Well, if you read my last journal you heard i have been blessed to meet a wonderful, loving, accepting christian woman. Well now i have a wonderful loving fiance!!!!!! Proposed to her on her birthday, took her by suprise!

This is an IRL update

I, a male christian gamer/scifi/fantasy geek and anthro, feel so blessed by God right now. For the past several months I have been dating a wonderful lady who is about my age, a gamer, a geek, and a christian (oh and she loves big cats and tigers, has them all over her room!). I have been slowly revealing more and more of myself to her, including my personalities, personas, and fursonas. The last one I was really worried about revealing was Bluesky, not only because shi is a hermaphrodite but I am always cautious and worried that some might take the taur lower body as connecting to bestiality. Only a former roommate who is my "sister" (whose character is Bree the biped wolf space pirate) knows me in real life and knows about Bluesky.
That has now changed, late, very late last night I was talking to my girlfriend about a story she is writing with a friend, and when we started talking about characters (long story short) I told her about Bluesky, the gist of hir creation on 2nd life, and parts of hir story. Let me put the good news like this: I still have a girlfriend! There was no turning away or rejection! I love this woman!!!!!!! God, thank you for her!

Ok, that is the gist of it :) I pray the best comes to each of you in your life. have a good night

At some point in the future, hopefully not too far in the future because I am not getting any younger, I hope to find a wonderful mate to call my own and start a family with her. When that time comes and I do find her, there will be a point when I have to share my "furry" nature with her. It got me wondering, what exactly will I tell her when the time comes, I personally have never liked the word furry and I suspect my interest in shapeshifting, weres, and centaurs from when I was younger is all part of what made me decide that yeah I do kind of fit in with furs.

So I was curious what does being a furry (or not) mean to you?

And he gets told to go home because he is still sick.

Believe it or not I am doing a lot better than I was, but apparently my cough (which has yet to go away) sounds horrible, and that combined with being tired and weak from being sick got me sent home. Hurray! I think....

Thank you to those that have been giving well wishes, I greatly appreciate it.

Ok, as my last journal said, I'm sick. I am in fact still under the weather, but not as badly, thus I decided to do something to most of the chakat template pics I have in my gallery. I added Talent wheels!

Ya, i know not really majorly exciting, it was a little difficult getting it made and to look halfway decent, but after that it was really easy to fit all my old sheets with one. The first couple I did with a thicker line chart, but it looked odd, so I traced over my thick lines with thin lines.... think lines look better, but I stink at tracing, lol, all the lines are a little off now. Which do you all think look better.

I got the idea after seeing  catnamedfish's submission Talents, and she originally spotted one at the source of all things chakat,  goldfur's web page

Tail High all, gonna go rest, watch Face Off, and then if i don't pass out I might write or draw as I am led, who knows I might actually have something new I did in my gallery soon.

Mrowwwww....

I work in a public book rental and return environment in close quarters with co-workers and all ages of the public, I have come to see an occasional cold or sniffle to be part of the job, and usually it only keeps me down for a day or four of rest and I am back on my feet and ready to bring home the dough needed to keep myself and my kitties living....
....
....
It has been a week and a half since i got a sore throat, there has been coughing, hacking, substances of strange colors coming out of my mouth (no dirty jokes! lol). Strangely no runny or stuffed up nose, so at first I thought it would be a walk in the park illness I would be over in no time... Nope, still here, and now when I lie down I here bubbles popping when I breathe (crackles possibly? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crackles ). Considering I have been weak, but able to do desk job work, I am willing to bet I have walking Pneumonia, hopefully there are some antibiotics I can take (am allergic to all Penicillin and sulfa drugs) that will clear this up for me.

Sorry, felt like a little rant, gonna go lie down now *thinks of annoying bubble sounds* or somethings.....

Bluesky

Merry Christmas everyone!

I recently had a commission finished by  garurykai and it is looking like the busy holiday season will prevent me from reposting it while it is still relevant. So please go check out the family picture of my daughters' family for their Christmas cards this year. I will get a description and possibly a short story posted after things slow down a bit. Oh, almost forgot the link: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9515597/

Once again, merry Christmas from us (this odd human, Bluesky and hir family)! May God bless you and prosper you during the coming year.

