I'll break it up into three parts.

1. Up until recently I had exercised trust and faith in clients by providing sketchwork first, many "virgin" clients I've had really appreciated this. I always knew it would be likely I'd get screwed from it and would just suck it up and revise my process. I've been doing this for years or something so I'm very lucky to have got this far with it.

The very last commission client when I previously had - I verified he was still ready to start the commission and we talked, I did the sketch he asked for revisions and I did. Then he turned around and said he doesn't like it or whatever. I should mention that I have always been willing to completely change the artwork style, pose, etc so there was no reason for him not to continue when I'd revise it to hell and back. More than not I provide at least a couple sketches for them to choose from. I politely asked if he'd be willing to send any small donation for the sketchwork and he said no, in ruder words than that.

So now I exercise taking half down before starting work, I liked how things were before but it just doesn't work. I also used to do the "waiting list" but that doesn't work either (not everyone still has the funds/desire for the image months after asking about it and that's totally understandable). So going forward I'll do commissions slots maybe 2 at a time.


2. The YCHs I do have never made enough to make it work it so I'll probably not do those going forward. They kind of arise from me playing around with drawing and getting a pose or idea I really like, then not having the appropriate characters I post it seeing if people would be interested.

The last YCH I held, the winning bidder the next day said they're no longer in the position to go forward. I have always been very considerate/understanding of people and their positions so that's fine but now the second bidder isn't responding so I don't even know what to do with that. I guess I'll post it again later and see how it does. TwT I know people don't generally like YCH auctions so there's probably no sympathy for me on that, hehe.


3. Along the lines of being understanding to clients, I have been working on a very ... very ... very long and exhausting ref sheet set for someone. As I just finished all of it (something of a nightmare and I'm never doing complex character designs and ref sheet sets again) he says he's had an unfortunate accident which, at this time, puts me at a loss for a few hundred dollars.

This client may still follow through but with these other things combined I'm feeling not good, and my faith in people has kind of turned sour. All I can do, as I have ever done, is suck it up and change how things are done. LEssons learned and happy smiles going forward ~



In an effort to lighten my own mood I'll mention some positive things:

Firstly I'm excited to be going forward with commissions again. I kind of completed that side project I was working on that was my reason for closing commission in the first place so I'll open those again soon (probably next month). I'm confident going forward these will be far better experiences for the adjustments I'll have made.

Secondly  vagabondbastard needed a new tablet (if anyone paid attention) and offered super awesome commissions for super cheap prices and I nabbed one, super stoked.

Thirdly, while I was not offering commissions I still got notes from a few friends asking for them anyway. It's refreshing that I can still get work when I'm not even advertising for it. Return clients - I love you.


Thanks everyone for being a part of my life, I'm also slowly climbing my way to 4k watchers and ready to do a giveaway to celebrate when I get there. \o/

I was thinking this would be a two birds/one stone type thing where I can also learn about artists watching me that I may not have known about. (sadface)

Right now I'm only looking for one or two people loosely around my skill level. Ideally this would create a list where if/when I'd like to try more I can come back to it and contact new people. I hope this notion doesn't cause anyone too much disappointment/grief, it's just a fun idea.

I'll give everyone some days to comment if they're interested then I'll contact at least one person for now. All standard YCH stuff applies and I like to think that I'm quite easy to work with in that I'm comfortable with any specific parts of the process. So if you're more comfortable lines or colouring it works out. ^_^

I don't know what response to expect from this but I hope/encourage many to comment, if you don't think you're around where I'm at I'd still like to check out my watchers. <3

Today I found the trailer and was like "OMG, why didn't anyone tell me?!" and the answer is of course that I subscribe to nothing and talk to nobody. Bahaha. It was posted about a month ago, I did my best given that I'm oblivious to keeping up with things. ^^

Anyway I'm super stoked, like SO stoked. The Kung Fu Panda soundtracks are (in my opinion) some of the greatest works ever composed and (in my opinion) the most beautiful demonstration of Hans Zimmer's talent. I do find becoming intimately familiar with a movie's soundtrack prior to seeing the movie will make the experience exponentially more awesome and have had friends verify this too.

Kung Fu Panda 2 left me rlyrlyrly being impatient to see the third. And maybe it's silly for adult me to get so excited about these movies, I kind of thought they were stupid at first. Then it became some tradition that when I'm sick I have soup, soda and Kung Fu Panda. Then once I gained an appreciation for soundtracks the love just took way off from there.

