Not much progress this month... Circumstances conspired against me this time.. [tl;dr at end as always]

Was able to stay largely on schedule last month in spite of difficulties but just wasn't able to keep it up for another month, so have slipped behind slightly again. Two things outside of my control made it very difficult tho:

1. AC conked out again in the middle of the last stretch of the summer heatwave (I live in the US south), so was a sweltering 85-90F in my apartment for the first week and a half of the month, and I just did not have the energy or fortitude to push through the discomfort and exhaustion this time (even though I somehow managed it when it happened in September). AC's fixed now at any rate. Severely reduced output tho bc I could not push through the exhaustion this time around. Plus my computer would slow down and crash several times a day because it was just so hot in my apartment. For the record this is like the 6th or 7th time this has happened this year alone and I just have to eat a huge loss in productivity every time it happens which I think is really cool and awesome.
2. I genuinely have no idea how this happened but badly tweaked my lower back last week. A number of very basic actions now cause me extreme, acute pain, including but not limited to: getting out of bed, sitting down, sitting in the same position for any length of time, getting out of my chair, getting dressed, putting on my shoes, and especially coughing/sneezing. I don't know what I did that caused it, but needless to say output is pretty heavily reduced again right now, which is quite stressful. Not to worry tho, I am in less pain than last week so I think it's getting better, albeit slowly. I am hoping it is just a muscle or tendon problem. But I'm really only getting 2-3 hours work done a day. When I need to be getting like.. 12.

Anyway, I intend to take as long a period of rest as I'm able to once I'm caught up on everything that needs done, but no matter what progress I make it just seems hopelessly far away.. I really do hope I can transition to more of a patreon based model next year, rather than filling commission orders.

On that note, the backlog is only one item shorter this update (in my defense, it's a full color 6 page comic tho), which is not GREAT progress. I am also running very close to the end of the month with 3 of this month's batch of in-streams still needing finished, so it is looking like those are going to spill over into November. For that reason I'm only taking 2 slots for next month at this time, but maybe opening more when all of those are done. Needless to say I was not able to keep my regular work schedule of 2 weeks for monthly in-streams, and 2 weeks for backlog this month, so I will be trying to get back on track.

tl;dr
-not a whole lot of progress this month, kind of the opposite really
-AC broke in the middle of the summer heat for the 100th time this year
-as usual the slumlord who runs my building waited over a week to do anything about it
-there was a substantial drop in output due to it being 90 degrees in my apt and my computer kept crashing
-on top of that injured my lower back somehow and can't really move (or sit still) without sharp bursts of pain
-this has really slashed the number of effective work hours in a day and things have really slowed to a crawl
-only 1 item finished in the backlog this month (a 6 page color comic tho)
-at this stage most of the backlog stuff is large projects that are going to take a while to finish even under favorable conditions, still hoping to have it all done by EOY
-think that's it?
-also, patreon.com/svenonline if you'd like to support my art, I do at least a pic there every month, the more ppl join, the more art I can make there

Sorry for such a downer of an update.. hopefully the next one will be more cheerful.

xoxo
smokes/sven

Prices and contact info in the bio:
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/gimmemysmokes/

As usual there's a $50 discount if creative freedom (only applies to color pics)

Look forward to hearing from ya!

Opening a few slots for instreams, prices and such in the bio!
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/gimmemysmokes/

(This month's newsletter, tl;dr at bottom as always)

Hi all!

Been staying busy since last month's update! There's only about 15 slots left to go in the backlog, down from 25 a month ago. That's actually the total sum of everything in the queue rn, only 15 things to do. Would have made even more progress but had a couple setbacks, namely the AC breaking *again* and spending the last 2 weeks working in 90+ degree heat, which is less than ideal to say the least. Struggling through that kind of pushed me back into a state of chronic exhaustion (something I was dealing with for all of last year). Safe to say my productivity took a hit there, but the landlord finally sent someone to fix it, and all things considered I still managed to get a lot done since last update, as much or even more than usual tbh. Not bad progress at all, in spite of things.

Still, shaving off this last bit is gonna take some effort, I've got something like 3 comic pages left to draw, a sequence with 5 or 6 alts, another sequence with 2 alts, a full two page sequence, and a sheet of character emotes, a few rendered pics... yeah several big projects to go (and a couple regular sized ones for good measure). I'm estimating 150-160 hours of work (not that these are ever accurate lol). But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for sure, and am no longer feeling crushed underneath the pressure. It's all very doable. In fact, for the last couple days it's been one thing completed per day, so feeling the weight really starting to lift.

