|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Wish things were a bit less chaotic
|██████████|Will To Art

█ This is something I've contemplated writing a journal about for awhile now (a couple of years at least), and it's about my siblings. I've hesitated on writing about them simply because I have zero experience about the particular situation and if even doing so was appropriate. This is mostly because I think we all have a mutual respect in regards to each others personal and private affairs, and this is despite all of us maintaining a pretty public presence in a way. I suppose the simplest way to put it is that we don't talk to each other too much. It's neither situation of "We love each other to bits" or "We hate each other" it's very neutral territory. We don't really do gossip, nose into, or otherwise interfere with each others affairs.

At any rate, I've only become comfortable enough to write this journal semi-recently as I've gotten a bit more used to the idea of being aware of what each other person does. As such I don't think there will be any particular negative fallout from the contents of this journal, just maybe some interesting tid-bits here and there.

So what are the interesting tid-bits? I have a brother and sister, we all happen to be 'artists' (as loose at that term can be), and we all happen to run galleries here on FA. Of the three of us, I'm the one who hasn't post-secondary education in the arts (I actually did try, but my portfolio wasn't good enough). As such I consider both of them to be better artists on a whole than I am (I will readily admit to being the laziest of us three).

My brother is probably one that a good chunk of you are aware of (but probably didn't know was related to me):  rwolf Does various latex TF themed works, but the tone we use are vastly different. We don't really talk to each other often (and certainly never about these kind of things) so essentially our respective galleries end up they way they are devoid of input from other person.

My sister on the other hand is a bit more obscure and probably could use more traffic and commissioners, who can be found at  furikake She does some awesome character work, and a real good eye for colours. I think she's sillier than I am on a whole, or at least more consistently silly!

I think we're all striving to try to make a proper living off our respective artistic abilities, and ultimately this is the reason for this particular journal's existence. So yeah, I guess this is kind of a very lengthy shout-out journal. Though on that note I really need to focus and get back into the mindset of getting some more art done, been a bit toooo lazy and or probably depressed these past couple of weeks.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Lingering cough, bah!
|██████████|Will To Art

█ (EDIT Science Continues) Since every year there seems to be something, anything to cause people to say "I'm leaving FA forever" I figured this time around I'd do a stamp of FA today (at around noon my time):

14141 Users online — 3241 guests and 10900 registered
Server Local Time: March 19th, 2015 02:33 PM

13763 Users online — 2838 guests and 10925 registered
Server Local Time: March 20th, 2015 03:55 PM

13943 Users online — 3360 guests and 10583 registered
Server Local Time: March 21st, 2015 02:50 PM

15747 Users online — 3525 guests and 12222 registered
Server Local Time: March 22nd, 2015 06:26 PM

12791 Users online — 2641 guests and 10150 registered
Server Local Time: March 23rd, 2015 02:21 PM

14493 Users online — 2908 guests and 11585 registered
Server Local Time: March 25th, 2015 08:56 PM

Now if in like... I dunno, a week these numbers plummet to nothing, then we'll know everyone left!

█ In all seriousness, to me it's a miracle that FA continues to exist considering its non-existent revenue stream. The site as far as I could tell wasn't sponsored by anyone expect by the owner (who was steadily acquiring more and more personal debt), and no one really competed to place advertising on the site despite it being on of the larger sites on the internet (FA artists buying ad spots for pretty much pennies never was going to cut it). Certainly there was no subscription model in place either. Methods for users being able to donate money to the site have been systematically eliminated as well.

I'm not an expert (yes I bold it, and yes I'm even commenting on that), but I think it's an anomaly for a site as big as FA is to be loosing money. Certainly there appears to be smaller sites out there that run a profit, or at least break even. Yet those sites can function. Why? Because they don't have a user base that actively seeks out to destroy it.

Perhaps you might wonder why I think this, but it's not hard to create a scenario that would turn into a shit-storm. Imagine if you will if FA started up a patreon account to help support the site. If your following thought was "That would get shut down so fast" then congratulations, that's the reason why FA is in the state it is. You have so many people who will immediately say "It's a scam!" or "Don't throw away your money" or "More proof FA is going downhill! I'm leaving!" or "Yet another shady scheme to steal money and get nothing from it!" there is literally no way to win.

People certainly demand a lot of transparency on site operations, but how many other websites have those same demands? How many other websites provide that level of transparency? Of what websites I visit every day, FA is the only one where I see this demand (or as I see it jackassery). Well okay, I guess I see it on YouTube, but YT has money; a lot of it. FA? Not so much. (Unless you believe the conspiracy theorists that all the money is being stolen, leaving FA with nothing until it simply dies).

That all said, there doesn't seem to be much in the way IMVU can make money off acquiring FA. Unless I suppose their intent is to copy Deviantart's model of having it as a free site, but having improved functionality behind a subscription wall. Which I wouldn't be surprised if that did happen. It's all speculation. The big question of course ends up becoming "What happens if IMVU can't make money off FA?" People might say that's when FA dies, but I suspect IMVU will look to sell FA off to someone else. You don't just flush down a site with the traffic FA has for nothing, and I suspect there's probably some members of the FA community with deep enough pockets to buy the site from IMVU if that particular scenario came to pass.

█ UPDATE http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:44894969

"IMVU reserves the right to redistribute content that has been uploaded to FurAffinity as agreed upon in page 9 of the terms of sale"

"Basically, for ad purposes (used in screenshots, etc). Sort of like the "re-broadcast rights" if they take a screenshot and post it and it has somebody's icon or image in it."

Since this was recently put out there, this is probably the thing that can cause issues. Deviantart actually had their TOS altered to something similar years back, but it was more up front that they could basically profit from artist's work without their permission. Needless to say that was one of the contributing factors to why I left DA, and I believe DA basically reversed that particular decision in a hurry. (I didn't stick around for the fallout, so I don't know for certain)

This is roughly the same issue. No one likes it when a site basically says "We can do whatever we like with the content you've produced without your permission." No one likes it when a random person does it, no one is going to like it if the site does it. Basically I think FA and IMVU has a very short window to defuse this particular bomb. The potential for serious damage is high, because very few artists tolerate that kind of wording. Certainly has bumped my feelings of "Eh, more drama" to "Okay, that's not okay at all."

█ SECOND UPDATE

Q: I heard/read IMVU has the right to repost my content and use it however they want?
A: "Fur Affinity is governed by the site's terms of use, not Google's, Apple's or IMVU's." - IMVU

Rest assured, IMVU is *NOT* taking FA content, redistributing it, reposting it, using it in-game, etc. It's your content. Only FA has the right to show it if you upload it to the site. No one else.


Good that an answer was produced quickly, though I will remain as always skeptical. Really people should be skeptical about everything, but a lot of people like to skip skepticism and go straight into paranoia.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Still slightly sick I think
|██████████|Will To Art

█ The other day I stumbled across this Ted Talk video. It contains a lot of stuff I had to figure out on my own over the years. It didn't really give me much new insights into my own emotional health, rather it's more of a "At last, someone else who has my mindset." Certainly I've touched on some of the things talked about in past journal entries, but what's presented is far more coherent and insightful than what I've rambled about I feel.

The thing I did get some insight on is that I'm one of the people who's afraid of failing so much, that often I don't try at all. I think now that I realize it I might be able to pursue some things I think and sometimes talk about, yet haven't.

I highly recommend anyone who's struggling with their emotional and mental health to give it a watch.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Maybe slight sick
|██████████|Will To Art

█ Mostly writing this journal as a sort of marker for the state of my mind, which is to say that I've been working whist depressed. Not that's a particular special thing, as I'm sure a lot of people do that on a daily basis; I know I certainly did it when I worked a normal job, going through all the daily motions. Though going through the motions is easy when you only need to set your brain to neutral. Slightly different when I have to apply my brain when it comes to drawing, still been pulling it off semi-okay.

In any event, I'm managing my depressive episodes slightly better. I did have that familiar feeling of crushing hopelessness and pointlessness a few days back, but the worst bit of it only lasted a couple of hours as I put on the mental breaks on that thought before it turned into a negative feedback loop. I wouldn't say I've recovered from it as I still find myself low on energy, but I'll take low energy over feeling miserable.