Aaah ~ <3

This is my ultimate compilation of things I link to people, often needing to find and refind them. I did indeed learn more from resources like these than I did from "art college" and if I knew how available this knowledge is made to everyone I would have saved myself the trouble.
Side note: I have my own Auto-Save for Sai and the modern Photoshop I use comes with an auto-save feature (preferences > file handling).

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*Other Art Libraries

Ctrl+Paint has a library covering all sorts of things ranging from beginner to advanced. I highly recommend Principles of Design under the Composition Basics (4) section.

Prismblush.com has a great section of tutorials from Doxy on anatomy, techniques and process steps.

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*Anatomy Practice and Drawing Warm-Ups

Techniques for initial stages of figure drawing:
How to draw structure in the body
How to draw gesture


Croquis Cafe Figure Drawing Playlist
Draw This, simulated model session

There's many stock reference resources on Deviantart including SenshiStock, ImperialStarletStock, and MostlyGuyStock.

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*Examples of the Painterly Technique

Painterly process video from Ilya Kuvshinov (human)

Ross Draws on Youtube, very cool stuff. (human)

One of our most influential artists here is Demicoeur who has an awesome tutorial here.

Here's an amazing tutorial Drawing a Female Face from Loish and check out her process videos here on her Vimeo.

I found a nice Eye Tutorial and Hair Tutorial from Sakimichan and definitely check out her Youtube to see the speed paint of her whole process.

Glitched Puppet sketch painter tutorial.

Kienan Lafferty would also belong here, check out his information in the below section.

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*Light and Colour

Awesome Colour Theory Tutorial

Relative COLOR from KNKL along with his recommended videos "The Order of LIGHT!" and "Easy Lighting with Masks!" among others you can find on his channel.

Doxy's Notes on Cel Shading and Light

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*Artists with Valuable Tutorial Videos on Everything

Kienan Lafferty is an artist that used to work for Riot (League of Legends) and does some work for Blizzard among other things. He has endless tutorials on anatomy, expression, design (armor, character, etc), perspective, etc. He works with the painterly technique all the time so if you're interested in that definitely check him out.

Sycra has a collection of How to Draw anatomy, form, proportions, etc and I particularly find the How to Draw the Shoulder video to have given me some unforgettable tips on anatomy. Also he has a video on How to Draw Hands

ProkoTV also has a bunch of very valuable tutorials. Just scroll down his videos and see how useful it all looks.

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*Specific things (Penis/Cum/Boob/Hands)

Cumology 101
Doxy's Toots - Cum Paint With Me
Doxy's Notes - Liquid on Objects
Luckypan's LuckyGoo

TypeDong1 By Onta
Onta's Guide to Drawing Cocks

DragonFU's Boobie Size Chart
Doxy's Boob Toot
How to draw boobs
How to Draw Breasts - Form & Motion
Common Mistakes of Drawing Breasts

Bunch of Hand References and How to Draw Hands.

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*Learn to Draw Anything

You don't learn how to draw something by repeatedly drawing from your head and making the same mistakes over and over. You need to learn and apply yourself to improve. This How to Draw Anything Tutorial
is a great demonstration of this.

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*Quick Sai Tutorial

This isn't the most extensive Sai tutorial
but when I started it helped me a ton, there's also a Sai Basics Tutorial
from the artist xa-xa-xa
who did conceptual art for Wakfu, Dofus, and stuff.

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*Brushes

BRUSH GORDON - This helps organize the nightmare that is all your Photoshop brushes, just check out the videos on the website and have your mind blown! Brush management was always one of the biggest obstacles I have to using Photoshop as a program.
(The new Photoshop has a way to organize your stuff and there's other brush management plug-ins you can Google for)

Since I use Sai I have no need for brushes and use the default circle brushes in Sai.
Some artists that use painterly technique generally use the default brushes in Photoshop such as the chalk tool. There are brushes all over Deviantart that are easy to find and so I found a Fur Brush set, another Fur Brush set, and a Skin Texture set. Loish Brushset and Sakimichan Brushes, there are tons and tons of Photoshop brushes for most everything, just do any search of google or deviantart.

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*Landscape/Texture

Cloud 1 Tutorial+Brushes

Cloud 2 Tutorial+Brushes

Water

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*Concept Art and Landscapes

I have one primary go-to example for this, and that is Feng Zhu Design, there is a myriad of videos on their Youtube Channel. This is all painterly technique/happy accident method, he admits to using basic photoshop brushes and because he's so huge in the video game industry his works are done with great speed, time is money. Personally the landscape tutorials
are best for the commission work I do for backgrounds to characters. He does character design, monster concepts, ship/vehicle concepts, landscapes and architecture as well as general settings.