The status on my shoulder problem is that it has neither gotten better nor worse in the past month, so I just need to stay mindful and remember to keep stretching and I think I can keep up the pace.

Anyway, as I mentioned in the previous update, I need to return to a fixed schedule monthly schedule of doing a handful of in-stream comms (+ patreon stuff) at the beginning of every month, or I am going to be completely broke and stressed out. This allows for 2-3 weeks of work on backlog once those are squared away, taking up the remainder of the month.

So, will revert to this schedule for October:
Week 1-2: Monthly in stream comms + patreon stuff
Week 3-4: Backlog


This means I'll be opening a couple slots, probably around 5, either tomorrow or wednesday. I've still got a couple things to wrap up from the last batch which I'm working on right now.


tl;dr:

-progress has been steady in spite of a few setbacks
-shaved off another 10 slots from the queue, putting the total at 15 left to do
-half of these are kinda big projects, (pray for me)
-feeling optimistic though!
-shoulder health has been fairly stable, so think I'll be able to keep up the pace
-will be returning to the schedule I outlined earlier this year, 1-2 weeks of monthly in-stream comms to pay bills, 2-3 weeks of backlog projects
-october comm slots opening tomorrow or wednesday, depending on how much i can wrap up tonight
-still doing a monthly nsfw pic on patreon. WIPs and sfw art for free members, nsfw access for $3+, and $5+ to suggest characters, will be increasing the output over there once the backlog's taken care of


Think that's everything? As always big, huge, colossal thanks to everyone for bearing with all the delays as I sort out the backlog situation and an equal sized thanks to everyone supporting the patreon.

hugs, kisses, squeezes
-smokes/sven

Hey! Just this month's update, tl;dr at the end as always

Ended up going to TFS to meet up with some art friends. Posted some sketch pages on the personal account.
https://bsky.app/profile/lungpushup...../3lwnjnjjz3c2y
https://bsky.app/profile/lungpushup...../3lwnk7x2yrc2p
There's several pages of this stuff but idk if it's worth uploading, you get the idea.
Was fun meeting everyone, tho!


Status on backlog: The queue is down to about 20 slots (from around 50 at the start of the year). I think I'll be able to whittle off maybe 2-3 more names before the month is done. It feels good to be making more progress on it. Not out of the woods by any means but do feel like the weight is lifting a bit. It no longer feels hopelessly impossible. Should also be mentioned that a lot of these are between 50% and 75% level of completion, so it isn't 20 commission projects that need to be drawn from scratch.

Thinking I'll be able to approach OC art and patreon with renewed energy once it's taken care of. Still doing a patron suggested pic every month, but I'd like to start doing more of them, as well as finally putting out some of the ideas involving OCs I've kept on the backburner.

Also, I kind of messed up my monthly work schedule a while ago. The original idea was that I would do these monthly in-streams at the very start of every month, so that I could then take submissions for next month's batch around end of week 2. I would then spend the remaining weeks working on the backlog, with peace of mind because everything is settled and squared away. But what would happen is that I'd try to squeeze in stuff from the backlog during this first week in order to get at least a couple WIPs out during it, and this just had the effect of pushing the monthly in-streams out into the rest of the month, instead of staying in the first 10 days like I originally intended, which would delay the date of opening comms and cause unnecessary stress due to the shorter time to fill them. So, in the name of getting organized again, I'm going to go back to the schedule I came up with at the start of the year, first 1-2 weeks of the month will be for 2025 projects only and the remaining 1-2 weeks for backlog only. This will mean that during the first week or two of the month it will be unlikely that I have new updates. It's not ideal but in the grand scheme of things the turnaround ends up being the same (or shorter), even if the updates are less frequent. I'd like to thank everyone again for your patience.

Schedule:
Week 1-2: Monthly in stream comms + patreon pic
Week 3-4: Backlog


tl;dr
-did a lot of sketching at TFS, had fun!
-down to 20 slots left on the backlog queue, most of these are at some stage of completion, so it's actually less than it seems
-granted some of these are still pretty big projects, so it's still going to take a while
-also, screwed up my work schedule by trying to do too much at once, oops
-will be reverting to my original schedule from earlier this year, first half of the month strictly for monthly comms + patreon, last half strictly for backlog
-that's really it for this update
-oh yeah join the patreon :]

thanks and take care!
-smoke/sven

Hi! Sorry I haven't written one of these in a while.

