Well, when it rains, it pours! Something I didn't really touch on in my last journal because I thought it rather insignificant at the time was that I lost a significant amount of weight. I was around 280 lbs before everything went down and now I've been consistently around 225 for a couple months. I associated the weight loss with just stressing out a lot. I hadn't really changed my diet or exercised more or anything. It just seemed odd that someone like me, who stress eats, was losing all that weight.

Whelp, I have an answer now and honestly I'm not surprised, but it still bummed me out. My mom was worried about the weight loss and fatigue I had (I thought the fatigue was because I work long hours and don't get enough sleep) so ended up pushing me to go see a doctor. Before I could go though, she did a blood test on me and DAMN, for only having like a cup of rice in my lunch my blood sugar was in the 500s!

So yeah, ended up getting a meter and had been testing myself leading up to going to the doctor, blood sugar consistently in the high 200s to mid 300s, even fasting. Doctor confirmed it, I have Type 2 Diabetes which honestly I probably should have been watching out for since it runs in both sides of my family.

It's been about a week since the 500+ reading and I've pretty much cut as much sugars and carbs out of my diet... I didn't realize how filling carbs could be until I was without them... seems like I'm constantly hungry, but I feel better than I had for awhile, so that's good. I'm on meds to help with my blood sugars, though I haven't noticed much change in the readings so far. Still high, but not as high... more manageable.

Well that's it for that update. I'll post again if something else horrible befalls me X3 Keep a look out for art, I have some stuff I'm working on. I'm heading to bed, have to be up at 4am for work XP

WARNING: The following contains "Personal Problems" and "Real Life Shit". Reader discretion is advised.

First and foremost, I wish to apologize for my long absence. I'm not dead. It was not fair of me to just disappear for months on end with no word of why. I can give you hundreds of excuses, but in the end, they would be nothing but excuses.

Instead I'll will be offering up insight, a look into my head space over the last several months, not to make excuses, but to hope for the very least understanding. The situation I was... am going through, is in itself not unique. However, it is my life own experiences and how it has changed me that makes this unique to me.

This year has been... rough to say the least and... absolute hell at its worst. For those not in the know, marriage... is a tricky balancing act. Mine is... was no different. Despite everything I did to keep it together, it ultimately wasn't enough.
Last September upper management at my job chose myself a couple other people to go to Illinois for about 2 weeks for management training. It was also at this time that my wife told me she wanted a divorce. Even though I'd been trying to stave it off as long as I could and knew it may evening happen, it still hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest.

Management training was nothing I couldn't handle already, but having to wear a mask until I could make it back to the privacy of my hotel room was... trying. If you don't what I mean when I say "Wear a mask", it's basically putting on a face of "Everything is okay" despite what you may going through, whether it be stupid, obnoxious customers... or what I can describe as severe emotional turmoil. Nevertheless, I made it through that.

After coming back home, the mask remained on, both at work and at home. I became an Assistant Manager... and was pretty much working 11-12 hour shifts for close to 5 months straight, exclusively night shift... despite how much I hated it. Home was... felt unwelcoming to me. I, basically confined myself to my bedroom as my soon to be ex-wife took over the living room as her space. I was isolated.

This was... difficult for me. People who know me know I am reserved with my emotions, good or bad, and like anyone strong emotions will effect people... good or bad. For someone like me who has never been through this sort of emotional turmoil, I didn't... don't know how to cope. As I said, I continued to wear the mask despite feeling emotionally unstable, like everything inside me was falling apart, dying.

I eventually started to feel... okayish. I felt down, things felt bad, but felt I could survive this... That changed when a 3rd party informed me of something. I'm not saying what this something was as it is personal, but it made something click in my head... something that didn't help the current situation.
From that point on I can only describe my mood going forward, for lack of a better term, bipolar emotional bungee jumping. From deep, dark, consuming depression the likes of which I had never felt before... To extreme bitterness, anger, and spite. At work I wore the mask, but I was antisocial in every other aspect of life as it was currently.

