So while I'm doing Octummber, it hasn't gone unnoticed that a couple of nights ago I quietly crossed 1000 watchers.

Let me start by simply saying, thank you.

I never imagined my art would have attracted this many people, let alone would have improved as much as it has over the last ...
i just went and checked, geez, have I really been posting to this account for 7 years? Heck, that's crazy.

Anyway! It's wild to think about that. Like, imagine a thousand people in an audience.
I generally just kind of draw whatever i fancy at the time, and I usually tend to see my own art as flawed and not worth sharing, but hey, that's the adage, right? You are your own worst critic.

And i'd like to think that a thousand people following me would prove my own doubts about myself wrong.
So, I really do appreciate you all for proving me wrong about my own art, haha.

I hope i can continue to produce more stuff that y'all like.

Otherwise:
I do plan to do something to celebrate this milestone, but between octummber and school, that will probably have to wait until November.
I think I might also open for commissions again in November/December as well, so keep an eye out for that.
As well, I do want to try and do a few mini-projects to build up my own little world, and the characters in it. We'll see how that goes in due time as well. I hope to have something like that going in the same time as well, the first one as a sort of experiment, will likely feature a bit of lore on Solace, i think.

That's all for now, Thanks again everyone for a thousand, and here's to a thousand more!

I've decided I'm going to try to open for commissions. I'm only gonna do some simple flat color pics for now, 40$ USD. (ex. below)
I don't think I'll take more than 2 or 3, if i even get that many.

Examples:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/60845198/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/60761482/

If you're interested, please fill out this form:

https://forms.gle/jgsr2UVbkDpWNwwV8

Man, it's already this time of year again, huh? This year feels simultaneously like it's been blazing by an hour a minute, but also it feels like things that have happened this year happened forever ago. Overall, this year was a net negative for me, but I don't want people to think I've been going through some awful terrible time. I mean, this year hasn't been great, but I'm choosing to see it as in investment into better years ahead. So, I guess I'll start from the beginning.

So, last year, at the end, I wrote a long retrospect about going to MFF, and how i was ending the year off on a high note. And I was! I was in a great place. I was getting into shape, losing a good bit of weight, had a steady full time job (I worked in research at a hospital), which I was even being trained to take on a new role for. I had a physical at the start of the year, told my doctor about how my situation was improving, and she was happy for me. I have been seeing her for years at this point, and she was someone who helped me through a lot of anxiety, and other mental issues when I was younger, issues which I can proudly say I've since overcome. It was just a good momentum for me rolling into the start of the year, generally. I was even looking at moving into finding a place i would call my own.

Then, maybe a week or so later, I was pulled into a meeting, and was laid off. For "economic reasons". They had said at least 8 or 9 times that it had nothing to do with my performance.

So, yeah. At first, I didn't really let it sink in, since I was already considering applying to other jobs. Despite me being trained, I did feel that I should have been paid more than I was. Especially given that when they hired an assistant for me, he was being paid more than I was, which, yeah, I definitely resented that. Though I never really was vocal about it beyond a couple of coworkers, and a brief talk with my boss about it. They never really could give me a straight answer, so I was passively applying to other jobs.

But nothing ever came of it. The problem with research where I live is it's a lot less to do with what you know, and more to do with who you know. Places like Indeed or LinkedIn are just filled with scams that are just looking to harvest personal data off your resume. Most jobs that go up on local job boards for my field are already filled before the postings go up. They only post the job for legal reasons, but they already have the person picked out for the job in advance. Even among people I asked for favors in that regard all ended up apologizing, citing the lack of new positions, and economic reasons for being unable to hire me. And I'd made a good deal of connections during my time at my job.

So, yeah. That was generally a pretty solid hit to my motivation for things. I spent the next while just throwing my resume at jobs, sitting around the house trying to occupy myself, eating way too much takeout (which is ironic, i suppose, given what I draw), and just generally being a bump on a log. Naturally any progress I'd made on my fitness more or less went out the window, I gained back pretty much everything I'd lost and then some. Who'd have thought sitting around doing nothing and eating takeout would make you gain weight?

But yeah, it was uh .... not exactly a great time. I more or less floated through the days, applying to jobs and just not really doing much else. I am definitely a creature of habit, so losing a steady full time job definitely threw me for a loop, the other issues notwithstanding.