Incidentally, I don't place blame on my less than stellar mood on the approaching holiday as it holds no meaning to me. If anything it's coincidental (and was about two weeks too early anyways).

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Fighting that depression thing
|██████████|Will To Art

█ Been awhile since I've done the S.A.D. suit (singles awareness day) theme of commission. The other commission list will remain intact, I'll just be doing some images along this theme for a week or two (depending on when I get bored of it, and if my mood co-operates). Same general prices apply: Takes me about 2-4 hours to complete a picture (depending on character and what's asked for) and I try to work for $10-15 an hour.

This will be a first come first serve sort of deal, so if you're interested leave a message in this journal. Leave a link to a reference sheet/image, and any particular specifics you want in terms of the posing, details, expression, extras ect ect.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Generally Tired
|██████████|Will To Art

█ The format of my computer's hard drives and re-installation of programs has gone without any major problems. Main thing really was waiting for the downloads for various updates (some of which are trickling in still). The OS switch from 32 to 64 fixed the crashing problems I was previously experiencing with some programs (which I suspected was from memory leaks). Hopefully I can get back to the business of arting proper again if my mood co-operates.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Anxiety over Reinstalling Everything!
|██████████|Will To Art

█ After putting it off for several years I've decided to format my computer. Two main reasons why: The first is that way back whenever I had partitioned my drives for the purpose of being able to clean up space easier, but these days the partitions are too small and I need to get rid of the partitions altogether. The second reason is that since forever my OS has been 32-bit, and that itself causes problems these days; but due to the existing partitions I can't just install the 64-bit OS on top, since to get rid of the partitions I need to format the drives.

Reinstalling software is such a pain. Some people can navigate doing it better, but me; eh, just takes me forever to get my system back and running properly. I usually run into problems with network/internet connectivity, and then past that it's hunting down update software, and then waiting forever for various downloads. More so these days since fewer things come in disc form, and even if they do there's so many updates to download anyways. At the very least I've managed to remember the various passwords I use for different things that I'll need to access later.

If things go well, I guess my computer will be back up and running in a few hours. If things go not so well, I'll probably be driving myself crazy over the course of the next few days. Really I'm at the point where I should straight out replace my computer, but I tend to avoid spending money on myself; especially in instances where I don't need to. I suppose if everything goes way south that'll be the last resort and part of the driving myself crazy bit.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Still gotta keep at it!
|██████████|Will To Art

█ My journal notifications had a lot of these test results posts so I figured I might as well do it as well for the sake of curiosity and science! I suppose it's fitting that the top result I got was "Experimentalist."

The results aren't too surprising, but interesting to see how much weight ended up each category.

== Results from http://bdsmtest.org/ ==
79% Experimentalist
71% Bondage Giver
71% Switch
68% Bondage Receiver
61% Brat
59% Submissive
58% Daddy/Mommy
58% Non-monogamist
51% Brat Tamer
50% Degradation Receiver
46% Master/Mistress
45% Dominant
41% Exhibitionist
41% Girl/Boy
38% Voyeur
34% Degradation Giver
32% All-Rounder
29% Masochist
29% Slave
16% Primal (Prey)
16% Sadist
13% Primal (Predator)
11% Pervert
9% Vanilla
See my results online at http://bdsmtest.org/result.php?id=53162

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Slight Depression
|██████████|Will To Art

█ So I watched Snowpiercer today, a bit by accident really; someone else was watching so I decided to give it a watch as well (missed the beginning of it, but I don't think I missed anything to particularly vital to the 'plot'. I titled this journal "Left vs Right" for a variety of reasons, but the one for me is the left and right side of the brain. The left side of the brain is the more logical side of the brain, and the right side of the brain is considered to be the creative side. This movie is for the right side of the brain, the creative side. Which is to say that if logic is hugely important to you, this movie was probably a horrible experience for you. I'm a person who values logic a bit more than creativity, and this is expressed a lot through my art. Certainly my works have quite the margin required for suspension of disbelief, but it still follows it's own set of rules; but they're my rules, and people may not enjoy those. There's certainly ideas I'd explore more if I was more willing to let go of my logic, but me adhering to those rules doesn't mean I don't appreciate those who do go past where I'm comfortable with them. Likewise with this movie, even though I don't like the leaps of logic (or gaps of logic) in the Snowpiercer, I can appreciate the reasons for which it was done.

█ At this point, SPOILER WARNING! Normally I wouldn't really care about a spoiler warning because knowing the plot is generally unimportant to the enjoyment of a movie, but the spoilers here is more about the message you receive if you know certain things going in. It is to say... to have this movie spoiled means you will lose out on that epiphany moment. That the second time you watch a movie (or reflect upon it) you see that movie differently, you see things with a different eye. Granted, you might be a person who sees with different eyes to start with; which I sorta did, but still I think if I had the movie spoiled going in I think I would have ended up being really distracted looking for things while watching it. So yeah, you've been warned; read no further if you want to see a rather... surreal movie.

█ Now this movie was released in the summer of last year, so it's been floating around a bit, and two main criticisms with the movie: The first is are the large-plot holes and logical gaps required for the movie to 'function', that calling the movie 'artsy' is just a weak excuse for the movies logical flaws. This is where the logical left side of the brain prevails. Modern movies these days have been stuck in 'hyper realism' for sometime, and has been bleeding into every kind of genre of movie. Take Star Wars, where the "Force" was just that; a word. You could just say 'magic' and it would be just as appropriate, but then realism got pushed into the picture, because the "Force" just has to be explained and so now it's mitochloridebleach in a vain attempt to replace 'magic' with 'science'. It does nothing for the movie, nothing is explained and at the same time you can't help but feel it's wrong.

Snowpiercer follows this theme very closely, and hell could be one of the underlying layers if the film itself. I suppose I can start talking about the premise and plot of the movie now. The gist of it is that the Earth froze over and is a barren frozen lifeless wasteland. The surviving members of humanity all survive and live on a train, and have been on this train for almost two decades. We are introduced to some of the passengers of this train, people who exist in the back of the train in windowless cars. It's dirty, grimy, overcrowded, an unpleasant place to be in. The only food comes in the form of 'protein bars', which one assumes doesn't taste that good; but hey, food is food. People are are alive, surviving, but it's pretty much a prison, and they want out. In terms of logic things are okay, suspension of disbelief is fine. How things are taken care of is because they are on a 'super train.'

Now questions start to arise when you realize that this train has not stopped in nearly 20 years. Questions of what about damage, repairs, maintenance. Questions about the state of the track itself. The energy requirements of this perpetual motion machine. Where does the food come from? Where does the water come from? Some of these questions are addressed, but others are not. At first the answers are acceptable, but as the movie goes on, the more and more the answers are less acceptable. In fact the more answers one demands of the movie's logic, premise, and even ultimate goal and destination, the more the movie unravels; and is finally derailed. It is where the movie dies. Incidentally it is also where everyone dies as well. The end of the movie is where logic and rules stops, and where one's imagination has to take over. Even if the extent of the imagination is that the two survivors of the train wreck is they'll either freeze to death or be eaten by polar bears. Through the course of the movie logic is gradually and slowly being replaced by insanity. The beginning of the movie has sound logic: It's deadly cold outside, the train is warm, logical for people to be on this train. The end of the movie is almost nothing but pure insanity, and one of the characters even says "We're all a little insane, you have to be to live on this train." It's the movie's not so subtle hint at how this movie flows: From logic to madness. Yet for people who complain how blunt and to the face at how Snowpiercer is, and that it is in no way a thoughtful subtle movie, I think very few people caught this aspect of the movie. Course they can claim that the movie is just being lazy about it's logic, and that my explanation is an 'artsy' weak lame excuse. The train continually moves from the left to the right. It's also how progress and time bars progress. Left to right. From logic to creativity/insanity/madness. There's even notable steps in the logic by the types of train cars they move through. Take the 'food carts' as the easy example: The first food cart is that the protein bars are created from ground up insects. It's logical, insects are high in protein, require minimal resources to produce. The second food cart is the greenhouse, where fruits are being grown; reasonable enough to keep plants there no explanation needed really. The third food cart is the aquarium, which is stretching logic a bit; but it is explained that they are only harvested from twice a year, and that it's the rate where the environment is sustainable. It's ridiculous, but it's there; with a reasonable enough explanation. The final food cart is passed over wordlessly: A frozen meat cart. Not just small things like birds mind you, but the ribs of something large like a cow being hung from the ceiling. Logically this cart should not exist, yet how does one explain insanity? I certainly think that the steady disregard for the train's logic was deliberate, as opposed to lazy. It is the price being paid for turning the 'Force' into mitowhatevers: you will be thrown out of the suspension of disbelief.