I kind of fell into a bit of a slump, I won't go into it too much, the point of these isn't to complain about every little thing that goes wrong. tl;dr at the end as usual. Anyway,

Status is as following:

The backlog is down to 23 slots, which still feels like a lot, but it was around 50 at the beginning of the year. This doesn't mean I've only drawn 27 pictures, every month I've also taken 5-10 additional slots to cover living expenses, so it's been quite a lot of drawing. I was hoping to be done with everything by halfway through the year, but a lot of these have been big, difficult projects and there's a couple of those still left (and some less difficult ones too thankfully). I'm still struggling with this shoulder injury, which unfortunately never seems to improve. Last December it got so bad that I literally couldn't work for a while and unfortunately it got to a similar point of total incapacitation at the end of last month, forcing me out of commission for a good week and a half. I'm back to drawing and streaming regularly now, though.

I've made some calculations and estimations and believe that it will take me around 200 hours of work to complete what's left of the backlog. Not including the 5-10 extra slots I take on every month to cover living expenses (which is around 60-80 hours a month) I wish I could just draw 12 hours a day like I was able to in the past and get the last of it knocked out in 2.5 weeks, but in my present condition it's just not possible. But I can expect to continue whittling off a piece of it every month, and should be done by end of year just about, since it's taken me this long to get past the halfway point. I once again want to thank everyone for your patience as I work through this.

The big limiting factor right now is this shoulder injury. I'm still working every day, but it feels like everything takes 30-50% longer to complete on account of the pain and discomfort. This means I get less done for the same amount of work as before. And if I want to get the same amount done, I have to put in longer hours, risking burning myself even more. It's kind of a frustrating situation. It's put the brakes on a lot of the goals I laid out last winter, getting on top of the backlog, recovering from burnout and placing more focus on personal art, practice and experimentation. I kind of feel as stuck now as I did back then, despite the progress I've been able to make on the backlog. Every time I lock in and get a lot done, my shoulder gets worse and slows me down further. It's like I have to do more work to get less done, which gives it even less time to rest. I wish I had a good solution for it.

But in more positive news, I managed to replace my old tablet and get a proper monitor stand so my setup is a little more ergonomic now, and I've been doing some rehab exercises, a lot of which is just doing dead hangs from a pullup bar. Can't say I feel that much of a difference yet, but it apparently takes some weeks to take effect.

Last things last, there's a chance I might attend Texas Furry Siesta in the middle of August. It kind of depends on how things shake financially this month, it's going to be kind of a tough month so unfortunately it's not looking super likely, but there's a slim possibility anyway.

tl;dr
-backlog is down to half of what it was at the beginning of the year (down to about 23 slots)
-working through it still but shoulder injury flared up again last month
-still have to take on a set amount of new comms every month to cover rent, utilities and groceries
-in spite of progress still feeling burnt out due to injury and resulting slow rate of work
-made some improvements to workstation so maybe things will get better
-small chance of attending Texas Furry Siesta, but not looking super likely at present
-obligatory plug for the patreon http://patreon.com/c/svenonline


thanks for sticking with me, everyone, luv u
x0x0
-sven/smokes

Prices and such in bio! Doing $50 off if creative freedom again, altho not applicable on the b&w tier. https://www.furaffinity.net/user/gimmemysmokes/

contact (order of preference):
discord: gimmemysmokes
email: gimmemycomms@protonmail./com
FA note

Prices and such in bio! Doing $50 off if creative freedom again. https://www.furaffinity.net/user/gimmemysmokes/

contact (order of preference):
discord: gimmemysmokes
email: gimmemycomms@protonmail./com
FA note

Opening some in stream slots for next month, shoulder should be good enough to stream now, will be doing these in the second half of july
5 or so slots are available
prices in the bio, I've also added a black and white tier
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/gimmemysmokes/

contact (order of preference):
discord: gimmemysmokes
email: gimmemycomms@protonmail./com
FA note

Alright got a slot left for June, almost have enough scraped together to replace my tablet. Added a new comm tier as well, which will be a black & white illustration if anyon'es interested in that, prices in the bio. https://www.furaffinity.net/user/gimmemysmokes/

Opening 3 or so slots for next month because I need to replace my tablet.