First off I'm over a thousand page views now! wow didn't see that happening so soon. Thanks everyone! this is a big surprise because a few weeks ago I was still just approaching the 900 point, and then over one weekend I jumped up to 1000.

Hopefully I will start on coloring my characters and writing again soon, I have had the time but not the motivation recently, there was a death in my (real life) family a few weeks ago and everything involved with that has thrown me for a loop.

Well I want to keep on on coloring my reference sheets for my characters, but I am drawing a blank as to which one to do next. I figure I can decide one of three ways.

1. I let you all choose for my by selecting a number from the following ranges 1 to 93, 106 to 118, and 166 to 169 (these are the character I have line art that would work for), and then I go from there.
2. Someone can pick a character from my family tree and then I can see if I am able to or already done them.
3. I just start with Bluesky and work up the family tree, and then work down until all finished.

Anyone got any opinions?

*tired chakity sits in front of the computer* "cough cough" Since thursday the 6th, I have been sick, been to disney and the awesome Night of Joy concerts (both nights) seen family, gone home sick from work, and stayed home another day, taken my cats to the vet, gone out of town again (good news/bad news follows), got home exhausted, worked a normal week, and had my home cable/internet go out on me for the past two days. So long story short I have been out of the loop for my commissions, coloring my character references, working on the chakat wikia, and keeping up on conversations going on over at the chakat yahoo group.

the good news/bad news about my second "vacation" is that there has been a miracle, I now have a car again after five years of being without, though that means I now have car payments *sighs* oh well I should still be able to afford the commissions I have lined up from voxian and GaruryKai.

here's hoping life gets more regular soon....


Oh, and here are the WIP for three commissions I have from Foxene
Rune mate to chakat bluesky (taur in the chakat universe) and this humans primary fursona
Cloudbrush my beloved lifemate (final pic will have her pregnant)
and
Krome my skunktaur daughter, you can see that shi (yes shi not hy) inherited some.... traits from hir sire (me). Shi is of house silverpaw like hir mother.


ok *coughs again* I'm gonna go rest some more now.....

One of my chakat template coloring jobs has hit 100 views! I know some people probably get one hundred views in seconds after they submit an item, but for me... *purrs* it usually only happens on a commission or after something has been on my page for a very very long time. The best part is that it is Cloudbrush my lifemate in my stories that was the first to hit one hundred!

Thank you to everyone out there that has watched me, and faved me, I really appreciate it!

On a side note I am approaching 900 pageviews overall, not sure how I am going to celebrate when I hit 1000, never really thought of that before....

Just got my Bamboo splash Tablet, *fingers crossed* hopefully this little investment will make it easier to create the reference sheets and make them look better too. wish me luck!

Art one: Well wish me luck, I heard the word that a favorite artist among chakats is opening up for commissions again and have submitted my commission, fingers crossed that kacey likes my idea and chooses me as one of her four! Or barring that I win the auction!

Art two: I have one piece I have commissioned from garurykai and two pieces I have commissioned from voxian I am currently working on producing chakat template reference sheets for the characters that will be starring in those commissions, so expect some more chakitty coloring jobs from me in the future.

Art three: A question for you all out there, should I move my reference sheets to my scraps section after they have sat in my gallery for a month? I have a lot of characters and I do not want to make it so difficult to go through my gallery to see my commissions or stories because of all the reference sheets I post. What do you think?

art related: I had basically come to the decision that I was going to pick up a bamboo drawing tablet to help with coloring my character, however money might be tight if I am able to get the commission from Kacey, so i think I will hold off on that for now, hopefully my characters will not suffer for this decision.


Update: did not get commission from Kacey, sadly could not afford how high the auction went either, so I'll save up more waiting till next time, and i'll be able to get that tablet soon. Might also help me do map making for my dnd group.

migraines suck....