But then one day I got an email for an interview. Not for a job, though. On top of applying for jobs while I was at work, I also ended up applying to school alongside most of my coworkers. All of the people I shared an office with, none of us were really satisfied with where we were, and they were all applying to go back to school. We were all applying to various programs, helping each other study for our appropriate entry tests and reviewing any papers we had to submit. While I did apply, prior to being jobless, my attitude was if i had to choose between going back to school, and going to a better paying job, I'd take the job. I'm in my late 20s, I've graduated from post-secondary school twice already. Though after being laid off, and not really getting any responses after months, I figured I'd take whatever I'd get at that point.

So I took the interview, which, was one of those self recoreded type "interviews" where you just answer questions in a given span of time, you get one shot. It was similar to a "morality test" I had to take when I initially applied. And before you ask, it was basically you were given a situation like "your catch your coworker stealing money from the till, they tell you that it's to help cover rent for her family. You boss has also mentioned that the store's profits were very thin before these losses, and these losses could result in the store having to cut hours or let people go, what do you do?" And you're given 5 minutes to explain what and why you'd do certain things.

Anyway, I did it, and it was another few months of waiting before I finally got a message offering me admission. So, I got into school, and I'm now on my way to becoming a radiation therapist! Which, definitely did a lot to help me. I had something to focus on again.

That being said, having gone from work to school? School sucks. At least when I finished my work for the day, I could go home and not think about it. Something came in as a last minute request? That's a tomorrow problem. With school, on top of having similar hours and commute times, I'd still have to go and do more work when I got home. I don't miss it at all. And it even got kind of stressful, to be honest. I started being unable to have any time to myself, much less to hang with friends. But, I managed to get through the semester with good grades, and passed all my courses. And hey, I even got to make new friends, too!

So, the last part of the year has been comparitively better that the rest of the year, but I still felt frustrated for a lot of it. As I said before, I'm in my late 20s, i should be living on my own, not with family (Though I am thankful they are understanding of my situation.) And this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Before covid, I was an intern at a different hospital for research, with the potential to be hired at the end of my internship. But my internship ended during the pandemic, and the head of the lab had to apologize profusely to me, saying they simply didn't have the money to hire me.

So I've had a bit of a cycle of getting into a position to go into a career, then getting denied said career because money. Anyway, once I complete this program, I'll be eligible to work pretty much anywhere in Canada and the US. So I won't be limited to places that are near me. Not to mention, I also do in field placements during this program, and every professional in the field I've spoken to has said that they need more people to work, and a lot of people get hired on graduation. So we'll see if that holds true.

So, yeah. I'm in a good place now, but not without the first half of the year being kind of not so great. I'm still optimistic for the future, as I was last year.

A lot of people are moving to bluesky again. I'm not sold on it being the next platform, but I figure I should at least give the site a try before i pass judgement. I have no plans to stop using twitter, so whichever platform you use, you should still get my posts.

If you follow me on bluesky, Id greatly appreciate it

https://bsky.app/profile/fffandever.bsky.social

It was unfortunate to hear this news. It definitely came as a surprise to me, and everyone I was in call with when the news broke.

I was not particularly close to him. I've only ever really interacted with him once or twice, and that was yeats ago, but even then, from what I remember he was nothing but encouraging to me, who was a fledgeling artist at the time. I've seen plenty of others say their piece, and it's clear he was positive influence to a lot of people in this community. He will be missed by many here.

My thoughts and prayers are with those who were close to him. Losing anyone you know is never an easy process.

So, I'm back from MFF 2023! I got in later last night, and have since slept. I had a lot of mixed feelings, and that gave me some time to compile my thoughts a bit. I'm gonna be saying a lot of things, so I'll preface this whole thing with me saying: At the end of the day, I had a good time, I would like to go again.

So for some context, this isn't my first con, but it might as well have been. Last time I went to a con it was Furnal Equinox back in 2019, and I went to that one by myself. FE is, plainly, nowhere near as large as MFF. And heck, was MFF busy.

This time, I went with a group of 4-5 people. Friends I'd never met in person before, but I've known for a long time. I was very happy to meet them, they were all great people to hang out with! Most of my favorite moments over the weekend were when we were together, rather than something specific to the con, really. I'm grateful they were all able to come, and it was good to hang out and just talk, sketch, that stuff! Which was surprisingly harder to do than you'd think.

MFF is, i think, the biggest con of its kind, or at least one of them. From what I understand the 'biggest' con title seems to bounce between MFF and AnthroCon quite a bit. And yeah! It was a lot of people. Honestly it was almost too many people in some ways. Registering Thursday evening, I arrived right when the lines opened for pre-reg, and I was standing for two and a half hours. Which was not that bad a time, all things considered, had some chats with the people next to me. Mass respect to the people who were in that line in full suit, by the way.