The second main complaint about Snowpiercer is it's commentary about society and class. How it's rich vs poor. How it's just another thing about the lazy dirty poor rising up and fighting the hard working rich. Certainly it's there, but I wouldn't consider it commentary; I think it's an observation of it. It's basically saying "I'm just stating the facts." there's no judgement involved. Course here is where one leaves themselves open to evisceration about how all the rich people are just caricatures and stereotypes of rich people. Or how it's just lazy writing yet again because it's rich people being evil because they're rich. What people who make this particular complaint miss is that the rich people on this train don't do any of the fighting: It's the middle class. Most of the fighting is done in the middle cars, where the middle class is represented. After the soldiers of the rich have been defeated the rich passengers of this train simply look on. They hide from the sight of the lower class marching through their train cars. In the end all the fighting and killing was done between the poor and the middle class. Though why would that happen? It's supposed to be the rich vs everyone else right? The movie touches on the why, where the children and the adults give themselves over to the train they are on and it's conductor at the front of the train; completely and absolutely, without question; and why not? The train does protect them from the outside, where it's a frozen wasteland and people would die rather quickly. They have no reason to change things, and odds are if they did it would mean certain death for them. In the end, what this movie is presenting is that everyone is a passenger and a prisoner of the class system; even the conductor at the front of the train. These last parts are extremely up front and blunt that it's hard for people to miss it; yet people only care that they see poor vs rich. Sure they will say "yeah I see the point, but this isn't art, it's not subtle about it." A head scratcher for sure, to have people to say that something is not subtle yet completely miss the message, even if the message is "everyone dies."

Oh I suppose that might be the third complaint: The ending, which is tied a bit to the logic of the movie itself. Basically the ending is the train derails and everyone dies except for two people. There's almost no logic to the ending, as I noted, Snowpiercer throws out logic more and more as it progress nearer and nearer to the ending. Instead of logic, more and more symbolism is inserted instead; and there's a lot of it. The easier ones to note is how the adults throw themselves around the children before the crash: To protect the future. The children, who have live entirely inside the train, setting foot for the first time out into the world: being born. Them seeing life in a lifeless world in the form of a polar bear: Hope. If you only apply logic to the ending (as most people would do) then there's only one conclusion to draw: They're going to freeze to death and be eaten by that polar bear.

There's only one more thing I want to touch on on this movie (I'm sure I could go on for much longer, heck I've gone on a bout it a lot already) and it's the notion of how the protagonist has to move from the left (back) of the train to the right (front) of the train. To the front is his perceived redemption, his escape from the hellish existence that is the back of the train. His quest, his mission, is goal. It's a simple concept, to progress he must move right; if he moves left he is regressing and moving away from what he perceives is what he wants. This is one of the subtle things about the movie (subtle for me anyways), but it's important to take note of when he has to look back, and when he chooses to move back; as well as what he leaves behind as well. Some of things he leaves behind are his friends and his own humanity. The further he gets to front of the train, the more he looses. Near the front of the train he has lost nearly everything and can no longer go back, there's nothing left for him to go back to. Instead he is given the choice to forward or to the side of the train: Outside of the train, where he will freeze to death; at least that's what he's convinced of, but he is asked "What if we can survive?" Though it's an easy choice for the protagonist as he's not suicidal, and he's not going to abandon his goal when he's so close to it. Yet even when he confronts the conductor at the front of the train he finds himself being pushed further and further to the right and forward, till he literally cannot. He is at the front of the train, he perhaps is the front of the train; which is what the conductor has done anyways, relinquishing his position to him. To hold all that remains of humanity in his hands. When he looks back here, he sees the chaos that humanity has descended to; the people fighting and killing each other. He has the power to decide the fate of everyone on this train, and he decides that whatever the train is; it's not what he wants. So he saves the children and derails the train; discarding the uncertain past in favor of the uncertain future.

Though certainly there's a number of ways to view the ending. One of the ways I look at is that people will allow their sense of morality and emotions to overcome one's better judgement. The protagonist adamantly and vehemently rejected leaving the train as it was certain death, yet when given the truth of the world he lived in; he decided that his morals would trump his better sense of judgement which in the end kills everyone on the train. That his regret over a bad moral choice in the past also provoked him into making the choice of "The need of the one outweighs the needs of the many." Basically in the end the protagonist abandons logic in favor of emotional reasons, much in how the movie abandons logic in favor of symbolism. How much was his redemption worth to him? The lives of everyone else on the train. Though can it be considered redemption at that point?

█ In the end I found Snowpiercer to be very thought provoking, more so than any other movie I've seen in a long while. There's layers upon layers to peel away from the experience if one so chooses. Yes there's a lot of blunt pieces of symbolism and messages, but that's just the low hanging fruit so to speak. You can scratch past that and find more and more. It's not a movie that questions the nature of reality like Inception or The Matrix, but rather questions the nature of choice, logic, and symbolism. If you watched this movie then you might ask the question "What's up with the fish being cut slowly with an axe? What's that supposed to symbolize? To show that blood is going to be spilled? That the axe is dangerous and sharp?" If I was to take a guess, I would say "It's when one uses symbolism when you're not supposed to: you're just being pretentious." because what happens with that fish? The protagonist steps on it later in the middle of the fight scene and slips and falls. That fish literally served no purpose but the cause the protagonist to slip and fall.

I think I'd recommend this movie to anyone who wants to see something different from the usual fare of what's usually been offered in the past... next to forever really. If you're a fan of the hyper-realism movies that's been extremely prevalent in the past few years, you're going to hate this movie. If you're absolutely tired of the dark-gritty-hyper-real movies, this I think this movie might be akin to having a cold water thrown at your face: Shocking yet a bit refreshing, even if you end up feeling cold after.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: People make things way too hard
|██████████|Will To Art

█ Today I tried to get back into the art mood, but I found myself just sighing in frustration mostly. I'd probably be less frustrated if I was able to go "I can't work with what you're giving me, I'm skipping you and doing something else" but that makes me feel like a jerk; so I end up spending an inordinate amount of time trying to squeeze what I need out of people. It just kills my motivation to have to send note after note asking what someone wants, only to get back extremely vague notions of what they want to see. I'm a detail orientated person, I need well-thought out and detailed descriptions of whats to be drawn.

I hate improvising. I hate being told to do 'whatever you want'. I hate being told 'or this'. I hate being told 'maybe this'.

I also hate being told 'do what you like', because the point of me drawing is make what someone else likes so long as it's inside my comfort zone.

If you want me to draw something, then know what you want drawn. "I want Endy art" is not enough, and it's aggravating when that's all that's brought to the table.

█ With that venting out of the way I'm making this as a new commission line journal. The previous line is intact and will be posted at the end of this journal. The wait is probably a month long currently.

So here are the steps/rules for this commission journal:

- I try to work for $10-15 an hour.

- Single commissions take about 2-4 hours to do (depending on complexity, misc details). So if it takes me 2 hours the price range is $20-30, if it takes me 4 hours, the price range will be $40-60. Though this is a suggested range, as I always leave it up to the individual to pay whatever they think the effort was worth (be it within, less, or more than the range).

