So today marks me being on FA for 15 years. A fun little milestone. I might get a little commission like I did for my tenth annifursary, but I’m not sure.

 Wysdrem is holding an art raffle celebrating 5,000 watchers. I’ve gotten art from her a couple times and I definitely recommend her. Her streams are also nice and chill.
Go check it out: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11011896/

I caught word from Judith Judy that there has been a security issue on the site with some accounts getting hacked. Folks might want to change their passwords as a precaution.

Well, FA issued a policy update today, which was largely in response to a number of babyfur artists being suspended/banned for things that they thought were permissible.

The new upload policy outlines those things in clearer, stricter terms but it raises a couple issues.
First up is this:
Body Part Emphasis. The focus (e.g. zoomed in, primary part of the content) of the content may not be on specific body parts of a minor, such as their feet, groin, butts, clothed or otherwise. This does not apply to content where the focus on these parts is coincidental.

Sure, don’t focus on suggestive body parts, but under this wording, something like a kitten playing with its tail could be verboten.

The other aspect is that this compounds an issue raised by last year’s update, which was never properly clarified. That this could apply to characters who are adults, but drawn in a cartoonish or chibi style or transformation into “baby” Pokemon like Eevee or Charmander.

I’m kind of inclined to ask for some clarification on the FA discord server, but the requirement for phone number verification keeps me from fully joining.

Well, given the continuing enshittification of Xitter I think I might not post art there anymore. But I still want another alternative for places to post, so I’ve signed up for Bluesky.
https://bsky.app/profile/foxridley.bsky.social

I was shocked and saddened last night to hear of Dragoneer’s passing. I only had a couple small interactions with him on the FA forums myself. He was a big part of the community going quite a ways back.

The other matter that comes up: some folks are voicing concerns about the future of FA. Quite frankly I don’t know what will happen. FA is my main furry art place. The best choice among a list of not great options.

If shit does hit the fan I’m on DA, Weasyl, and Xitter, though I’m no longer posting on DA.
https://www.deviantart.com/f0xridley
https://www.weasyl.com/~foxridley
https://x.com/foxridley

I still haven’t attended any furry conventions yet, but I do want to try it out. I can’t really travel far for one though. Anthrocon is pretty close, but a few people suggested that something smaller might work for my first con. My next options would probably be AnthrOhio, Furnal Equinox, or Western PA Furry Weekend.
Anyone of my watches have experience with any of these?

So I’m sorta curious what some of y’all do with drawing practice. I’m at a point that, whenever I draw I find myself redrawing the same bit over and over until it looks right so that even simple drawing get rather long and tedious. I want to be able to sit down and do a quick little doodle so I can practice even if it’s just for a little bit. Any tips?

Not as much of a deal if you follow me here, but at this point I might as well stop posting on DA. More and more artists are leaving as the site leans more heavily into AI-generated “art.” While you have the option of opting out of your art being used in AI training, the site’s policy only mentions third-party AI. So I suspect you can’t opt out of DA’s AI generator.
At the same time, the site is crawling with art thieves. From the accounts of people I follow, DA doesn’t even respond to reports of art theft anymore if you don’t have a premium account. It seems they have no regard for the artists that helped build the site. For a long time I’ve seen DA as mostly a backup to FA. I’ll still follow on there, but not post. See my profile for my Twitter and Weasyl accounts.

So, all of my drawings in the past couple years have been done using a free drawing app on my iPad called Sketchbook, but I’m starting to get annoyed by some of its limitations like being unable to group layers or change the canvas size. So I’m wondering if anyone knows a decent drawing app for iPad? I know a couple artists I follow use ClipStudio Paint, but apparently the version for iPad isn’t very good.
Anyone have any recommendations of something good in iPad? Something free, fremium, or a one-time purchase. I don’t really want anything with a subscription.

I got a new computer and it might be better for gaming and/or streaming than my current one. While work is keeping me a bit occupied now, maybe when I catch a break I might try doing a game stream. I was thinking maybe Space Engine to start. If that works out, I might get a capture card and stream from a console. Perhaps Metroid Prime Randomizer.
One thing I am a bit concerned about is hate raids I've heard of happening, especially targeted at furry streamers. And I'd been thinking of using a furry PNG avatar since I don't want to show my actual face.

My uncle passed away early this morning. I knew him somewhat, but we weren't all that close. One aspect, that makes this loss weigh a little heavier, is that he was the last among my dad and his siblings; the last of my his original family. There had been another brother who passed about a year before my dad did. I had wanted to talk to him more about our family's heritage, and I regret not spending more time getting to know him. Part of me felt that, with my uncle around, he carried a bit of my dad with him, and now that bit has gone, too.

I will be starting a new job tomorrow. Without revealing too much, it's something I've never really done before and I'm relly nervous about it. It's nothing huge, but hopefully a step in a good direction. I might not have as much time or mental energy as I have in the past to hang out here, not so much because of the workload per se, but adjusting to a new regimen.

Well, it’s finally happened. I got COVID. My case hasn’t been nearly as bad as some so far, but I’ve largely lost the ability to taste or smell.