Doing better now, just have to keep it from getting worse again.

Late night before bed update, I'm back up to running efficiency and just wanted to thank all of you who wished me well today. I'll try to have a new journal up soon to get this off my front page soon.

Diamondstripe is holding a raffle to commemorate the one year anniversary of their character's existence, I think it also has something to do with their character's first child.

And well, though today is the last day for the raffle, I finally decided that why not i'll try my hand at one of these many raffles i have seen going around.

Here is the link if you have not seen it before and want to give it a try http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3584489/ , just remember it is the last day today.

As many of you have likely noticed, I was able to find an artist to draw up the chakat template idea I had in my previous journal. A big thanks again to  voxian for drawing the blank line art (you can find it in his gallery here). The three chakats I have in my gallery so far (amberheart, bushtail, and Hollyfur) were all colored in either using my trackball mouse (not great for getting lines where you want them to go) or with the touch pad on my laptop (way too small and causes cramps in my fingers). I am currently in the process of coloring a clouded leopard and it is painfully slow, so I was hoping someone out there may have some suggestions on what would be a decent (but somewhat inexpensive) tablet for art programs (i think that is what they are called).

I am using a windows 7 laptop, or a windows xp desktop, and am using the newest version of GIMP. Any help would be greatly appreciated because while it can be done with a mouse, I have almost a hundred different chakats in my family tree and I want to introduce as many of them as possible.

Tail High everyone!

In an effort to spruce up my gallery I want to start commissioning art to go along with my Bluesky story. I already have a commission that I am trying to get  Kacey to do, she is just so popular it is hard to get a slot. There is also a pic I am talking to  GaruryKai about; she has been doing some beautiful Chakats lately. However I have a few ideas I could use some help pinpointing artists that would be good for what I would like.
I’ll do the easy one first:
If you read chapter five part of this might be familiar: A large (looking a chakat in the eye large) feral white tiger with dark blue ruff and large wings (dark blue-grey feathers), crouched protectively over a young (six months old?) white tiger striped chakat cub with medium blue hair. The beast would be growling and snarling at the viewer. If I was to add a background, it would be a horrible storm like chaos closing in on a small calm bubble from every direction. I need help with this one because I have never really before looked for an artist who could do a good angry feral.

The next idea is…
I would love to have a blank (line art) reference sheet for some of the basic variations of characters (chakat, winged chakat, skunktaur, wolf biped etc) that would show a front, back, and at least one side view of the character, and possibly a close up of one eye. I would then take blank and color in the fur pattern to produce references for those characters.
For example I would take the generic chakat blank and be able to make a quick reference for umpteen many chakats that appear in my story. I would draw the line art myself, but my attempt so far is lacking, even though I feel good about the stripes. I of course would credit and link back to the original artist and line art for each posted character. I would not be able to commission them all at once but I have more than a dozen basic forms. If the artist wanted to open the line art up for other people to use, either for free or for a fee that would be fine by me.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions, would be a great help to me!

Last week, Thursday to be exact, I was at work and on some down time I was thinking about my Bluesky stories and about the future inside of the said story. A combination of trying to figure out how far I should take the stories and how old Bluesky's grandsire would live to my mind came across the inevitable: How long would Bluesky live. I was then (again while at work) swallowed up by the emotions that Rune (future mate of Bluesky and Cloudbrush, he s basically my fursona) would feel when bluesky and cloudbrush eventually die. I was briefly an emotional wreck, then I wondered what Rune would do after. I then pulled up a word file and plunged into the emotional mess of what Rune was going through, and the little project that would fill up his last five years of life and leave behind a vast present to his very large extended family.

So that means I had to experience him (aka me) dying and saying goodbye to family too. All I can say is i found it very hard not to cry at work, and it made the rest of Thursday depressing for me.

In happier news I had another commission done: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7387293 by  echo_wulf who still has commission slots open!

And the last item of buisness, I am making a family tree in family tree maker for Bluesky's family, and it is getting convoluted, all of these inter linking matings are complected at times. I have to see if there is a way to export it as a jpg or the like.

have a good night everyone!

