Hello everybody

I am finally opening up for commissions again. I'll be offering full ink and coloured character illustrations for up to 50 GBP. There will be 10 slots based on a first come, first serve bases. I'll be also limiting it to one person per slot.

1 character for 50 GBP or 2 characters for 80 GBP. Payment will be via PayPal, where I'll send an invoice

Subject matters I love to draw but not limited to are; Hyper, Fat and Macro

I will not draw the following themes; Watersports, Scat, Cub Porn, Child Porn, Rape

Update: The list is full and will be contacting commissioners soon. Thanks to all of those who were interested.

I have got, all of a sudden, all nostalgic this morning so I thought I might write this down and maybe get your own experiences too. I love my video games and I can say I am obsessed for sure, so much so as to have gone as far as to get a university degree in it. I still remember fondly looking back at key moments, playing on the Atari when we went to my family's friends house and sneaking into my uncle's computer room to play DOS games on the PC. I remember truly falling in love with the idea of gaming with Age of Empires (1997) and when I play the original even today I still keep my rose tinted glasses.

I was slow with the uptake on the multiplayer front as my family wasn't the fastest to buy into the 56k dial up modems with the 1 penny per minute cost. I recalled dabbling with Age of Empires 2 (1999) multiplayers but I struggled to get around the MSN Gaming Zone. It wasn't until Age of Mythology (2002) where I remember the real magic of online play.

I remember sitting in the family computer room and seeing the multiplayer button on the main menu. I recalled my doubt that the dial up modem and my lack of online knowledge would prevent it all from working but I tried it. Two buttons appears, "online" and "LAN/IP" and my 15 year old mind was already confused at this point. I hesitantly clicked "online" (wise choice) and then it started to automatically patch the game. My heart raced seeing the update bar creep across the bottom before it sent me to the lobby. The simple interface of the lobby made me felt accomplished and I played my first game online with other real people. I became aware the thrill of playing with people who can do moves the AI cannot do and I leapt for joy knowing the simple dial up modem could handle it all right ... until the phone rang.

I remember the joy of playing other real people. I became aware that my Greeks getting crushed by a Norse Rush from someone in the wide world. I recall calling out to my mother proclaiming with glee "Look mum, I am playing against real people."

So, what about you guys, do you have memories where you realized for the first time you were playing with other real people, what were they?

1. What is your name?
Draconder "Drac"

2. What is your gender?
Male

3. How old are you?
29

4. How tall are you?
5'10 (but lets ignore that little shall we)

5. Where are you staying?
Birmingham Hilton Metropole

6. What day are you getting there?
I'll be there on Friday

7. Who will you be with?
Old friends from Southampton and possibly hanging around some fellow macros.

8. Do you have art in the art show?
I won't no, but I will bring a blank sketchbook to fill while I am there.

9. What suit(s) will you have?
No suit alas.

10. Can I dance with you?
Expect collateral damage.

11. Can I touch you?
Ask me first.

12. Can I talk to you?
Sure, just know I can be a little awkward to chat to.

13. Can I hug you?
Like before, better ask first ... then embrace crushing death.

14. Can I take photos of you/with you?
If you ask nicely ^www^

15. Can I buy you lots of drinks?
Ask first, I only like sweet alcohol during the evenings, tea (milk, 2 sugars) or soft drinks are better.

16. Do you drink Alcohol/Smoke?
Little and no,

17. Can I give you lots of money?
I don't know why you would but sure, why not :P

18. Can I hang out with you?
I plan to be visiting some old friends,  blondegoth,  jowgenetsu,  foxydragon,  zeem,  mrharrybentley,  pliskin,  muzz.
I will be open to meeting new friends so feel free to say hi.

19. How will I recognize you?
Look out for my badge, I'll be posting a new one on FA later that I'll be wearing. Other than that, long, curly, brown hair, heavy eyebrows.

20. Where will you be most of the time during the con?
All over the place, first time at Confuzzled.

21. Who are you rooming with?
 jowgenetsu

22. Attending any events?
If there is a macro fur meet-up I'll surely be trying to go there.

23. How can I find you at the con?
I'll try and be on twitter @ draconder

24. Are you doing anything in line with the theme?
Not really

26. How are you getting to the con?
I'll be driving there, that or coach.

So lately I had been thinking about making a living from my artwork and so I have decided to test the waters. I wanted to see if I had the work ethic and discipline required so I have made myself draw everyday after work on the weekdays and Saturday leaving Sunday as my day of rest. I intend to keep this up for 6 months and only then I am sure that I have the willpower.

The question really is to those artists who already make a living from their art. I have been getting conflicting signals of what path to take, either to rely solely on commissions or to focus entirely making a portfolio and art-packs to sell on-line and at conventions. If I did make art-packs and sold them at conventions, would there be much of a demand for the kind of stuff I draw? I never seen much in terms of fat furry and the like in the dealer's dens.