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There is an endless amount of resources on the internet, tons of tutorials on Deviantart for how to draw fur, use colour, all sorts! We're also lucky enough to have all these amazing artists here on FurAffinity who advertise their streams to us all the time, I learn so much from watching them.

I have always been willing to help artists, I make my Skype available publicly and welcome questions. However, I don't have power to make other people better, that will always lie with the individual and their own motivation. I improve because I desire to improve and it happens through learning and work, both of which are not easy.

If there's something important you would like to add, please link it in the comments for others to see.

For the first time since I started the account I am temporarily not taking commissions. There's this really big side project thing I need to work on, unfortunately nothing to with my gallery TwT but I have plenty of commission work to continue and Patreon stuffs to do so I'll continue to post work at my normal slow pace.

I just wanted to make an official post if there was any confusion/inquisition for the status change on my profile page. For any clients I've been waiting on/in waiting queue I will continue to do that as it comes.

Ta! <3

I felt like making a journal post and this turned out to be something of an essay. As an artist, this is the crap I'm thinking about all the time. Sometimes I see people wondering how they can improve, as an artist trying to improve this is my thought process on the stuff I am concerned about improving for now. It's very TLDR and all about boring art stuff.


Seeing the image in your head before starting to draw. This is the biggest thing I wanted to talk to other artists about. I almost entirely lack the ability to imagine something so I figure out what it should look like (person here, person there, some in between action being visible) and try to make it work. When I'm really inspired doing personal work everything seems to go really well really quickly. Maybe that's because of the specific demands of commission work vs personal work which takes less than half as long.

I believe I spend 4-5 x the amount of time I put into work compared to similar artists doing similar things. I worry a lot about extra details that don't really make a difference to the image, sometimes the details are way too small to see if you view the image as a whole. The time issue is the biggest issue for my living, as far as money-for-time goes. If I could fix this issue I could offer cheaper work and pump out so much more of it. I am always trying to think of ways to improve this but it has a lot to do with my style and what I want my style to be. I like a lot of different styles! It's so hard to choose whether I want to be more realistic or more cartoony and in the years I've been doing this I haven't really swung one way or the other, just back and forth.

On mindfulness... doing it right the first time:
- to nail the sketch phase saves so much time. Sometimes I say "eh the shoulder looks kind of weird but I'll worry about it later" only to realize it's been a huge problem all along. If only I spent an extra minute tweaking the sketch ...
- to make mindful strokes that don't need to be redone/refined several times. I like to do a rough composition sketch then a rough sketch then a detailed sketch then linework and I don't think it's necessary if I could have more intent.
None of this means that I think changes shouldn't be made, I think changes are very important for making the best work and should be done if necessary. The idea is to fix things before they require more work to be changed.

Discipline! I bounce back and forth between sections of the image and phases of the image a lot. It's almost like I'd rather bring the image to completion chunk by chunk leaving the harder parts unfinished. While I was watching someone stream I realized they went through the image bit by bit and didn't flip around with layers to see stuff. I also think this has a massive effect on saving time.

I feel that I completely lack any original style. I do aim to start drawing people with longer bodies/limbs ... I kept trying to fit people into this portrait format which does show people better the smaller/wider they are. A while ago I was really bad at making torsos way too short, it's weird I never noticed it as being weird. Drawing eyes is something I feel like I do different each time. I think my linework needs to go from like 4px to 8px, it's much too thin. I reference some artists for things I like and others for other things and it creates a thing that doesn't seem to go well together.

Better anatomy ... I mean most artists are always trying to improve on this and rightfully so. I stare at people all the time, not in a creepy way or anything, like maybe memorizing it helps. There's plenty of resources on this to help with anatomy.

Artistic process ... There's a painterly art process where you colour over the sketch and create beautiful demicoeur work, or you can do what most people do and stick with the linework. Then are you cell shading or smooth shading? Do you need more than one coloured light source? These are some factors that determine how realistic an image can be. I have done both methods and they both have pros/cons. I find the painterly method super fun but I'm lazy and feel like linework is lazier (except when I have changes and need to change four different layers!)

About artists going on a hiatus ... I did this like once last year or something where I didn't draw for a couple months or so. For some reason I had a big jump in improvement, in my own opinion. I thought it was very interesting, that's all I had to say about it.


