You know, I realize it's a little hypocritical of me to be saying this since I did draw a picture based on it and everything, but it's been bugging me and I really need to speak my freaking piece:

It's OK for an admin to post a journal calling a given member of the community a "whore" [link], but if a respected artist draws a political-cartoon-style picture that gently pokes fun at another artist [link] -- especially when the "victim" has never had a problem with it in the past [link] -- that's considered unacceptable and gets deleted? Seriously, WTF.

It has been...
Five!
Minutes.
Since the last time I purged deleted submissions from my favorites.

BEEP

Because people have been asking, I figured I'd post an explanation publicly. Apparently someone hacked my web host. Like, the entire host. Their home page features the same message as mine, and I can't log in through FTP to make any changes. The good news is, this means they have an incentive to actually fix the problem. The bad news is, given their track record, who knows how long it'll take them to do so.

FAKE EDIT: Their homepage is now back to normal, so it looks like they're working on the problem even now. Once FTP access is restored, I can put back the files that were overwritten. Bear with us.

I totally missed this.

[linkage]

Ugh. I must have come down with something while I was up in the wee hours finishing today's comic. I feel like a few dollars.

Halloween party pic's definitely gonna be late. Can't even bring myself to do anything more thought-intensive than read. And since I don't have any unread books lying around right now, that translates to TV Tropes.

And I'm hungry. Does anyone else ever get that thing where, when there's a lot of mucus drainage, whether from a cold or allergies, your stomach feels empty a lot sooner for some reason? Crikey. At least I'm not at school anymore, where being hungry meant a half-mile trek to the dining hall in weather that always feels colder than it really is when you're sick.

Backstory if you missed it: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/483949/

Well, I've got a pretty good list of possible costumes going, but I'm not sure most of them necessarily fit the characters I'm matching them to. So far I'm only sure of three, and only one of them has been matched to a particular character yet. So if you wanna get in on this, let me know! Keep in mind that if I pick your suggestion, it's like a free request. Heck, I'll even crop that character into a high-res, suitable-for-printing picture and email it to you.

Please note that this has nothing to do with that art contest FA has going right now. So, like, I'm not trying to mooch off you guys. (Although submitting an entire group picture for that would be epic.) I may submit something for that, but it would be a leftover from the list of costumes I've thought up so far. Just so you know I'm not mooching off you for ideas or nothin'.

Sup guise.

As you hopefully know by now, it's October, the month where at some point Halloween happens, or so I hear. Apparently I've never done a holiday themed picture at all, like, ever, so I've decided I'ma do a Halloween costume party group picture of all my furry characters. Yes, all, because that's another thing I've never done before. And I'm going to do it Homestar Runner style, where everyone is dressed as someone specific... fictional character, celebrity, marketing icon, historical figure, that sort of thing.

AND, to help me get ideas, I'm going to open the floor to you all. It would be great if a lot of them were particularly appropriate or humorously ironic, although I know I haven't defined some of their personalities too clearly. But here's a list of the characters I intend to include (note that all names are links to recent pictures of them):

Steve Civett: Basically my own self as an African civet. Ironically I have no image reference for him because I haven't drawn him in ages. An '80s kid and a wee bit of a geek.
Splotch: Toon of undefined species. Playful and slightly insane.
Gamma:Character in an Unreal Tournament-style FPS. Her job is to kick ass and take health packs. Er, names. Names! She don't need no stinkin' health packs!
Summer Kruse:Pop star. Basically a fun-loving gal who tries hard not to be anything like all those other celebrities.
Autumn Kruse:Lead singer/guitarist for the rock band Chainsaw Butterfly. Bitchy and hot-tempered.
Denny Frith:Man-ho wannabe. Writes for a tabloid magazine and will never tire of the bar scene. Sort of a furry Steve Dallas.
Cheyenne:I don't really know what to say about her; she evolved out of a shameless pinup drawing and then sort of evolved back into one. All I can really say is that she's sorta tomboyish, I guess.
EDIT: Oh, and possibly Fuschia, my token '80s-stereotype fox. I haven't decided whether to make her a recurring character or not.

I think that covers it. I'm not including the ferals or my comic strip characters. (Sorry, Mandy fans. Different universe.)

Have any of you ever used the backslash for anything other than directory referencing in Windows (C:\folder\thisisarealfile.not)? If so, what was it for?

Have you ever used the grave character (`)? If so, what for?

Do you know how to access the special characters not featured on your key caps?

If so, what non-keyboard characters do you use most frequently? And if not, which ones do you most often wish you could use?

For those with volume control buttons on your keyboard: Do you use them?