Well first off bad news: I tried to get a commission with  kacey but even though i sent the note at the first possible second, slow internet thwarted me and i did not get the commission.

Good news 1: i got multiple low cost commissions from another artist, you can see them in my gallery, with more to come! Thanks again to  echowulf and  geckoguy123456789.

Good news 2: even before i made my two commissions i bought my first item from the anthro/furry community at large. I now own a paperback copy of Life's dream.

Good news 3: I am still moving forward with my work on bluesk'ys story, more characters have names, and chapter five is getting longer.

New shiny: i now own an ipod touch, so i can now discreetly get online wherever i have wireless signal. That's why this journal probably has so many typos.

I will add links to the gallery and to the users pages later when i have access to a full computer

Ghreibher: I have finally gone through both my accounts on FA and am caught up on looking at journals and submissions. I usually can get busy with the holidays and fall behind, but this year I had more reason than previously: Skyrim. My sister and brother in law got me the game for Christmas, and now much time has been lost to it. I think now I am through the most addictive phase of the game so I can get back to writing on Bluesky's story, writing a fanfic, making pottery, and building a DnD campaign (my first time DMing).

On a note with Bluesky's story, well at the moment Sky is a little upset at me, oddly enough it started with hir being quite happy with me. You see Sky is not my primary fursona, yes shi does have a lot of me in hir, but shi is a lot hirself too. My primary personality is a male white tiger (either biped or taur) named Rune, he gets his name from a variety of rune like symbols in orange upon his fur. He has some small bits of orange on other parts of his fur so I guess he is not completely a white tiger anymore, but that's not important. What is important is that I came to the decision to input Rune into the chakat universe as a taur and make him one of Sky's mates. I quite literally heard a sigh of relief and a voice say "About time." Apparently Sky had been waiting for me to make that decision for a while. Later on I was using my roommate as a sounding board for ideas about when/where to fit him in ext. Then we came to the idea of cubs... I can feel Sky glaring at me right now, let me clarify, shi is happy about having cubs again, it's just that *Bluesky pushes me away from keyboard and sits on me*

Sky: Triplets!!!!!! That tom cat gave me triplets! I have had two sets of twins thank you very much and as much as I love my little ones it can get very uncomfortable carrying two toward the end, I can't imagine what three is going to be like. And Cloudbrush, my own lifemate was encouraging him when the idea crossed his mind. *stalks off*

Ghreibher: I'm sure shi will be accepting of this soon, after all she does love cubs, I think shi is just in shock right now. But without further delay say hello to the new members of the Bluesky family: Lifemate Rune and children: Starlight, Nod, and Starbright. When born the three cubs look identical, well except for the fact that Nod is born pure male.... now how can that happen? *grins*

Ghreibher (aka silly human author): Spent most of today watching warehouse 13 and making a list of all the characters that do not have names or even just the fact that they exist. So far all of the characters I have made profiles for and then all the names I need are those characters related to bluesky in one way or another. And guess how many characters there are I need names and such for...... 104 that's right I have 104 characters that may not even show up in hir main story names fur patterns, jobs, ext. and hopefully my mind can leave well enough alone with just that info. Hopefully I will not feel the need to make a larger and larger list of characters.... (I once made a family tree that went over 2000 years for one original story series i have in the works) and now i have a headache and turn you over to our sponsor....

Bluesky: *lays down next to and hugs Ghreibher) If anyone would like to help we have decided to post the list of my *grins* extended family that does not have names yet. If you want to post any ideas for names, and the rest we cannot guarantee the name will be used, but it might help us out some. If the name and or colors suggested are used I will make sure Ghreib mentions your help by name when/if that character is ever used in a story. If it does not affect the story we might even insert full original characters from other people in there, though we would prefer to keep things canon. Tail-high everyone!