- Comic / animation commissions are a bit trickier to estimate the cost to end up being, the best guideline I can offer to that regards is that it takes roughly an hour to draw in a body for comic/sequence work. It's a bit faster than single commissions per body as I put a bit less attention to detail and form in a comic than I would a single image, and I'm a bit less fickle about making every body drawn in a comic/sequence 'perfect.' So drawing 10 bodies worth in a comic would probably around $100-150 worth of work as an example. (Might take less or more time depending on details and the like). In any event I do my best to keep track of the time it takes to assemble it together (I don't count my breaks towards the total time, cause that would just be silly).

- If you want a commission (and you're not part of the existing list) leave a reply in this journal giving a rough outline/theme of what you want drawn.

- When you get a note from me asking if you're interested, I will expect a reply within 2-3 days. If it's an idea/theme I don't want to do, you'll be able to note me a different idea/theme.

- When you note me back I expect a detailed description of what you want, as well as references. If it's a comic I want to know what you want seen in each panel. If it's an animation of some sort, I want to know what kind of animations should be included.

- If it's a big project, include an upper limit of what you want to spend so I can think on the budget and craft an appropriate reply back.

- Please only request a commission once a journal.

█ Commission Line from Previous Journal

Libra-11 - Waiting on Details
dark_jaguar01 - Waiting on Details
Abion - Waiting on Details

In line
firewolf66
Rocangus
Takumori
guardian-hawk
thelonelydragon
Kartonis
TheIrateFox
SlimeDragon1995
loup067
DemGriff
KingAlastor
ElementalWolf

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Either doing better or in a state of mania
|██████████|Will To Art

█ I suppose I'm writing a journal for no particular reason. Well... I suppose there's a reason, and it's that I should maybe try to write a journal at a moment where I don't need to dump a lot of blahs out there to try and feel better. Though in regards to that, yes the previous journal did help in that instance. Well it's either that or I'm in the 'mania' part of my self-diagnosed bi-polar disorder, since I do seem to go through cycles of depression then shorter bouts of focus and reduced need for sleep. Well, I suppose a cycle wouldn't be the best way of describing it, as it's more of a wave. It's more of a wave because I've been able to move said wave up a bit, so I seem to be spending less time in a depressed state and more time in the better one. I'm not sure I would consider the top of the wave 'happy' just 'motivated' if that really makes any sense at all. Though either way, it's progress to something better.

So far I've been able to keep the art streak going. Something like three months now, course I don't know what my longest was. The threat of burnout seems relatively low currently, not that I can afford to do so. On that particular front (that of money) finances seem to be stable for the time being, working on saving back up a buffer that was whittled away over the past year.

Currently things are going good, though reading over my journal I can't help but notice the part of my brain that always worries about the downside of things being fully present. I don't know if it's pessimism or realism, kinda hard to distinguish the two at times.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Case of the blahs
|██████████|Will To Art

█ This is just sort of a dump journal, so apologies in advance; I kinda need them now and then to try and climb out of 'that' mood. That being depression. Though a short thought on that word is that it's simply misleading, and that a new word... no words, plural. I suppose I'll maybe do a brain dump in regards to that at the end of this posting.

Right now I'm sitting on almost a dozen images I should post up into my gallery, but I just lack the energy to do it. The first normal reaction one should have is "Why would that take energy? It's only a few clicks and not even a minute's time to upload!" and I understand that sentiment completely, but that's were the sense of understanding parts ways. It's a thing that depression does, and it's why depression needs more than one way to define it. Now mind you sure, there can be some anxiety behind posting images: People might not like it, or personally don't think it's good enough, or if it's ugly and shouldn't be posted; and those reasons can be understandable, yet none of those are the reasons. The reason is simply a plain "I don't feel like it."

It's illogical, it doesn't make sense; and that's a lot of what depression can be (at least the kind I'm currently experiencing). It's also why I need to type this stuff out, so I can see that ridiculousness and let the logical side of my brain take over and drag me out of that mental pit. Depression for me I suppose is climbing out of a pit, in the dark; and maybe writing a journal is like having a flashlight, gives me a better idea of a way out, instead of blindly scratching at the walls hoping for something to grab on to.

That all said, it's not as bad as it's been in the past; so I am a bit better about it. Though in what sense? Mostly that I'm still managing to do some art. It's been relatively better for awhile now I think, since based on my journals the biggest gap was about two years ago where I disappeared for about 4 months. Basically my low points aren't as low.

█ Now about the 'kinds' of depression. This will be a sort of... a list based on my own perceptions, of what I've seen people think it is, and what I experience it as; it's not going to be a dictionary definition by any means, but really it's way to broad a definition anyways. The dictionary definition tending to be some flavor of "persistent sadness"

So here's the kinds of 'depressions' that seem to exist.

"Sad" Depressions:

- Personal Attack (Someone/something that hurt you deliberately) Leading to anxiety in having to deal with it again in the future, leading to preoccupied thoughts on the subject; even if you don't have to ever again, or even if the situation was resolved in a good way.

- Personal Loss (Losing someone/something you care about) Leading to anxiety in how to live without what you lost, leading to preoccupied thoughts on the subject; which persists even as life goes on.

- Personal Failure (Being unable to achieve a goal despite your best efforts) Leading to anxiety about repeating the failure or about being unable to ever achieve success, leading to thinking repeatedly about the regrets in the choices you've made; even if you make better choices down the road, never allowing yourself that 'win' even when you do have it.

These kinds of depressions can for the most part be dismissed as "well that's life, suck it up." and maybe it is; but it's a pretty short fall into depression. Certainly people can and do suck it up, lead 'normal' lives, but they wouldn't consider that life 'happy'. Some people can let things slide into the past easily, others can't; that's an important difference that a lot of people don't get. Additionally, it's hard to separate 'that's life' from the depression, if 'that's life' happens to you on a daily basis. You only get to know after you've been able to separate yourself from the situation and actually get that chance to move on with your life.

"Empty" Depressions

These ones are... harder to explain, because they lack a cause, and don't require thought to exist. It's not something that's thought, but rather felt; and there's a few ways those feelings can exist.

I suppose as an artist the best way to explain it as such: With colours there's contrast, brightness, saturation; things that can make an image pop-out or blend together into a samey grey. A parallel exists with feelings, I suppose with 'purpose', 'motivation', 'fulfillment'. Like with colours, if one thing is out of whack, the rest of the image falls apart. If there's no contrast then everything fades to white, if there's no brightness everything ends up black, and if there's no saturation everything turns to grey. It should be noted, that this only matters if you have an image to work with.
When it comes to people, that image are people's hopes and dreams.

The primary attack on most hopes and dreams is that it's a waste of time. That the thing you enjoy won't amount to anything. Even if you're motivated to work towards that dream, and even if you personally find it fulfilling, because it lacks a purpose (aside from making you happy); you probably should abandon it.

The other angle of attack is that it's too hard. That no matter how much time and effort you put into your dream, you will never amount to anything; as such you shouldn't try to spare yourself the humiliation. This would be the attack on one's motivation. This despite it having a purpose, and despite it being fulfilling; you just lack the finesse and skill.

The third attack is that you are actually a fake and a fraud. That you have no true ownership of what you accomplished. That thing you did or created was because of the efforts of someone else. Your successes are not your own, and you are simply the tool of someone else.

Now I didn't state a source for the 'attacks' because most of the time, they will come from the person themselves. Granted a third party will also lump on those attacks as well which of course makes things worse.

These 'empty' depressions come as a mixture of those three 'feelings'. Sometimes all three are in play, sometimes it maybe just one; but even if it's just one, then you on a whole won't feel happy in what you're doing. Keep in mind people's hopes and dreams are different from one another. Course, some people just don't understand that sometimes a person's hope and dream is simply "I want to be left alone." Though think of the implication of that, of how when you see a person what goes through inside their head is that they are a waste of time, who will never amount to anything, and even if they do it was only because people felt sorry for them. Think of how people confuse that level of depression with "Oh he's just feeling sad" and such is the reason why I think there really needs to be a better way to define 'depression.'

