And I still haven't drawn anything good.

Some fun statistics:
- I've posted a comment around almost once a day, but not quite.
- I post about one journal a month. Not quite as many as some of you chatterboxes that I watch, but quite a lot of you are also pretty damn quiet. I guess that puts me in the middle?
- This is my fifth journal this month.
- I didn't post any journals last month.
- I get about two watchers a month, apparently.
- While I have 57 pieces on this site, only 36 are in my main gallery. The rest are even worse!
- Statistics aren't actually fun.
- Everyone loves Lil Cal. Everyone. This piece has the most favorites, comments, and views out of any piece in my gallery.
- I'm pretty sure  technicolor_pie has a plurality in my favorites, but I don't feel like counting.
- I ALMOST made it to 1800 views in two years, but who keeps track.
- I didn't actually write some of these statistics in order, including this one.
- Semi-unrelated, but since I've started attending (any kind of) cons, I've gone to two cons a year every year, for a total of six cons (AnimeBoston '08, FurFright '08, AnimeBoston '09, FurFright '09, PAX East '10, Anthrocon '10), but this might change next year (Further Confusion '11 and PAX East '11 already confirmed, with FurFright '11 likely and Anthrocon '11 still up in the air).
- Almost no one will read this journal all the way through.
- I've had at least 10 different avatars.
- Each of these avatars had a short journal announcing its appearance.
- Five of these avatars have Viktor in them, and 2 of them are of different versions of the Vaero Emblem.
- I am still writing this.
- I have NINETEEN bouncy "colon3" avatars in my imagehost account that I created.
- Three of them are of Viktor, although of those, two are merely different sizes of the same thing.
- Only twelve of them were for people on this site (including myself).
- This journal has exactly 365 words, if you count technicolor_pie's username as one word, and each of the numbers as words too.
- No one will verify this, anyway.
- I ran out of statistics.

EVERYONE KNOWS IT SUCKS ALREADY SO I WILL BEAT THE MASSES TO WHINING ABOUT IT THIS YEAR!

It's awful, obviously. This will be confirmed when I see it. Clearly this is the correct standpoint on this disputed position. I know this because I'm right.

I will now be offended for everyone. You're welcome.

New avatar, in all its pixelly goodness.

Don't mind me ripping off  chicago-lollie. Nope. His avatar wasn't completely awesome or anything.

I'll probably start switching avatars every now any then, considering how many I have lying around. I'm considering using an extended version of this avatar as a badge for when I...oh right, I am apparently going to Further Confusion this January. Looking forward to it!

My cat is the best (dumbest) cat.

For reasons completely distinct from the fact that I seem to go to two cons a year every year since I've started going to cons, and I've already been to PAX East and Anthrocon this year, I won't be making it to FurFright this year. The scheduling just didn't work out. Maybe next year; we'll see.

Also I have access to a scanner again, so I'm going to try and start drawing stuff more often again.

It's kind of...sleek.

The things one can do with Photoshop these days.

I do not understand how dogs, which are a single subspecies (canis lupus familiaris), can have larger morphological differentiation than most genuses do.

So I made a full video of it.

Enjoy

(Props to mcarson for linking to this ambiance)

I can write a journal about AC now! Sort of. Blah blah blah, first time at AC, met people, etc, etc.

OKAY, SO, LISTS

People who I was psyched to meet:
 sofox
 chicago-lollie
 corbinbusker
Ursula Vernon
People from an IRC channel I'm in that shall remain nameless

Other people I ran into that I sort of knew I guess:
 andrewneo
Some mad scientist who runs studiowildside.com

People I hung out with the most:
 zerda
 wolfpuptk
Some people from the same IRC channel

People there I talked to some that I already knew:
 suka_husky
 flyingfox17

Swag obtained:
"Thank You" by  corbinbusker which seems to get better each time I listen to it
The poster for "Thank You" which was always awesome
URSULA WAS OUT OF BONECLAW MOTHER POSTERS so I couldn't buy one by the time I realized I really wanted one

AND NOW SOME STATISTICS

Days at con: Thursday through Sunday
Hours slept: felt like too few, in reality too many
Photos taken: not many because I suck at photography
Cash left after con: 50¢
Fursuiters spotted: some very large number
Times hugged: 6

A+++ WOULD ATTEND AGAIN

No, this journal isn't about Final Fantasy: Advent Children. This journal is about cons for the remainder of the year. This year, I am going to Anthrocon, because, why the hell not. Also some of my friends sort of coerced me into doing it. Anyone else going?