I was fully aware of it and had my reasons. Having had bouts of blind rage in my childhood and not wanting to have something like that happen again, I felt I needed to seclude myself to protect everyone else... while at the opposite side, feeling vulnerable and not wanting to to be hurt again, I felt I needed to be secluded to protect myself.

Even now, with the paperwork filed and the divorce soon to be finalized I still have trouble coping with these two extremes. There are days when I have the day off work and I feel... a heaviness, like all the bad in my life is weighing my body down, preventing me from even getting out of bed. So I just lay there, staring at the ceiling for hours. At the other side, the bitterness and anger slips through the mask, my coworkers usually getting the brunt of it when I can't make it into the walk-in freezer to scream out of frustration.

In recent days I suppose it has been getting better... or at least not as severe. It is still a struggle, often feeling like I'm just surviving a day at a time, but I've been opening up to people more, voicing my frustrations and concerns, trying to... normalize my head space when I can. I started vent drawing as well, trying to get out the negative feelings I have in the moment to... mixed results. I don't think I'll end up finishing any of them, but it feels like it helps.

I suppose that's about all there is to tell. I'm sure some have questions or concerns and I am more than willing to answer whatever questions or hear your opinions about what I've been through. Just know that I am still coping with these things and may be slow to respond, but I'll be making an effort to check my account daily. As for when I may post more art, I cannot say for sure so please be patient. Once again, I do apologize and hope you can forgive the long absence.

... I feel I must apologize to those who pay attention to anything I do, whether it be enjoying my submissions or reading my journals or even talking to me in general. I honestly wish I could do more, to have the time to keep pumping out drawings as long as my imagination and wrist holds out, but real life has had other plans...

... I'm not sure exactly how long it's been. I know it's been like... a month, maybe a little longer, but when it happened is not as important as what happened. Long story short is I work a normal job. It became abnormal when my GM quit, 3 other employees quit, 3 more were fired, and the owner is having me fill in the gaps... ALL OF THEM.... Now this does not mean I'm to be finding people to fill these gaps, no that would be too easy... It's simply means I haven't had a day off in 4 weeks...

... 4... WEEKS...

... I haven't picked up my sketchbook in 4 weeks, I haven't plugged in my tablet in 4 weeks, I haven't sat down at my computer in 4 weeks... I don't know how my sanity has survived, let alone my body...

... Real life shit just kinda kept piling on and on. The short of it is one of my Assistant Managers was stupid and cut off his finger on a meat slicer and I've been covering my shifts plus half of his shifts until he returned. I also got hit by a car, but that didn't really do anything but warp the front rim of my bike and piss me off.

Anywho, I have several sketches and half finished images that need doing so I'll be playing catch up whenever I can. New pictures should be trickling in slowlly as I get them done.

I DID NOT ASK FOR A COLD FOR CHRISTMAS... Bastard...

I am not the smartest person, this is true and will never try to convince anyone otherwise...

However... there are times I do stupid shit... usually with fireworks...

This is not one of those times...

I go to the ATM after work, needing to get $120 to cover my half of the daycare payment for my daughter. This is one of those machines that will chirp at you to grab your card before it spits out the money. I enter the amount to be withdrawn, take my card, and walk away... COMPLETELY FORGETTING TO GRAB THE MONEY IT SPITS OUT!!!

... I'm such an idiot. I even ran back to the ATM when I realized I had forgotten something... Not the money, my bicycle seat (Long story short, I take my bicycle seat off my bike because it has been stolen before)

So... yeah... I've never claimed to be the smartest, but I certainly feel like the stupidest right now...

I would like a take a moment from the recent sexiness that has been flooding into my gallery as of late and thank everyone who has been faving and commenting on these new works. I makes me feel like I'm actually accomplishing a lot when you guys take such an interest in my stuff.

As I slowly start to make a better effort to bring new arts into my gallery, Some things may come up, like commission openings or even a few requests down the line, so keep your eyes open.

One last thing. I have gotten rather comfortable with streaming of artwork on Picarto.tv, so if you guys see me online working, stop on by and say hi. I usually am up pretty late, but most Sundays I start fairly early.