What do you do to make a living from your artwork?

At the later half of this year some of you may have noticed I was quite enamoured with my hen witch Liz. I like the idea of modernising the witch concept and honestly I might try and look more into various imagery I can draw and broaden upon.

When I look back at the recent pictures of her I am happy with some elements, I am happy with the themes of a witch in a modern age though I could make that more apparent as some pictures you cannot even tell it is modern. The colouring is also something I am quite happy with and I look forward to perfecting as time goes on.

My main concern so far is that the inking and line-work for me doesn't feel alive, for some pictures they feel rigid and at worse even dead. I recall someone mentioned to me that it might be a good idea for me to add some more expressive emotions to her as I must admit her facial expressions has been pretty limited so far. Still, is there anything else that could improve my inking and line-work? I appreciate anything that is said and maybe I can implement in the next picture I will draw of her.

Also, don't be afraid to pick out something even if you don't think you are good at critique, look at other artists styles and compare, maybe take something from real life. I appreciate every single one of your opinions and thoughts.

Hello all

In November 2014 two male bears were rescued from Kormisosh, a breeding centre for bears destined to be shot. They are now safe in my local wildlife park and conservation charity Wildwood Trust based in Kent, UK. Having been through quarantine, the trust has built a nice, large enclosure outside. I heard how they first reacted to leaves and dirt under their paws as they had been trapped in a concrete prison before. The Wildwood Trust are now asking for donations as they are planning on long-term care and rehabilitation. I for one have already donated but I am asking, if anyone is interesting in giving a little to these guys or are just curious, please check out the trust's website below:

http://www.wildwoodtrust.org/donate.html

Firstly thank you all who replied to my Undertale journal, it was interesting seeing everyone's reactions. Thankfully I don't hate the game and it is always great to see some enphusiasm even if it goes a little too far for my personal tastes. Give it time when things calm down and I just might try it.

ConFuzzled

I am going to ConFuzzed next year which does mean I might be missing out on Eurofurence I am afraid since I can only safely afford one or the other. I certainly look forward to going epecially to see some of my old crew, perhaps, if I am lucky, I will be able to run an RPG like old times. With 8 months to go I am sure the time will fly by.

So, unless you really don't involve yourself in the furry community much you can find that you hear about Undertale a lot. For those who don't know, Undertale is a 8 bit style role-playing video game developed and published by tobyfox and has been credited highly by players and critiques for its player driven narrative. You are a human that has found themselves in an underground monster world.

I cannot escape from hearing about this game eiher from posts or even friends talking to me about it. I find it everywhere from Tumblr, Twitter and even on my FA pages. I have had friends trying to convince me that I have to play this and that I am missing out of my life for not playing it.

Now, I was disinterested in the game to begin with but I would never deny a game's merits even if I would not enjoy it personally. I didn't enjoy Final Fantasy 7 but I know a lot of people really loved it. I don't really like the 8-bit rpg as I get bored very easily with the visual style and mechanics, it may have been something I might try but this is unlikely now because of the peer pressure. I feel like I am bombared with this thing and what started of as a disinterest has turned it into something more of a dislike of the game. My idea is that there is too much of a hard sell and it makes it off-putting and alienating.

I know understand why some of my friends dislike the things they do "because it is popular". I have one who dislikes x-com though many love it because of that same pressure.

Another year has flown by, who keeps devouring all the time? Today is my birthday and I have decided to celibate by booking a whole week off work. I am going to just relax, devour cities and maybe even complete a picture or two. I want to thank everyone who has already sent me well wishes, I really appreciate every one.

I want to thank everyone for their support, patience and kind comments during my little kaiju project, especially to the commissioners  Wyldsyde ,  Grendel ,  SavagingDragon and  LukwDoddsMicro . This has been very fun and sometime I might do another but for now I am going to focus on personal stuff for a while.

I intend to keep doing an hour or two of drawing everyday, pushing through the illnesses, art-blocks and more to try and instil some discipline into my works. I also plan to continue a weekly sketch stream which I will be posting on here as they happen. A big thank you to everyone!

I thought of doing a fun little project. There are simply not enough giant monsters in the world so I intend to fix that by transforming you little creatures into something better, bigger, stronger, fiercer. The idea is that I will open up a limited number of commissions where I will turn characters into giant monster versions of themselves. I will be charging 40 GBP for each illustration.

The rules:

1 slot per person
1 character per slot
4 slots on a first come first serve basis, please only comment to this journal to claim one.
Payment will be made by Paypal after the picture is completed.
Clean pictures only, if your character has pronounced sexual characteristics, they will be reduced when becoming a monster.

