Hey - it's been a long, long time since I've been active. Aside from stuff for Val, I haven't drawn anything in forever for various reasons (life being life, you know)

I always worry when an artist I've followed disappears off the internet. Never thought I'd be that person.

I've been active on Discord (engaging in political stuff and advocacy among other things). You can check me out on Twitter if you wanna see what I'm up to https://twitter.com/RaptieFeathers


I'll start posting art again once stuff falls back into place over here; I miss being able to do art.

Love for all of you! <3

In case anyone's wondering, the  outissa account that went around and watched a bunch of people is, in fact, me.

Basically, I'm watching so many people on my main account that I get over 1,000 submissions a week in my inbox. If I don't check my FA for a little while, I get this huge backlog of art that I have to go through in order to make sure I don't miss anything that I would find really appealing.

Since FA doesn't have a way to prioritize or differentiate between "watch" and "give me all of this person's art", I've had
to create a second account for the stuff I absolutely can't afford to miss.

So, that's all that this is about. <3 I'll still be checking out everyone's stuff, but it'll free me up to hit that "nuke submissions" button without worrying.

When people say "Black Lives Matter", we're not saying "Only Black Lives Matter". We're reminding a system that too often treats African-Americans as disposable that they do, in fact, matter.

The response of "All Lives Matter" doesn't actually address the intent behind the BLM phrase, but instead just dismisses it. Black people are being treated as expendable, so "BLM" is a reaction to that disparity in worth.

Like, maybe the saying should have been "Black Lives Matter As Well" or something, but even so, some people would still probably find a way to intentionally misunderstand that.

Anyway, I hope this clears things up! <3


EDIT: I'm gonna link this again too for people. Because it's still painfully relevant almost four years later. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaD84DTGULo

tl;dr Outissa is going on a semi-hiatus for a couple of months or so, until I have completely cleared out my commission queue.

First off, I apologize to all of you for any disappointment or upset or anything for this. I wish there was another way to do this, but my situation has been getting more and more untenable and I believe that this is the only option.

Basically, what has happened is due to a series of very unfortunate circumstances over the last year and a half or so, I owe a lot of friends a lot of art. Every time I've sat down to work on a comic page, I've felt horrible for not finishing art that I owe; every time I've sat down to work on commissions, I've felt awful for not working on updating the comic.

That has lead to me getting more and more depressed as I've fallen more and more behind, which makes it even harder to work, and it's just become an awful, awful cycle.

It's gotten to be so bad that I've considered cancelling the comic outright on more than one occasion, because I was convinced I'd grown to loathe it. D:

However, I'm now in a place where I'm not sinking further and further into debt - I'm able to get the medication I need in order to be productive and get it for free. Furthermore, my costs for rent and such are now low enough that I can get by without having to take on commissions at all.

What this means is that I actually have the ability to unclog this gigantic art clump that's been causing my creative toilet to keep backing up and getting shit all over the place.

So, here's the plan: I complete a commission every week until that mess is cleaned out, and then get back to being able to work on my comic completely guilt-free, and deliver the story that I really wanna deliver at the level of quality that I'd like to. <3

Also, I'll be posting stuff here as normal! In fact, my post frequency will be increasing, eheh.

Feel free to poke me if you have any questions or concerns. Love all of you guys. <3
-Raptie

So, I was going back through  insomniacovrlrd's gallery, and I'd noticed that the canine bits were a little... different from what I'm used to seeing on ladydoggos.

Finally got to this page here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/26128954/ and had my mind completely blown. I'd never even considered that there was a pocket for the clitoris! Not to mention the whole "oh yeah there's a female alternative to the knot" thing.

I did a bit of my own independent research and lo and behold: https://veteriankey.com/vagina-vest.....ule-and-vulva/ (no photos or anything, just diagrams!).

This. Changes. EVERYTHING.

I take great pride in being as anatomically accurate as possible on the bits that I draw, and now I know for the future what to keep in mind!

And if there's any of you out there who have the same desire for accuracy, I hope this little tidbit helps! <3

Hey! So, I've had a lot of people commenting on or asking me about anatomy and posing and such, so I'd like to share a bit of my process here.