As for FurFright, which I've gone to these past two years, well, I've got a hotel room. It remains to be seen as to whether or not I'm going. My transportation may or may not be in the United States at the time, much less close enough to get us to CT. So that might not actually happen, especially if I don't find some roomies. So we'll see.

Also, I'll almost definitely be at PAX East next year, but that's a long way away, and not a furry convention.

 wesleyfoxx that is.

I really don't know why I did this. Because I can, maybe?

E] Template available:
http://endrift.com/files/colon3.fla - Original Flash (8 or higher required)
http://endrift.com/files/colon3.zip - Collection of oversized PNGs

Please consult your doctor first.

Going to stop posting things of Lil Cal now, and move it to scraps when I post some new stuff. Because, good lord...my avatar is always appropriate.

I just realized something.

All of these art memes that are going around that ask you to tag people...they're basically Ponzi schemes: you "win" if you can trick people into doing it, and it just spreads from there. No wonder they're EVERYWHERE. Ponzi schemes are tricky like that. Just ask Bernie Madoff, and the economy...

Memes can be almost as bad as chain mail. People have generally figured out chain mail for the most part by now, but memes have the distinction of making people feel "inspired"...that they want to do the meme, as opposed to having to spread the chain mail. And then they litter art sites for a few weeks until most people who were going to do it have done it.

That being said, I'm a bit sad that no one really fell for my pyramid scheme-esque meme (pyramid meme?) that had you make a meme AND tag people to take both memes. It had the benefit of being both a satire of the meme viruses going around, and also it could spread around virally if a few people started doing it themselves. But maybe it's a good thing it didn't spread.

(Also I never want to use that many rhyming words in a row again)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! AAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAA. AAAAAAAAAA!

AAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?

AAAAAAAAAA. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

This picture was too horrible (and hilarious) to pass up. I think it's supposed to be Slippy. But I really just don't know anymore.

From this abomination: http://www.starfoxseries.com/conceptart.html

Well, the semester is finally winding down. End of a rather intense semester actually, but it's mostly done now. Writing an operating system, even if NOT from scratch, is not easy.

Anyway, hopefully this means I'll be art-ing more. First example of what I've drawn with my newly found free time is my new avatar (yes, F5 again). I might upload a larger version to my gallery, but I spent about 5 minutes shading it (compared to 40 minutes drawing and around 2-3 hours inking), so I might want to do the shading over again at some point in the future.

I had a great time there this year. First time going for pretty much the whole con, and boy was it worth it. Even though my friend who said he was going to show up went incommunicado two days before the con (and before we exchanged contact info), I still met some cool people, like  sukahusky,  flyingfox17,  zarphus and...um...can't remember the names of any of the other people I randomly met there. Whoops.

Oh well, I had a good time. Also got kicked out of CakeCon for wearing this shirt (which I generally regret buying anyway, but whatever). Because I wanted to see if they noticed. It took 5 seconds. DAMN. It was worth it. Quite hilarious.

So, should I expect to see any of you people there?

A summary of my last five months:

College continued.
More college.
College wrapped up for the semester.
Two weeks not really doing anything.
INTERNSHIP OUT IN CALIFORNIA. No scanner or tablet, so nothing much was done art-wise. I did have a blank sketchbook, which I filled up.
Now here I am.

WASN'T THAT EVENTFUL? I should post these things more often! Anyway, I've been working on a new painting now that I have a tablet and scanner again. Hopefully I'll be done in a few days. Before college starts up again. If I have enough time, maybe I'll take a few new requests. No more than two, though, as I definitely won't have THAT much time.

Hopefully a Viktor avatar won't be as dreadful this time! Although I'm not 100% pleased with this color choice, and there are a few other minor problems with the drawing, I like it overall, so I think I'll use it as my avatar. Especially because Vaero emblem is rather...uninteresting. It's nice, but not for an avatar. I like to think I'm improving with each successive picture I draw of Viktor, but after a week or two, I'm never satisfied with the latest one I have. I wonder how much longer this will go on for. I like this one now, but come April? Who knows. I keep putting enough effort into these that I should make sure they start well, because once I get far enough, it becomes difficult to fundamentally change the piece.

But that brings me to another point. I know that I managed to fill two of my request slots fairly easily back when I had requests, and I was wondering...while I can't really take commissions now, if anyone ever might want to commission me. Obviously requests are easier to handle, what with the fact that there's no money exchanging occurring, but I do put a fair amount of effort into these things. While I might have dropped Devious-Bane's request, this was because I felt that I hadn't done a good enough job on it, and I didn't really have the time to start over (hence why I closed requests before filling all of the slots), so I decided that I didn't want to have a mediocre piece come out of it. I'm still working on Vicvic's request when I get the time, so it's not like I've abandoned all of them. However, these things do take time, and that is not something that I have an abundance of.