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: I'm exhausted
|██████████|Will To Art

█ How I'll be taking commissions have changed again, seems like every-time it changes. I can feel my allergy to stress prickling along my skin as I try to type this out, feeling all itchy and the like. The short and gist of it is I'm doing commissions a bit more based on the time spent, as opposed to a 'set' amount per commission. I'm also changing a bit on how I accept and do commissions as well, as in I'll be a bit more picky with them.

First things first, here's the *rough* guideline for cost currently:

- I try to work for about $10-15 an hour.

- Single commissions take about 2-4 hours to do (depending on complexity, misc details). So if it takes me 2 hours the price range is $20-30, if it takes me 4 hours, the price range will be $40-60. Though this is a suggested range, as I always leave it up to the individual to pay whatever they think the effort was worth (be it within, less, or more than the range).

- Comic / sequence commissions are a bit trickier to estimate the cost to end up being, the best guideline I can offer to that regards is that it takes roughly an hour to draw in a body for comic/sequence work. It's a bit faster than single commissions per body as I put a bit less attention to detail and form in a comic than I would a single image, and I'm a bit less fickle about making every body drawn in a comic/sequence 'perfect.' So drawing 10 bodies worth in a comic would probably around $100-150 worth of work as an example. (Might take less or more time depending on details and the like). In any event I do my best to keep track of the time it takes to assemble it together (I don't count my breaks towards the total time, cause that would just be silly).


█ So if you want some art from me, leave a journal post with your idea. A short description of what you want, doesn't have to be elaborate.

It can be a single picture, or a sequence, or a comic. I'm not sure how much time an animation would take for those who would want to ask for something along that line. The animated avatar icons for example seem to take me about 5 hours to assemble, something more complex would probably take even more time.

Anyways, if it's an idea that I think I can handle doing or want to work on, I'll reply the idea in this journal asking you to note me references/details, and can go from there.

On the other hand if it's an idea I don't want to do, I'll leave a reply informing as such; and you'll be free to change the idea to something else and I'll look it over again later on.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: I hate dealing with people
|██████████|Will To Art

█ Under 'normal' circumstances, I probably wouldn't be opening up commissions. Mostly because I'm probably near my burn-out point. Though commissions will be open due to being in a somewhat similar situation as last year, with the household being on the shorter end of cash-flow. (The next journal entry will where I figure out how I want to handle commissions.

Certainly I've been doing work for the past four weeks, and been arting pretty frequently for longer than that. For the most part during that time I've been 'okay', with my depression being mostly absent, or things I've been able to shrug off / deal with.

Unfortunately that hasn't been the case recently. The main reason why is because of passive-aggressive people. They are nearly impossible to deal with, and unpleasant to be around and that's when they're behaving relatively normal; let alone when they get into one of their 'moods.'

It wouldn't be so bad if there was actually a way 'out' or a way to 'win' when dealing with passive-aggressive, but there isn't. It's a battle of attrition, and when it's me vs them, there's only one of me; and a whooooole lot of them. There's only so much guilt-tripping and indirect attacks of character I can take. Course this is my own fault really, as I don't like brushing people off and I do try my best to take other people's feelings into account. Which means actually wading through the passive-aggressive shit that's lobbed at me, instead of just throwing it directly back in their face; and it's exhausting.

There's just too many landmines to contend with when dealing with such people, because it's all one big feedback loop of guilt. Their first salvo is almost always a guilt-trip one way or another. Either be their awful circumstances out of your control, or them accusing you not liking them. There's virtually no way of replying back to them in where they won't take it the wrong way, giving their guilt-generators even more fuel. You're forced into caring about them or it's your fault for making them feel even worse. The big problem with this situation is it's often far worse to brush these people off than it is to humor them. Basically the options for the person on the receiving end of these guilt-trips is "drizzling shit" or "shit hurricane", rational people will take the drizzle over the storm, which is why so many passive-aggressive people are humored so often. The reason why things end up being a shit hurricane so often is despite all their self-loathing, passive-aggressive people actually make a fair number of friends. This is mostly because most people are caring, and they do genuinely feel sorry for those people. So because of this, if you end up making a passive-aggressive person sad or worse yet, angry; you'll end up facing the wrath of all their friends coming at your throat for treating them poorly. Cause that's all passive-aggressive people do when they're slighted: Complain about it. Non-stop.

I have enough.. mental stamina to endure the antics of a couple of passive-aggressive people in my life without me going too crazy. Past that I get tired, and I get tired fast. (As this journal might suggest, the number of passive-aggressive people I've been dealing with has spiked over my limits). I suppose if I'm going to be able to keep working at this without going crazy, I'm going to have to find some way of dealing with it. I guess this journal dump sort of helps relieve some of that stress and anxiety.

I just want to do art, I don't need people's emotional baggage; I can barely handle my own at times. I want to be able to say 'no' without it being some huge personal insult, or the crushing the hopes and dreams of another person. Passive-aggressive people just suck all the fun out of this.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Can't stop working...
|██████████|Will To Art

█ Just noticed that I've gone over 10,000 watchers, that's quite a lot! So many stalkers... I didn't have anything planned for it, though I figured it's something worth mentioning. I mean all things considered I'm sure a large chunk of my watcher list is probably inactive (not like there's any easy way to check that).

Though to my watchers: Glad you like my stuff and find it entertaining! I hope to keep doing so, and hopefully not get too repetitive or boring! I try my best to push my limits every now and then and explore what I can do artistically. This all contingent that my sanity and will to art stays intact.

█ My apologies for the lack of anything really Halloween themed this year, I just haven't been able to fit it in with the various comic things I've been doing as of late.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: This just in: Food... costs... money!
|██████████|Will To Art

█ First off I donated to FA (or Dragoneer depending on how you wish to view it). I did it through PayPal since I don't have a credit card, and I only was able to do it via that method from Dragoneer's Twitter post, since it wasn't mentioned in the FA one.

So the next question is why I donated. It's pretty simple really: A large chunk of everything you see in this gallery is owed to the existence of FA. Years ago when I was contemplating about moving my art into the direction it did there wasn't a lot of options. I was only really aware of DA, FA, VCL, and some other gallery sites that I've long forgotten about (which were smaller or had hard rules against sexual themes). So yeah it was basically me picking between three sites. Now you can say I could have looked harder for a different or better site, but frankly that was low on my priority list. I was after all struggling with if I wanted to do the kind of art that a sizable section of the population find repulsive, and hate with perhaps every fiber of their being. The kind of art that I would be forced as a default to keep hidden from people I know, and would need to be drawn and produced in private; kept secret. To this day that still remains true. I don't regret the choice mind you, but that's with 6 years of hindsight.

So I picked FA, with a lot of apprehension, anxiety, and fear; but I did my thing, and the community here were for the most part friendly, warm, and open. I've made a few friends here for the time I've spent here, and I value that. I value that far more than the amount of money I donated certainly, and a part of me wishes I could have donated more; but I'm not rich. That support and friendship allowed me to explore my interests more freely and openly than I ever had in the past, or would have ever had.

It's also because of what I built here on FA that allows me to do commissions pretty reliably when I need them. I've earned a fair bit of money by having my gallery 'live' here on FA. It's allowed me to avoid going back into the 'normal' work industry. Though don't have any strange ideas that I'm rolling in money, if I took a job flipping burgers right this moment I'd earn more money easily; I'm just thankful that I have doing art as a feasible alternative.

So I donated because FA has given me a lot, with all that I've gained donating some money was an easy choice.

I didn't donate in hopes for future improvements. I didn't donate to see code improvements. I didn't donate for hardware upgrades. I didn't even donate to see FA moved into the cloud. I donated because FA has already provided me so much. I have no problem with how FA is right now. Yes it has flaws both big and small. Yes there's better structured sites. Though despite all that, it ended up being FA that provided me the experience I've had, not those other places.

In the end, even if FA completely disappeared and was gone forever tomorrow, I would have zero regrets about donating. I have zero regrets because I'm giving money for what I've gained over the years, not for improvements to the site that may or may not ever come.


