So, how does IRC work anyway?

From time to time, I download and install the client and, foolishly I'm sure, expect the program to connect me with people forthwith.

Unfortunatly, that's never the case. Instead, I'm confronted with requests for passwords, servers, and many many "invalid so-and-so" messages. This has happened so often, that I concider IRC something that perhaps I'm just ment to be without.

Yet I'm seemingly also a glutton for punishment. I saw that there is an FA IRC and thought I'd give it a try. But, of course, the IRC bias against me (or my ignorance of the program) thwarts me.

Now, I concider myself fairly tech savvy, but what in the heck does it want me to do? I downloaded the client a half-hour ago and tried to log onto the FA IRC. Everything seemed to go ok, until it told me that I must have a "registered nick to join that channel".

I'd rather like being able to chat with some of you crazy folks in a mass IM session (such things generally being rather amusing) but I might need some walkthroughs of this crassy program before I can do so.

D.O.P.R

Well, I've been making an effort to complete the few commissions I have left (I've been really bad about getting them done in a timely fashion) but I've also been getting back into finishing RapRex.

There are still a few pesky pages of Chapter 3 that need to be inked, but I'm been going through, touching up backrounds and finishing off the unifinished pages.

I've also now got a definate idea on how Chapter 4 will go so there may actually be a proper 'climax' to the series.

In any case, I'm working on new stuff again, so hopefully my muse will return to give me something to post for you all.

Stick with me loyal watchers!

Watchers?...

...

Is there anyone there...?

...

Well piss...

D.O.P.R

Yes, back from the trip. It went ok. Saw artifacts from the tomb of Nebkheperure Tutankhamun and visited several art galleries and other museums.

But not everything at home has gone well. Bildor, who pretty much co-ran the local gaming store passed away while we were gone.

I didn't really know him that well, but whenever we would go to the store (it's a great place to hang out) he would be there.

Probubly the hardest part is trying to figure out what we can do for him and his memory. Like I said, though we saw him and talked to him whenever we were at the store - we didn't really 'know' him. We certainly didn't know him as well as Hat (the super-cool owner) knows him.

Well, if nothing else, when I go out with my dad to do our customary St. Patrick's day drinking tonight, I'll drink one down for him.

D.O.P.R

I'm still alive - still recovering from my surgery.

There hasn't been too much pain, but I do get kind of light-headed from time to time. I'm not sure if that's from meds, or something else.

I'm not looking forward to going back to work on Monday (who would be?), but I'm not expecting any problems.


I havn't done squat for drawing or anything lately. I feel like a real jerk because I still havn't finished a sketch I promised for someone weeks ago.

But yeah, I'm still alive. Not really energetic or enthusiatic about much of anything, but alive.

D.O.P.R

It's done.

All four teeth in less then four minutes.

It wasn't near as bad as I had feared, and hasn't left me as messed-up as I thought it would.

Now lets see how the recovery goes.

D.O.P.R

Well, I'm going in for my oral surgery today.

I havn't spoken much about it here, but I'm getting three wisdom teeth and one other tooth pulled that have all together been causing a conciderable amount of pain.

Those who know me IRL can testify to how long and how much these darn things have been bothering me.

I'm not going to name names (unless they call themselves forward) but I want to give all love and praise and thank you to everyone who helped and supported me through this dental crisis.

If all goes well, I'll try and post a "It's all over!" journal - but I'll likely be hopped up on some drugs so excuse me if I sound "out of it".

Pray for me!

D.O.P.R

I finally got that damnable yahoo messanger running again on my desktop, so those of you who use YahooMess exclusivly (I'm usually on AIM) might catch me on there again.

If only there was some program that combined all the messangers (AIM, YahooMess, GMail, etc) into one simply setup so that I didn't have to worry about multiples.

Something very much like Trillian - only not...you know, sucktastic...

D.O.P.R

I thought that I was obscure enough to avoid this meme, but I've been tagged at last.

Oh well, here it goes.

"The 1st player of this "game" starts with the topic "6 weird habits/things/hates about yourself" and people who get tagged MUST write a journal about their 7 weird habits/things/hates as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next 7 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says "you are tagged" on their User Page comments and tell them to read yours."

---

OK Let´s start

---

In no paticular order:

1: I love to collect kiche things - swords, Lord of the Rings movie memrobilia, pictures, anything that catches my fancy.