Example:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/16534271/

Slots:
1.  Wyldsyde completed
2.  Grendel completed
3.  SavagingDragon completed
4.  LukwDoddsMicro completed

I just want to write to you all to say that I am still alive. Life has gotten very busy this year and has distracted me from my drawing. I have been making plans for a live action role-play event in which the costume ideas have taken much of my current inspiration.

Where I work currently has just replaced their software which quite frankly is rubbish. For my job, to do data-entry, it lacks any flexabilty the old system has, not even allowing me to manually type fields but instead relying on a drop down system which is slower and missing key information. All adds up to stress and me being very tired when I get through my house door.

Speaking on my house. I have decided to move my lair elsewere. Were as before I used to be in a rented home, Calgor and I have got ourselves a morgtage. Naturally this has taken up the rest of my time with the paperwork, dealing with the landlord and finally rampaging through and demolishing half the home to make more room for my fat, scaly rump. DIY has taken a lot of time, currently we are hanging up new wallpaper but after that and paint I will finally be able to set up my PC along with the rest of my room.

I look forward to catching you all again, starting to miss drawing and talking to many of you.

I normally keep these things quiet from everyone I know as I never thought it important but upon finding out they missed my hatchday they all seem disappointed that I haven't told them. So here it is for you beautiful creatures, it will be my birthday soon, 22nd of September.

I for one look forward to it as I have also booked a week off work so I can spend time relaxing, stomping on cities, consuming the innocent and finishing off the last commission on my list.

Take care ^www^

I have always wanted to try doing more commissions but I find myself overwhelmed when I did so I am going to try something a little different. I am going to open up to only a limited number sketch commissions a time, seeing if I can keep at it regularly and I hope that by doing so I can build a routine that I can build upon.

- Commissions will be of a first come first serve basis with 6 slots.
- Sketch illustrations only example and example
- One character will cost 20 GBP, two characters or one detailed character will cost 30 GBP.
- You will be able to chose between digital or traditional medium.
- To claim you just have to reply to this journal.

I will love you all very much if we keep it to hyper, macro and/or fat but if you have any questions feel free to ask me.

1 -  Emberknight Paid (complete)
2 -  dragoneer Paid (complete)
3 -  slothpuck Paid (complete)
4 -  Kewney Paid (finishing)
5 -  camble Paid
6 -  grendel Paid

Well, post con depression has hit me hard, very hard, before I even got into my own house. It has been a very fun convention and one that was thought provoking too.

The new hotel in Berlin was big, very big, just enough to wriggle my toes in there but this made it more difficult to find friends. The massive crowds may have also made it more difficult as thousands of furries were bouncing around everywhere. I am not sure what the numbers were to be precise but I would not be surprised if they surpassed over 2000. The entertainment was good too with some of the shows well deserving of an applause.

All was not perfect however as the new hotel and larger attendance created horrible teething issues. Queues were bad and many of the events were delayed (The Paw Pet Show was delayed by over 2 hours.) making this one of the most stressful conventions I have been to. This being said, I imagine much can be attributed to teething problems with the new hotel and one hopes that next year will see an improvement.

This convention I did a lot of drawing as I must have drawn at least 2 sketches a day. I was inspired by that weekend after having met some old friends but this also made me think. I do not want to be stuck with my current job of data entry and perhaps, if I could pull myself together, I could make a living off commissions but this means I need to draw a lot more often than what I do right now.

Alas, I do not have time to relax for I have work the very next day. Thanks again to everyone at Eurofurence!

With little over a month and a half to go I can say I am quite excited to be going to this year's Eurofurence in Berlin. I will be stomping to the city, consuming on everything the place has to offer while dragging my feline, pirate, boyfriend booty along for the ride.

While I will not be doing commissions or fursuiting, I might be buying myself a new sketchbook and bring a laptop and tablet to do some digital drawing while I am at it. I will especially be looking forward to catching some old friends and possibly meeting some new at the event

This is my question though, who else is coming?

Note: Firstly I will try and keep this as spoiler free as possible, I will not be discussing plot or characters.

I just saw the new Godzilla movie just now and I am just too hyped up now to give you a full analytical review but I want to give some of you fellow macros a guide to what mindset you should be when sitting down to seeing it.

First off, it is good, very good and a far superior attempt than the previous American 1998 rendition. The film is better written, better acted and better presented than the old film and I will also add that you can feel this film trying to keep true to canon.

What you should not expect is Pacific Rim, there is a lot more time spent on build-up which is around 70% of the film but, and this is a big but, the 30% action is incredibly awe inspiring. Naturally the film will revolve around a human element to give the audience something to relate towards but the human characters are pretty well done.

