It's 2025 where I live. Usually, I put together a quick recap of my biggest events of the year. If you're interested, you can read it here: https://www.deviantart.com/egondala.....024-1140856102

With that said, Happy New Year! May your 2025 be less shitty ^^

Hey Everyone,

As the title says, I won't be online between December 19 and 23 because I'll be hospitalized due to my abdominal hernia. I'll have my operation on the 20th and, even if I have to stay in the hospital for the whole weekend, I'm expecting to be released by the 23rd latest.

So, yeah, this Xmas will be painful as fuck for me. Not to mention, I'm scared as fuck from hospitals, given that my last surgery was in '95 when I was just 6 years old. And needless to say, my experience wasn't positive at all. :(

Well, at least I was offered a new, more senior position at another company, starting from early 2025. So, I have something to wake up for from my medically induced coma. ^^;

Anyway, apologies in advance if my uploads (deviations, journals, status updates, etc.) will drop to near zero in the upcoming weeks, but now you know the reason. However, I'll try to continue my year-end tradition and update the Xmas tree collage in 2024 as well.

Until the 19th, I'm still here and on vacation (thank fuck :D) so hit me up during this time if you wanna talk.

Peace,


P.S. If you see no activity on my profile after 6 months, then I most likely pulled a Richard Hammond off-screen.

Just putting out the word that  kwiateko is holding a free art raffle. There's still some time until the winner is announced on December 25, so if you want to participate, go here:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/54449372/

Good luck! ^^

I'm happy (?) to announce that I have a Bluesky account:
https://bsky.app/profile/egondalatz.bsky.social

I don't know what to do with it aside from following my favorite artists there. Probably gonna start uploading my Dash images or something. We'll see.

Note: This is a post about my OC plush. Only read further if you're interested. For the record, it's quite an interesting story so I encourage you to get to the end - especially for a special plush maker specifically mentioned throughout. Thank you.

Deep down I always knew that my OC, Rachel 'Dash' Dashner's plush version is a delicate thing. Honestly, what would you expect from a plush that cost me hundreds of dollars back in 2019? Anyway, the point is, in 2023, I made a mistake. I wasn't careful enough and Dash got hurt.

What you can see in the image I just linked is Dash's left hand. At one point, when I posed her arms so she could give me a "hug" while I lay next to her in bed, I broke a wire in her left hand. The damage wasn't visible outside, but I could feel it in the area I circled in red. I knew that I had to do something before the broken wire protruded her palm and the damage became more severe.

The country I'm residing in is far from being a plush maker's paradise but, thankfully, I had some options. The first option was a lady with a doll repair shop in my city but she kindly rejected my request, telling me that the repair was beyond her expertise. Then I turned to two foreign plush makers, Meplushyou and qtpony who provided me with some options and advised me on what to do if I had been forced to either find a plush maker abroad or, worst case scenario, repair Dash myself.

Thankfully, I didn't have to go for going abroad or resorting to self-repair in the end. I found someone in my country, a lady going under the name FunimalArtdolls - whom I contacted on Instagram. She not only accepted my request but also did the job within just two weeks. (I sent Dash away on October 10 and received her back on the 26th.) To top it all, I only paid roughly €36.50 (ca. $39) for everything, including shipping from and to my address, the repair fees, plus the tip of 20% I gave—basically, a fraction of her original cost.

Check out the result here.

Granted, Dash's left hand is now puffier and the color is slightly yellower than the original. But here's the thing - and the reason why I'm writing this journal entry to begin with:

- The plush maker managed to determine the damage pretty well.
- Showed me via photos what the internal structure of Dash's hand looked like so I could understand what needed to be repaired. (Not sharing it with you, but it still gives me the jinkies to have seen Dash's skeleton hand...)
- Revealed that Dash was put together with a serious design flaw - single wiring with no protective layer on the wires - so the snapping of the wire in her hand was only a matter of time.
- Offered an immediate resolution by replacing the original, snapped wire with a strengthened one.
- Gave Dash's left hand a new stuffing and fur "sleeve" as the original was ruffled too much to be put back.
- Oh, and she washed Dash's pajama top just because. :)

Guys, I cannot recommend this plush maker enough. The least I can do for her is make you aware of her social media accounts. If you can, please follow her here:

- Instagram: @funimal_art
- Etsy: FunimalArtdolls

By the way, her main profile isn't repairing plushes, but making them. Pretty good ones, mind you. So if you always wanted a realistic animal plush, even going as far as recreating your pet in a plush form, don't hesitate to contact her and order one for yourself.

Anyway, that's all I got for you today. Thanks again for meplushyou and qtpony for the help and advice. Your contribution greatly helped in getting Dash fixed in such a short time.

Now let's hope I don't have to relive that nightmare I had in the past two months and I can be a good companion to this wonderful plush. Still, I can sleep well knowing that should Dash be hurt again, I have her guardian angel only 75 miles (121 km) away from me.

Since this has been my first (not full) year on Furaffinity, I just wanted to let you know that I usually do a little bit of recapping of my most current year over on DeviantArt. If you are interested, you can reach that journal here:
https://www.deviantart.com/egondala.....2022-942962813

With that said, Happy 2023 - or whatever counts as happy nowadays...

Although I already want to nail myself to the friggin' cross, I wanted to wish you Happy Holidays. I have no faith in 2023 being better than 2020-2022 combined, but one can hope, right? :')
#optimism

Dear Watchers and Visitors,

Even though I have promised that my Furaffinity account would be dedicated entirely to my original character, Rachel 'Dash' Dashner, it's very likely that I have to break that promise. I don't know if you've heard it or not, but recently DeviantArt, the fallen king of art sites, has declared open hunting season on all users' art for AI art engines and sites. This means that from now on not a single art uploaded to dA is safe from bots downloading them and using them as base for shitty, incomprehensive images.

As a precaution I've set all my images over dA to be excluded from the prying eyes of AI monsters, but knowing that dA is basically a dead man walking, I'm considering nuking my oldest and biggest art account for good. Should that happen, I'll start uploading everything remotely furry-related here as well.

In other words, please don't be surprised if there will be a massive input of my art here.

Thanks for understanding.

 egondalatz

Funny that this is the very first journal here on my FA profile - and it's about a My Little Pony Review I did over DeviantArt. Go figure...

But I put a lot of effort into it; in fact, it's most likely my most complex review to date.

Check it out if you're interested:
https://www.deviantart.com/egondala.....ghts-931024985