Prices listed in the bio https://www.furaffinity.net/user/gimmemysmokes/

you can contact me on discord gimmemysmokes
or thru my email, gimmemycomms@protonmail dot com
or via FA notes

if you could please write those out in bullet points it would help me out!

I'll be getting to those toward the middle to end of June.

Look forward to hearing from ya!
-smoke

Sry said I'd open this weekend, but still working on the current batch of in-stream pics. Shooting to open May's batch mid week.

Hey everyone! This one contains the following:
1. work status and schedule,
2. health update/deeper explanation of my primary ailment and how I aim to fix it and
3. some odds and ends kind of unrelated but which I guess were on my mind this month (not related to comms). As always, there's tl;dr at the bottom.

1. Work status this month is as follows: I got a little behind on the in-streams, they'll still all be done this week I think, but a few things conspired against me this month, mainly that the apartment's AC conked out (I live in the South) and took several weeks before I could get the maintenance person to come take a look at it (live in a shitty poor people apartment after all).. work conditions were kinda inhospitable for several weeks there, but tried my best! By periodically taking ice cold showers I could keep myself from overheating lol. Also basically ended up reversing my sleep schedule so I could work during the night when it was cool, which is extremely bad for sleep quality. Anyway because of how hot it would get when I streamed I just had to stop doing for it for a while. Didn't sit on my hands though, I swear! Got a number of pics from the backlog completed, and a few WIPs well along the way, some of which were very overdue indeed. So little behind on in-streams and patreon, but a little ahead on backlog? Have gotten 4 and a half pics from the backlog completed in the last 3 weeks on top of the in-streams I've managed to get done. However, I do have to focus on the monthly obligations for the rest of the month.

Will probably stick to last month's schedule going forward, because I can't keep working 7 days a week. Physically, mentally, I can't keep it up. This means that during the first two weeks of the month the likelihood that I will have updates on backlog WIPs is basically zero, just a heads up. Expect WIPs and finished pics to roll out again middle to end of next month.

Week 1-2: In-stream comms
Week 3-4: patreon pinup + Backlog


Will start taking applications for next month's in-streams soon, once I get some more headway on the current batch I'll open on patreon/discord, then publicly after that.

2. Some stuff on general health/burnout status (feel free to skip):
Don't want these updates to be a vehicle for my various complaints and ailments, which to me often feel like making excuses, but at the same time I do feel the need to explain why things are taking so long and how they it got as bad as it did (this will sound kind of negative at first but it's going somewhere positive dw). The root of it is basically this. I fucked up my rotator cuff pretty early into my art journey, all the way back in early 2013... and it's basically never gotten better. I'd draw for 12 hours a day in college, then after graduation, I'd work menial repetitive jobs working cash registers, making lattés, pulling cages of french fries out of fryers.. then come home to practice drawing for the remaining waking hours. Then once I quit wagie life and went full time with art it was right back to drawing 12 hours a day, for years on end. Long story short this problem kept getting worse, with no time to get better. No exaggeration, every second spent drawing over the last 10+ years has been physically painful, at times excruciatingly so. Also the time not spent drawing has often been pretty painful too, it's a chronic condition. I don't really talk about this much, because it's kind of a bummer, but it's a major component of the stress and burnout, and one of the more difficult ones to solve. The fact that every single brush stroke is physically painful leads to a lot of negative reinforcement, which takes me out of a creative headspace/flowstate, which causes pics to take longer, which stresses me out, which leads to other problems like poor sleep and lack of focus, which worsen the art, which increases the amount of time spent fixing the errors.... you get the picture. It's been a negative feedback loop, where the injury causes me to fall behind, and the periods where I play catchup cause me to injure it more. Anyway, this all reached somewhat of a breaking point last December, when I was quite literally in too much pain to work, and having daily full-on panic attacks over this fact. This lasted for weeks. I stopped sleeping, I stopped eating, I started behaving very erratically. But above all I realized things couldn't go on as they were, so I had to make some drastic changes. New pricing, new sona, new emphasis on personal art and new work schedule. As drastic and sudden as some of these changes were, a lot of things have taken a very long time to implement. I'm still not practicing or doing much personal work yet. I only recently got over the insomnia, and restoring my shoulder back to health is going to be a very long term pursuit due to the extent of the damage. But as mentioned in the previous update, I picked up a yoga mat in order to start taking the rehab seriously with the goal of eventually getting back into calisthenics and isometric exercise and just all around putting my health first.