So aside from hating my work and everything all the time this is all the stuff I'm always trying to improve at. Which is pretty much everything! How does this work?! Baby steps.

Hello people reading this! Just a reminder if you're interested in the bids for the YCH Auction I'm collabing on with  nuzzo, today is the last day for bidding! (Ending at 9pm PST)

Thank you so much everyone who's been participating, it always means so much to me! <3

Auction =>
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/16312083/

You come up with the perfect hairstyle, you tried to make it so unique, you've drawn a handful of pictures but never posted ...

Then you find someone else did the same thing with the same species.
It's almost like there's everything's already been done, heh.

I'll be gone for a week, not that anyone would notice. Things have been super hectic lately and I feel so certain that I'll get into some kind of accident while I'm there and maybe the house will burn down, who knows. It'd be really nice if I could relax and have fun though I wouldn't say an anime convention is an entirely relaxing experience, hah.

For commissions I'm currently working on ... well I'll have my tablet with me so I may still get some work done. I'm looking forward to an organized working schedule and lots of hard work when I get back. <3

So the last pic I posted (NSFW link) got featured on Hentai-Foundry. I have never been featured on any big site like that before and I have always dreamed about it. Well maybe not actually dreamed about but ... it just really means a lot to me, like way too much. And now there it is, still at the top of front page. I was even thinking the other day how it'd be nice to get featured once before I die so I guess I can scratch that off my bucket list. Pretty sure it has something to do with HF loving futa but HAHA WHO CARES.

Must attach obligatory artist rant about how I still think I have all too much improvement to make and I'm nowhere near where I'd like to be. >w>

*sigh*
One step at a time, I may get there yet.

One of the best feelings I get is when I've been productive. But for some reason I get very "scared" of doing tasks. A 15 second phone call I may put off for months. I bet quite a few people will understand what I mean.

So these tasks build up and up, a constant weight on your shoulders and something that keeps me up at night. When I try to force myself to do tasks I feel very nervous and take on any other task to avoid doing that while also feeling like I'm doing something.

Then one day ... I just do the task, and surprisingly it didn't hurt or take very long. I feel so pumped up, I try another then maybe feel like that was plenty for the day. Maybe I just get hooked on it altogether and finish like, every single task that's been building up for the last half a year. To finally not have that mountain of doom plaguing my mind, it feels so fresh, clear, I feel so happy just to be alive.

Then whenever I get bored it just all falls back to where it was. The road to being a responsible adult is a long and hard one. I also probably have ADD or something. This whole journal post is just me trying to avoid doing obligatory work that I find is less fun than drawing. ~(^_^ )~

New artist friend of mine berymuch!

Let's go show him some support! (I fav'd his [NSFW] most recent submission but he's got some amazing detailed work under his belt too!) ^.~

I am so moody and don't feel like doing anything lately ... -3-

But here we go!

Please post a link to the reference of the character you'd like to have sketched and I'll randomly pick some random (but relatively low) number of characters to sketch. Since I need to cut it off somewhere I'll say the entries are good for December 3rd (if it rolls around to the early AM and your on the other side of the world or whatever you can still go ahead~)

Thank you everyone who was supported my work with commissions and favs, it's a really big deal to me. I've never this far in terms of watchers - normally any pictures I do might get none or one or two likes. I guess I have been working hard to improve over time, in a way the harder I try the more I find that needs to be improved, but I can safely tell myself that I have come a long way in a couple years. Thanks again. <3

Winners are ...  ChaosPatrick  Foxgear  MiniMoo93  Dawnchu  addekun2004 and  Yoshey

I just need 6 more~

So I'm not doing the kiriban thing (2000th watcher specifically) because that turns out to be a bad time for some people. Rather, I'd just like to do a small raffle, maybe 3 ... portrait sketches? Something like that. I'll make another journal post announcing the raffle when I get around to it, just a head's up. <3

Additionally I've been pretty slow lately and as normal I hope to pick up the pace for my commissions list soon. Also I've upped my commission prices and took away the smaller options, kind of sucks as I'd like to offer to more people but I simply spend too much time on every picture I do. I always want to do my best and I've been kinda tied up with some other stuff so this works for me and once I get through the queue I can try another YCH to see if it goes better than last time. ^.~

I passively have been trying to get better at sewing for making my own clothes ... because the fashion industry is simply not good enough.

While I have a basic beginner's knowledge I wanted to make a friend who knew a bit more about the complex stuff. Like, when I sew the hem on a convex curve - the hem becomes warped and looks wrinkly. Specific questions can be hard to google answers for and I'd like to have a mentor that I can occasionally go to for solutions.