The big "secret" is that I reference my pictures a lot. A LOT. There are five major types of reference material that I use, and they are as follows:

1. Animal References. Google Image Search is decent for this, but I've found Duckduckgo to be way better for finding photos. Also, Flickr is invaluable for this purpose. Be sure to search for animals by their scientific names as well as their common ones. When it comes to animal, uh, "bits", one tactic I learned was to search the animal's name and then the word "butt", haha. Alllllso, there are a lot of veterinary websites out there that can give good looks at animal anatomy, but be warned that those often have a lot of photos of diseased or injured critters. =(

2. Artistic Human References. Specifically, Posespace. I've been using this site for years, and it's hands-down the best repository for human refs I've ever found. You can sort and search in all kinds of ways, AND you don't have to pay them anything at all if you're just looking at the low-res pics. Furthermore, they explicitly give full permission to use their photos in your artwork. Also (and this is one of the most important things to me), they avoid lens distortion in their photos, allowing for truly accurate proportions. I love them so much. Also, I'm NOT being sponsored by them in any way, just to be clear.

3. Self References/Personal References When in doubt, take your own photos! Nearly everyone has a digital camera with them at all times, and it's pretty trivial to use it to take photos of yourself or of other (consenting!) individuals/animals! I do this ALL the time for my pieces. Just remember that these images WILL be distorted, and that distortion will increase for objects close to the camera and objects at the edges of the frame.

4. Pornographic References. Yeaaaah. Porn sites can be invaluable sources of reference material, although I personally recommend sticking to either amateur porn or the "artistic" stuff like FTV Girls.

5. Maquettes/Models. Some things are impossible to find decent references of, so you gotta get creative. I have a ton of different figurines and models and toys that I can examine and pose at a moment's notice, but when it comes to something REALLY tricky, I resort to using Monster Clay and just sculpting my own maquettes. Monster Clay is freaking amazing, and you can find all kinds of videos on Youtube that demonstrate its properties and why it's great. If you go down this path, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the book Fantasy Creatures in Clay. It's an incredibly handy resource of techniques and info for making critters.


Whew! So, that's about all for now - I hope this helps some people! <3

RAPTIE COMMISSION UPDATE:

Thank you all so much for being beyond patient with me on all this. Like.. thank you. I haven't forgotten about any of these pieces and I *will* complete them.

An explanation of what's been going on… well, there are a couple of main factors - one that was simmering below the surface for a while, and one that happened suddenly and blew everything up.

The Simmering Situation
I underestimated how long it will take me to finish pieces, and that put me behind initially. This is something I've been working on improving though, and I'll continue to do better as I get more and more practiced with art.

The Explosive Situation
As many of you know, last year I lost insurance coverage on my good ADHD meds. That meant that I, all of a sudden, had to pay a couple hundred dollars out of pocket. No warning whatsoever. That, plus a sudden set of expenses that hit out of nowhere put me way behind financially - I had to borrow money and take several commissions just to pay rent.


By itself, that explosion wouldn't have been *too* bad, however... I had to go a month on a replacement medication while I worked on getting enough money to pay out of pocket again. The replacement medication was not enough for me to work at my normal pace, and my productivity went way down.

With my ability to work slowed way down, my projects started to pile up on me. When it was taking me four times the normal amount of time to finish anything… yeah. That caused a huge logjam. I got extremely stressed and even more depressed and hopeless. (Living below the poverty line, quite frankly, sucks. Any setback gets magnified tremendously due to needing money in order to fix money problems, leading to catastrophic cascading financial failure. D:)


What Happens Now
I’m extremely fortunate, because my business trip to Texas Furry Fiesta ended up paying off huge dividends, and I found myself with enough money to actually pull out of this death spiral.

The first step on this recovery was to buy as much of the good ADHD medication as I could afford. Unfortunately, I can’t ever really afford to buy it on a monthly basis again (it’s roughly $500 out of pocket D:), but I can buy one week’s worth and stretch it out to a month. It’s not ideal - I’m still nowhere near as productive as before - but it’s better than nothing, and it’s enough to tip the scales in my favor.

The second step was to continue to fight to get the insurance to cover me - right now, I'm at the stage where I have to wait for a court hearing to plead my case. I’ve gathered as much documentation as possible to support my claim, and I dearly hope they’ll cover me again. If that happens, then all of these worries just go away.

The third step… the third step is a long-term solution. A few days ago, I filed for disability coverage. In other words, I filed to get free money every month that I can use to live off of, instead of having to rely on commissions to get by. The reason this is long-term is that it can take a year or more to get approved. I'm making sure to do it the right way, however, and hired an attorney to help out (I don’t have to pay up front or pay at all unless I actually get the claim approved).


