It has been a little over two years since I decided to stop posting art to FA and soft-nuke my gallery. I'm sure you've already heard the news about Dragoneer if you're reading this, and I would like to make it clear despite my massive frustrations with the site, I am angry that he died because he couldn't receive the medical attention that he needed without paying extortionate prices.

The future of FA is uncertain, and while I've only heard rumours that FA may be shut down, the chance of FA shutting down as a result of this is definitely not zero.

If you're following me here and only here, now is a good time to either join my Discord server, or follow me on Blue Sky or Twitter/X to not only avoid losing track of me, but to also catch up on 2 years of art you have missed.

Discord Server: https://discord.gg/HbuHuqT
Twitter: https://x.com/ClearVisionArts
Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/clearvisio.....ts.bsky.social

These are the only platforms that I am actively posting art to at the moment. There is also Picarto, where I still do art streams:

https://www.picarto.tv/clearvision

Hello again,

This is just a quick journal message to remind my FA viewers that I'm still alive, say "happy new year" and also express my concern that since I soft nuked my gallery here in 2022 and swore not to upload again until those road map changes actually come to fruition, literally nothing has changed almost 2 years on. There's a UI update on the way in February, but UI is the least of FurAffinity's problems right now.

I don't need to repeat myself with the issues I personally have with the site, but if for some reason you haven't found me on an alternative platform yet, at the time of writing this I'm only actively posting on Twitter and my Discord server at the moment and I'll be creating an account on Bluesky in the near future too if you prefer it over Twitter. I've also decided to stop posting to Derpibooru because I do not like how unappreciative that community can be and disagree with the site's stance on AI art, as well as receiving backhanded comments every time I open commissions.

I'm not coming back to FA other than to periodically check what's going on and I'm not restoring my gallery, until those roadmap changes are ready.

Hey everyone,

Just a quick journal message to say that due to the recent events on Twitter, and Twitter's future being up in the air at the moment with a lot of uncertainty, I'm going to be keeping a closer eye on my alternative platforms, which includes FurAffinity.

I'm aware that my gallery here has still been soft-nuked with protest images I put up earlier this year, but I will put it back to normal whenever I get a chance, and also upload any art that hasn't been here already. I'm still not happy with the current state of FA, but if things go really bad, I might not have much choice.

Hey everyone,

As the title of this journal says, I won't be posting art here anymore for the time being. Don't worry, I'm not quitting art and nothing bad in particular has happened. However, if you're reading this and you only follow me on FA, I encourage you to follow me elsewhere. Namely Twitter, Derpibooru or even joining my Discord server.

Short Explanation:

FA as an artist has brought me very little other than frustration, and I've decided that I won't deal with it anymore. I won't come back until all of the changes mentioned in the 2022 mini roadmap have been implemented (trending pages, artist discovery, higher resolution art + increased file size limit in particular).

Long Explanation:

It's impossible to get discovered here through your work. While I've had a few big hits here and there on Twitter and Derpibooru, absolutely nothing I have on here has even come close to breaking even 500 views, not even some of my more popular images which have been seen and liked by thousands. I'm at 256 followers here right now, yet I have about 700 on Derpibooru and about 1740 on Twitter. The way I see it, it's completely pointless to use this site as an artist unless you already have a big following, because no one can find your work unless they just happen to stumble upon it while looking for something else. I'm struggling to get the ball rolling on FA, yet elsewhere I've managed to get a little fanbase going.

Don't get me started on FA's arbitrary resolution limit and small file size limit which is still is my biggest frustration. A friend of mine clarified that the 10MB file size limit cannot be bypassed, but the resolution limit can, through updating the submission file after uploading, or uploading through Postybirb that can automate this process for you. Postybirb has definitely eased some of the pain in uploading my stuff here, but I'm still fed up of this.

I've had a couple of commission enquiries from here but nothing significant to the point that it would convince me to continue uploading despite FA's problems. So, until those problems get fixed, I'm going to call it quits for now as I have no way of competing with artists that have been here since the early to mid 2010s or even earlier. Despite being in the digital art scene since 2018, I'm still relatively new on the wider scale.

EDIT: FA went down briefly after I posted this journal which is kinda hilarious in hindsight. There's plenty of times in the past where I've gone to submit some art, but the site was either extremely slow, or was down completely which lead me to saying "fuck it, I can't be bothered" and put off the art post until the next time I visited.

Commissions are now open, check my pinned submission for my price sheet.

If you're interested, feel free to get in touch with me!

I've updated my art gallery with some art pieces that I haven't previously bothered to upload here before. Feel free to have a look.

I still encourage people to follow me on either Twitter or Derpibooru (MLP uploads only) where I'm more active. I don't plan on ditching FA (yet) but as I mentioned in a previous journal post, every time I come here to post art I just leave frustrated rather than accomplished.