█ DDOS, what can I say? It's not like Google was brought down. People can look this stuff up. People can self-educate themselves in matters they know nothing about. Yet people happily jump head-first into issues with zero information and insight. Quite a few people talking about how FA would have fared the DDOS attack better if it was coded better, or if their servers were better. That's not how the internet, or DDOS attacks work. Again, it wouldn't be hard to Google DDOS and learn about it; but here's a metaphor for it anyways:

You want to go to a store and have to drive down a road. Let's say there's three stores, a shitty one, an okay one, and a super one; each have a road leading to each store. Now, let's introduce a bunch of protesters who really hate these stores (especially that shitty one). So these protesters all get in their cars and start driving back and forth along the roads. They send the bulk of their cars to clog up the road leading to the shitty store, making it impossible for you to go to that store (but why would you right?) It's still possible to get to the other stores but it's slow going. Though why mention the quality of the stores to begin with in this metaphor? That's the question isn't it? The quality of the stores have nothing to do with the size of the road, nor the traffic on it. If the protestors had moved all their cars to block the super store, the exact same thing happens. Sure you can do such things as open up other roads, detours, or redirect traffic; but if you throw enough cars at the system, it's still going to go down (or be severely slowed). When it comes to the internet, you don't build or manage the roads, you simply get to pick what road you want to setup shop along (or can afford).


█ The Conspiracy. If you don't know what it is, here it is in short: Dragoneer setup the donation drive hours before the DDOS attack happened; therefore, Dragoneer orchestrated the DDOS attack to gain pity donations.

Now I was going to draw what I thought about this conspiracy, but I think I can depict it via text inside a journal easy enough.:

When Dragoneer could have setup a donation drive and not be accused of masterminding the whole thing
(It will be shown in these coloured blocks █)

Before FA Existed | Before the DDOS | During the DDOS | After the DDOS | After FA is Dead
█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

What's that? You don't see any of the blocks coloured? Exactly.

If he had setup a donation site before FA even existed, people will claim he brought it back from the grave to cash in the DDOS. Therefore he caused the DDOS to get money.
In the current scenario, where he setup the donation a few hours before the attack, people claim he caused the DDOS attack to gain pity donations. He could have set it up a week before and people would still say he caused the DDOS to get extra donations.
If it was setup during the DDOS people would again claim that he was taking advantage of the situation, or that he caused the DDOS himself giving him a perfect opportunity to start a donation drive.
If it was setup after the DDOS none of the above lines of 'logic' have changed. People would just say he's taking advantage of the attack to get pity donations.
Even if FA was dead years from now, Dragoneer would be accused of deliberately causing the death of FA to get pity donations, conspiracy!

█ In the end Dragoneer isn't FA, and FA isn't Dragoneer. He just happens to be it's Stewart for the time being. Whether you think he's a good or a bad one; FA is here, it's up, it's running, so for me it's a pass. When it comes down to it, I stick around here because the people are nice; not because the site is nice.

█ EDIT: So it seems the funding/donation thing was taken down. I'm sure that won't be fuel for the conspiracists. /sarcasm.

EDIT 2: Upon thinking on it for a few minutes, if you have a dozen people who hate FA, (or think the whole donation is a scam) reporting the thing as fraudulent, I guess GoFundMe would err on the side of caution and take the thing down. Guess will see what happens, but I refer you all to a previous submission of mine: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9986713/

EDIT 3: Despite the fundraiser being taken down, they get to keep the money. Just hope they'll be able to get the donator info back somehow for the donation perks.

Though again, I'm sure it's all part of the 'master-plan' to not have to spend money on those donation perks. /sarcasm

EDIT 4: And they're working on getting donation information recollected.

EDIT 5: GoFundMe reinstated the account, so access to the donation information was available once again.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: I'm melting again...
|██████████|Will To Art

█ I've picked out 6 cards (and by association 6 people) I'll be using for my comic project (or will try to), they'll be as follows:

 chinook_orca Gel prison
 Weirdseal Robo-Shell
 Drake-Darkscale Beast of Burden
 Kaliak Stone Spray
 Sizeo Invasive vines
 sarathebarricade Sarcophagus

I'm currently undecided as to who the two players of the game will be or how to decide upon that... I might be able to figure out something tomorrow, maybe.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Komm, süsser Tod Robin Williams
|██████████|Will To Art

█ I didn't expect to be writing about depression, but recent events in lieu of Robin William's suicide has gotten me thinking about it once again. It stirred my soul a little, and I find myself needing to express myself through words once again. This of course isn't going to be a happy journal, and you might even think along the lines of "why should I care?" So certainly you're free to stop reading here, that's perfectly fine.

I'll start off with that I'll be talking of depression that's caused by trauma, as opposed to depression that's caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. I suppose in theory both can be treated with drugs, but trauma based depression needs therapy I feel; because that depression is caused by experience.

A sentiment or thought pops up from other people in regards to Robin Williams, and it's "what does he have to be depressed about?" and it's a legitimate question. Robin after all had fame, fortune, family, friends, love, support; everything it seems that any person would want or need out of life. Yet he took his own life, and people find that baffling. The kinds of response to this kind of reality tends to be around how depression can affect anyone, or how such a horrible disease depression is; making out the thing to be some great mystical unknown. I don't find it baffling though. The explanation is pretty simple, even if people might not be able to comprehend it easily: Depressed people wear emotional masks.

"What kind of insight is that?" you might think. "What does wearing a mask have to do with depression?" It has a lot to do with it. Normal people will wear social masks, usually around strangers; acting nicer than you normally would. These social masks you take off for friends and family, who as a result tend to see the uglier side of an individual. Usually their tempers, creating the ironic situation of people treating strangers better than their friends and family. It is somewhat taxing to wear a social mask, it's probably hard for people to be 'well-mannered' 100% of the time, so it slips off around people you're comfortable with.

For a depressed person, their masks are more elaborate than a simple improvement of manners around strangers. For whatever reason at whatever point in their life, someone finds themselves constantly being rejected or abused by society. At some point that individual will find a mask that society finds tolerable, acceptable, or even likes (it's either that or they end up committing suicide). They will embrace and wear that mask at all times, because it stops society from treating them poorly. In Robin's case it was the clown's mask. People love the clown, he gets laughs and makes people happy. Whoever the real Robin Williams is, we don't know that person; we only know the mask. People adored his mask, loved it, he had a successful career with it, a family with it, friends with it. How much emptier can a life be, to be a life about a lie. What will a person see when they reflect on that life? How worthless they truly were to have invented up this lie that everyone embraces and cares for. That no one acknowledged him for him. No one loved him for him. No one befriended him for him. To live a life in fear of the mask coming off and to be rejected once again for who you really are. To be unable to be yourself. To love the mask but not yourself. To always be 'on'. Robin might have very well been 'on' for 50 years. He was likely on so long that he forgot how to ever be off and stop. He was trapped by his mask, suffocated by it, and ultimately killed by it. If I was to say anything to Robin it would probably be "I know you don't know how to anymore... but you can stop now. You can stop."

Though that's all speculation. I'm no psychiatrist, all I can do is guess based on my own experiences and what I've seen others experience. As for myself, I don't know. I don't know if the person who writes these journals is me or a mask I wear. If it's the person it's a person who's empty. If it's a mask, it's just as empty behind; but if it's such the case then what's the difference? The difference of course is that one can be filled, the other cannot. Robin wore a mask and stayed empty. The stuff I do here on FA, I feel might be a mask, because despite my time here I still feel pretty empty. It's probably empty because I could probably walk away from all this and probably not miss it. It's a mask I don't think I know how to take off either, and because of it I'll always stay distant. Well... upon a little reflection maybe it's a bit of a lie, because there's times it's slipped off; but usually when it does is when I feel the most pain, because people only know my mask. When that mask comes off they don't know how to deal with the person who's been behind it all along, and just end up hurting that person and hurting them deeply. They hurt that person wishing for the mask to come back. They liked the mask. That's why a person who has everything can feel like they have nothing. It's why they'll see their lives as empty and meaningless, even if it appears to others as full and meaningful. It's why I take almost no comfort or joy in my internet fame. It's why each time it gets that much harder to stop and take the mask off.