Anyway, that is all I wished to say. Thank you again for all the support!

My tooth... the pain...

How can like 5 minutes of drilling lead to such pain? XP

As the title says, I'm thinking of trying out streaming to see how well it will work on my new computer.

One slight problem on my end. I don't have any sketches on hand to ink and color.

Soo... I guess I'm asking for requests. Perferably simple characters or even Bob-omb requests would be awesome.

Not sure when I'll stream, but I'll be sure to post a new journal when I have some sketches prepped.

I really should be more diligent about updating this thing...

Anyway, this year my New Years resolution is to work more and actually post artwork. Now that the Little One is a little older and more easily distracted I can actually do stuff. I doubled down on it too by purchasing some RAM for my pc to make Photoshop less slow and bought a new pen for my graphics tablet.

And... yeah. I also turned 30. Not really a big deal.

I don't, but I have a code from my Lootcrate for a pack of cards. First come, first serve.

Going on Vacation

Huh... weird how only a couple journal posts ago I was talking about X-Mas and Birthday stuff... guess that shows how little I care for updating my journals X3

Anyway, got some pretty cool stuff this year.. Most of it was clothes for X-Mas, but did get a few things I really wanted:

-Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (Had preordered it, but wasn't "allowed" to get it according to my wife's rules about not buying anything for myself until after X-mas and Birthday.)
-A bunch of those Funko Mystery Minis (I love those little boxed mystery figures. I have a bunch of them all over my desk. The new ones are mainly the Sci-Fi and Walking Dead.)
-Gremlins 2 DVD (I don't care what anyone says, it's on of my favorite movies ever)

Then came my birthday... 2 days ago. Only got a couple things, mainly Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (Haven't been playing it much because I can only play it when the baby is asleep because ... violence.) and a brand new Wacom graphics tablet which I'm hoping to put to good use (My first one was bought in like 2010 and has served me well. It still works fine and may sell it or give it away at some point.)

And that's that.

Just got Super Smash Bros for 3DS.

Friend code is 2079-7596-3801

... get your Smash on!

... To me! 28 years old, happily married, with a daughter, and employed... better than I could have hoped for at this age =3

A new pair of Nike trail running shoes, Diablo III for Xbox360, Nintendo 2DS with Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds and Pokémon X, a couple chocolate oranges, and a Microsoft card among some other small items...

Mostly I've just been addicted to Pokémon X. Got a few good wonder trades including Charmander, Squirtle, and Totodile.

Spent a couple days in the hospital... not for me though. My wife's water broke Thursday morning and some 13 hours later, little Avalon was born. Yay! She's beautiful and healthy and it was instant love for both of us. We are so happy to have here home now... though honestly I miss nurses coming around to take care of her from time to time so we can get some sleep...

You may have noticed a sudden lack of posting. Well... I ran out of good sketches in my sketchbook, sooooo... I've been working on other crafty things... mostly paracord survival bracelets and the like. Some of them are cool looking so I may post a few pictures.

Other than that... working on the baby's room. She isn't even born yet and she's being spoiled rotten. She's due in roughly 7 weeks. My wife and I are both really excited and can't wait to see her.

As some may be aware if you read my journals, my wife and I are expecting a baby girl in late October, early November. You would also be aware that I'm still unemployed. Needless to say, not a whole lot of income is coming in to pay for things that we'll need for her.

Mainly we're most in need of clothing, especially winter clothing since Oregon can get rather cold. As most parents know, infant clothing can get expensive, even if you buy used.

So what is the purpose of this journal? Mostly to probe interest at this time. Would there be any interest in trading lightly used baby clothes for art? ... And yes, I understand that there would likely be negotiation and haggling involved in these kind of transactions and I'm more than willing to accept that.

Or if not clothing, maybe baby blankets or other smaller baby items.

I'm trying to figure out something and hopefully someone has an answer for me.

Can I legally ask for payments in something other than money for commissions?

Example: Could I ask for payments of paperclips or soda can tabs for commissions?