Firstly I would like to thank all my commissioners for their eternal patience as I finished their illustrations one at a time. I enjoyed working on every one of them but now I am glad to have them finally finished. I would like to announce that I am not accepting any more commissions for a while and even when I do it will be only one at a time basis.

As I was pondering doodling something for myself I was looking at my reference picture of Draconder and thought of how he would move. More specifically how his fat would move and deform. Yes, he is incredibly fat but with those thick, kaiju plated scales would there be much restriction of the movement and deformation of his obese body. I opened it up to a few friends who had varied views suggesting that it would wobble freely while some others think of it like how the earth's crust motions over magma. I am curious to hear your thoughts on the matter and any references you might have.

All right, just a simple question really. I have been getting some words that my pictures are sometimes too big and it is difficult to see the whole thing at once so I would like to try and fix that but in order to do that I would like to know how big of a resolution do you guys have. Please tell me here in this journal what screen resolution you use and if my current works have been too big for you.

Hello there

In the aftermath of the birthday rampage, consuming the entire world's supply of cake and whatnot I would like to say two things. One, goodness I am stuffed with cake.

The second thing is that I want to thank everyone for wishing me a happy birthday, all those who sent me shouts on my page, private messages and mail. It is really appreciated and I have been caught completely by surprise by it. Also thank you for the presents as it is really touching. It makes me think about how much I have been procrastinating of late and how much I need to get back into action.

I would also like to thank a special pirate cat for making the day extra special. All the love is sent your way!

Cheers everyone and till next time keep stomping!

Greetings all, I would like to announce:

Civilisation Brave New World Match Weekend

Premise

6 - 12 players set in teams of 2 play on a standard length game of Civilisation V Brave New World. The match will be played together over Skype for up to 4 to 6 hours before retiring to pitboss mode where we finish off over the course of days. We will see at the end which team has the civilisations to stand the test of time.

House Rules

Random victory condition: Each team will have a randomized victory condition they must aspire to Science, Culture, Domination and Diplomatic, if they achieve any other victory condition then everyone loses.
Random civilisation: Everyone has a random civilisation to keep things fair and prevent arguments.
Politeness: Be polite and play nice or the host (me) maybe forced to swing the kick hammer.
Replacement: During the course of the game you are welcome to allow other players not already in game to take your place.

When and Where

Saturday 27th July at 6pm British Summer Time on Steam and Skype

How to Join

So, Drac, how can I prove that my civilisation can stand the test of time over all the others. Simple really, reply to this journal with your intent with first come first serve. I have reserved some slots for a select few but they is plenty of space for many more.

Slots:
 Draconder
 Calgor
 mickykitsune
 southchillREPTILE (maybe)
 Myr
 cetas
 hossinfeffa
 gahtren

Hello all

I just wanted to announce here that I have finally started making use of my Tumblr account. With Yahoo buying it, I do not know how long the ride will last but I intend to make the most out of it. It will be used for various sketches and drawings I feel don't exactly fit in my FA page for one reason or another. Please come and enjoy!

www.draconder.tumblr.com

Greetings everyone

I am opening myself up for commissions. At the moment these will be limited to sketched and inked. As I grow in confidence in myself I will eventually opening up to full colour illustrations. I will limit the number of commissions to five at a time.

Price List:
£15 for sketch
£20 for ink
+£10 per extra character
+£5 for a simple background

Payment:
Payment will be made via Paypal after the picture is completed where I will provide you my address.

Contact:
If you are interested please send me an email over lowis.mike[at]gmail.com or send a note here.

List:
-  neopuc Finished
-  yoyolizard Finished
-  vhenan Finished
-  tombfyre Finished
-  InkraBlueGator Finished

I had for the past few weeks been pondering of the idea of playing an epic game of Civilisation 5 over multi-player. The idea is simple really:

Setting

8 - 10 players come together to play a game of Civilisation 5
Teams will be split into two players.
Everyone plays a random civilisation.

House rules

Each team must roll for a random victory condition that they must aim towards from the beginning.
Each team must roll randomly to see which technology research.

Of course this won't be happening any time soon but if there is enough interest I might try and arrange a time for this for us to have an epic game. The house rules will allow people to remain competitive but make it more fair for newbies and pros alike.

I remember when openCanvas was getting popular for the first time back when I used to peruse the Lofty Bearing forums. I didn't have a tablet and my drawing skills were not as good but armed with a mouse and some friends it was fun. Even now as I use a tablet I still find openCanvas to be incredibly fun to play with and mess around with friends and if it can get me back into drawing the better.

Do you guys ever find it easier to draw with friends? Do you strive to do fine pieces or lots of quick sketches? If I know you and you want to do some drawing together, feel free to ask because if I am free most likely I might say yes ^www^