Just an interesting note to end this journal with: Despite it being about depression, the word 'sad' only appears once, and that's because I mentioned it just now.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Constant feeling of wanting to sneeze...
|██████████|Will To Art

█ This time around character participation isn't going to be a commission-type system, it will be more contest-type. Though don't worry it won't be terribly complicated or even require all that much effort.

As I explained in my previous journal the comic project I'm working on is going to be around the theme of a card-game. I could design all the cards myself pretty easily (I'd just create a bunch of cards based on what's inside my gallery), but I figured I might as well have people who want to participate create the cards for this game. There's not too many factors in this card game I've made up, so it should be relatively easy for a card to be made up on the spot.

With card games there's typically a card cost. This I'll be figuring out on my own. Essentially the cost range will be between 1 and 9, but most will be 1 to 5. Cards that cost 7 or more are likely instant win cards will will not be applicable. Either way it's nothing you need to worry about.

There's three card themes currently: Technology, Magic, Biological. This mirrors the research departments of Enduring Technologies. There can be one theme or a mixture of two or all. Odds are mixed themed cards would end up being more expensive in terms of cost to use. The theme of the card will more or less determine the kind of 'trap card' created.

There's currently five things that any given card can do: Move, disable, root, free, and field effects (all in theory can be combined into a single card). For the purpose of the comic the only cards being used are to disable, and root minions; so those are the only ones you need to consider. A disable will bind a minion, but that minion will still be able to move about the board. A root card will both bind a minion and keep them in place, preventing them from moving on the board any further. A disabled card can later be rooted. Though I should note that one of the cards will probably be a move/root combination card, so that can be a consideration as well.

I'll talk a little about the other card effects a bit that aren't being used in the comic. Move is pretty obvious as it makes a minion move an extra space on the board, or move an enemy minion backwards. Freeing is also obvious in that it will remove the effects of a disabling or rooting card. The field effects may render certain freeing cards useless or change disable cards into root cards, ect ect.

So a card that might be used in this comic could be something along the lines of "Tentacle Monster" which would be like a generic "biological root" card. If I wanted to be more creative with the card it could have the additional effect of "disables all adjacent minions" which would allow for a faster method of disabling all enemy minions to be able to attack them with cards directly. Though of course this would make the card more expensive.

█ Now I invite you to make up possible cards to use for this game. Those I'll pick I'll put into the comic obviously (and will have their character be subject to it of course). To keep things relatively fair though, only create one card. Wouldn't be exactly fair if one person creates like a dozen different cards covering a lot of different combinations increasing the odds that I have to pick one of those ideas. Of course this also means try not to copy another person's card. If it does happen just reply with a changed idea. There's no limitation to the creativity you can put into a card effect, just keep in mind that an overly complicated card likely won't be used for the purpose of the comic (though if it's really good I just might end up changing my plotted layout to accommodate for it). You can give the card a name if you want, if not I'll come up with one myself if I like the idea.

I'll take card ideas for a couple days before deciding which ones I'll use for the comic. I'll probably decide either on Monday or Tuesday.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Still uncomfortably warm
|██████████|Will To Art

█ I've plotted out a layout for my next possible comic. At current it will look to be 9 pages long and will end up needing/including 8-9 characters (depending on how I do the ending). I haven't been focusing on it too much hence the slow and sluggish development process.

As to the premise of the comic, it's going to be about a game (it's a trap!). I suppose the initial inspiration was from a few 'bondage chess' pictures I've run across were people end up as the game board pieces, but I figured doing a card game might be slightly more interesting; mostly due to the whole concept of a 'trap card', but I suppose every card ends up being a trap... Needless to say I invented up a card game for the purpose of this comic. It has a bunch of unrefined rules and cards, but for the purpose of the comic figuring out the exact specifics wasn't too necessary since it's supposed to end up as a more visual experience anyways. Not to say that the rule-set can't be expanded on, but it's a simplistic system:

The playing field is a 3x5 grid and each player gets three minions that start on opposite ends (could be considered a mini chess board in this sense). The middle 3x3 section is where minions have to be to gain power for cards to be played. The minions can only ever move forward, and will be blocked by an opponent's minion. The purpose of the cards is to disable/root/move the opponent's minions, allowing access to more power to play more powerful cards. The win condition is to disable all three of your opponent's minions so you can use card effects on the other player. Use enough power on the other player to win.

I haven't worked out specific cards and costs as I'll probably just be making them to suit the needs of the comic itself, though I'm sure people can probably guess what some of them will end up being. Since there's 6 minions there will be 6 different cards used (as I doubt I'd have the same card used twice for the purpose of the comic). There's also three 'themes' of cards being tech, magic, and bio (should be straight forward as to the intended possible effects).

Certainty I make things a bit needlessly complicated for myself as I could have just drawn up a bunch of chess/bondage pieces!

█ Next journal will be for character participation when I finish writing it up. It'll be... different from other times I suspect.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: I'm melting! Whhhhhy!
|██████████|Will To Art

█ A status update!

I'm not a summer person, for a variety of reasons. The first one is that when it gets hot I get extremely lethargic. More so than usual. It's hard to think because most of my thoughts end up being how uncomfortably warm and hot it is. I like winter for the sole reason that there's a lot of ways to warm up, but when it comes to cooling off there's not a lot of options. Sure if I had AC this wouldn't be an issue, but that's not something I have. Second reason: The things that want my blood. I'd probably find summer more tolerable if not for mosquitoes, which are annoying enough on their own; but if one gets in your room and you're trying to sleep and you know there's one around because of the buzzing? I get grumpy just thinking about it. Third reason: I burn easy. This one isn't much of an issue cause I spend most of my time indoors, but if I get caught outside for whatever reason around noon, it just takes about 15 minutes for my skin to fry and I'll spend the next week or so peeling skin off my face.

█ There's not too much to report on the artistic side. I've been playing around with my next idea, which could end up being another large project depending on how I want to approach it. It's not something I want to elaborate on too much as I'd rather keep it more of a surprise, though it seems to be a concept that 'works' with what I do. Though currently there's a high chance it'll end up being a YCH thing, or possibly another comic project; or both. I'll probably elaborate more once I have something other than a vague idea in my brain.

Doing art in general in the heat hasn't been... easy, especially with low self-motivation. Course that's also combined with the feeling of "I've done everything I wanted to" which also adds to the low motivation. Granted I haven't done everything I've wanted to, but there's always certain things outside one's scope of ability to currently achieve. It can be difficult to move forward when you have no idea which way you need to go to get to that far off goal.

I hope to be a bit more active in the coming days and weeks, but no promises!

Once again my fickle brain has decided on yet another way of trying to go about doing them; so here we go again, commission stuffs. This will be a first-come first-serve basis, and I'll work through as much of the list I can over the course of 4-6 days probably (how much exactly I won't really know). After that I'll switch to a different theme (or take an extended break).

The theme i'll be playing around with for this will be individuals being caught and held by latex drones. It will probably be more leaning towards a bit on the vorish side of things, as the end result will probably be people trapped in the belly of the beast; so to speak; as opposed to the outcome of other things I've done which results in being suited up. Probably will have variations on how it's portrayed, and how individuals will be dragged into the drone.

Will be $30 for this series. If you're interested leave a comment.

Some additional things you can specify (optional):
The 'species/gender' of the latex drone doing said catching
Progression of the capture (being dragged directly in, being swallowed by, or already trapped inside)
If you want to be part of a group picture

The group picture will probably be Endium looking in/studying/maybe interacting with the result/testing of the drones on various subjects. It's not something I've thought out completely yet, which I may or may not end up doing.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: I think I have a canker sore, it's driving me nuts
|██████████|Will To Art

█ There is much to talk about... so where do I start..

I suppose the first thing I'll talk about is commission work. About a week ago I half-decided that perhaps a way I could go about doing it is opening up commissions for a week or five days, and whatever I work through would be it. I'd go down the list as much as I could. I sort of think this could work for me because I do burn-out on certain ideas and the like far before a list of commissions dries up, and I end up burning out faster if I hammer away at a commission list to the very end since I am in part a completionist. Of course my fickle mood didn't really want to cooperate so I didn't end up drawing at all for the past few days.