Every staff member seemed to be saying the same thing, that being that they did not expect the turnout that they got. I never got an official number of attendees while I was there, but I'm pretty sure it was in the tens of thousands. Or maybe not, I'm not good at estimating. Anyway, point is it was a lot of people. This seemed to be a recurring theme throughout the con. Every meet-up and event we went to, the rooms were typically at capacity (or at least had minimal open space, with more people spilling out into the hallways. Hosts would often remark that they did not expect the number of people that showed up, and a lot of the rooms were very warm to sweltering due to the number of people in them, though I'm pretty sure at some point enough people complained that they kicked the AC up a few notches, which I also appreciated, and I wasn't even in a suit!

When I was at FE, I took a ton of pictures, I'd try to politely ask every suiter I came across if I could take pictures of them, and with their agreeance, did so. It was a lot easier because that con took place within a single building, and it was much less sparsely populated, so it was easy to stand off to the side as they posed for me and I'd take a pic.
I took a lot less pictures at MFF. I found it difficult to catch people at the right time and place for pictures. There were a lot of times I'd see some really awesome suits in the narrow hallways that spanned the multiple venues this con took place at. These were hallways (or 'skybridges') that barely had the room for two single-file lines (it also didn't help it was cold and rainy the whole weekend), so we couldn't exactly just move to the side to take a picture without disrupting traffic. Often I'd see a suiter I wanted to take a picture of, but would just go 'it's alright, I'll try to find them later,' since space didn't always allow for it, my friends and I were on our way somewhere else, and I'm sure the suiter was, too. That, and I don't want stalk a suiter to wherever they were going just so I could harass them for a picture.

I know I sound like I'm complaining a lot, but you know what? I still had a fantastic time! Cause you know what? Your eyes? They're also cameras! And you can store the pictures they take in your brain!

Sorry if that was a bit condescending.

But for real, I still had a great time! I saw a lot of cute and cool suits! And even if there were a lot of people, everyone I came across was courteous and nice. Which I appreciate. I'm not the best at being proactively social. Part of my day job is working at a hospital, and getting cancer patients to agree to donate excess tissue from surgeries for research purposes. Most of my 'socializing' is scripted by lawyers, filtered by ethics boards, and canned by committees. So it's very hard for me to flick that 'socially active' switch without the filter from my job, especially when I spend a lot of time in that mode at work. Pair that with some of my own personal past, and being proactively social ending with me being the butt of a joke, I get very apprehensive about it. I jokingly say that my social switch is a rusted out, oversized industrial breaker switch, those ones that make the big KERCHUNK sound. Once I flick that one way or the other, it's hard to flick it back. So I'm very choosy with when I turn that on, and as a result, I'm very passive when it comes to social situations. I enjoy the environment, more than the things in the environment. I like taking pictures of things, not with things.

That's not to say I can't be social! I'm still good at holding conversations, I can carry small talk, that kinda stuff. I'm much more comfortable with being reactively social, if that makes sense. But that leads into the main point I wanted to make regarding this whole con.

I enjoyed it alot! I would love to go back again. I felt like ... not that I shouldn't have been there, but it felt like I didn't need to be there. I want to be there, and I want a reason to be there. I find it difficult to just approach random people about furry stuff, even though that's literally what all those people were there for. One of my friends helped me summarize this best when I was spilling out a bunch of my feelings last night. I want to have a purpose to socialize. I wouldn't mind just getting a nice camera, setting up somewhere, and offering to take people's pictures for free. When I do go again, I'd love to do so in a suit of my own, honestly! This is the same feeling I had after FE as well.

Honestly, this con made me look forward to the future. I actually have set aside money for a suit. The main reason I've been holding off is twofold: The first is trying to pick someone to make a suit. I'm notoriously indecisive in general. Like, anytime I ask people what I should order for lunch when I eat it's like "oh no he's trying to decide what he's gonna eat, we're gonna be here for 3 hours". Haha I'm not really that bad, but I can get really indecisive. *Especially* with commissions. But besides that Even when I *do* pick someone, they have to be open for comms, and then also be willing to make a friend-shaped fox.

