nowhere: I ghosted my last commissioner. I started on the image and then I got stuck (art block), I tried to relax and then get back to working on it but then my anxiety and depression kicked in, days turned into weeks and then into months. It's years now. I couldn't bring myself to contact the commissioner* as I can't admit to that shame in person and my anxiety goes nuts everytime I think about it, even now I'm super nervous. If your that commissioner, I'm really, really sorry.

Anyways, yes, please state what areas I need to work on - both in my skills and my conduct/interaction with people. I am now going to stress eat something sweet and unhealthy.

*No money has been exchanged, I tend to wait till the commission is near completion due to my inability to keep to deadlines and ETAs.

Quick update, sorry for the lack of streaming last Sunday. I was feeling extra gribble on that day and I'm also currently suffering with a blocked ear for the last couple of weeks. That doesn't sound bad but it's made me hyper aware of my tinnitus* and it's incrediably irrating. Fortunately I got an appointment at the docs on Monday to get it cleaned out. I'll aim to stream this Friday and Sunday afternoon at 4pm GMT but no promises because my mood varies widely with this affliction.

The timezones are changing in the UK at the end of March. Clocks will be going into the future by one hour. I haven't decided yet whether to do 3pm or 4pm BST in April and onwards. Whatever the case I am saddened that I got one hour less in bed in the morning**.

I'm currently working on another You and Me request. It's working title is Air Noodle Frottage and it's exactly as it's title suggests. Air noodle is a fun combination of words.

* I've had tinnitus for over 20 years now and I usually only become aware of it when I think about it or moments when I'm very stressed.
** As I don't have a schedule obligation I don't have to get up at a specific time but having some resemblence of a schedule for each day does help with the mental health thing.

Want free pornography* on your monitor? Then come on down to my Picarto channel on Sunday at 3pm GMT! Also available on demand if your sleeping/working/existing in an alternative dimension at that current time. Stream will last between one and two hours.

*May not include pornography.

I think it will be a good idea for the future to just stream regularly every Sunday. I've added the link to the You and Me requests to my profile page if you missed that journal and want to get in on the action. I've put the current year next to each request journal to mark them as active - I'll have to look through the old regular requests journal to see if it's worth making a fresh new one for this year.

Another thing I'm going to do going forward is replying to requests with a link to the image if I did it. It'll help me keep track of what I've done in the journal and allow peeps to be directly notified. I also like to add that if I have done a request for you in the past, you can ask me for a full sized PNG version to put in your own gallery or elsewhere. I do like seeing my requests/commission work shared out in the wilds of the interwebs.

I may still do streams occassionally on other days depending on various factors but for those announcements find me on Bluesky. Links for everthing is on my profile. I think that's all for now.

Today I did a stream with the request subject centred around my dragon form. Yes, I haven't always been a Xezozex, although you may have gathered a hint from my name. I haven't finished any recent work involving my dragon form for a very long time so I decided to work on that this year.

What's a better way than to invite a multitude of requests to explore various deep holes together with my dragon form? Holes are not required: requests can be SFW.

My most recent image of myself is here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/59552486/
Another example: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/29649772/

The RULES:

Requests are my dragon self with a suggested character in an adult or non adult scene.
Images will be done at 2000 x 2000 and may be rough in quality.
Images may only feature close up parts of either character (depends on poses and difficulty). Do not expect commission quality images.
You can request a specific pose, sex act or fetish.
I am comfortable with any gender.

If you have a request, reply to this post with character name, gender, character references, and any ideas for poses or fetishes you would like to see. Alternatively if you don't want to submit a character you may suggest fetishes or poses if you would like to see my dragon self in an image alone.

I will be streaming this request theme on Sunday 3pm GMT.

Setting a schedule for streaming before I get too lazy. I'm thinking Friday and Sunday at 3pm GMT. I haven't sorted out the mic issue yet but that's no excuse to put off doing live porn* on your monitor. The subject will be dragon me in whatever suggested poses or with any character(s) in various positions and/or holes. Suggestions can be posted here if you can't/unsure if you will make it to the streams or from stream chat.

I haven't done a proper pic of my dragon form in a long time so if your unsure of what I look like, go to my userpage. I'm the blue and black guy at the top.

* SFW options are available but I know your not here for my cute animal pics.

Slipped back into a depressive cycle again but I'm getting restless to do art again. I did start work on the art pack thing but it's not been as quick and easy as I thought and that set me back a bit mentally. I feel like I'm a full time depressed, part time artist.

