Happy to present the Confuzzled 10th Year Anniversary Highlight reel, or "Whip and Pak's Non-Bogus Adventure".

So far, I have managed to identify the following characters:

Dawn Shepherd, Edward Poodle, Kitty, Maverique, Nemeton, Coeurdelavie, Paktani, Pistachio Husky, Thorn, Vlooi, Whippet
... and of course, Brok and many other wonderful furs.

Filmed with a SONY HDR-AS30V Action Cam on location at the Birmingham Hilton Convention Centre

If you want to see it on YouTube, click here:

https://youtu.be/idAy-97_zcI

In support of one of my favourite furry fetishes, conjoinment, I'm compiling a list of conjoinment artists on FA and people with conjoined or multi-headed characters who have archives of their character. If you know someone I've missed, let me know and I'll add them to the list.

Conjoinment Artists

Anaymoose, Algus Underdunk, Angeron, Dragon Seduction, Frooooooo, Jumell, Kobi laCroix, Kree, Kinky Turtle, Lance Foxx, Ramzkun, Rancid, Striker Redwolf, Swatcher, Theyton, Tincrash, Toro, Uniform Vixen, Xids, Zerio

Conjoined Characters

Andores*, Blazedragon Mayo*, Coracroma, Flafty, Fox XD, Lanith and Rathiel Verniraz Neonigma, Phantomshotgun, Rhylith and Torri, Rithnok, Salen, Sarah and Shannon*, Seph491, shino and Maina*, TlaiLaxu, Xeath, Xolroc

Groups

 Multifurry

* newly added

Its two weeks to the Birmingham ConFuzzled 2014 and I'm getting excited and busy.

I'm currently flat out working on badges and door signs for Whip, Flux and myself as well as helping Whip with his partial fursuit, crafting some teeth for his head.

This year's theme is science fiction and while I won't be in suit or costume, I will be wearing my trademark Tom Baker Doctor Who scarf (Season 12). So come up and say 'hi' - just check my badge first as I'm sure there will be two dozen other scarves there.

I'll have my sketch book and pencils with me and I'll be posting art in a couple of weeks, as well as photos and videos.

Those of you who have registered, I hope to see you there! It's going to be a blast!

Thank you to everyone who watches and favourites my art. I'm sorry I don't thank you all individually but I do appreciate the support and and acknowledgement of my art.

Thank you all so very much.

Thank you to everyone who offered advice in my previous journal. You all helped me to come to a decision and I appreciate your responses.

Yesterday, I went out and bought a shiney new Canon Pixma MP630 and probably gave my flu to a couple of sales staff (sorry!).

It took me about an hour to set up and three more hours to clean up all the packaging that comes with it. I also bought some photo paper to go with it and test it straight away.

My first print was 'Family Portrait 2009'. And it looks fantastic at 300dpi. It sits framed on my desk now.

Its also got a built in scanner (so I can retire my old one) and a cd/dvd printer (art cds, maybe?) and a tonne of other features I'll probably never use.

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And now I'm over my flu, I can finish off those commissions I'm working on. This is really taking the piss - I should have had them all finished by now. Most are in the colouring stage so those of you who got in early, your commissions are nearly done.

And now I have a printer, those of you with key-ring commissions dont need to wait for me to goto the photo place to get them printed. Unfortunately, I still have to do the run into town to get buttons made.

For a while now, I've been making my badges and buttons and keyrings from printing out artwork at photo kiosks. But this has its own disadvantages. I always have to go into the shopping center; most kiosks don't accept my USB stick anymore; and often they resize the artwork, invalidating the batch.

So I'm looking into printers. I'm looking at the Canon Pixma range with the IP4600 ($130AUD) at the top of my list and the MP630 ($197AUD) a hot favourite in second.

None of the stores have samples or give test prints so I have no idea what the quality is like. I want to print out 6x4 inch artwork at 300dpi and not be able to see the pixels and have sharp crips images and solid colours.

Now, does anyone have a Pixma printers? Are they as good as going to the photo kiosks? Any suggestions?


IP4600
http://www.canon.com.au/products/pr.....rs/iP4600.aspx

MP630
http://www.canon.com.au/products/al.....ers/MP630.aspx

I've been doing the tour of the various art shops I get my supplies from and I've discovered huge photo keyrings! They are 2' x 2 7/8' (51mm x 73mm) and are perfect for con-badges and hanging on your lanyard. I bought five to trial. I also bought some smaller heart-shaped keyrings. These might be special order (fiddly to make masks and cut out). These may soon be available for purchase.