The other reason is that I currently don't live alone. I'm living with family at the moment. Trying to pay for rent in my area is not easy. I *could* do it in theory, like on paper I'd be able to do it, but with little to nothing left at the end of the month, and I don't see that as sustainable. My family is fortunately, understanding, insofar that they get it's not easy to afford a place to live right now. Ultimately though, while my parents aren't (overly) nosy, I would rather they not stumble across a big pear-shaped fox suit, even if the odds of that are low. When they found out I was bi, they couldn't stop asking questions about past partners and my preferences for weeks. I can only imagine what it'd be like if they found out I was a furry, haha.

But in the meantime, I'm doing a ton of self-improvement! I'm applying to go back to school, aiming for a few therapy programs, which if I get in, I'll be put into placements for a learn and work type program, which will definitely push me towards a more fiscally sustainable situation. Even if I don't get in, I can still hold onto my current job until I find something that pays better.

I've also been losing a good deal of weight irl, getting into shape a bit. If I keep this up, then I'll actually hit 200 pounds in the next several months, which for context, I haven't weighed less than that in almost a decade. And if I keep it up for a little while after that, I'll literally be half the person I was at my heaviest. Still not totally sure how far I'm going with it (the dad-bod does appeal to me some), but hey. I figure if I want to get a suit, I should probably be in half-decent physical shape, at the very least.

I'm also gonna continue drawing a ton! Octummber was a great springboard for me, I guess I've hit a level of quality where I'm actually excited to draw things now. I don't finish every drawing thinking about how I know I can do better, even despite how long I've spend on those drawings. I want to really get out there! So I'm gonna try to pick up the Biggest League of All, like I've said previously, hopefully I'll get at least one chapter out before the new year.

I also want to start drawing other people more as well! I think I might start doing some semi-regular draws for free art on Twitter/FA.
Additionally, in the new year, I want to try and begin working on a project. I have this faint idea of putting together a "magazine" of sorts, inviting artists to have their OCs interviewed or written up in an article, maybe some pin-ups, some ads and the like. I think it could be a fun project. Plus it'll help me get out there and interact with more artists, too!

So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to the next few years. Keep an eye out in the future, you might see the fluffy boye walking about somewhere!

Anyway, I've now realized I've been writing this out for well over an hour, and it's an absolute wall of text. So uh, if you read all that. Thank you. I really appreciate it. You're awesome, and I hope you reach your goals too.

Well, heck! 300 watchers! That's not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

Thanks to everyone who's watched me, and I hope I continue to improve and deliver stuff you all like!

Hey! I'm doing a giveaway on twitter! Heres a link to the tweet!

https://twitter.com/fffandever/stat.....744766465?s=20

Alrighty, one random number generator later, we have our winner!

 makowo!

woo! streamers and stuff! I'll send ya a note and we can figure out whatcha want.

Thank ya'll so much and I'll see ya at 300 watchers!

Alright! I'm gonna finally get this shindig going!

To celebrate 200 watchers, I'll be doing a giveaway!

Winner will get a flat colored piece with a basic background!

To enter, do the following:
- Be Watching me here on FA
- Comment on this journal with the phrase "I've entered!" somewhere in your comment

That's it!

The winner will be drawn on Nov. 3, 2019

Good luck, and once again. Thank y'all so much for putting up with me!

First and Foremost, Holy heck, who are you people!?

Right, Now, thank you all for your support! To be honest, I just started posting my art to track my improvement as i keep drawing. But honestly, drawing is something I enjoy, and has become a source of personal positivity for me. I'm becoming an example of how you really can just improve as long as you keep at it!

Anyway, Thank you all for the watch!

I'll be doing a giveaway later in the month to celebrate this milestone!

Heya!

I've been on a trip with family the last week or two. It was very stressful, but i enjoyed a lot of the sights of Sicily. I had a lot of inspiration while I was gone, and will hopefully be able to draw some stuff in the coming weeks! i have a few pieces I need to get done first, but then I'll let this build up of creative juices flow! For now, I'll post a couple of short little stories I wrote while traveling.

Huzzah, and all that! I am now 24. Don't feel any different. I finished my last semester of graduate studies, and I'm getting a contract position in about a month. I guess this is gonna be a big year for me in a lot of regards. If all goes well, I'll be in my own place, I'll be going on a trip with my family, and even get to go to another con in the fall! If things go REALLY well, I might even look at getting a fursuit. But of course, that's if things are nearly perfect. And we all know things are never perfect. But, all we can do is try our best. And usually, when we do that, things turn out alright. So here's to another year, hopefully full of good things, and I hope you guys do well also!