Have you ever had someone, maybe an older person you were teaching to use a computer, comment that referring to the right-delete as Delete and the left-delete as Backspace was confusing?

And finally: What is your OS?

Reposting this because FA went down almost as soon as it was posted and it probably got lost in the flood.

Art Challenge of the Now:
"Target Marketing" - design an ad for a mainstream product, geared toward furry fans (details)

Also see Soundhound's Art Challenge:
"XTREME Furry - "reimagine" your character to appeal to the young people of today (details)

Now.... the new business.  silentravyn offers gorgeous real-media commissions for only $35 apiece. So go check out her gallery and maybe buy something before she realizes her art is worth way more than that. ;)

Finally, those of you who liked the Commodore Vixen mock-ad, prints of it are now available on deviantART and JaxPad. I've made a few changes to it, including adding a few details I'd left out before.

http://lulz.net/furi/res/266001.html (Warning: contains NSFW ads; I am required to say this even though this is already FurAffinity)

"So you think you've got an alternative lifestyle? Are you a vegan? A punk rocker? A furry? Pedophile? It doesn't matter, within a couple of years, there will be a collection of brands that everyone in your group will cling to as part of their identity."

Only one thing to do when faced with such a bleak, hopeless future: make fun of it! So, going along similar lines as  soundhound's latest journal post, here's a challenge: Create an advertisement that's somehow geared toward furry fans. It can be for an existing product or one you make up, but it has to be something that's not inherently furry in nature, like shoes, soft drinks, or electronics. It can be any type of ad you want -- full-page magazine ad, Web page banner ad, etc.

Then post the results here. I intend to do one too.

Found this in  atomicstoney's journal archive and thought someone needed to continue the chain.

1. How do you generally design your characters?
Most of my characters came about because I needed someone to be in a picture I wanted to draw, and none of my existing chars fit.

2. How did you decide on your fursona's species?
While Fire isn't exactly a fursona as such, he popped into my mind in world civ class when the prof gave us handouts on the Chinese Zodiac's Cycle of Sixty. Turned out I have the Tiger as my animal sign and Fire as my elemental (you know, those things that when they come together they make Captain Planet or something). I'd had the name Firehazard in the back of my mind for a few days at that point, so I ripped off the Firefox logo and sketched out the first designs for Firehazard that very same period.

3. What are your 5 favorite species?
Civets, raccoons, dogs, cats, and tigers, I think.

4. Ok, ok, you can extend it to 10.
Wolfffffs, citras (YA RLY SHUT UP), skunks, um... I'm trying to think of what would be on the must-see list on a trip to the zoo... penguins and red pandas.

5. Have you made characters out of all of these?
All except the red panda, actually.

6. Most violent character?
Well Gamma is definitely the most deadly, but I think Autumn is more of a powder keg. I always think of her when I hear "FTK" by Vagiant. Not performing the song; actually burning down the bar in it.

7. Happiest or Nicest character?
Splotch is pretty happy-go-lucky. Summer comes off the same way, but as a pop star she's had to put up with a lot of crap. So she's kind of jaded, actually.

8. Your most personally significant character?
Pfffffh. I don't do serious.

9. Sluttiest character?
I would say this is Autumn again. I could see Cheyenne in nude pinups but Autumn is the only one I could picture being in a yiff pic. By someone other than me, mind you.

10. ‘Unsluttiest’ character?
Most of my characters are "unslutty," but Gamma would actually tear someone a new one for coming on to her.

11. ‘Stereotypic’ male?
If you mean "tough guy", then Warmongerel, who I created a while back but never actually drew. If we're talking about the kind of male stereotype you tend to see on sitcoms though, Denny Frith for sure.

12. ‘Stereotypic’ female?
Summer's probably the closest to this.

13. Tomboy?
Everyone else? Ha ha, but Gamma's definitely the least feminine of any of them.

14. Girlyboi?
None.

15. Androgynous/genderless?
Not literally, though Splotch is pretty gender-arbitrary.

16. Fastest character?
That's awfully random. There was this one Sonic parody character I created once upon a time, Hyper the Cheetah. He'd definitely qualify.

17. Most muscular?
Warmongerel again.

18. Thinnest character?
It's a tossup whether Cheyenne or Summer has the best "bikini bod." But Steve Civett's a pretty scrawny fellow too.

19. Chubbiest/heaviest character?
Splotch has the 'toon pudge. ^.^

20. Deformed character?
*cough* No.

21. Most fun to draw?
Mandy! Had to put her in here somewhere. She's got this zany, '90s toon style to her that's really fun and expressive.