2: I'm awful at budgeting. It's happened more then once that I'll spend $40 on some nifty little Dragon statue rather then set it aside for something much more important.

3: I hate public restrooms. I loathe having to go into one and can't get a drop out in a urinal if there are others there. One of my greatest fears about traveling overseas is having to go #2 in a public restroom in Japan. The toilets over there are strange...

4: I draw so much porn. Like most people, I love looking at yiff-art and I enjoy doing it as much as looking at it, but I often feel that I draw nothing but yiff and I can't help but feel that this cheapens me as an artist.

5: I love soda pop too much. This is especially true now that my teeth are rotting right out of my head. I grew up in a family that downed enough Pepsi in a year to sink the Titanic at least three times over. My father, poor guy, has ruined his kidneys after no less then FIVE serious attacks of kidney stones (which, I'm told, are more painful then childbirth) and he lost all his teeth a long while ago. Now I'm starting to slip into the pit I've dug for myself and my teeth are going. Apparntly the male side of my family suffers from weak enamel and we make it worse for ourselves with all the soda - so I might well lose all my teeth at a young age.

6: I get up late and go to bed late. I love the early morning. When I was a child, if I woke up later then 8 o'clock, I felt like I had wasted the best part of the day. Now, as an adult (more or less) I'm lucky if I can drag my scalie tail out of bed before 10. Then, I'll be up till past midnight (it's 11:30 at night as I write this) and can't seem to get anything done until the sun is gone.
I guess I must be a night owl, wether I want to be or not.

7: I'm a procrastinator. While I'm more willing to go out and get stuff done then some people >cough  witchiebunny cough< I'll often put things off terribly long.

Now, who should I get my revenge on for this meme?

Hmmm....

I know!

Cannibal Clinik  Cannibal_Clinik
Seux  Seux
Centrifuge because he's awesome  Centrifuge
dmcclellan  dmcclellan
My kitty, fullbloodlion  fullbloodlion
HealingBlight  HealingBlight , becuase he can't escape me! Muwahaha!
RestrainedRaptor  RestrainedRaptor because it's always good to share with the 'raptors.

D.O.P.R

I've really been in a rut these last few weeks between my teeth problems and other stressors, and havn't been uploading alot.

I'm going to change that here in alittle while and start prodding myself to post more often, even if it's older stuff in my horde.

So keep a weather eye open!

D.O.P.R

Mostly, I don't worry too much about my art. Or, what worries I have are mainly existential and deal mostly with the subject matter.

Related to that (I'll explain how in a moment) I've been offering commissions for a while, and only just recently have been offered some.

I love drawing for others, since it gives me something new, and often strange, to work with.

One person (we'll call him 'Bob' )in paticular has offered to me a chance at two commissions. One of his character, and after completeing that one, another of a Dragon.

I was understandably excited. I needed the money (my tax return came in and has since rescued me) and his character sounded really interesting - not the least because his char was armoured and I love working with armour.

I started on a sketch right away, but it took a bad turn almost right away and gave up on it.
It was late and I figured it wouldn't take me long to finish a sketch once I sat down and dedicated to it, so I went to bed.

Almost two weeks later, I finally get down to working on it again. There are many excuses I could give for why it took me so long to start on it, but they would be just that - excuses.
The real reason is that I simply didn't feel like drawing.

I'm sure many of you who are also artists have spells where you just don't feel like picking up a pencil or stylus. That's more or less what happened here.

When I finally did "get around to it" I forgot where I had put his referance and onyl remembered a few unique features of the character.

So I drew up something that seemed ok to me and sent it to him free of charge and with many apologies and a promise to do another, more accurate one.

As can be expected, it wasn't what he wanted. Fortunatly however, I found the referance to his character and began again. Now I have something that looks more like his char is suppost to be, but the pose is awful and the more detail I try to put in, the more awful it looks.

At one point, I was nearly frantic trying to create something that could possibly make up for how badly I've been treating this commissioner.

If I had been treated this way by anyone I had asked art from, I would be insulted and might even have tell them to forget about it entirely.

I feel awful about how poorly this commission is turning out and what it reflects on me as an artist and as a person.

I've promised that I won't ask a dime from him and that no matter what, I will have a pic for him - but I'm embarrassed and ashamed to think that I'm likely the worst artist he's ever had to deal with.