Anyways, slight issue today - almost tore off a nail this morning carrying a box downstairs. Good news is that I didn't snap the nail off, bad news is I now have a crack straight across the nail bed. I've cut the nail down and I'll have to wait till it grows out before the damage part can be removed. It's on my right poking finger but it's only sore and I can still hold a pen so I just got to be really careful for a while.

Typing is a little difficult but it's less painful now. I may have a go at streaming later this week. One of the presents I got for Christmas is a headset with mic so I was thinking of using that during a stream so I don't have to awkwardly pause work to jab at my keyboard to respond to chat.

So, getting back to arting now. May stream later this week depending on how I'm feeling (if peeps demand I would be more motivated). Leveling up to 42 in life on Wednesday. That is all.

Oops, kind of drop off into the void again. Got caught up playing The Last Hero of Nostalgilia. It's an OK game. Get it when it's on sale and you really got an itch for a souls-alike.

Back to working on that nun pic. Yes, I know, it's taking forever to do. I get distracted too easily. Fortunately now I am inbetween games and I've yet to upgrade/get a new PC so Stalker 2 is out of my reach.

Once the nun pic is done I'll start work on the image packs. I'll start off with something easy and yet still detailed.

First off, my commiserations to those on the otherside of the Atlantic pond. We will get through this.

I've been playing far too much Vampire Survivors Ode To Castlevania and slipping back into a lack of focus on work. So I will stream on Thursday and Friday at 3pm GMT! I will be working on this image and if I can focus on it offline I can get it done by the end of the week.

On the image pack front I have realised there is a slight issue with doing IBSFA races and that is I can't draw human faces to save my life. I always run into the uncanny valley problem and I'm not going to be able to do a human face (as well as dwarf, orc, elf, drow, goblin, centaur, gorgon, drider, gremlin) to a decent quality. I don't want to fall back on to my tried and tested methods to get around this issue as that will not be good enough quality images - of the few images featuring humanoid faces I've done over the years I tend to resort to either obscuring parts of the face or embraced the horrifying elements of my current ability.

I could lean into that horror if peeps would be interested in a image pack like that but for now my ideas are either close ups or sketchy paintings. I could also do a series of images like the nuns above. Themed orgies with random characters squeezed into every space. That could be quite interesting.

EDIT: Forgot the hour changes in the UK tomorrow so the timezone will be GMT. The stream will be an hour later at 3pm BST.

Update journal! I decided I'll have to post updates at least once a week so peeps can keep track of what I'm doing, what I'm going to do, and the mistakes I make with these.

Quick note first, I'm gradually getting myself to use Bluesky (@antarxella) more and I won't be posting any more of my artwork on the site formally known as Twitter. Once those new "features" go online, I'll delete that account entirely I'll be using Blu and FA for public social contact.

OK, I've been thinking more about what sort of art packs I could sell on Picarto. I got a few ideas for some high quality packs but those ones will certainly take a while to get done, but I could do a series of close up/gentinals images split accordingly by gender. I'll talk a bit more on specifics on them next week. I also need to spruce up my Picarto channel with art so that's something I need to work on as well.

I'm going to be streaming on Sunday 27th at 3pm BST GMT. I've done a few NSFW/sexy sketches that I want to paint to get me back into the good graces of the perv collective. I'll aim to stream for two hours.

That's it for now. If you got any questions or ideas for what you'd like to see me do, ask here! Or note me.

So it's been a few weeks since I admitted to being quite unwell mentally and it's time I really made a new effort to get better. First things first, I have talked to my doctor and I got in contact with a local mental health organization that has offered me Cognitive Behavour Therapy*. Unfortunately the waiting list is six months. That is for my social anxiety and as it is quite a long wait I'm going to try to be proactive and get myself back to painting. I certainly do not want to be inactive for even a month longer.

So, my plan to start of with: schedule a time and date for a stream. I'm thinking Wednesday (16th) 10am BST. Depending on how things go I'll do another one at 3pm. I haven't done any in ages and Picarto seems to be going places lately. I'm also going to try to do some fresh requests offline.

For the requests I'm thinking three word IBSFA monster designs. The format for suggestions is shape/animal/material. Post here or on Twitter or Blusky. You can also add a character reference and I will either monsterize the character or combine features along with the suggested three words.

The definitions for the three categories are broad but please keep it to one word each:

Shape can range from simple whole shapes to tactile sense and composition: round, sharp, furry, liquid.
Animal can be any sort of creature both real, mythical or created.
Material can be any element on the periodical table or basic descriptors: toxic, marble, shiny, cold.

If things go well I may be able to get back to those old requests and unfinished work. I really want to get back to doing big quality work and commissions.