Hello everyone, I just want to make a quick official announcement that I will be opening some commission slots on May 1st at 5pm BST (UTC+1)!

There will be two normal slots and one vehicle pinup slot available for grabs. Prices are unchanged from last time, check my featured submission for my price sheet. If you have any questions or wish to get a price quote before then, don't hesitate to get in touch!

Hello everyone,

I know it was from a couple weeks ago, but I feel like sharing my thoughts on the sitewide announcement of some new changes that was made earlier this month (involving search engine changes, and the 2022 road map) as I hardly post anything to my FA account anyways and maybe it might be an interesting read for some of you.

Let me preface this post by saying that all of the changes that have already been made, and will be made in the hopefully near future are positive, and I know that making a functional site is a lot harder than some people realise, especially with a small team. My viewpoint comes from someone who doesn't use FA that often, and mostly uses it as another platform to post my artwork, so bear that in mind.

With that out of the way, let's talk briefly talk about the positives, starting with the search engine changes. The default search settings changes are good, and while keywords were mentioned in the announcement, I'm not sure if any changes have actually been made to it. The FA+ search boost won't affect me, so I won't comment on that, but I'm thankful that it's only a small 5%+ boost at absolute most. And the last change that has been implemented for now is a slightly larger avatar upload file size limit. I'd argue it's negligible at best because 75KB / 150KB are still tiny images, even for a profile picture, and I don't understand why they would do this over increasing the file size limit for actual artwork.

These changes will hopefully make it easier for smaller artists such as myself to get discovered here, but at the same time I'm disappointed that none of my pet peeves surrounding FA have been addressed, or any announcement of them being addressed in the future. These pet peeves of mine are why I barely use this site and regularly neglect uploading my latest stuff to here, because almost every time I log in to post a new art piece, I just leave here completely annoyed.

There was no mention of an increase file size for art or improving the tagging/keyword system itself, which are my two biggest gripes with FA by far as an artist. I also find it ridiculous how it's taken until 2022 for the feature of being able to block/blacklist certain tags to even be announced, let alone implemented so you can avoid content that you don't like to see. You only have the option of turning NSFW content on or off. The furry fandom has many people in it, with many different tastes and interests. Some of us might be into things that others may find disturbing, and while I don't use FA to browse for art, this is one of the reasons why. Other sites such as Derpibooru and e621 have had this relatively basic functionality for nearly a decade now.

As for the file size limit, if I had to state the number one reason why I don't use FA more often as an artist, this would be it (although FA being a bad platform for small artists to get discovered is a very close second). The file size limit for artwork is 10MB or 1.6 megapixels which means that for almost every single art piece that I've put out there, I've had to downscale it just so I can post it here. I'm aware that Twitter will compress images too, but Twitter isn't a dedicated art site and that would be a bad comparison to make. Getting back to the point, why is it that for a dedicated art website in 2022, I can't even upload a 1080p image (1920x1080 is 2.1MP), even if it's below the hard capped file size limit? Some of my artist friends who are also on here have told me that you can bypass the 10MB cap by uploading an image, and then editing the submission after it's been uploaded, but at least for me I've never been able to get that to work. Maybe it's because the full resolution is still too big even for the "hidden" file size limit, or maybe it's been patched out. But why have the file size limit be at 10MB if it's supposedly so easy to bypass? Why not increase it to whatever the hidden file size limit is? I want everyone who follows my work to be able to enjoy my art in the highest quality possible regardless of what platform they're viewing it on, but I can't even do that here. Again, I understand and appreciate that there's a small team behind FA, but it pisses me off that I have to make an additional tiny version of my art just to be able to upload it here.

Next, the keyword tagging system. I would appreciate it if there was some sort of tag suggestion based on what you've written or are about to write to help artists apply any sort of relevant tags to their posts. This is something that I find really helpful on Derpibooru, plus anyone is able to edit the tags so they can add any other relevant tags that they felt the original poster missed. It can be hard to add tags if you aren't sure of what's out there or what's being used/searched for. It may not be a good idea to let anyone edit the tags of any post without a team of moderators to look out for any tag abusers but I don't think tag suggestions would be too much to ask for.

To keep things somewhat positive and balanced, I'm genuinely looking forward to the trending pages and "up and coming" pages. It has been extremely frustrating here on FA as a small artist, as it has always felt like it has favoured artists who are already well known seeing how the only ways people could come across your work here is if they randomly stumble across it while looking for something (outside of clicking a link to it elsewhere, word of mouth, or directly typing in your profile URL). I only have around 200 followers here (with extremely small growth), but elsewhere I have many more followers. Around 600 on Derpibooru and 1.3K on Twitter which are my main platforms. Hopefully this will mean that I will be able to grow here too, but we will have to wait and see as to what will happen.