The only good I can see comming from this is that it has likely scared me away from procrastinating on commissions, but I also fear that it might poison my artistic inspiration on any future pics for others.

I hope I can recover from this blunder.

D.O.P.R

For a long time now, I have been hearing about the benefits of ROLLING. It seemed a strange, spurious activity and I myself saw little in it to pique my interest.

It seemed, at first, like many other fads - some small, contained oddity that would be popular for a while amid certain circles untill the next new 'thing' came around and it would fall into obscurity.

But this fasination with ROLLING within the public consciousness didn't seem to die. Indeed, it seemed rather to grow and spread - the desire to ROLL seemed to gain more and more popular acceptance, growing to widespread desire and even OBSESSION amoungst some people.

Yet I myself still didn't understand the concept, the need or have any desire to take part in a ROLL.

Yet I found that my very own consort, Usagi, was a follower and regularly took part in ROLLING.
She would often ROLL, even while I was present and watched her do it.

It was bizarre and confusing and for a long while I would sit nervously while she would go about the city, ROLLING.

At first it was small - a bit here, a bit there, ducking in and out of streets and alley, and the momentum was slow. But bit-by-bit, it began to go beyond that, to get LARGER.

Before I even knew what was going on, she was ROLLING openly in the streets - defying the public and even (to my dismay) the police.

Yet she didn't seemed to be in any way concerned. And she wouldn't stop - she kept right on ROLLING.

Pretty soon, as people started to take notice, there would be car horns honking and people shouting.

Now, I didn't know it at the time (or else my actions might have been differant), but from what I now know, I have discovered that my consort doesn't just ROLL casually - she ROLLS obsessivly - constantly trying to outdo her previous ROLLS.
They began to become more and more widespread, more and more frequant - as her ROLLING grew more and more intense.

Needly to say, I was concerned .

Even when she wasn't ROLLING, I would find evidence that she was thinking about it. She would want to listen to her ROLLING music while we were at home in front of our computers.
I began to fear that it was becoming dangerous, but apperantly, my fears came too late.

I found that her ROLLING had already begun affecting other people.
I don't know how many others she has swallowed up with her ROLLS, but it's a lot.
At one point she even mentioned to me that:
"I love the way they scream."

Naturally, this horrified me.

But I still didn't know anything about ROLLING. How can I fight something I don't understand? And I confess, after all that time, and all that I had seen, I became fasinated with ROLLING myself.

It started as just my efforts to understand it - trying to figure out why she was so obsessed with it, and how it was done. But slowly, almost against my own will, I began to feel myslelf attracted to it. I would become excited when she said she was going to go ROLL and I would ask to watch, rather then withdraw in disgust.
I even found myself whistling some of her ROLLING music while by myself. I have even concidered transfering some of it to my iPod.

Well, today it's finally come to a head.

She went ROLLING late last night and left the materials for it on the coffee table when she left for work.

I saw them there and, well, I can't really describe it. I just did it.

I wasn't really thinking about the complications or the implications, I just grabbed the stuff and...ROLLED.

I enjoyed it.

I resisted for a long time - longer then I think I would have thought myself if I had known how widespread this phenominon was.

But I've done it.

Now, if someone comes up to me and asks:
"Yo, brother...have you ROLLED?"

I can say "Yes. Yes, I have indeed, ROLLED ".

D.O.P.R

I'm not sure how legal it is for me to be posting this abroad, but I'll risk an angry letter from some journalist or the just wrath of a mod to give you guys a look at it.

I have made bold certain paragraphs that I feel are especially poingant.

I DID NOT WRITE THIS. THIS IS AN AOL NEWS POST THAT I AM POSTING HERE IN THE INTERESTS OF PUBLIC INFORMATION.

Hardaway Displays Honesty and Stupidity
Homophobia Not Shocking, But Hate Hits Low Point
By JASON WHITLOCK
AOL
Sports Commentary

At first, Tim Hardaway's stupidity provoked a chuckle. He couldn't be serious. Not in these politically correct times. His remarks on Dan LeBatard's radio show in Miami had to be some sort of elaborate skit to promote John Amaechi's book.

Asked to comment on the former NBA role player's decision to announce that he's gay, Hardaway decided to be John Rocker honest.

"If he was on my team," Hardaway said, speaking of Amaechi, "I would, you know, really distance myself from him because, uh, I don't think that's right. And you know I don't think he should be in the locker room while we're in the locker room. I wouldn't even be a part of that."