Also thanks everyone for their comments and well wishes in my last journal. It's very appreicated and I'm sorry it took me so long to make a response. There are some things I want to explain more about but I don't quite want to get into here right now.

*Not to be confused with Cock and Ball Torture.

Hi peeps, I've put this off too long but I finally got myself to do this: I'm not doing very well mentally wise and these last few months my art drive has been very low. I still get ideas and I want to do more work but when I try I feel frustrated and I give up too easily.

I have a med review next week and maybe it's time to change my meds. In the meantime I'll try to work, maybe if I stream again I could keep myself focused but the past advice of "taking a break, relax, etc" is just not working for my mental health.

Also a quick note: in no shape or form am I suicidal or having self harming thoughts. My greatest fears for this current depressive streak is me disappearing completely from my online pressence and not being able to get back to what I love to do and those that I have some contact with.

I've done a few new IBSFA monsters lately for streaming and now I'm working on an unfinished request from last year. Here's the schedule for this week. All times are 3pm BST but are subject to change because I have terrible luck:

Tuesday 21st
Wednesday 22nd
Friday 24th
Sunday 26th

Sorry for not streaming for most of this week - I had a scheduled stress event for this morning and I was worrying a lot about that. Anyway, it's over now so I'll be streaming at 3pm BST on the following days:

Saturday 27th
Monday 29th
Wednesday 1st
Friday 3rd

Date/times are subject to change because I am a flawed being.

Step 1: Gather ingrediants. These can be existing monsters/animals/creatures (preferably with refs), character references, themes, materials or random words.
Step 2: Present to Antar, get picked (may be combined with other suggestions).
Step 3: Blend together in Antar's mind.
Step 4: Be patient during baking (painting monster, this may take multiple hours)
Step 5: Result. You have now (helped) create a new monster for my IBSFA 'verse (Impractible But Sexy Fantasy Armour). Quality may vary. Monster may not be sexy.

So this is what I've basically been doing since I got back to streaming and as not everyone can/want to attend my streams, here's a journal for peeps to add their suggestions for a new monster that would fit in my IBSFA 'verse.

Now this isn't a character request journal - that journal is here - the monster will be a seperate enity not related to a specific character and will exist as an actual creature in my IBSFA 'verse with their own lore. They will not be a "this character turned into this monster" thing, although if you want to do that for your own personal/alt lore that's fine.

Although IBSFA is a very horny place, the finished image may not be adult in nature. Non sexy stuff does appear there, I know, it's weird.

If you want a hand in creating a new monster, reply to this journal with the following:

Reference(s) for an existing monster(s) - not required but this will influence the basic shape of the new monster.
Characters reference(s) - I will incorperate character colours, patterns and features into the new monster. If you don't have/want to use your own character you can instead suggest colours and patterns and other features.
Suggest other varibles for me to incorperate into the monster design. These can be random words, materials, features, shapes or other factors.

Some examples:

For the Sissis Sucacus, Layana gave a reference for the Silithid from Warcraft and her dragon reference. I took the basic look of a ground based Silithid, used Layana's colours and patterns of her dragon character. I got the idea that this monster would be a sort of worker type so it needed a way to carry things - so I took Layana's horns and turned them into tentacles. I also had the idea of incorperating some Xenomorph features.

For the Tigger Erex, Blackmist suggested the Tiger Rex from Monster Hunter, their Jamie character, and an image from another artist of the Rex in a cute and attractive anthro form. I took the basic Rex shape, turned the legs into the wings (an idea I had previous thought of but never used), made the head boxy with a thick neck and more cuter expression like the other Rex ref, and used the canine muzzle, colours and patterns from Jamie.

All of the lore stuff is what I come up with while I'm working on the image.

I'll be streaming this week at 3pm BST on Wed 17th, Fri 19th, and Sunday 21st. I may do random streams on other days/times if I'm feeling particularly inspired.

I will be doing IBSFA monster requests where chat (or a response here if you can't attend the stream) can suggest their characters to be monster-ized or their attributes used as a basis for a monster. If you don't have a character you can suggest words and themes for the creation of a new monster.

I may also work on unfinished requests (I have a lot of those).

Post below if you got any questions.

EDIT: Times are in BST, not GMT. I forgot it was supposed to be summer now in the UK.

I really think I need to start streaming again to help me get back to doing artwork at a regular rate because it's far too easy for me to put off and then never doing anything. I haven't used a proper schedule in a long while and tended to do streams when I felt like it which led to my last stream where no one turned up to watch which sent me down to a super depressive cycle for a long while.