22. Any Mary Sues/Gary Stus?
Like for fan fic? Naw, never touch the stuff.

23. Draw pr0n?
Naw. Did this one funny pic for Mazz once, but I never reposted it because it only makes sense if you know the inside joke that spawned it.

24. Draw one gender more than another?
Heh, guilty. As Slappy Squirrel might say, "You remind me of a much younger Eric Schwartz."

25. Stuff you don’t like to draw?
Commissions where people don't give any specifications other than who to draw, so I have to try and come up with something interesting using characters I know nothing about. Fortunately I have strict rules against that now.

26. Stuff you love to draw?
Stuff with a lot of action, a story behind it, a lot of little details. But since I'm uncreative, I don't come up with many of those.

27. Species you see mostly in the fandom?
Wolffffs.

28. Species you see least?
Bugs. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing (see next point).

29. What do you want to see more of in the fandom?
Creativity. Not to be confused with originality, which is often just uniqueness for uniqueness' sake.

30. Anyone you want to tag?
 lilifox and  kturtle -- and on the off chance that  cerberus or  sonderjen reads this, they're welcome to weigh in on this too.

Right, so... it turns out I know diddly-squat about women's clothing. (Wow, really, no kidding?) Aaaaaaand I just realized Summer's character sheet needs to indicate what her standard stage outfit looks like from behind. But when I did that, it occurred to me that the top probably wouldn't just be a pull-on dealie. Or maybe it is. I figure it's best to err on the side of caution. I've incorporated a zipper into the main part (which probably isn't even necessary), but I don't know what to do about the neck...uni-strap? (Gah, I don't even know what to call stuff.)

The front view of it is in the character sheet preview [link] and the back view, tentatively, is here: [link] As you can see, the neck "hole" is pretty small, like a turtleneck only I imagine it's made of a thin dress-like fabric that doesn't stretch well, so it's probably the one part that does need to come apart somehow in order to get into and out of it. I'm wondering if anyone who has experience with a similar article of clothing would have any tips.

Well, KTurtle came up with the best suggestion for a label name (that wasn't already taken): Purple House Records. You'll see what I wanted this for soon enough.

Meanwhile, I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to the various people I still owe art to. I say "owe" in a fairly loose sense because most of them were people I offered to draw for, for free, and one commission that, due to it not being done, I didn't actually ask for money for yet. But I feel pretty bad that I've failed to even follow up on the status in a Jhonka's age. This is something I sometimes do: I get so far behind, and get discouraged by how long I've put it off, or embarrassed that I'm stuck at a critical step, and don't dare say anything to them because I'm worried how they'll react.

Well, enough of that, I say! I want this stuff off my chest and off my back ASAP. So, If I have ever offered you art for any reason at all, please remind me what it was and let me know if you still care. Although I wish I could dredge up the interest in doing them all, I won't be bothered if you decide to give up on me take your business elsewhere. I do promise, though, that I will devote myself to finishing every single one that I get a response about, before the end of June. I have nothing but time right now, and no valid excuses.

Looking for suggestions for what Summer Kruse's record label should be called. Normally I'd be all over this, but nothing comes to mind right now. Should be something not too goofy (i.e. you could imagine a real label being called this) and nothing obscene of course.

I don't remember you guys getting all excited when Furiends started up.

Roll my eyes.

Three of my watchees have posted this in the past, like, hour, so... what the hey.

1. Do I have a distinct style of drawing?
2. If so, what exactly is it that defines my "style"?
3. Would you say my art usually follows a 'theme'?
4. Is there anything I really need to improve on or change?
5. Does my style (if I have one) remind you of/look like the style of anyone else?
6. Judging from whatever art of mine that you've seen, what do you think I do the best at?
7. What do you think I suck at?

Taken from  mcarson's journal

Where did you grow up: Ohio, born to a couple of ex-Pittsburghers.

WHAT DO YOU CALL:
1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks.
Stream (although "creek" must be the offical term because that's what I'm always seeing on maps).

2. The thing you push around in the grocery store.
My little brother. Ha ha, no, shopping cart.

3. A metal container to carry a meal in.
Metal??? What decade was this written in??? I haven't seen a metal lunch box in my life! For that matter, plastic lunch boxes went out of style after kindergarten for me. Only velcro-fastened cloth bags for us kool kids. :)

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in.
A what? Oh, the thing I just smacked that dude in the face with. Frying pan or skillet.

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people.
Couch or sofa (the latter being used in print ads, on labels, etc).

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof.
Gutters. Not to be confused with the kind your mind is in, which we call a storm drain.