Just curious is all. Any kind of advice would be helpful.

((NOTE: This is carried over from my DA Journal. This is not particularly aimed at anyone on FA, but something to be considered since I have a tendency of doing a lot of requests))

I AM NOT CURRENTLY ACCEPTING REQUESTS!!!

Normally I don't mind requests if I'm up for it, but in the past couple weeks I have a number of people requesting stuff from me while exhibiting poor etiquette in doing so, and that just pisses me the fuck off! I'm not going to name names, but you know who you are...

What do I mean by poor etiquette? Assuming I immediately accept whatever they're requesting without question, being rude and pushy about their request, constantly sending me messages asking where they're request is, expecting high quality works for nothing, being ungrateful, not being specific in what they want...

I could go on, but I won't since it'll easily fill up this journal. The point I'm trying to make is if your going to be requesting something of someone, especially if that something is free of charge, don't be a dick about it!

To sum it up, when requesting something free from someone...

It's is the artist's choice to accept requests, not yours: If the artist doesn't do requests, respect that. If they do, it's by their terms that they accept requests.

Don't be rude, pushy, or pester: While an artist may accept a request, you may change their mind's quick based on your behavior. Also, the artist tends to do a better job on the request when you're nice and respectful about it.

Be specific in what you want: Who or what do you want drawn? What are they doing? What do they wear? What kind of personality do they have? Do you have a reference? Simple, right?

Be Grateful: This one is one of the most neglected and honestly the one that pisses me off the most. Simple manners. "Please, thank you, I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to fulfill my request." Not that fucking hard to do.

Don't expect high art: With most artists you would be lucky to get a simple sketch or even a colored sketch. You're not likely going to get the highest quality piece they can offer without paying for it.

Yes, I'm still working on stuff. I just got a lot of stuff on my plate at the moment. Never mentioned it, but might as well now. I was terminated from my job back in late April. No, I'd rather not talk about it nor will share any details about it. Since then I have been looking for employment and not having much luck, which is distressing for me especially with a baby on the way.

Needless to say, finding employment is my #1 priority. If I get drawings done in my off time I'll post it, but I'm not going out of my way at this time.



... Oh yeah, forgot to mention this too. Find out the sex of the baby last week. My wife and I are going to be having a girl.

Well might as well continue with the Domme ponies since a friend of mine has shown interest in Cherrilee being a Domme pony, but that gets me thinking.

What other canon MLP would you guys like to see made into a Domme? I'm going to start a list starting with Cherrilee (the list coming from both here and my DeviantArt account.) I'd also take suggestions on how they may be dressed. Usually I just create something based on their personality, but a little outside insight would be helpful.

1. Cherrilee
2. Big Mac
3. Vinyl Scratch

I got very little input on my last journal, so I'm going to post the questions again.

Now, before anyone answers they should take a look at my gallery. Take in my art style and the things I generally post.

... Done? Okay. Now, based on what you saw in my gallery, what do you think about me opening up commissions again? I appreciate honest opinions so don't be shy about that.

Also, what do you feel would be good commission material? In the past there had been a lot of interest in the Bob-Ombs, but would like to know if interest is still there for them.

What about My Little Pony stuff? I have a few examples in my gallery. Would anyone want anything like that?

I did a lot of Pin-up art? Would anyone be interested in that?

This is something I'm a little more hesitant to suggest, but I have drawn some unique tattoo designs? I doubt there's much interest in custom tattoo designs, but it can't hurt to ask.

Is there anything else in my gallery? I have a lot of different stuff in there, both originals and from stuff based on various fandoms. Take a look.

... Oh yeah, to the part most are probably here for. I am considering doing some special summer pinups and similarly to the Holiday Pinups I used to do every year, I would have people suggest models, I would make up a list, and pick a few for. I'm not saying for sure I'm going to do them, but keep an eye out for my journals.

I'm wondering should I open commissions again?

What would you guys be interested in? Bob-ombs? My Little Ponys? Pinups?

I dunno, give me some input peoples. Is there any interest?