UI improvements are also very welcome, but the UI is honestly the smallest of FA's problems in my opinion. It's still something that frustrates me, but it's usable. Something is better than nothing and on the whole I'm glad that something is finally being done about some of the problems with FA, but I wish that they would prioritise the bigger problems. For the time being, I still probably won't use FA much but I will keep an eye on what's going on every now and then, and maybe posting artwork if I remember to do so.

Thank you for reading! Feel free to share any thoughts you have in the comments, and I will read them :)

Alright, I am now accepting commissions! Get in touch if you either have questions or have a commission idea you wish to pitch to me!

Hello everyone, just thought I'd quickly make an announcement that I will be opening commissions again at some point in January.

Standard and vehicle comms will both be available. I will be posting an updated price sheet shortly. DM me any questions you may have!

Hey everyone,

For the people that primarily follow me here on FA, I'd like to quickly announce that I've made a Patreon page. The premise behind it is that it is a middle ground for people who can't or don't want to get a commission, but still wish to support me on a per creation basis for my personal projects and allow me to do more ambitious art pieces more often (namely the car pinup stuff but isn't strictly limited to that). You can read more about the why in the About Me section on there and get an in-depth explanation, but a TL;DR would be that I'm going to try something different seeing how my commissions haven't really seen much interest despite the fact there are clearly people who love and appreciate my work. Commissions will be excluded from being paid posts as they have already been paid for by the commissioner.

Don't worry, I'm not going to be paywalling my stuff. I will still put out high res images publicly, and if I can stop forgetting to post on my FA, I will also publicly post my art pieces at the same time patrons will see it.

Here's a link if you wanna check it out!
https://www.patreon.com/clearvisionarts

Hey all, this is just a quick message to clarify what my stance is when it comes to what is and isn't okay when it comes to sharing my art so there's no ambiguity on it going foward. I already put something out on Twitter about this earlier, but I thought that I'd make a FA journal about it as well for the people who primarily follow me on here instead.

- Ask me for permission before posting it on a website (especially if I'm not already present on it). If I'm okay with it and the website has an artist tagging system, then please directly tag me as the artist
- If you have commissioned an art piece from me in the past and wish to publicly share the piece, please only share the one with my signature on it. The watermarkless version is for your own personal use only.
- Please be mindful of artist DNPs and personal wishes. This goes for anyone, not just me.
- Personal use (profile pictures, desktop wallpapers etc.) is fine and you do not need my permission to do so
- Sharing on Discord servers is fine, and once again you do not need my permission to do so. Including the original source is appreciated but not strictly necessary.
- Commercial use is not okay, unless you have an agreement with me beforehand.
- Generally speaking I am okay with image edits. This point is a little more tricky to come up with a black and white boundary on, but all previous points also apply to this one. Ideally you should also ask for permission before you publicly post it anywhere, but please don't edit any of my art pieces to include themes that I would not like, and more importantly, do not edit out my signature.

This post was prompted by someone who took an older drawing of mine here from FA and posted it on Derpibooru, completely ignoring my DNP on there, and not even bothering to check if it had already been uploaded before (there's a duplication checker tool), and also didn't bother to tag me as the artist to bypass said DNP despite the fact that my FA profile was linked as a source. This has been sorted out now, but I still found it a bit disrespectful.

I'm happy if you think that my work is good enough to be shared, but the absolute least that I expect from anyone is a basic level of respect. You do not have to support me, but I draw the line at disregarding the artist for an art piece that you liked enough to share, and took for granted.

Okay, my uploading spree is over and my gallery here is now up to date!

One other thing that I forgot to mention is that my art commissions are now open again. I have 4 standard/reference sheet slots open at the moment, and next week on 7th July at 8pm BST (GMT+1) I will open 2 vehicle pinup slots. I will post my new V1.3 commission sheet shortly after posting this journal.

If you're interested, send me an email with your commission idea at cvartcommissions@gmail.com. If you need to ask a question first, send me a DM on Discord (Clear Vision#3477) or Twitter (@ClearVisionArts). You can also send me a note on FA too if you prefer, but I don't check this site as often so I won't be able to get back to you as quickly.

EDIT: Car commissions are now open! Get in touch with me and send me an email with your drawing idea if you want to claim one of the two slots.

EDIT 2: I will list the amount of remaining slots here for future reference:

Standard/Reference Slots: 3 slots remaining
Vehicle Pinup Slots: 1 slot remaining

EDIT 3: I will be closing the window for all commission slots on 15th August at 8pm BST (UTC+1)

If you're interested, you have until then to get in touch. The deposit to confirm your slot doesn't necessarily have to be paid by then, I'm willing to allow more time for that.

