Aurawra (the big Sydney fur con) is this weekend, so I'll be busy having fun over there!
Should get back to posting photos Friday next week 😊

That's right! I am once again heading to the other side of the world to visit family (and see some incredible sights)
So there'll be a month-long pause in uploading while I'm away.
I might infrequently check in to reply to comments, but that'll be all
Hope you have a great month!

Just a quick message to say that I’ll be semi-offline for the next 2 weeks as I’m driving up to FurDU!

So yeah, I won’t have time to post pics and responding to comments/faves etc will be low priority.

See you after the con!

😎

Thank you everyone. That is all 😝

I just ticked over to 600 watchers!
I can't believe it, it feels kind of staggering to think that so many people thank my stuff is worthy of continuing attention.
Of course, I'm nowhere near organised enough to do anything to really celebrate it, but I'll take the opportunity to give a big thank you to all of you.
I don't give a thank you comment for every fave, but know that each one gives me a little burst of happiness.
And while I do intrinsically love fursuiting and photography, those little notifications that my work is appreciated by others make the effort of editing and uploading each photo well worth it.
So thank you again, and I hope that I can continue to make you feel as good as you make me.

I'm sure all of you are aware of the devastating bushfires consuming Australia right now.

Just to give a small perspective on things, yesterday a fire started south of Canberra, where I live.
I live in the middle of the northern suburbs, so there's no direct threat to me, thankfully.
But today, it swept through Honeysuckle Creek, the exact location I've been posting photos of recently
As the fire is still burning, I obviously haven't been able to go and see the damage, but there's no doubt that all those trees in the background of the photos will be gone.
The site itself should be okay, all that's left of the tracking station is concrete and steel which should be able to handle the heat, and anything else can be replaced.
But if you wanted a personal perspective on what things are like, there you go.

Hi all, I'm back!

I'll be starting things off a little slowly this year, I've got a number of non-furry things taking time away from photo editing.
I'll only be posting on Fridays for the next few weeks.
But once that's done I'll be back to my usual 3-days-a-week update cycle.
Also thinking about reducing my output to give myself time to do some bigger furry projects.
I'll keep you informed!

Happy New Year everyone!

It's the end of the year.
Trees (real and fake) can be seen inside people's houses, festooned with baubles and draped in lights.
Multicoloured lamps dangle from balconies, eaves and porch-posts.
In my part of the world, people are venturing to the beach, or the nearest swimming pool, to escape the steadily-increasing temperatures.
Sunscreen is applied daily and hats are essential.

As for me, I'm heading off on an 18-hour drive (spread over 2 days) to see relatives not seen in up to 12 months.
I'll be eating a lot, drinking more than what scientists say is healthy, having all-too-rare and all-too-wonderful conversations with close family members, and heading off to the beach as much as I can.
As such, they'll be a pause in my uploads while I make merry.
Although there may be one or two uploads that demand sharing around this time...

But before I go, I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to all of my watchers.
As I have said many times, to know that you think my work is worth continuing attention is a truly wonderful affirmation.
I worry I don't communicate that often enough, but I am yet to think of sufficiently creative ways of doing that.
So I'll say it now, and hope you'll remember it all the times I leave it unsaid.

I hope you all have a wonderful end of the year, and that 2020 treats you with happiness and generosity.

ddoc

Hi all,

Just letting you all know that I'll be a little quiet here for the next week, I'm off to Harbour City Fur Con in Sydney so probably won't have time to post images here.

Have a good week!

ddoc

I just wanted to send out a Merry Christmas to everyone who happens to read this. I am not religious, but still consider Christmas a very special time because, as said in ‘A Christmas Carol’:

“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round…as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys”

So I give you, from the bottom of my heart, a Very Merry Christmas. I hope your days pass in happiness, with kindness, generosity and goodwill towards all.

Yep, I decided to get a new computer and it's finally arrived!
Will still be a while before I can get to uploading images again, as I want to set it up properly and then need to transfer my old files onto it, but hopefully should be getting back into things next weekend 😊

Hi all!

My computer’s graphics card decided it had had enough of this existence and decided to go quietly into the light a few days ago. My computer’s getting pretty old anyway so I need to decide if I should repace the card or if it’s time to get a new one. Either way I can’t access the photos I’ve been wanting to upload load here so things’ll be quiet until I decide what to do.

Hope you all have decent enough times until I return!

So  goatself recently posted some questions about 'sonas on their journal. Needless to say I got a little carried away with them...and I figured it was a good "default journal" to have displayed on my home screen...