Anyways the schedule for the next two streams is as follows: Friday 2pm BST and Sunday 2pm BST. I'll aim to do at least an hour session each time even if there is no one watching.

As for what I will work on, I know I got a lot of unfinished stuff I haven't worked on in a long time so if there's anything you've seen me work on previously you can post a reply here asking for that. If you got a request the journal for that is here and there is also the Secondary Character Pool.

I want to get back to doing more IBSFA stuff so another subject to do could be three word monster designs and characters wearing appropiate IBSFA armour.

New year new start hopefully. I've been in a depressive funk for the last two months and I need to finally be proactive and get myself out of it. There's a lot I need to give a think about but my main aim this year is to get involved in communities and give myself motivation to keep active; both online and going out physically.

I got one commission I haven't touched in way too long and a couple of half-done requests from last year that I can get finished. I also want to do some proper art for my streaming channel (as well as get back to regular streaming as well). I need to rework my commissions fees and suchlike when I get the old one done but from last year that £5 minimum pay-what-you-want thing was quite popular and profitable.

Starting today with some weird muscle pain/IBS combo so this year hasn't started with the best of circumstances but no more putting things off!

I somehow got a Bluesky invite and I thought it be a good idea to post a journal that peeps can swap usernames as those unconfirmed rumours of twitter peeps being banned for DMing Bluesky details seems quite plausible after all the shit Edgelord Musk and his yes man cronies have already done.

My username on the Blue is antarxella (it's my Xezozex name). I don't know what nicknames peeps are using for that site so I'm making it up as I go along. I will still be using the hellsite formerly known as twitter until the paywall drops in so you won't miss anything if you haven't got a BSky invite yet....not that I really use my old twatter account for anything interesting or important. My social life is shit.

Anyways I owe a lot of work so I'm going back to being quiet until I finish something.

PS, for the peep who gave me the invite, I'll put you on my to-do list. I got to make so much porn for you.

Twitter is colossally fucked and unless Edgelord Musk rolls back the whole rate limit thing I don't think I can use twitter for anything anymore. I don't think I even reached the supposed 600 post limit before everything stopped working.

My feed sometimes works but when it doesn't I can't view any posts except for people's likes for some reason. I can see what's trending but I can't directly view those feeds. What a absolute shitshow.

Anyways, I know I really should have sorted this out before Twitter got this bad but I'm not very keen on maintaining multiple public presences so uh, anyone got any suggestions for alternative sites akin to Twitter? I'm aware of several but I really don't know where to start or which is best or suitable for me.

Time for a spring clean and a new request journal. I've made a new journal for the Secondary Character Pool so if you want an extra chance for getting a character to appear in one of my images you can submit any amount of characters there.

The rules are as follows:

* Requests are completely free but tips are welcome.
* You may post only one request submission. Please don't post multiple requests for me to choose from.
* Requests will be done at 2000 x 2000. Quality may vary.
* Requests can be SFW or as NSFW as you want.
* Requests may be streamed on Picarto. If you don't want your request to be streamed, you can mark it as private.
* Requests are not first come first served - I will choose which requests to do when I am streaming/doing requests.
* Requests can feature multiple characters but the more there is, the more difficult it is to paint and the quality will be greatly affected.
* If you don't want/have any characters, you can suggest kinks, scenes, or other things like landscapes, fantasy/sci-fi concepts and such like.

If you have a request, please reply to this journal with:

Whether you want a SFW or NSFW image
Character name
Character sexuality and gender preferences (if applicable)
Character references (written descriptions allowed)
Any ideas for scene/kink/poses/etc (if you don't have any ideas you can ask for a "surprise me" and I will use my imagination to come up with something suitable)

It's been several long years since I've made the first Secondary Character Pool journal and it's time for a spring clean! For those that don't know, the Secondary Characters Pool is a supplementary resource for requests - some requests require additional characters to complete the image and the Secondary Character Pool is where I pull those characters from. Usually those character(s) will only feature bit parts of themselves so don't expect your character to be a major feature of the image.

Rules:

* You can submit multiple characters.
* Character use in requests will be limited to their preferences as stated in their submission.
* Character(s) may be selected multiple times.
* I will choose which character(s) to use in requests. There is no guarantee I will use your character(s).
* Requests will likely be sexual in nature. Please do not submit character(s) if you do not want them in an adult situation.
* Character(s) submitted will not be used in images featuring extreme fetishes.

To submit to the Secondary Character Pool (v2, 2023), reply to this journal with the following:

Character name
Character gender
Character sexuality and gender preferences
Character references
Any restrictions or preferences