After a number of delays, I have finally gotten my paper published in a scientific journal.

Just this afternoon, my sister gave birth to another healthy baby girl. I'm so happy for her right now!

We won't be missing you.

So, in the past month or so I watched two relatively new movies on Netflix, both involving animal transformation. Without spoiling too much, I thought I'd share my thoughts on them.

The first is A Whisker Away (a.k.a. Nakitai Watashi wa Neko wo Kaburu or "Wanting to Cry, I Pretend to Be a Cat"), which came out earlier this year. It's an anime movie about a middle-school-aged girl named Miyo, who uses a magical mask to transform into a cat and spend time with the boy she has a crush on, Hinode. But the mysterious Mask Seller keeps pushing for Miyo to give up her human face and become a cat permanently, so she can leave behind her difficult family life and keep the affection of her crush. The animation is great, and there are some good messages in it about depression and not running away from your problems. The transformation aspect of the movie is fun for TF enthusiasts. But the movie has one major problem that most reviewers seem to ignore; the behavior of Miyo towards Hinode. Already, going into the movie, I felt that Miyo spending time with Hinode under a false identity seemed creepy and unhealthy. But here behavior is hardly better when she's human. I would best describe it as stalking and sexual harassment, and the movies seems to condone this behavior. While many people recommend this movie as being suitable for children, I strongly disagree, as it teaches a potentially harmful lesson on how to handle an unrequited love.

Second is Animal Crackers from 2017. A family inherits a circus with amazing animal performances. The secret: a box of magical animal crackers. You eat a cracker, and it turns you into the corresponding animal. But the family soon finds itself protecting the circus, the performers, and the animal crackers from a jealous uncle (voiced by Sir Ian McKellen ) who wants the glory for himself. I didn't expect much from this movie after seeing the trailer a few years ago, but I mostly watched it for the TF. I got more than I expected. The premise is silly, and the movie seems to know it. It goes with a lot of cartoonish humor, which was the right choice. I legitimately laughed at some moments. There are also some nice family moments. Unfortunately, the movie is longer than it needs to be and has subplots that it could do without. I think, perhaps, there is a little too much plot for a movie meant for young children. The tone of the movie is a bit inconsistent, and the climax especially seems out of place in the mostly cartoonist setting. Overall, It's cute fun and, unlike A Whisker Away, doesn't have anything really harmful in it. I like the animal crackers as a transformation trigger, and I'm a little disappointed they haven't gotten more attention from the TF community.

I found this fun little animation on YouTube:

Of course, given my predilection for transformation, I imagined this as someone discovering their newly transformed body. But what's the story? Was some hapless human turned into a cheetah? Did a proud lion or tiger get "downgraded" to a smaller cat? Or did someone not turn into the animal they wanted?

So, a little backstory. I came up with my current fursona, or at least something pretty close to it, back when I was in high school. I newly was into foxes (mostly cartoon foxes) and I also had an interest in transformation, especially if magic was involved. Naturally, when I found out about kitsune, the magical shapeshifting foxes in Japanese folklore, had to have a fursona based on that.
Only, I didn't really fancy the idea of having all those tails. One was perfectly sufficient. So I came up with the idea that Ridley would be half kitsune and half mundane red fox. It's rather odd, I know. I only ever encountered one other OC like that who was later retconned.
But a nagging thought has been getting to me. Is a half-kitsune half-regular-fox just some dumb idea that came from the brain of a teenager?

Sometimes the idea sounds dumb to me, but having had Ridley as my fursona for about 8 years (not counting my ~2 year interruption with a ponysona), it's hard to imagine him as anything else.

I found this video interesting. Apparently a lot of the scenes people point to as evidence of TLK stealing from Kimba are scenes taken out of context from a large media franchise, some taken from a movie that premiered three years after TLK. A lot of other comparisons are based on misleading plot and character summaries, common tropes, or similarities that are largely inevitable in a cartoon centered on African wildlife.

My sister's workplace, a print shop, is having an art contest on Facebook for themes related to hope, fortitude, and optimism during this pandemic. Take a look. https://www.facebook.com/catprintll.....=3&theater

I've been slowly learning to draw/practicing on an old hand-me-down iPad. Unfortunately, the best thing it has is a very stripped down version of Sketchbook that apparently won't let me select and greatly limits the number of layers I can have. This iPad is old enough that I can't update or install new apps. I'm hoping to upgrade, but I was wondering; would it be better to get an iPad or similar with a drawing app or get a dedicated drawing tablet? If it's the latter, what tablets would you recommend?

Last night I was feeling pretty down about the state of things in general. Regardless of how serious this virus turns out to be, everything closing down is pretty crappy. My sister's workplace is not doing well because of this whole situation.
So I opened a bottle of wine. After I removed the foil from the top, I saw the word "hope" printed on the cork. The actual message was some sort of breast cancer sponsorship, and maybe I'm being silly since it's just a cork. But I think it's what I needed to see. Also the wine helped.

So I got handed down an old iPad to practice digital drawing. I was wondering if anybody had recommendations for drawing apps or a stylus.