Why did you choose your sona's species?

Around the time I decided I wanted to create a sona, I visited a zoo to get inspiration. I spent a whole day wandering around seeing the Otters, Lions, Eagles, all of the animals you can imagine at a zoo, and it was, without a doubt, the Tigers that absolutely blew my mind. Seeing them strut behind the glass panel, I knew that if I could be anything, I wanted to be that. However, I also felt that presenting myself as a tiger would be totally disingenuous. If you’ve ever met me in person, you’d see that I have none of the gravitas or presence of a tiger. I’m a bit of a wimp and have none of the resolve a tiger seems to have, so I needed something to balance that out. I eventually settled on having some Husky in there because I feel that tempers the standoffish nature of the tiger and it expresses the side of me that appreciates how joyfully amazing life is. In person I may appear reserved but underneath that is a constant amazement at how simple things can be so beautiful. The stars at night, the vivid red autumn leaves against a brilliant blue sky, the flat heat of a summer’s day, all are simple delights to be savoured, and I think a loveable canine is the best way to express that in my sona.

In what way do you relate to them most?

I covered this above but definitely the love of simple joys is the thing we share the most. Both of us are constantly excited by the thought of the next sunset, or the apprehension of the cool bite of the air in winter or the overflowing beauty of flowers in spring.

What's their favourite ice cream flavour?

Vanilla - yes I really am that boring. But it’s its simplicity that makes it our favourite. That cool, refreshing bite goes well with practically anything and is always a very satisfying taste to end any meal on. It’s a relief on a hot day in a milkshake and it’s the perfect counterpoint to any heavy dessert. Can’t go past it.

Well, I'm back from my Christmas break. I'm not going to say I'm excited to be back, my holidays were a little too enjoyable for that, but I'm glad to be solidly online again. Hope you all had a good break and that the new year treats you all well!

Well, it's that time of year and I'm heading off interstate to be with family over the Christmas break. I'll be taking my computer so I'll still be online, but I won't be checking FA regularly and reserve the right to ignore any faves, notes, comments etc. I'll be firmly focused on food, drink and relaxing on the beach.

And of course I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Even if you're not christian (hell, I'm an atheist myself, for me Christmas is a purely secular event) I still want to take this opportunity to wish you well and hope that you find peace, pleasure and happiness in times ahead.

I'll close with the passage that got me to love Christmas:

"I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time...as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and woman seem by one consent to open up their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people...as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not a race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Posting this mostly to get my previous journal off the front page...

But I just saw an ad on TV where a son gets his father a Doctor Who DVD set for Christmas...

This blows my mind, the fact that it's perfectly acceptable for a 'grown up' to get DVDs of a children's show is fantastic.

Merry Christmas everyone!

So a little less than a month ago, I posted a work covering why I Don't Like Sports that much.
In the description, I go on a lengthy rant about my distaste for modern sports worship and how that came about.
But there's been a recent development that I have to comment on.
In the rant, I give the example of an athlete who's been kicked out of two clubs for various breaches of what would be considerd 'acceptable behaviour' such as drinking and driving and driving while disqualified.
Well, just last week news broke that he had been kicked out of a third club.
This time, and I am not making this up, he was kicked out after a photograph was released of him peeing into his own mouth.
I have to admit that when I first heard the news, I broke out into near hysterial laughter.
After venting so much emotion into the description, having such an absurd conclusion to that story really got to me.

But what's really interesting is that I'm not sure it should be a sackable offence.
I mean, I have the same gut reaction of disgust that any other person would have.
But stopping and actually thinking about the ethics of what's going on here, I can't see a huge problem.
It's not dangerous, it's not...entirely unhealthy, and it's been passed off as a joke in other areas.
Think of the Bear Grylls meme.
Think of "Potato" in Blackadder II.
And let's face it, golden showers are a thing.
So I'm worried about encouraging this kind of knee-jerk reaction, which, in my opinion, is not helpful.

On the other hand, it is super satisfying to see this athlete get his well-deserved comeuppance.
He's clearly a very immature person, and hopefully this incident will get him to grow up.
But I don't think that's very likely.

I'd probably sum up my opinion of this by saying that while I don't think he should have lost is contract because of this, he didn't deserve to have that contract in the first place.

Just a quick message to say Merry Christmas!
I hope you all have a great time eating or drinking or singing or whatever it is you do to celebrate.
I'm travelling interstate to visit family.
I'll be eating as much delicious food as I possibly can and spending as much time as I can doing this: www.furaffinity.net/view/7595305/
I will have an internet connection, but I won't be paying much attention to FA, so feel free to contact me but I may take a while to respond :P

I hope you all have a wonderful time!