Display models will be made shortly. Need to buy a printer.

Also to all of you who have taken out commissions, I'm sorry that I've made little progress this week as a Freelance web development project went into overdrive and pretty much chewed up all my time. I had also run out of .3 and .5 ink pens which are the sizes I prefer for art. I just bought new ones so hopefully its full speed with art. Hopefully I will get most of it finished and mailed out in the next fortnight. I'm sorry if any of you were hoping to get con-badges before AC. (please note I am in Australia so mail will take anywhere from one to three weeks)

OK, I'm going to start taking a limited number of commissions, to see how I go with the workload in with my Freelance coding, as well as with making the physical extras that many people are interested in.

The extra, like Con-badges, buttons and key-rings have processes that need to be streamlined so I'm going to start slow as I build up the equipment needed to go into full production.

Below are my rates for commissioned artwork and my terms and conditions.

UPDATE:

Judging by the responses, do I take it my prices are too cheap???

If you're genuinely interested, please send me a note confirming you want a commission. I'm only taking the first 10 to start with.

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Full artwork

Single Character blue or grey pencil sketch $10.00 USD
Single Character inked over blue pencil $20.00 USD
Single Character inked (digitally cleaned) $30.00 USD
Single Character computer rendered $40.00 USD

Con badge (portrait) Artwork

Single Character blue or grey pencil sketch $ 5.00 USD or 2 for $ 8.00 USD
Single Character inked $10.00 USD or 2 for $16.00 USD
Single Character computer rendered $15.00 USD or 2 for $24.00 USD

Extras

Background +$10.00 USD
Extra character (per character) +$10.00 USD
Conjoined character (per character) +$ 5.00 USD

Options

150x112mm (6x4in) Large Con Badge
Whole, in plastic holder (1 image) +$10.00 USD
Laminated, shaped with lanyard hole (1 image) +$10.00 USD
90x60mm (3.5x2.25in) Small Con Badge
Unlaminated, in plastic holder (1 image) +$ 5.00 USD
Laminiated with lanyard hole (1 image) +$ 5.00 USD

35mm (1.25in) button badge (1 image) +$ 5.00 USD
60mm (2.5in) button badge (1 image) +$ 7.00 USD

100mm () Glass drinkcoaster (1 image) +$10.00 USD

34x34mm keyring (up to 2 images) +$ 5.00 USD
30x50mm keyring (up to 2 images) +$ 7.00 USD
30x50mm rounded keyring (up to 2 images) +$ 8.00 USD

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* Payment

20% payment up front. This guarantees the Client a sketch.
Prefered payment by PAYPAL.
Bater is accepted provided batered item is equivelant value.
Other forms of payment are negotiable.

* Full Artwork

A character of your choice, full body, posed, clothed (optional). Background and extra characters (and/or heads) are extra.

* Con Badges

Portrait picture (not full body, waist up usually), posed, clothed (optional) with name across the bottom.

* Options

Variety of hadcopy meathods to make badges, buttons and keyrings. Pricing cover materials and printing charges.

* Keyrings and Buttons

Keyrings may have up to two different images.
If a single conbadge commission is purchased, the same image will be used front and back.
If two con badge commissions are purchased, each images will be used front and back respectively.

Some button or keyring artwork may need to be altered to fit into the keyring.
A Name may be added to the button or keyring artwork at the Client's request at no extra charge.

* Revisions within scope of the commission can be done once the sketch has been developed.
* Changes outside the scope may incure an additional price.
* Final artwork is delivered/mailed out on final payment.
* Additional postage for options may be neccessary.
* Options may be purchased with a commission or once a commission is complete (If I have already drawn a pic for you, you may buy an option with it)
* Client character remain copyright of their owners. Artwork is copyrighted to myself. I retain the right to display general commissioned artwork on my galleries but permission will be asked for to display Mature or Adult artwork.
* All rates are in US dollars. These rates are valid from 1/1/2009. May be subject to change without notice.

Has anyone ever used those digital photo processing kiosks to develop digital artwork requiring precise measurements?

Does anyone know what the maximum resolution or DPI those printers can handle for standard 4"x6" print?

I ask because I'm using a digital photo lab to create my prototype con-badges, buttons and key-rings. I start with Photoshop creating a 300dpi 4"x6" template with all the correct measurements and slot in the art, save as maximum quality JPG then print them off as normal photos. Theoretically, When they print out at 4"x6" they should be the correct measurements as I set up on screen.