That was just Hardaway's warm-up shot. With LeBatard trying to press the brakes on Hardaway's intolerance, Hardaway executed a backdoor cut and slammed home his ignorance.

"You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known," added Hardaway, a retired NBA all-star. "I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States."

Thirty minutes after the interview, Hardaway began his backpedal, offering an apology on a Miami TV station. Too late. The controversy was already in the process of blowing up nationally. NBA commissioner David Stern promptly removed Hardaway from all NBA All-Star Weekend activity in Las Vegas.

And LeBatard was on the horn with Amaechi getting his reaction to Hardaway's comments for a column in Thursday's Miami Herald.

"Finally, someone who is honest," Amaechi told LeBatard. "It is ridiculous, absurb, petty, bigoted and shows a lack of empathy that is gargantuan and unfathomable. But it is honest. And it illustrates the problem better than any of the fuzzy language other people have used so far."

Yep, Hardaway scored points for honesty and stupidity. While perfectly illustrating the kind of hostility an active, out-of-the-closet athlete would face inside a locker room, Hardaway dealt the league that made him rich a black eye and a controversy that could take some of the shine off the NBA's Vegas holiday.

Rather than spend the weekend talking about gambling, stripclubs, escorts and tattoos, Stern's all-stars will be forced to answer another round of questions about sexuality. Trust me, athletes are far more qualified to pontificate about the former than the latter.

More than anything, that's what Amaechi's book release has made clear. We shouldn't ask pro athletes important questions. They've been raised in locker rooms, laboratories for intolerance and ignorance, and had their beliefs fortified by large sums of money and groupies/posse members.

Athletes are not paid to be thoughtful or articulate. They're paid to follow instructions implicitly. They're paid to adhere to a macho code that certainly views gay men as weak.

Should we be surprised that LeBron James and all the other 20-something millionaires flunked Amaechi's Brokeback test and offered less-than-enlightened opinions about homosexuality?

No. And maybe we should be even less surprised that the 40-year-old Hardaway thought it was appropriate to put his homophobia on record.

Hardaway's implied reluctance to share a locker room and shower with a gay teammate is somewhat understandable. Most heterosexual men feel the same way. Homophobia is a not a crime. Letting it control your behavior is wrong.

It is Hardaway's expression of hate and the implication he would allow his homophobia to prevent a gay man from working in peace that troubles me.

Hardaway is too stupid to realize that racism and hate denied black people inalienable, American rights for hundreds of years. People with Tim Hardaway's mindset tried to keep people who look like Tim Hardaway out of professional sports and every other highly sought profession.


2007 America Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2007-02-15 07:39:53

I'm a bit doped up at the moment on percosets due to the pain in my teeth (my surgery is still several weeks away unless I can get the rest of the money to pay for it sooner) and in this state I'm no good going out, my motor skills seem a bit sluggish (so no games), and I can't eat anything for a while.

So in the interim, I've been going over videos on youtube.com and reviewed for the umpteenth time the Herstal promotional video for the FN P90.

I also glanced over some vids of the Knob Creek gun shoot and some other firearms-related videos and have been thinking about starting a bit of a contest to see what you - as furry gun-lovers - think is the 'best', most versitile weapon.

I suppose the question at this stage would be, if two factions, who are in every other fashion equal, were fighting a war spanning multiple environs and locals, in varying conditions and extremes differing only in their choice of standard weapons - which do you think would give the greater advantage? The FN P90 (with ss190 round), or the AK-47 (standard variant with armour peircing round)?

If this idea is popular, I might expand it into a larger contest, choosing from a wide selection of various real-world firearms and putting it down to a series of smaller votes and contests to see what firearm is most prefered by furry gun-lovers.

So the first match-up is the FN P90 and the AK.

Lets see what the fandom says!

D.O.P.R

My heart goes out to all the people in Central Florida who have been affected by the recent tornadoes.

Growing up in Southeast Nebraska I've seen my share of twister damage and there is nothing in nature that can comapre to it, unless the sea itself were to wash the land with oblivion.

My home town of Beatrice was struck by a trio of twisters less then a year after my family and I had moved to Lincoln (the capital). Damage was, thankfully, rather light concidering, but I remember drving franticly back to see if my best friend was unhurt (the phones were out) and finding the red brick steeple of the Catholic church totally thrown down and wreckage and debri littering the streets.