For this reason, I feel like I should build up a portfolio and maybe start taking commissions if anyone ever would want something from me. However, given how long they usually take, I don't feel like I could offer anything too cheap. Maybe a sketch for $20 because those generally take me an hour or two, but the digital inking I do takes many hours (2+ per character, generally!), because I've yet to find a good method of inking that takes less time and looks as good. It may even take me about as long to paint the actual picture as it does to ink it! Now, I don't think I'd get very many commissions if I charged $50+ for an inked piece and $80+ for a complete single character, but I don't really know. I don't want to be presumptuous and put up absurd prices for what the quality of what I'd be making, though, so I'm not sure what I should do.

Although for now, certainly, no commissions and just enjoy my new avatar.

New avatar--the Vaero emblem. The picture of Viktor was getting tiring considering how much I messed up the face--and that's all you could see. I'm slowly getting other stuff done. I've started inking the picture of Devious-Bane (even though I really don't like the sketch much at all), and...that's about it. I got some Micron pens that I'm testing out, but I don't really think I'll be good enough to use them for a while. They're nice pens and all, but my hand just isn't stable enough. Or maybe my technique is just that bad. Anyway, I'll be sticking to SUPER SLOW digital inking for a while. I still need so much practice with everything...

So the semester has begun, and, lo and behold, I didn't finish any of my requests. Because I'll have actual work to do now, I am closing my request slots. I will still honor the requests I received while I had slots open, however, I cannot guarantee any timeliness whatsoever.

I still need to draw more. I have a half finished sketch lying around that I'm not very fond of. Maybe I'll just toss it up into scraps soon.

Been kinda dry on ideas for what to draw recently. I'm in the middle of drawing a piece right now, about an hour and half in, and still not done with the sketch, but other than this, I have no ideas. So I figured I'd take a couple of requests and/or do some trades to fill up the queue. Yes, that's right, free of charge, I will be taking up to three requests at a time (trades will go in those same slots). I can't promise any timeliness of completion, although I'll try to get them done within a week or two of when I start (no guarantees!), but I figured I'd try this out. See how it goes. First, though, some rules.

1. Nothing too complex. I'm practically a novice at this. Although I draw often, I never really draw anything complex. I can try for something more complex than I usually draw, but anything too complex I just won't draw.
2. Keep it clean. I won't draw anything mature or fetish-y. I'd like to keep my portfolio worksafe.
3. One request per person. Unless I'm running really dry, I guess.
4. I reserve the right to turn down any request I feel does not comply with these rules, or I just don't want to draw, for some reason I've forgotten to list here. I don't really have to be doing this at all. Don't worry, keep it sane and it shouldn't be a problem.

And some notes:

1. Reference/a detailed description is always nice. If you say that you want a purple cat with red highlights...well, I won't know where to put the highlights and it might end up all wrong! Reference pictures help clear this up, or a sufficiently detailed description.
2. I don't know how long this will last. It will presumably end mid-January when winter break ends. No promises it won't end sooner.
3. The picture will probably end up being in heavy outline style, such as in the Viktor Vaero piece, but if you want me to aim for something else, I can try. No guarantees, however. Something like Ysrhal will only work if I'm sufficiently satisfied with the pencil sketch, and something like Pyrrim took so long becuase I was constantly refining the edges. So outline-less is pretty much out of the question, although I can try.
4. Specifying the more, the better. Poses, camera angles, etc, will make it even easier for you to get what you want. Especially because I generally just draw fairly neutral poses, and I'm sick of that. I want to draw something dynamic. So please, specify whatever you can.
5. If you feel like paying me, for whatever reason, I won't complain :-P However, it won't make me change my mind about if it is against the rules I have laid out. I could bump it up in the queue or try to finish sooner, though. I'd hopefully like to take commissions sooner or later, but I certainly don't feel as though I should be explicitly asking for money now before I've shown that I can really put out a good work. I still need practice. Lots of it.

The request queue is currently:
1.  devious-bane - post-sketch
2.  vicvic - post-sketch
3. EMPTY

A preview of the painted version of the last sketch I did of Viktor. It will probably stay as this for a looooong while. The last one was just filler.

The painting will probably be done by next weekend, although it really shouldn't be because I have so much work I should be doing instead.