ALRIGHT SO: What does all of this mean for all of you waiting for art?

Well, it means that I am still finishing pieces. I’m working my butt off every single day at getting my queue cleared out as much as I can. I mean, it's my JOB. It’s probably going to take a while longer, but I promise to everyone here that I will finish your artwork.

Thank you tremendously once more to all of you who’ve been patient with me while I work through this shitshow of a situation. I love all of you guys. <3

Hi ya'll! I'll be at the con from today until next Tuesday! I plan on arriving in San Jose around 4:00p.m. PST or so, and shoouuuuld be at the con itself shortly after. If you see me wandering around, feel free to say hi. :D

Most of my time will be spent in the big ol' drawing area, hanging out with friends, so I should be easy to spot. <3

Hey, everyone! In the interest of reducing clutter in my gallery, I've moved all pages of my comics - aside from the most recent page, and the first pages of each issue - to my Scraps. Nothing's gone away, and you can still use the navigation buttons. Also, my Comics folder still contains all pages if you need to browse them in a more convenient fashion. <3

Firstly - THANK YOU to everyone supporting me who has been patient, especially my dear clients. <3


So - you may have noticed I've been fairly quiet lately, aside from comic updates.

Few reasons for that - some good, some bad. To keep it (relatively) quick:

I moved to a new apartment back in April! Much healthier environment than my old one, but a move is a move and it took a while.

Found out my antidepressant was making me feel horrible, so had to swap to a better one.

I had to basically take on an extra $700 of work to pay for some stuff that was unexpected.

Then, my excellent friend  valsalia went and injured himself, so I helped out by coloring a couple of pages for him.

All of that happened within the last two months.


Now, of course a lot of good has come from all this. Most significantly, I'm now the official colorist for Val's comic, Out-of-Placers! It's a paid position too, and it covers all of my rent and bill expenses each month. What this means for you is that I will be able to switch my focus more towards personal projects and fun things, and less on having to get by on commissions.

However, I still have this backlog of owed work to finish. I've been juggling the backlog with my comic, Val's comic, and Patreon sketches, so it's been crunch mode for me.

My current plan is to have my backlog completely clear by early next month.


...which reminds me.

I HAVE EYE SURGERY AT THE END OF JUNE D: Due to having severe keratoconus, I'm going to be getting a cornea transplant on my right eye. That shouldn't keep me from drawing (my right eye is kinda useless at the moment anyway), but the pain meds may slow me down and make me a bit woozy.

FINALLY, on top of ALL OF THIS OTHER STUFF, I've been working with Val to do a series of pin-ups of his Out-of-Placers characters. These are crowd-funded, and are really cool - I'll have the first one ready to post within a week!


Anyway, thank you all again for bearing with me. I couldn't be here without all of you and I love you so much. <3

https://outissa.com/ Go check it out! First page will be posted in a week! <3

Hey hey! Just making a general announcement that apparently I have the FLU, and it's been wreaking havoc with my ability to do arts. This means that there will be a slight delay with my current commissions.

I apologize for said delay, and appreciate everyone's patience. <3

(I really really really wanna draw right now but I'm trying to be a good raptie and actually rest up. <3 )

I'll be there! Woo! YES.

Splitting a room with  valsalia and  RML. We'll be arriving roughly Thursday afternoon.

I'll be sticking to those two like glue! You'll also probably find us with  trikotomy,  nontoxo, and also Toxo's wife, whoooo doesn't have an FA as far as I'm aware. Rumors of an  egypturnash lurking about as well can neither be confirmed nor denied.

If you see us, say hi! BE GENTLE THOUGH - it's the first real furry con for a bunch of those folks.

https://blog.patreon.com/not-rollin.....t-fees-change/

:D

As some of you may have heard, Patreon is implementing changes to its fee structure and a lot of people are upset and angry. I've seen videos by fairly major channels and articles and all kinds of stuff talking about it, and speculating at Patreon's "greed" and so on.


The problem is, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how Patreon's fees ACTUALLY work (to be fair, a lot of this is because Patreon explains it poorly). Allow me to explain and hopefully this will help clear things up.


It all comes down to the meaning of the word "transaction fees."


See - everyone keeps assuming that the term is referring to the payout fee that creators pay when cashing out their balances (either $0.25 if you use Stripe or 1% if you use Paypal). So, when they hear that, with the new fee structure, patrons are going to be paying 2.9%+$0.35 per pledge, they assume that's what it's referring to.