I'm not sure how relevant fursuit making would be but people who make fursuits probably have experience sewing other stuff too. So if you can ... or know someone ... I'd love to hear from you! TwT

My Skype is dragonsfu if you'd like to add me~

I wanted to strive to not be another artist who goes on "hiatus" for half a year, inevitably life shakes things up. Maybe I didn't let myself slip that bad but for a while I was posting every second day and ... I felt reaaally bad when it took me 10 days to post something and forever more to post something else. Writing it out it seems like maybe it wasn't that bad.

I'm confident that I'm nearing the end of what has been keeping me down, I have a few weeks I'd like to finish up my commission list with. On another note I've been really try harding lately, putting more work into the commissions than I should be (to make it a worthwhile way to make money). While I can't stand being unhappy with my work I'll need to take it down a notch in order to carry on commissions at a workable pace.

This is a pretty useless journal post. I have a desire to be a bit more open and talk to people, I just don't have much of value to say. TwT

My Cintiq Companion decided to brick itself :'<

I guess not decided to, he was kind of made that way. When I looked it up there's whole threads of people reporting the exact same problem: "plugged in, not charging". I loved my Companion, but importantly I loved the Ahri and Zyra pictures that were up to the point of having finished lineart!! D;<

AND THEY MIGHT SEND ME A NEW ONE BUT I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A SCREENSHOT OF THEM TO RECREATE THEM OR ANYTHING. :'<

I have hope, I have hope that it has one ounce of potential to be charged left and with its last breath I can at least upload the Ahri picture ... I will wait and see.

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Also I'm moving away now, yayyyy, tomorrow in fact. Going to the west coast and whatnot. Maybe one day go to Rainfurrest, though everyone hates me so I probably won't. But basically I'm going to be gone then I won't have internet set up AND I DON'T EVEN HAVE A TABLET TO DRAW IN THE MEANTIME. /kicks bucket

UPDATE
It charged enough for me to get my pics back, YEAH >;D

Firstly I would like to say ... the fanart is something I start in bed until my body feels as tired as my mind so I can get to sleep. I don't start colouring it until I'm waiting to hear back from commissions and my schedule has cleared up, commissions are always my first priority because I love my clients. <3

So I have this dream of starting polls to do fanart FOR YOU PEOPLE. So far I've done some League of Legends stuff and one Five Nights at Freddy's (heh) but I'm curious about what else you would be interested in seeing. I'm interested in games, anime and other random popular things like MLP. Make sure to mention specific characters and I won't be doing group pictures for these.

This isn't actually a poll itself, just ideas for one I will put up and others in the future. It's not one-recommendation-per-person so feel free to mention all your favourites. Also I'm a horrible picky person so I probably won't go with things I dislike, but we don't know what I dislike yet so comment everything. ^.~

Updated as of Sept 9

Active Commissions
[linework] Tyth
[waiting] logitech
[starting] Beautiful Bea

Waiting List
AnnaLoze
Yuniko
gar_logan

Side Projects
[colouring] Janna
[sketch] Sailor Moon mini Doujinshi
[concept] Master Yi's Alpha Strike

Future Reservations
Synopsi

I'be been curious about what people watching me are more interested in, please comment which of the following you would like to see more of ~

Femboys/gay
SFW
Girls
Tons of cum [hardcore NSFW]
Whatever I do

Domo arigato! ( ﾉ^ω^)ﾉﾟ

Might be doing some freebies, over here ~
https://www.picarto.tv/live/channel.....watch=DragonFU

Just seeing how this goes, stop by if you're bored or whatever

https://www.picarto.tv/live/channel.....watch=DragonFU

I just got over 900 watchers so I'm not quite there yet but when I get 1k watchers I would like to do a couple free pics which I'll determine by randomized selection of people commenting on that journal post I make at the time. It'll basically be like your character of choice doing whatever but not going to do full background and stuff ... unless maybe I feel all inspired to do so.

Every new watcher I get means a lot to me, on my worst days it's a very positive thing that cheers me up. Now I'm sure nobody cares about this but this is the reason for freebies, hurray. =^.^=

Keep an eye out for this upcoming journal post. Which could be sooner than later or maybe never even happen, who knows!

Due to rules there's a few pictures on my Inkbunny gallery than here, having said that you can probably guess the nature of those pictures. If you happen to be a curious kitten you can see such hidden content HERE.

That is all.