I remember the nights when my parents would wake me up in the small hours, wrap me in a quilt and bundle me down to the basement amid the ommonous howl of the warning sirens. The guy on the em-radio would droll calmy on about the progess of this thing which could conceivably tear our little home straight from it's foundations, but the all-clear would sound and the sirens stop as it pettered out into air or ambled off into the distance.

The wreckage caused by a tornado is like nothing else. There's no contest or 'degrees' when it comes to human suffering, but the sight of a home, or familiar building, totally wrenched beam-from-beam is a horrifying, humbling experiance.

And yet people move on. They sift the wreckage and carry on with their lives.
I'm not sure I could.

So I urge everyone who knows anyone in the area, or if you care about the suffering of others, to take part in whatever releif drives are in your area, or donate to the Red Cross so that disaters like these can have a happy ending.

D.O.P.R

1,565 pageviews!

That's quite a surprise to me.

Thank you, everyone who has taken intrest in my stuff.

To commemorate the event, I'll do a special fan-service pic when I hit 2000.

Any suggestions?

D.O.P.R

Here's something that I've wanted to say for a while now and although I imagine this isn't the best place to say it (this is, after all, an art gallery and not livejournal) it is the only place I have on hand to say it.

The main crux of the point is that I act like a fool.

In many ways I probubly think much to highly of myself - just as when I was younger I thought way to little of myself. And although I still don't have a high level of self-esteem - I still maintain some pride in a few things that I think I do well.
One of these thing is the ability to communicate.

I'm not Francis Bacon or Gerorge Bernard Shaw and I all too often trip over my own words and have an unsurpassed talent of putting my foot in my mouth - but I always try to make it up.

I at least would like to think that when talking with someone, I can get my point and meaning across in a fair way.

But there are some people who I just can't.

As I've said, I have an unfortunate gift for putting my texual foot in my virtual mouth and it's done me many wrongs - but I can generally go back and at least reapair some of the damage I may have inadvertanly caused and turn an accidental enemy into a friend.
But sometimes I can't.

I said "some people" above, but I really mean just the one.

It's a preson I've known for a fair while and as far as I know we are on good terms (though I behaved embarassingly last we talked). I have the utmost respect for this person on many levels and is someone I would like to know so much better.
But I'm afraid.

I'm afraid because I have fallen for this person hard.

My Bun (who is, no doubt, reading this too) is mine, and I will not leave her - nor do I think she needs to worry. We've become so much a part of one another that I don't think either of us would be ablet to do well without the other, even if 'That Old Flame' doesn't rise so high anymore.

But for this person the flame is still very high. While I hesitate to use the word 'love' - which is a dangerous and frightening word - the desire to use it is certainly there.

But everytime I talk to this person, I make myself a fool. The frustration is terrible. I try to be calm and friendly and complimentary and the more I do, the more I feel like a suck-up. Yet if I apologize for seeming a suck-up, I feel that I'm making myself insecure (which is quite likely true).

I've had a couple young admirers chat with me a time or two and it's pleasent enough. But more often I've seen the kids who follow around certain artists - praising and prancing at their heels like eager puppies.
I've never concidered myself liek that. Yet there I am! Following him and trying desperatly, indeed, pitifully hard to be near him and be liked by him.
And for that I feel like a suck-up and like a little eager puppy begging for attention.

It's a wretched feeling being 'near' someone but always on the fringe. Wanting to be important to someone, but spoiling all your own chances.

I fret and wonder how he thinks of me (this too is an insecure sign). He is someone I deeply respect and if I found that I deeply annoy him or seem pitiable to him - then I would leave him and go my way.
But I don't know, and so I keep trying to master my feelings and be the person I was when we first began chatting - someone that he could respect.

It's been often said that love has a way of turning boys into men and some men back into boys.
This is the first time I've been made a fool by it. It's a wretched feeling and no mistake.

How is it that I can be calm and helpful and a good friend to everyone else I know, but not toward the person that I most want to be a friend with?

D.O.P.R

There's something I've been meaning to do - start a 'meme' of my own.

This one is simple, just make three songs that you think fit me, or my character.

That's it.

Any style, any genre. If you think it fits me, go ahead and name it and maybe throw in the reason why.