That is not at all what the transaction fees are. At. All.

"Transaction fees" refer to the fees charged by the vendors processing patron credit cards. Which differ from vendor to vendor, and can range from 2%-10%, depending on the vendor. Note that this is in addition to the 5% cut that Patreon takes (which isn't changing!)

Under the CURRENT system, creators are paying these transaction fees.

That's right, creators. You haven't been taking home $0.95 out of every dollar pledged to you. No, you've only been getting $0.93 - $0.85.



SO. What Patreon's new system does average up the different vendor transaction fees, and split the cost of that among all pledges, and charges the patrons instead of the creators.



Is this the best way Patreon could have handled this? No, probably not - it punishes people who make lots of little pledges instead of one big pledge, and it punishes people who pledge to per-post Patreons. Those are issues that need to be addressed. HOWEVER, it is preferable to the old system, where you'd never really know exactly how much you'd be taking home.

Anyway, I hope this clears things up for everyone. <3

...Lizanne! Congratulations to the be-hatted cutiebird!

Come watch tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. PST for some stream action as I draw her!

https://picarto.tv/Raptie

Many thanks to all of you who voted! <3

Hey! Got a huge influx of new watchers, and I wanted to let you all know that I am definitely very interested in taking more commissions for hyperrealistic transformation pieces!

Just shoot me a note with your budget and your idea, and I'll give it a think and get back to you!

I recommend giving my F-List a good look, too! It tells you what I prefer to draw! I also give discounts to pieces that feature only things that are listed in my "Faves"! Which includes transformation. <3

Hey guys! Juuuust kinda getting to bed now (been up all night reading!), and letting you know that I will still be doing an art stream today. It is a Friday after all!

However, because of the late bedtime, I'm going to be delaying the stream from the usual 10 a.m. start until 11 a.m. PDT.

I'll try to get some commission work done, but since it's my birthday, there may be a lot more goofing around and personal art and silliness than usual.

Anyway, I'll post up a stream notice as usual when it starts. And it'll be over at the usual spot... that is to say, https://picarto.tv/Raptie

Hey, does anyone know what happened to Veramundis? I went to check out his stuff and it looks like he pretty much deleted everything and disabled all of his accounts everywhere. D:

Hey, guys. I planned on doing an all-day stream, but I'm a little worn-out at the moment, so I'm taking the first part of the day off to just chillllllllll and recuperate.

However! I will be on later on today, starting at around 3:30 p.m. MDT!

Hey, guys. Came down sick recently, and as such, it's not looking like I can do my usual stream this morning. Depending on how I feel later today, I may still end up doing something then. <3

Khoros wins!

I'll be streaming the piece tomorrow on my Picarto at 10:00 a.m. PDT! Come on by. <3

Aubrey wins! https://patreon.com/Raptie

I'll be streaming her picture tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. PDT in a bonus stream!

Hey, everyone! This is about the time where I'd put up my art vote choices and such, but I thought I'd do something... else, sorta. Mix it up a bit.

So, what I'd like to do is this: Which characters would you like to see in this vote?

Feel free to suggest any character that you'd like! It can be one of my characters or one that belongs to you. I'll keep accepting submission ideas until tomorrow, Sunday the 10th, at 6:00 p.m. PDT. At that point I will choose two characters at my discretion, and then draw headshots (like in my other vote pieces) for both.

The vote between the two characters I select will go live on my Patreon on Monday, and will be open for 48 hours. Remember that anyone who is at the $3+ tier can vote!




Alright! Respond below with your suggestion! If it's one of your characters, then I'll also need any applicable references, and a brief description of the character's personality and kinks.

Edit: corrected date for ending of suggestions. I'd forgotten both what day of the month it was AND the day of the week. B:

EDIT: ALRIGHT! SUBMISSIONS CLOSED

I'll be announcing the two finalists tomorrow morning at the beginning of my stream, at 10:00 a.m. PDT.

You can come watch me work on the profile pictures for them tomorrow on my Picarto!

https://www.patreon.com/Raptie

Come on over to vote for who YOU'D like to see me draw next! Poll closes in 48 hours, and the winning picture will be streaming lived this coming Monday!

I've decided to extend the vote to ALL Patreon tiers! Next month, however, voting will only be open to $3+ tiers.

The resulting picture of the winner WILL be posted on FA as well as my Patreon, so even if you don't get a chance to vote, you don't have to worry about missing on the result!