Unfortunately, with the batch I got back today every photo was wrong. Everything was bigger than I wanted, cutting off some art and making other art too big to be useful where I want it. It almost ruined the whole batch (some of it was salvageable).

Tomorrow I will try again with 200dpi and pray that its just the printers unable to do 300dpi (so when they do print it comes out slightly larger than it ought to be - perhaps the limit is 280dpi). I'm glad these photos are only 20c to print, but its a pain to have to run in and one or two image printed at a time.

UPDATE:

Thank you to everyone who responded, you've all given me alot to think about and to look into when I get my art printed out today. Im not getting too stressed out about this right now, as this is still a learning process and luckily its not particularly expensive. But it should be straight forward and I shouldnt be getting so many failed prints.

Hi all,

I've been putting some serious thought into opening up commission for 2009.

Firstly, I'm very out-of-date with prices. Anyone got good average guides for pricing artwork?

Furthermore, I've been thinking of ways of working commissioned art into real-life objects. I've been looking into things I can make myself and places that will print things off for me.

What I can provide at the moment:
* 35mm and 60mm Badges
* 35mm Keyrings
* 6'x4' and 3.5'x2.5' conbadges

What I'm looking into:
* drink coasters
* mugs
* bookmarks
* tee shirts
* NDSL skins

Would people be interested in this? If I started doing con badges and you also get your badge on a keyring or button badge?

I keep getting fans asking me what's happened to IAPW and will it be coming back. The answer is: maybe.

The reason I stopped doing IAPW is simply because I've run out of ideas, I have no time and very little interest in art at all atm. I want to pour my free time into my other hobbies which have been neglected, which is the reason why its more than half way through the year and I only have a half dozen pictures to show for it.

I would like to bring IAPW2.0 back. I love IAPW and all the characters. But IAPW is based on the silly events of real life. Unfortunately, I'm so far away from the lifestyle that inspires IAPW that I simply don't get any inspiration for it at all.

So IAPW will return .. evnetually. But not for a while. Alot of changes have to be made in my life - a radical lifestyle change - for it to come back because I don't want to give it any less than it deserves.

Now PLEASE STOP asking for it!

I'm still here, still struggling to do art. Mostly taking a break form my usual stuff to try some new ideas, but mostly not getting anywhere. Work is wearing me out, draining me of energy, inspiration, ideas and motivation.

But I'm seeing so much good art come through FA that I feel ashamed I'm not doing anything to contribute to it. So I've uploaded several 'concept' doodle sheets I use to work out details and ideas. Hopefully this will be an insight into how I develope my art and a precursor to me actually getting of my lazy tail and finishing some more art. I have several pictures hovering at rendering stage but I'm just too tired to sit at my PC and finish them off.

Happy new Year everyone and welcome to 2007. Yes, in Australia we pretty much get the new year before everyone else.

What's coming up for the new year? Lots of art! I have a dozen new pieces of art I've been working on over the Christmas break, most are half coloured at the moment but I hope to have them finished soon.

This new wave of art includes:

* A Tauren who loves his milk,
* Wai, the 80s child,
* A gaint dragon mech,
* Ara's very own LGD,
* and some fanart for Dragon Seduction.

Hopefully alot more art will be coming out of this addled brain of mine in the following year. I'm hoping to be more arty, more inspired, more productive. Not to mention more determined to get back the the UK to be with my partner.

2007 is gonna be big, big, Big, big, BIG!

So stay tuned and a special thank you to everyone who is watching.

I know I've sorta disapeared off the radar recently, between work and IAPW I haven't had any time or inclination to do normal artwork.

Well I've taken some time off art for a while, give myself a break to let the creative juices flow again. So hopefully soon I'll have lots of art to show, all the half finished pieces I have in my art folder and on my PC.

So stay tuned!

Finally, after all the problems FA has been having of late, I've finally gotten around to uploading more artwork. I have now completed all of my art from 2004 and will now commence uploading 2005 tomorrow.

Woohoo! Unfortunately some of it will be out of order cos of art that had to be uploaded before I completed my main archive... Oh well.. nothing I can do about that...

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone, its good to be back.

But before I start uploading artwork, I'm gonna simply be a lurker for a while and see how stable this new FA is. If its still here in a week I'll start to upload my artwork and restore my gallery. Unfortunately, its coming up to Christmas so my free time is down to zero so you might not get to see art here until the new year. Until then please enjoy my VCL archive which has *all* my available online art.

http://us.vclart.net/vcl/Artists/AraKaraath/