There you go, simple and to the point. Anyone who is interested in spreading it, can put the same in there own journals.

D.O.P.R

P.S. I know I'm not terribly popular, and this is the first one of these that I've tried to create, but I thought it would be fun to try.

At last, we managed to find the drivers for my scanner. So I'll be able once again to upload pics.

I have a few right to hand which I'll post right away and a few more once they are inked and run though Photoshop.

Keep a sharp eye.

D.O.P.R

I still havn't got my scanner/computer problems worked out yet. I have internet on my tiny little laptop and my desktop is running fairly smooth now, but I can't get internet on the desktop and I don't have any driver disk for my scanner (searching for the files online has proven futile so far). All that being so, I havn't been able to post anything and will likely not be able to scan anything for a while yet.
I've thought about taking digital pics of what I have an posting them via the laptop, but I'm not sure. If I do, they would get put into scraps where only my Watchers would know about them.

Well, the real reason for this journal was to give love out to you all. I've been in the midst of a rather disheartening run of bad luck lately and that causes me to be all the more thankful for the goods things that I have.

So: love to all my Watchers and friends. Paticularly my kitten, my brother and my Bun.

D.O.P.R

I've had my desktop computer for quite a few years and it's finally died.
Fortunatly, all my most important files were saved on my portable drive, so I didn't lose my artowork, photos or other such things. But I did lose quite a few other things that will difficult (if not impossible) to relplace and restoring my system to a servicable state will take time.

I don't doubt that it's days now are numbered far fewer then I would like and that the time is long since ripe when I should buy another.

But this means that there will likely be little to hear from me untill I get internet working on it again and get some of it's other issues resolved (driver installs etc.).

Oye gavalt...

D.O.P.R

I saw the Eragon movie last night.

It was good. More then that I'll not say, other then - I was deeply affected.

D.O.P.R

I draw Dinosaurs.

That's really all I do.

Dragons and fanart and other things take up a good share, but more then anything else, I draw Dinos.

That's just what I do. It's what I'm comfortable with.
I know that I'm not the absolute best, no one really is (there never is, and never was a 'best'). But I felt secure that I do 'well'.

For those of you that are artists themselves, have you ever been going through, oh I don't know...a massive art archive and see someone who does the same thing you do, only about a dozen times better?
Remember what that felt like?

Yeah...ouch...

D.O.P.R

My consort and I were in a store we have in town named 'Bookman's'; now I'm not sure if similar things exsit in other areas, but Bookman's is a place where you can exchange electronics, games and of course, books, for store credit or cash.

It's an awesome place to hang out or go looking for that obscure record/book/game.

Well, we visited this little haven of literacy and...I bought a monitor.

A BIG monitor...

We found it for $60 on a shelf.

We thought it was a TV at first, but it had a sign on it saying: "This is not a TV. But a really big monitor for a computer"

It was...uh...BIG...

Like...we didn't have a table strong enough to hold it BIG...

I'm talking, this thing could swallow a person whole...

"I" could crawl inside this damn thing....

IT'S MORE THAN THREE FEET WIDE!!

It's.

So.

Nice.

However...

It doesn't show the whole screen at once.
It does when I play a game (havn't tried a dvd yet) but if I'm online, or on the desktop, it only shows about a quarter of the screen at a time (if I'm at my usual 1200 reso).
At 800 by 600 it shows 'almost' all the screen.
Still, it's a bit akward trying to surf or look at pics/IMs and not be able to see the whole screen. I'm constantly scrolling hither and thither.

Yet, this thing is a blast to play UT2k4 on.

Still, if anyone knows a way to 'fix' this little view issue, I would be very greatful.

D.O.P.R

Truth or Dare? Okay, here's the deal, you get to ask me *THREE QUESTIONS*, no matter how crazy, inappropriate, or just random, and I promise to answer it 100% truthfully (thats the "truth" part) ... now I dare you to repost this and see what people ask you!

Stolen from touchmybadger

I'm such a whore for these kind of things...

D.O.P.R

Over a thousand page views and I havn't even uploaded in more then a week!

Thank you all for the intrest and I'm sorry for the lack of uploads (gotta offset that joy with a little chagrin). I'll be uploading some new swag very soon.