Effectively here's the issue: a large amount of tension has for years been pulling everything in my drawing shoulder out of place. Tight lats, tight trapezius, tight rhomboids, tight levator scapulae, tight teres major... the tension has caused the whole shoulder region to sink downward basically; my shoulders are at a completely uneven slant. Anatomically, the rotator cuff is threaded by the thoracic nerve, which is one of the big ones, and which is getting clamped down underneath this downward pressure. There's one stretch I do that involves turning my head away while raising my drawing arm and it basically makes the entire right side of my body go numb from head to foot. Yeah, there's a lot of work to do... but I've managed to keep up a routine of daily mobility training and stretching which is gradually easing things back into place. When I finish the daily routine, the mobility and range of motion in my bad shoulder is actually better than in my "good" shoulder, so I'm pretty sure it's doing what it's supposed to. It still hurts, but in different places and in different ways than before I started, which I think is progress. The muscle fibers in my right lat used to be about as taut as a steel cable when I started, but since working on the area they've softened up considerably, easing the downward pull that's been taking place. I'm optimistic about the progress I'm making, but it will take months of consistency to get things to a pain free state, if such a thing is even possible. I've also spent a lot of time this month trying to sort out my tablet settings and brushes to be more ergonomic, which is an ongoing process.

The major hurdle I still have to contend with is that the pain does slow me down, which leads to more time spent at the drawing board than if I was healthy, which makes recovery less likely. So I will have to start taking days off to rest, even though it feels like I'm adding more unnecessary delays to work which is already long overdue, I don't think there's a way around it.

3. Other things I was thinking of writing about at different points this month (feel free to skip this too):
Had two, like, eulogies that I almost wrote this month, weird as that sounds. The first was April 1st being the one year anniversary of the tragic end of the Cartoonist Kayfabe youtube channel (one of the only good yt shows about comics), which was one of very few online shows I watched. It ended in extremely tragic circumstances that I've kind of felt like speaking my mind on for a long time, but has also felt inappropriate to do, since I have extremely mixed feelings and about the whole thing. It involves the intersection of living as an online persona, hustle culture, cancel culture, the overwhelming pressure of full-time content creation and a bunch of other topics too probably, but feels disrespectful to turn the very real circumstances into like a case study. Wish I had the tact to pull it off, but I'm not actually much of a writer. A less serious eulogy would be over the death of 4chan, which is pretty much where I got started doing art online in the first place. I discovered /ic/ (the art and critique board) way, way early, all the way back in 2006 when i was underage b&, and it was the first place that really told me that my art sucked in a major way and I needed to practice (still true unfortunately), which is something valuable I think. In the 10's I cut my teeth artistically, drawfagging on /tg/ and /aco/ and it ended up being where I got started doing commissions. I don't think I would have known where to get my foot in the door otherwise, since I was completely anti social media at the time (wish I still could be tbh). There are other boards that I owe a lot to as well, /mu/ and /lit/ being some of the better discussion boards for their respective topics on the internet at various points in time. It's a site I've barely visited in years, but it's a bit sad to see it go. It was never good as the old adage goes, but all the same, it was a genuine piece of web1.0 culture that felt like a strangely reassuring constant in a growingly de-personalized and corporatized internet. There's not a lot of places left that have their own online culture (FA is still definitely one of them, though), so it's sad when these places go extinct. I could have also written a whole essay on the new version of Midjourney that came out this month as well, which I find alarming for a few reasons, but this post is already way too long, so I'll save it for next month (if I still feel the same way about it then).

tl;dr
-1. schedule got a little messed up this month due to apartment problems
-will still get remaining in-streams out this week in all likelihood, EOM at latest
-need to allow 2 weeks for the in-streams every month instead of 1, so I can start having days to rest (desperately needed)
-finished pics and WIPs from the backlog will go out during the latter half of the month
-next month's batch of comms will probably open this weekend
-2. trying to restore my shoulder to health, due to it being a chronic condition, will take a long time before it's fixed
-how this condition affects my work is the origin of a lot of my difficulties with stress and burnout
-on account of trying to fix it, I will have to consistently start taking days off from working
-3. had some minor thoughts about the deaths of a youtube channel i used to watch and a popular imageboard where my art journey started on
-that's about it for this one?

as always hugs, kisses, etc.
-smokes but sometimes sven

Hi everyone!