Oh my goodness!
I think my control panel just exploded XD
Thank you all so much for all the watches, favourites and shouts!
It's really wonderful to know that my little character, this little germ of an idea in my head, is interesting enough to warrant all this attention :)
I'll be sending out individual thank-yous over the next few days, but in the meantime I just want to say right now

THANK YOU SO MUCH

You've made my day :D

Hello There!

Just a random update as the last journal was WAYYY out of date...

..

..

Oh!

Right!

I should say something here.

Actually, quite a lot has happened, but I can't imagine anyone else would be interested in it.
I started my new job as a software engineer, for the first time in my life I'm making a regular income and not scrounging off my parents!
It's crazy! And good. I know. But...I feel very...average.
Unfortunately working a 9-5 job (and an hour and a bit of commute) means I have less time for personal, fun things.
I also moved out of my parent's house!
So now I'm responsible for cleaning and cooking and things like that.
It takes up a lot of time.
So I'm actually getting a bit frustrated, as I'm spending all my time working or cleaning or shopping, and I've had some thoughts running though my head I really want to jot down in a journal but haven't had the time to really sit down and bash them onto a page.
It's one of the things I'm missing from university, if I was feeling introspective I could take a few hours and just write several pages of all the thoughts going through my head...I can't do that now.

Sorry about that...it turned into kind of a vent, but I'm glad I got it out of my system.
Sorry for boring you as well, it's all personal stuff but it's all I have to say.

I hope you're all enjoying life in spite of any worries you're going through

keep going!

ddoc

Just a brief message to say that I'll be visiting relatives in Melbourne for the next week.
They've just moved into a new apartment and I don't know if they've had an internet connection installed yet.
So I may not be able to respond to any comments or notes, but I'll reply to them as soon as I get back on Sunday.
Hope you all have a good week!

Ooo, an actual journal about stuff!

I have a question for any artists who take commissions.
When being commissioned, do you prefer commissioners who go into a lot of detail about what they want or commissioners who allow you more freedom to do what you think is best?
Because I can see pros and cons of either method.
Being given lots of detail means that the commissioner knows what they want and so you're unlikely to have a long back and forth tweaking tweaking poses and details.
You can get the commission done quickly and arguments are less likely.
However, I imagine being told to 'draw exactly this' is not that satisfying creatively.
Rote copying of words into an image is certainly not what I would look for when drawing.
So is having greater creative control of a commission more satisfying than not?

Let's look at an example.
For my Dazen Cobalt commission, I asked for a pose "that comes across as friendly and welcoming (and maybe a little shy), because at heart he's a huge softy".
But in my mind I had a specific pose that I thought would convey this.
However, I don't draw or paint, so I felt it was probable that Dazen would come up with a better pose, one that conveys the ambience I want more effectively than the one I had thought of.
This turned out to be true by the way, my idea was much more cliche than what Dazen came up with, so I was very happy.
So does anyone have a good way of saying something like "while I have this specific idea, if you believe you have a better one go ahead and do that and we'll see if I think so too" when commissioning?
Because one of the things I really enjoy about commissioning is not only seeing an idea of mine come to life, but also having the artist make their own unique contribution to the work.
I feel that specifiying everything to the smallest detail takes away from the wonderful possibility of getting more than you expected.
I guess I'm just wondering how to strike the best balance between the two.

Yep, I'm back from London! Still fairly jet-lagged and tired from the 24+ hour trip, so I'm going to take a few days to recover. Hope you all had a great Christmas and amazing New Year! I certainly did.

Well, not Wimbledon exactly, but certainly London for two weeks!

So I just graduated and to celebrate I'm joining my sister for two weeks in London!
This means that I'll be quiet(er) than usual around here, as I can't guarantee a stable internet connection and it will take a while for the next round of commissions to get done so there may not be a lot of activity in the next month or so.
But the good news is that I'll be making a special effort next year to connect more in the fandom as I'm planning to get a fursuit and not knowing other furries will make having one less enjoyable.
The plan is to start writing down my thoughts in journals, mostly to gain confidence in communicating and hopefully see how other people respond.
However, as I've never done anything like this before, I suspect the quality will be very low so feel free to ignore me semi-coherent ramblings.

In the meantime, I need to go pack for the trip! Hope you all have a good christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and I'll see you in the new year!

Good Luck

ddoc