Now, returning to a more...diary-like mode (which is what these journals are for aren't they?) I had an interesting experiance today:

Yesterday, a member of my extended family was feeling down and, being as I am, I chatted with him for a while to help him feel better (apperantly I succeded and I'm glad).
But as often happens, the psychiatrist will pick up the symptoms of his patient, and I began to feel a bit 'insecure'.

I would like to think that I handle myself and my artwork fairly well, concidering. For the most part, I accept my art for what and where it is and don't brood over how "I'm not as good as artist X" or so forth.
I enjoy drawing and even if I didn't have a gallery to show (which I was very late in getting) I would still be drawing.

I'm generous with my art, and do more gift pics and unbidden fanart then commissions (I've only received one of those). And while I'm not going to begin patting myself on the back, I do think I have cause to be content.

Yet, late last night, when the caffine began to wear off, and I just finished helping cheer up my friend, I myself was feeling my insecurities rise.

There are many artists that I greatly admire, and who have inspired me, just by there own works, to expand my artistic horizons and try things that I otherwise might not have done.
Many of these artist have received fan art from me as a kind of artistic tribute, 'though they might know it not.

Yet, again, in the night, with my Pepsi gone, I begin to feel a bit morose. As I said, there are many artists that I admire, and they themselves have people that they admire and like; and like me, they give gift art to one another.

Often I'll see artist A, whom I enjoy, do a pic for artist B who has done work for artist C and then B goes one of A with C and so forth.

There may indeed be a pang of jealousy in there somewhere, but I think it's better described as being a sence that I'm left out.

I remember way back, I sucked up a good deal of courage (I'm a bit reclusive by nature and don't often reach out) and sent an email to one of the artist who is now here on FA who I very much liked. I liked his art, and the bios and other writtings he had on his site at the time made me want to know him.

I sent an email, and to my delight, I got a responce! Unfortunatly, in my tempered enthusiam, I probubly sounded like a 'fan-boi' (which may very well be true). I sent a responce back, saying that I "was just looking to be a friend". His responce was that friends aren't "made" they are "earned".

He was right. I don't think any ill of him at all - he's still on my Watch List - but I felt very took down.

So often I see other artists doing pics for each other, or doing Open Canvas together or talking about how well they get along with each other and I can't help but think that they are looking for 'contemporaries', not 'tag-a-longs'.

So there I am - me and my sketches. Now I'm not trying to say that artists are intentionly trying to be elitist or that I'm feeling trodden on by the 'upper-caste'. But I do feel a bit 'ommited'.

Naturally people will group with others that they feel close to. It's the 'Birds of a Feather' phenomonon, and it doesn't require any maliciouness to operate.
It works on levels as far reaching as "Why yes, I'm a Rebublican Communist who lives by Nihlistic guidlines!" and as close as "Heh, I have a Penny Arcade shirt too!"
So I'm not decrying anything, I'm just lamenting futily (translate = whining).

Still, there are a multitude of awesome artists out there who I would love to know better and hopefully see as friends; but despite what my logic tells me, my subconscious feeling of "They're on a pedastal and I'm in a gutter." is hard to shake and without a common frame to work in, any unprovocked email, however courteous, is hard to seperate from "OMG! I luvs ur art!!one11! Can i b ur friend?!"

Now, going back about 16 paragraphs (wow), I mentioned that something interesting happend today.
That something was that, after having brooded on his little 'problem' most of the night while I waited for the Sandman to beat me into an unconscious state, I checked my recent submissions today to see that [image]CircleA61[/image] had made a pic thanking me and several other artists who had done him some well-deserved giftwork.

Boy was I surprised; and mighty sheepish. Apperantly the Almighty hears me, and answers.
I also got an IM from my wing-brother, who is an extremly talented artist himself. So apperantly, I'm not as 'friendless' and 'thankless' as my misery wanted me to think.

And again it's proved, that there are some things you will never find by looking, but will make themselves known when you least expect it and where you least thought to look.

So to all of you who have looked through my gallery: my hearfelt thanks.
And to all my friends: Hugs and bows and thanks.

I'm indebted to you all.

D.O.P.R

P.S.Now keep in mind, I'm not an overly emotional person and I'm not writting this to get any "pity-party" responces, it's just me utilizing this little space on the web to record something I felt during November 2006 at one in the morning with my Pepsi supply dwindling. More then likely I'll read this in the morning and slap my forehead while calling myself a fool.
Point is - don't take anything seriously except my thanks.