So Furnal Equinox is next weekend. It'll be my first con, and I'm plenty excited, but at the same time I'm just worried about a bunch of small things. For one, I don't know anyone who is going, and I'm always super conscious about bothering strangers. I also don't want to go up to people and come off as rude or obnoxious or anything either. Since I'm not fursuiting, I'm not sure what to bring or what to expect. I mean obviously I'm bringing a camera, and some cash, but I'm not sure what else I'd need. I guess printed refs of my characters if I want comm's of them?

Other than that, Any general advice for a first timer?

I don't know how many of y'all are affected by this current Arctic Vortex, but I know I am! It's quite windy outside, and as a result it's currently about -50 C with the windchill, which is -58 F for you American folks. Anyway It's cold for a lot of places right now, I hope y'all stay warm!

So I've always been super conscious about my art. I know I've definitely improved! A few people have asked me if I was doing commissions, and at first I was apprehensive, but I am thinking about it more.

So would you commission me if I priced my work at a reasonable level?

I'm not going to open commisions in the immediate future, maybe in a month or so I might dabble in it. But if there is really that much interest I might try to get some prices out sooner rather than later!

Merry Christmas yall!

Hope your holidays are good!

Eat lots, drink lots, but not too much, and enjoy the company of family and friends!

Hey all!

I have an artist friend here on FA by the name of  Kaklaid , and they are doing a giveaway on their page! They are a very skilled artist, who is criminally underwatched! I strongly suggest you check out their page, give them a watch, and heck, join their giveaway!

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8963742/

Thanks to anyone who checks them out!

So, woo, I did Inktober, every day! Awesome! Some of the pieces I really really liked! Some, well, it's obvious even to me I didn't have a lot of time. But nonetheless, I'm glad i did it!

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Also I need to apologize to the Raffle winners! Due to some real life issues, I've had to put off drawing those. But, I am aiming to get them done next weekend!

Alrighty, so I've got the Winners, and here we are!

1st prize winner -  zorophox

2nd prize winner -  parakeetstuff

3rd prize winner -  UnknownCleric2420

Thank you all for participating, and I will note the winners!

Hopefully I'll see y'all around when I hit 200 watchers!

Alrighty, so here's the deal!

I'm going to do not 1, not 2, but 3 - count 'em - three whole giveaways! I'll be doing a three draws for three different prizes!

First draw will be a lined piece! Like This! (Bg can be black or white, up to you)

Second Draw will be a flat colored piece! Like This! (Bg colour of your choice!)

And the Final draw will be a colored and shaded piece, with a background! Like This!


Rules!
- Simply Comment on this Journal saying that you want to enter, and I'll add you to my list of entrants!
- I will draw the names Sunday, October 21! Probably close to Midnight EST!
- You must be watching me at the time I draw the names in order to claim your prize! If you aren't watching me when I draw your name, I'll draw another name!
- Drawings will be SFW. They can be lewd, but not NSFW.
- Kinks I'm willing to draw are a case-by-case basis. Sorry, I don't really have a comprehensive list for my will not draws, but just ask, and I'll let you know.
- Each Drawing will be 1 character, but, if you have a cute idea that I like, I'll draw 2 characters! But no more than two!
- Please have some sort of reference for your character(s)!

With all that out of the way, GOOD LUCK!!!

P.S. No, I havent given up on Inktober, just got slammed with a massive project and have been too busy to upload. I'll upload them tonight, along with today's Inktober drawing!
P.P.S. So exhaustion hit me like a truck, I'll upload them tomorrow.

Holy Heck! I never honestly expected to reach this many watchers. I really appreciate each and every one of you for watching! I don't know what else to say other than Thank you, and I hope I keep making stuff you guys like!

I have a week off school coming up, so I might do something celebrating this in the form of a give away or something. Keep an eye out for it!

For the next little bit, I'm gonna be taking questions for Yulia and Varen! You can ask one or both of them a question! Over the next little while, I'll try to draw out some responses, to get used to drawing my own characters and stuff.

https://curiouscat.me/fffandever

Title says it all

Go here to vote


Theres the link, picture is in the survey, Thanks for the help!

So I've decided that I'm going to move them away from being pokemon, and moreso into their own thing, of just being foxes. I'm not worried about the notion of using copyrighted characters, but I feel like with some of the things I want to do with them in the future, it would be more productive to start this change now, rather than waiting for another time.

So in the next few iterations of their appearance, I'm going to move them away from being pokemon and more into their own thing as just a magic fox and an ice fox.

They are still going to be a couple, and retain their personalities, I just want them make them more me. So hopefully in the end it is a worthwhile change!