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.
I'm now convinced the writer of this questionnaire was from the South. We still have front porches but nobody uses them like that 'round here.

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.
Pop ... unless we're specifying the flavor as in "I'd like an orange soda please."

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup.
Waffle.

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself.
Sub. Although I always got the impression that "hoagies" are actually a different type of sandwich. Same with "hero sandwiches."

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach.
If we're lucky, swim trunks. If we're not so lucky, Speedos. And if fate really decides to give us the finger, the occasional thong or two. *shudder*

12. Shoes worn for sports.
I guess that depends on the sport, doesn't it? There's a big difference between tennis shoes and soccer shoes. I discovered that when the owner of the tennis court threw me out.

13. Putting a room in order.
Uh..... cleaning up?

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark.
Lightning bug. Not to be confused with "Firefly," which is a TV show.

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball.
I honestly don't even know what this is referring to. Woooly bear caterpillar? Pillbug?

16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down.
See-saw.

17. How do you eat your pizza?
By putting it in my mouth, dummy!

18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?
Yard sale or garage sale, depending on if it's in the yard or garage. Around here, it's often both because we Ohioans are serious packrats.

19. What's the evening meal?
Usually late. *ahem* Supper or dinner, pretty much interchangeably.

20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?
Basement.

21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places?
Vending machine. You crazy kids with your bottled water and complicated shoes.

I don't think we really have a regional dialect in Ohio. We just kind of steal whichever terms we like best from everywhere else.

Oh, and for the record, pancake.

I've mentioned this in the forums before, but it was in one of those suggestion threads that gets 100 pages long and you're expected to post without reading anything, so I never got a good handle on how people feel about this idea.

As you know, a lot of members here only join to watch/comment/fave other people's art. Some of those people also get a lot of art drawn for them. ("Those who can't do, create demand" as they say in Economics classes.) Often they will end up posting that art to their own galleries. Which is fine. But, sometimes, the original artist will post it to theirs too! Same thing goes for collaborations.

It doesn't really bother me much, though as a stickler for organization I thought There has to be a better way. So I figured this: what if the upload page had another option list: you can say a piece was done by you, done for you by someone else, or done by you and someone else. If you know the artist/collaborator is a member of FA, you can enter their username and it will send a message asking if they want to flag it as belonging to them. Either way it will wind up in a gallery called "Shares" or something on your page. If they flag it, they will get ownership of the submission so they can write their own description, replace the image with a better quality copy they scanned, etc. But they can still keep your original description on the image's page under the artist's.

But! But! But! Here's the best part! If you had a commission done for you, and the artist posts it in their gallery, you can flag it as having been done for you. The artist gets a message asking to confirm, and if they do it gets put in your Shares gallery and you can add a second description if you want.

Collaborations? It would work just like on Newgrounds, where both users have full control over the submission. Each can have their own description on the submission's page. (It would be titled something like "(username) Says:" so you can tell who says what.)

So how's that mess sound? It's a hefty undertaking, but since they're planning on completely recoding the site anyway, it would only be one change out of many. The only thing that puzzles me is how they'd implement it on the database side, especially if the "creator" of an image can refer to one person, or more than one.

Therefore....

FREE ART TO THE FIRST PERSON WHO RULE 34'S THE ANTHROPOMORPHIC PUNCHING BAG FROM BRAWL. BECAUSE DO IT.

Free art will be a one- or two-character drawing, inked but uncolored, in the semi-rough style used here.

Please rest assured that this is for the lulz, and not for my own sexual gratification (you sick, sick, sick people). Oh, and so I can say I thought of it first and have the actual picture to prove it, without having to ... you know, actually draw and post it myself.

I just got a Watch notification. From  EV1LP1NK1 ... who claims on his/her user page (and icon) to have quit the site.

WTF???

I tried this a while ago and it didn't work out, but I've got a lot more watchers now, including some who I think would have some good suggestions, so here goes.

I've been wanting to do a group picture of a bunch of semi-well-known furries (I want the average furry to be able to recognize some of the furs in it) as characters from the Flash series Homestar Runner. The idea is for the furs involved to sort of match up with the characters they're depicted as in some way. To use an obvious example, I've already decided that MicahFennec's Trevor will play the Poopsmith. So here are the other characters, along with a brief description to help you pick someone out (each one links to his/her page on the Homestar Runner Wiki if you want to know more):

Homestar Runner - Already assigned to  kturtle because (A) it was his own Homestar Runner related work that inspired me to do this in the first place, and (B) he has the benefit of retractable arms, a plus since Homestar lacks arms himself.