Some good news: Mentioned in the last update i was struggling with a few health problems related to stress and overwork as well as RSI conditions slowing me down. One of the main issues has been chronic insomnia, which i've been dealing with since December of last year. For weeks on end i was getting max 4-5 hours of pretty troubled sleep per night, but as of this week it's finally begun to subside and i'm finally starting to get regular sleep again. It's been 7-9 hours every night for a few days in a row now. Not always consecutive, but I'll take it. i am feeling a lot less zombified. the bags under my eyes are still there but they no longer have that dry iguana skin texture.. starting to recover.

This change is the result of a battery of supplements i started taking for stress management and CNS recovery, and which i was only able to purchase all at once due to a generous donation made after my last status update. So thank you again. The supplements i think have made the most difference are L-theanine and Lemon Balm, which noticeably reduced the amount of tension i was under pretty much immediately. If you're curious about the rest of the stack, I am also taking Lecithin, Magnesium Glycinate, Phosphatidyl Serine and B12. The difference has been night and day.

However, once i started getting proper sleep a new wave of exhaustion kind of caught up to me, and i've only been able to put in 3-4 hours of work per day over the last few days. There's this mental and physical fatigue i seriously need to recover from and one of the causes of my hyperproductivity during my months of restlessness was that it was the only way to get my mind off of the anxiety. But now that that's no longer a motivating factor my body is basically just going into rest mode for a bit and if i try to maintain focus for too long i get exhausted immediately (hence no streams over the past week or so). I was hoping to get more done from the backlog this month, but i genuinely need the rest after the fairly brutal work schedule I've been maintaining since mid December. I'm sleeping but I need some like, actual rest.. That said some of the most overdue pics that I was completely stuck on have been completed in the last few days, so i am making progress. April is going to be hectic to say the least though, so I can't push myself too much right now.

As always i am truly grateful for your continued patience, understanding and support while i sort out the situation with overdue work.

Last things last, switching the patreon to a paywalled model. Unique works produced for the patreon will remain paywalled for the time being. I initially experimented with promoting non-paywalled patreon content, but it did not lead to increased membership, so i am going to see if paywalling will do better. i genuinely don't like paywalls as a model, as the value comes from taking something away rather than adding something, and also they're impossible to maintain due to leakers.. but if it's the only way to get people to sign up i guess it's a necessary evil. i may be doing a push for more patreon exclusives per month going forward if people find this model more enticing.

Anyway that's it for me,
love u guys <33
-smokes but sometimes sven

Still taking submissions for in-stream slots for next month! 2 slots left!

Schedule will look as follows in April:

Week 1-2: In-stream comms
Week 3-4: pinup + Backlog

The creative freedom discount will remain in place. $50 off on pics with creative freedom! You can submit a list of the stuff you generally like and we can come up with something from there. If you do feel like helping out for whatever reason, i will leave the tip option open. 10 slots are available, either level, first come first serve! prices in bio!

contact (order of preference):
discord: gimmemysmokes
email: gimmemycomms@protonmail dot com
FA note

look forward to hearing from ya! <3
-smoke

Nearly done with March's in-stream comms, took a little longer than expected (what else is new), but almost done! Will be getting back to clearing out the backlog for the rest of the month once those are are wrapped up!

I'll be taking a couple extra slots this time around due to student loan payments and taxes.