Perhaps going forward that's how I'll try to do commissions: Each week I'll pick a theme for commissions and work through the list as best I can. I might pick the theme, or maybe have people offer suggestions and do that if I find a suggestion that seems fun to do.

Certainly another part of wanting to switch it up every week is that it indeed can get monotonous doing the same theme for a month or a few weeks, and repetition is something I've never been able to handle very well.

I sort of plan to open up a new themed commission journal tomorrow and trying to get back to arting.

█ I've noticed a few artists I'm watching have taken up to using Patreon, and it piqued my interest a bit after I dug around in it a little. My brain certainly can think of a lot of possibilities. Course at the exact same time my brain can think up a lot of doubts, especially considering a perchance of biting off more than I can chew. I understand that the intent of the site is for people to support content creators, and that nothing is technically required of the content creator to do anything specific or even special for that support; but I certainly would feel guilty about taking money without actually doing something specific for it. Even typing about it gives me a certain level of anxiety. Though to be fair, having a completely unstable income causes some anxiety as well. I'm always in this constant battle to 'grow up' when it comes to finances.

Course additionally there's the fact that I know virtually nothing about Patreon, and I suppose I'd need a bit more information before I'd give it a shot myself. It's not something I've mentioned in past journals to my knowledge, but I have an extremely hard time doing 'one-off' things that requires initiative on my part. Like as an example filling forms. I have a hard time bringing myself to drag myself through filling in fields, or doing signups. I suppose it could even be a slight phobia, which I would trace back to all those damned tests I had to do at school; nothing but anxiety on paper. In the end I'm mostly a guy who simply likes taking orders and following a path set out in front of him to walk. Which is why I constant have trouble keeping my art output consistent here on FA. Other factors is that personal initiatives has been a very lonely thing for me as well, because I have to face the prospect of screwing up or failing on my own. It's a bit different when someone lays down the path for you, then it's not completely on you if things go wrong. Having a community of people is certainly a reason why I still stick around on FA and do art despite my repeated mini-mental-breakdowns.

Though I've digressed, as I often do.

If you have some experience with Patreon one way or another I'd certainly like to get some input into what the whole thing is.

I believe I sort of have a gist of what it's all about either way, and I suppose I have some thought as to what I could offer and/or do. Problem is knowing how fickle I can be, I would be hesitant to create various supporter options, since I have great doubt in my abilities to follow through. The first one that immediately came to mind is to have characters in a comic (as either the focus of or background characters) but of course that would require me to write out a story to follow and thereby do. I suppose people could suggest ideas here if I work towards setting this whole thing up proper. Currently most of my art is commission-based, which doesn't completely mesh with a system that's designed to support content creators that make more 'generalized' things as opposed to commission work. I'm not sure what would end up changing if I tried shifting my focus more towards that kind of output.

Perhaps it's a bit too much for me think about currently, and something I might need to sit with for a few days. Certainly this journal feels like rambling, almost incoherent rambling.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Eeeeheeergh
|██████████|Will To Art

█ A journal! Which seems to be like a monthly journal type update... Not sure if I have anything in particular to journal about this time around though. I suppose recently I've been in that weird state of depression where nothing really matters much, which is a bit different than the feeling sad and empty kind of depression. When things don't matter one just ends up being mostly lethargic and you just go through a daily cycle; nothing is intolerable, but at the same time nothing is all that interesting either. Though it is much better than having the feeling of a knives being jabbed through your heart and stomach.

I've been trying now and then to do things that I would 'normally' enjoy, but the end result is mostly indifference. For me personally indifference builds up and tends to result in me getting motivated to actually do something, as opposed to the other possible outcome is me becoming distraught and going back towards the sad and empty depression. It's something that in a way forces me to explore facets of myself, looking for things that I want to do that I haven't yet done. Though it's not the kind of exploration that involves looking for the feeling of discomfort, that's not quite who I am; but in a way I do understand the need that some people have who look for that feeling of discomfort, apprehension, and fear. It certainly can help one feel 'alive'. Me I enjoy being comfortable, even if it's often boring.

I still have a few ideas that I have some interest I haven't drawn out for one reason or another. One of said reasons is that it's a concept that probably would be better explored in a story or comic format as opposed to a few images. I'd probably go with the comic route, but for myself I have a hard time creating characters to fit a narrative I might have in my head. This is probably something that's holding me back a bit when it comes to my creative endeavors... well not probably; it is. I have a problem with creating random characters as the things I create end up being a part of me one way or another, and their existence ripples through my own mind and personality; invariability I want to create a history that defines what their personality is. I tend to over-think things a lot, mostly because I can't be satisfied with an answer of 'just because' or 'that's just how it is' I need to know the 'why'. Something I likely should learn how to turn off, would make expressing some of the ideas I have easier to do.

█ In any case I figure I might as well explore one of my ideas via doing some commission work. This of course requires me to explain the idea. It's a variation of the slave suit designs but with a timer installed. The timer being how long a person would be trapped in said suit and of course with such things there's various rules attached. There's a bunch of ways those rules can be setup, but the default one is that the timer will go up every time the trapped person is used. Course one of the more devious situations being to let the timer count down near zero, be almost free; but nopes! Someone at the last moment shows up to add time back to the countdown. (Such is the reason why an idea such as this is better presented as a story or a comic which I might try to put together down the road).

Anyways I'll be taking commissions towards this particular theme, which will be a full body covering with a timer embedded somewhere. I'll be playing with the idea to make it interesting on my part, unless there's specifics you want added in. I intend to try and figure out a way to have the 'rules' of the timer set or displayed somewhere. I'll probably just have it as some sort of barcode which will bring up information when scanned.

Price will be $20-40 for one and two characters respectively. I'll probably do the first 5 to 10 people who want a commission along this theme (depending on how many people end up asking for a second character). My commission guidelines and TOS still apply.

If you're interested leave a post with the following information.

Character link
Any sort of specific detail you wanted (not required)
A second character link (if you want the first character to be in use by someone else)

Hopefully I don't drive my crazy doing these commission things as past attempts have.

|██████████|BODY
|██████████|MIND
|██████████|SOUL
Status: Eeeeh
|██████████|Will To Art

█ Getting this journal started wasn't what I'd call easy. Due to the stress related breakdown a couple of months ago I've found that it also had some... lingering effects on me that I don't have any sort of direct control over. For those who don't know I'm allergic to stress, as in an actual allergy. I'm well aware of the joke "I'm allergic to stress" but for me I get itchy, break out rashes, and if it's bad hives. It's not something that would kill me or anything, but it is... unpleasant. For the past few days every time I think about doing art, streaming, or even writing this journal I start feeling the pins and needles of the beginnings of feeling itchy alongside with patches of my skin turning red. It's something I can probably get over if I can decouple the stress related with doing this things, but it's not easy. There's little bits of pressure from various sources and it's all manifesting itself in my allergy and I'm doing what I can to try and take the pressure off, but it's not easy. I apologize for my emotional weakness and instability, something I'm sure people will say I don't need to apologize for but it comes with the territory of the mental state I hold.

At any rate I'm writing this journal to once again make things 'real' for me. Written down words (or I guess typed out) do have far more substance than the stuff that floats around inside my own head. I probably need to do such things more often because my mind has a strong tendency to put things off till later or till "I feel like it" if it's all just inside my head. The obvious yet not quite-so-easy solution is to give myself a schedule and go by it. Certainly I try to set some kind of routine for myself every now and then, but often I end up falling into cycles of bad habits. This is probably in part due to me never actually writing down and committing to a more proper daily routine... which I'll be putting into a text document and altering it as needed. Will probably include things such as when to sleep, wake-up, time to try and do something 'creative' and the like. Won't know how successful this initial push will be as I am still stressing over and apprehensive about the whole thing. In any event I sort of want to try and stream/art for 3-5 days out of the week. The adhering to scheduling aside it just goes back to the other problem of managing the stress so I don't get the feeling of itchy pins and needles all over my body.