Human author (aka Ghreibher): I have now finished reading all of Goldfur's/Bernard Doove's Chakat universe stories. That was some refresher course after not having been too involved in that universe for a while. I'm gonna take a break for part of today (my eyes and brain are numb from so much computer reading) and later on will either start on Chapter five of Bluesky's story or work on some more character outlines. Oh, and if you have not yet, read the "Life's Dream" foxtaur clan stories, second time reading it after many years and it still made me cry, and I don't do that lightly. Happy recovery from turkey day everyone else in the states, and if you dare to go out in black friday traffic, may God keep you safe.

Bluesky: After two years I'm very happy to have him working on my story again, and thanks to his roommate's help as a sounding board and idea generator I have finally gotten to meet my cubs and some of my grandcubs. A mother and sire could not be more proud. Tail High everyone!

As I have said before I have rereading the Forest Tales by Bernard Doove, I read them all several years ago, but as anyone interested in chakats probably know he has been adding to the collection of stories and I have missed several of them. Just came across one that gave me much needed info. I just read "whatever the cost" and got some very important info on two things I needed to know more about for my stories. The first and minor one I had previously suspected was that a Talent teleporting individual will in fact displace the air when they arrive! The second major thing I got info on is the title of this journal: Mars! Although it played a minor role in the story overall the story did give me the information on how far the terraforming of Mars had gone just two years before any part of my story happens there. *grins and purrs* And so far my stories don't contradict that either! *Happy chakat bluesky channels crazy human writer and rubs hands together while smiling*

thank you all for attending my almost midnight happy rant. we now return to your regularly scheduled program.

From Bluesky: Ok, a lot of my time recently has been split between re-reading the cannon chakat stories by Goldfur, and working on planning out characters for my story. Even though I was the one who decided to have such a large family of mates and companions I had forgotten just how many cubs that could result in, the need for each person to have parents for formal introductions, and last but not least names for the cubs future mates! I love my mates dearly but wow, we have lots of kits, true some are not born until later, but here is the last count: I have four sired by Cloudbrush, and I sire three with Cloudbrush, one by a skunktaur mate. Cloudbrush has one and sires one by a Stellar foxtaur mate. My other mate (a bipedal cat morph) has three children. That makes 13 children at a minimum from myself, my mates, and co mates. I still haven't decided if I will have any kits with Cloudbrush's stellar foxtaur mate, and then there is the names of all my kits mates and a few of them already have cubs in the glimpses of the future I have seen in my mind.

From human: So many names, so many jobs, and so many mates. All the while trying to make sure I don't become repetitive with names and fur. And I have barely even touched secondary characters.

I have always been a stickler for wanting movies and other interpretations of a book or story to be true to the original. This has caused me to want my Bluesky series of stories to be as close to canon as possible. Perhaps even one day being accepted as such and posted on the Forest tales main page. (no clue if it will be good enough for that, but a tiger can dream can't he?) I am also re-reading the Chakat universe stories by Bernard Doove and other writers that have written in his universe to remind myself of the feel of the place and the rules.

There is one question I had about the universe: Does anyone know anything about Mars in the stories? If i remember Goldendale's parents are supposed to live there but I believe that is the most it is mentioned in any of the canonical stories.

I know for a fact that my stories will have some unusual things in them, but I feel I have sufficient precedent
and reasoning for these things to exist in a canonical work. The most glaring non canon items would be bluesky's wings and hair color, but I hope my explanations in the story show how these traits could exist in canon. The other major problem is an original alien species I wish to use, I will likely post a profile of the species some point soon and then you can see why it may be a problem, or perhaps it won't be.

Last question for this journal: Does anyone know if a comprehensive list of all claimed/used chakat names exist? I really don't want to use a name someone else has come up with even by accident (it happened to me when I was first naming Bluesky, thankfully the other Blue was ok with my mistake and liked my new name I chose instead.). To keep from using a name I had seen before by accident I had my roommate (who has not read any chakat stories) help me come up with fur patterns and names for many of the cubs of the series (and I ended up with more help than I could have hoped for, including ideas for stories after the main plot. Thanks again BBB for the help).

well I'm done rambling for now, thanks for listening, go out and have a wonderful day!