Schedule will look as follows in April:

Week 1-2: In-stream comms
Week 3-4: pinup + Backlog

The creative freedom discount will remain in place. $50 off on pics with creative freedom! You can submit a list of the stuff you generally like and we can come up with something from there. If you do feel like helping out for whatever reason, i will leave the tip option open. 10 slots are available, either level, first come first serve! prices in bio!

contact (order of preference):
discord: gimmemysmokes
email: gimmemycomms@protonmail dot com
FA note

look forward to hearing from ya! <3
-smoke

ps, still struggling a bit with the burnout situation, if you don't have a comm but want to get a coffee or a beer or something..
https://ko-fi.com/svenonline
www.patreon.com/c/svenonline

first things first, a big, huge, colossal thanks to everyone for all the kind notes, DMs, thoughtful comments, well wishes, bouquets of flowers, etc. etc. after my big current state of burnout post. i was genuinely astonished at the amount of support. so a sincere thank you to everyone who reached out or even just read what i had to say. i felt understood in a way that i honestly wasn't expecting. things are hard right now to say the least, but it actually made me feel more optimistic than i have in a long time. here's the present status update on how things are going, my work schedule, info on comm openings for april, all that kind of stuff. as usual, tl;dr at the bottom:

The in-streams and monthly patreon pic have really helped me to get things moving in the right direction. for the first time in a long time, i feel like i've got something resembling a foundation. but there's still a long way to go. setting up the monthly stream pics to cover recurring expenses has reduced my stress levels immensely. even with the discount the creative freedom comms have been smooth and effortless so far, despite me going way harder on some of them than intended (got creative). so i think the discount will remain in place. i'll be wrapping up the current batch and opening comm in a few days here. the patreon pic has also been a huge help too. it's actually allowed me to do a relatively relaxing, low-pressure but still full effort pic every month where i get to try out new things. this is something i genuinely haven't been able to do in years. i've completely revamped my approach to digital painting because of it, no joke. just this small bit of personal painting has taught me so much. you can see it in the latest batch of pics i'm posting.

so those are the positives! but on the other side.. i hate bringing this stuff up, i really do, but i can't keep sweeping it under the rug and trying to power through it. i'm still not doing well. i'm still dealing with chronic fatigue, chronic stress, insomnia, and constant chronic pain in my shoulder and arm. these are severely hampering my performance a lot of days. at the same time my work hours have only increased now on account of fulfilling the patreon obligations, while also being active on bsky to establish a whole new social media presence. this is of course a good thing, since it means it's taking off, but it feels like the only way to dig my way out of this burnout situation is to completely burn the candle at both ends, at 3x the rate i already am.. so while there is some balancing beginning to happen in terms of the creative output side, when it comes to the work-life balance side... yeah not going to be a thing for a while..

this month and next are going to be a little extra trying on account of a larger than usual student loan payment i'm to make as well as taxes due in april. for this reason i will be taking a few extra in-stream slots these two months. as not to interfere with Operation Backlog, the amount of patreon activity will have to drop for a bit to compensate. i see no way around this. but don't rush to cancel your subscriptions all at once, i've got enough material to complete a pinup pic both this month and next. however it is unlikely that there will be any personal art beyond that for the next several weeks. it is what it is.. i'll have to make the patreon pics extra good instead..

The schedule will have to look like this in April and May:

Week 1-2: In-stream comms
Week 3-4: pinup + Backlog


tl;dr:
-sincerest thanks for all your support the other week, you all really came out and showed your support. thank you.
-in general the extra support in the form of comments, likes, discord reactions, *engagement*, it hasn't gone unnoticed, so thank you for that too.
-things are beginning to move in the right direction in terms of balancing my creative output, the creative freedom discount has helped
-however i'm still dealing with chronic overwork, RSI problems, stress/exhaustion, insomnia etc. i've let this burnout situation get very bad
-so your understanding in this regard is greatly appreciated. i'm working as hard as i can, but just can't perform at 100%
-due to a large student loan payment & tax payment this and next month, i will be opening a few extra in-stream slots this and next month
-to compensate, personal art on patreon will have to be put on ice for the time being, sry sven fans..
-this is to ensure Operation Backlog remain on track
-but monthly patreon pinups will remain on schedule
-also, for the next batch of in-streams, creative freedom discount ($50 off) on comms will remain in place
-there's a new TOS, mostly containing info from last time about the new policy re: extreme kinks
-people asked for my ko-fi so they wouldn't have to send tips and donations thru patreon so..