EDIT 4: Commissions closed.

Hey all,

For everyone who follows me on FA, I just want to quickly apologise for not uploading any artwork here for a while. I've been neglecting my FA account a little bit, but later on today I will post all of the new artwork that I've produced recently to bring my art gallery here up to date.

It's mostly because I have a lot of pet peeves with this site when it comes to uploading artwork, and the last couple of times where I finished some art and wanted to post it, the site either seemed to be down completely or I otherwise wasn't able to access it. Not to mention the fact that FA still has a stupidly small 10MB size limit and 1.6MP resolution limit which means that in a lot of cases I have to make a smaller image just for FA.

I encourage you to follow me on Twitter or Derpibooru instead as I'm much more active there, but otherwise I'll resume posting my art here.

https://www.furaffinity.net/user/nikainfinity/

This is something that I normally wouldn't get involved in, but after this artist decided to hide my comment calling them out on their bullshit and block me, I'm going to share this journal and keep it relatively brief.

Just under 5 months ago, a friend of mine bought a YCH from this artist. Ever since they handed over the money, the artist went radio silent and ignored all of their messages when they asked how the drawing was coming along. Under normal circumstances, this might be down to something major happening in an artist's life or any other number of legitimate reasons, however deliberately neglecting a paid-for commission is not one of them. They were still posting personal projects and other commissions so they must have been at least relatively well; no accidents, no serious spells of depression or grief. However, any and all doubt of that was negated when the client then mentioned that they will file a complaint to PayPal, and after 5 months of silence, they responded in less than an hour.

Nika mentioned that no progress had been made and that the commission was never even started, and that they would require 2 additional weeks. However, my friend still wanted a refund as they had lost interest in the project. What makes this all worse is that Nika then proceeded to make a journal post to lie about the situation to make my friend look bad, and attempt to guilt-trip their audience, which can be found here:

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9741646/

How can you claim the client broke the ToS by demanding a refund after no work was completed after 5 months when these two points are written down:

- NO REFUNDS if I started working with you. You already know my art style and how I do some characters!!! Sorry about that.
- Payment after accepting your request/my agreement to work.

By accepting payment, you agreed to work on the client's project. No one is reasonably expecting you to have an art piece finished the next day, or even within a week. However, 5 months down the line when you have completed many other personal projects, other commissions, and opened more YCH slots, you're trying to everyone that you can't even spare a moment to tell the commissioner what is going on and why you haven't even started? This also means that your "No refunds if I started working with you" rule doesn't apply either, because no work on your end has been completed.

If anything, Nika has broken her own Terms of Service. The client did absolutely nothing wrong.

The final nail in the coffin is that they tried to pass it off as if they just got paid in the journal and desperately need the money for rent which I personally find hilarious. Once again, they've had a good amount of time to at least make a start, and also to respond to messages. If you desperately needed the money, why didn't you do the YCH that you were paid to complete? This is not how you should treat a paying customer. I understand that art isn't easy, and commissions can be difficult to manage, but the least you can do is try your best to communicate with your clients instead of ignoring them. It's okay to be slow. It's okay to take your time to make sure you can deliver the best product possible. However, it's not okay to ignore someone who's paid you to work, despite their best efforts to get in touch with you to ask for any sort of update.

The only other thing left I have to say to anyone who's reading this is to avoid NikaInfinity until they find a way to organize their commissions better, take responsibilities for their actions, and learn that you should not ignore the people who allow you the opportunity to be paid doing something you supposedly are passionate about.

Thank you for reading.

Alright, I'm posting it a little late on my FA, but I'm open.

Standard Commissions: https://forms.gle/PvUk4WyKXS2M6dJc6
Vehicle Commissions: https://forms.gle/bBkSR5r7CdNy6sgS7

It's almost time. I've just posted my new V1.2 price sheet for anyone who's potentially interested to take a look at. To recap, I'm going to be offering two normal (blue) slots and two vehicle (yellow) slots, and the commissions will be handled via Google forms. My DMs are open for any questions, but please submit your commission pitch through the forms. I will ignore it otherwise.

I'll be open at 12pm GMT tomorrow, so keep an eye out for a follow up journal that will contain the links to the forms.

It's been a while, but I'm going to be opening some commission slots on December 10th if anyone is interested.

I'll be offering two normal slots and two vehicle commission slots, and will reveal my new price sheet closer to the time.

If you have any related questions before then, please feel free to get in touch. Otherwise, keep an eye out for more information.

*Taps microphone*

Is this thing even on...? Oh, right.

Hello all, this is the first journal I'm making on this site, and I just want to let my current watchers know that I have a new discord server as well as my commissions now being open. Feel free to check it out!

https://discordapp.com/invite/ynRBtVF