Strong Bad - Snarky, sarcastic, sometimes flat-out mean to other characters in a way that's meant to be comical. I know plenty who'd be a good match; I just need one of them to step up and claim the spot.

Strong Mad - Strong Bad's brother. Big, tough, and dumb, but generally tame. Has been known to consume non food items.

Pom Pom - Big orange beach ball of a guy who's popular with the ladies and always possessing of the latest techno-gadgetry. Friend to everyone, including both Strong Bad and Homestar, despite Homestar being one of SB's least favorite people.

Marzipan - The site's only female character and Homestar's part-time girlfriend. Homestar put it best when he said she's "kind of a big hippie." Also plays a mean guitar.

Strong Sad - SB's other brother whom he despises for being such a whiney nerd. Kind of an emo kid who loves depressing music and poetry, and a constant target of SB's pranks and acts of slapstick violence.

The King of Town - Fat old man who lives in a castle and allegedly rules the land, though all he really ever does is eat. And eat. And eat. Employs the Poopsmith "for reasons I don't care to disclose."

Bubs - Runs the Concession Stand, the only known place of business in the cartoon's world. He'll sell you anything you want to buy...for the right price. And more than willing to give you a raw deal if you're dumb enough to fall for it. Sound like anyone you know? More importantly, though, does it sound like anyone who'd be willing to be compared to him? Because I'm not going to put anyone in this who'd complain.

Coach Z - This guy is probably going to be the hardest to pick, because nobody wants to be equated with him. Nobody really likes him that much; he has poor hygiene, is always hitting on Marzipan, and tends to discuss his embarrassing physical problems. He's basically every guy you try to avoid at cons. Good luck, folks. As a possible fallback, he's also an amateur MC.

The Cheat - Strong Bad's pet of imaginary species. More intelligent than many of the main cast, and mildly talented as an animator. Speaks exclusively in a series of squeaky noises SB calls "Cheat talk."

OH! OPTIONAL: Homsar - Occasionally shows up randomly for no reason. Speaks almost exclusively in bizarre non-sequiturs such as "Aaaaaaah'm a trendy totebag!" and "Hey, Reggie! Is that rhinocerous around?" Resembles Homestar but is apparently not related to him in any way.

EDIT: Left out the "semi-well-known" part. Sorry for the confusion.

Yep, new icon. Blame  touchmybadger - [link]

Original source is here. I'm not sure what it means, but it sounds like a lesson Mandy never learned. :)

Just for the record, I'm totally all in favor of permabanning anyone who perpetuates stupid memes on this site.

Starting with "The cake is a lie." ;)

First time I've ever felt the need to give a spammer credit for genuine creativity. Everyone knows there's a million fly-by-night companies advertizing "penile enhancement" products (how many of said companies actually sell products rather than just send viruses to whoever's visiting their sites, I'll never know), but this one actually waxes poetic:

That's great you've met a girl that's hot
You wanna plough her tasteful twat.
She's so attractive, she's so nice!
But would your penile size suffice?
Not sure she will long for more?
You need a wang she would adore!
But how to make it long and thick?
Your only chance is MegaDik!
You'll get so wanted super-size
And see great pleasure in her eyes!
Your shaft will slam her pink so deep,
Tonight you'll hardly fall asleep!
So try today this magic pill
And change your life at your own will!

I was inspired to step into the persona of my character Summer Kruse for a moment and write some verse of my own in reply (and yes, I really DID put this in their site's feedback form!):

I opened up my mail today
To find a ton of spam. (Hooray.)
The products that their ads did tout
Would make (they say) my wang stand out. (Ha ha, wordplay.)
I rather doubt these claims they make,
And wonder if there's some mistake:
Their tries to lure me might abort
When told I'm of the female sort!

But unlike every other time,
One ad, it seems, was writ in rhyme!
I don't know when I've laughed so hard,
Or seen spam writ by such a bard.
And so I simply had to write
And tell you how I felt tonight
To hear the way you tried to stick
In me your claims of "MegaDik."

:D

Lulz,
Summer Kruse

Firehazard popping in to remind y'all that commissions are still available. Full-color digital images just like the ones recently added to my gallery go for only $20, and additional characters (as many as you want) are a steal at just $5 apiece!

Those of you with tighter purses can purchase hand-inked, cellshaded pictures for $15, or forum avatars (digital) for $5.

EDIT: You can contact me via pretty much any means... Note, email, IM... whatever. Be sure to include ref pics or descriptions. And as always, pay nothing until the picture is completely finished! (It's how I keep myself on the ball.)