Dropping my links here, if you feel the inclination, a tip, donation or pledge would make a world of difference:
https://ko-fi.com/svenonline
https://www.patreon.com/c/svenonline

otherwise, i'll also be opening for april in-stream slots later on in the week, probably on thursday or friday! $50 discount if u give me the aux cord >:3
so if you want to support in that way keep an eye out for that too!

as always thank you for bearing with me, and thank you for helping me get my art back on track,
-smokes but sometimes sven

sven and the sven account are now live !!
this is actually kind of big for me. it's all been in the works since october last year.

https://bsky.app/profile/lungpushup...../3ljuyrhd2yc2p

 svenonline


i'll have a little status update newsletter post written some time next week, at which point i'll also start taking applications for april's in-stream pics.

huge thank you to everyone whose taken an interest and encouraged me in pursuing my personal art, trying to make a lot more of it this year!
-smokes

Updated TOS

General ToS and procedures
This is the modern up to date ToS! There are also some important changes re: niche and extreme fetish material which will be worth reading (they'll be in the do's and don'ts section), as well as my schedule while I sort out the situation with over-schedule projects.

Commission inquiries can be sent to (in order of preference):
discord: gimmemysmokes
gimmemycomms@protonmail[dot]com
furaffinity note

Contact:
I try to answer questions immediately, although I usually only check my email every couple days, so discord will have fastest response. Sometimes I forget to reply to people's messages so do ping me again if I accidentally left you unanswered. I'm happy to give updates on status etc. I'm also happy to answer art and drawing questions and give some critique, but I may not always have time to do redlines or a lot of 1-on-1 instruction. But I will try to as genuinely as possible answer art questions. Random no context memes or videos will be ignored. Also no ERP.

Commission announcements:
I put out a call for 5-10 in-stream slots every month, somewhere around the middle. I'll announce these for patrons first (free tier and up), then in my discord a few days later, then on furaffinity and social media the day after that if any are left.

Commission formatting:
If you submit an idea for a pic, please format it in short bullet points for easy reading. If you could order these from general to specific, that'd be really helpful! i'll be referencing this a lot during the course of the commission, so the more succinct it is, the better (there is a high probability i will be very tired while reading it). an example could be something like:

-picture with 2 characters in costumes with background, one male tanuki and one herm fox
-setting: victorian bedroom
-fox is railing tanuki on four poster bed and grinning
-tanuki is blushing and moaning and trying not to cum
-both are wearing maid uniforms
-dialog about how master will be home soon and angry that the manor isn't clean

it doesn't have to look or read exactly like this, but you get the idea.
i'm also grateful for any and all refs, and also links to galleries if they're up to date. if you don't have a specific idea in mind you can send some refs as a moodboard and i'll do something with a similar vibe. also irl refs are actually very appreciated since there might be need to look at accurate anatomy, so i'm comfortable with their inclusion.

tl;dr please format your ideas in short bullet points and the more refs you include the more i have to work with!

Turnaround
There is currently a backed up situation with a few overdue projects. These are being resolved at the fastest possible rate while still meeting the demands of my monthly expenses. I appreciate everyone's patience in this regard. The monthly in-stream slots are carried out the month after they're taken (comms taken in january are completed in february etc.). Generally these are done in the first two weeks, but allow the full month to get them done, as these can vary in size and complexity. For commissions not taken as in-streams I still shoot for 1 month completion time, but realistically it may take up to 3. As mentioned above, feel free to contact me for updates at any time and I'm happy to give you the current status. Once the backlog situation is resolved, I will aim to do only monthly in-stream commissions.


Corrections:
I will correct mistakes and oversights on my part free of charge, anything that's my fault you don't have to worry about. If there's things you decided need to be changed despite following the refs provided, or things that were omitted I will ask for payment to change them.

Refunds:
If there are delays and you feel that the commission is taking too long to get started I'm happy to refund the money, or if you run into unexpected problems and all of a sudden can't pay, it's all good, I understand perfectly. Just message me and tell me you'd like to cancel, but allow me about 2-4 weeks to free up the money.

The Smokes work schedule:
[week 1 - monthly in-stream commissions
week 2 - patreon material
week 3-4 - backlog]
At present there's a small pileup of certain over-schedule projects, which is currently being handled in 2 week chunks every month. as such i am taking only a very limited number of commissions at a time. this schedule is something i've arrived at in order to maintain some semblance of stability while ensuring each customer gets the exact level of quality promised.

The middle of the month is reserved for the monthly pinup pic that the patrons fund as well as a small amount of personal art (which the patreon also funds).

Do's & Don'ts
[Policy update: I'm currently burnt out on extreme kinks and niche fetish material. While I am completely comfortable drawing them, I have realized I have to limit them. I'll be putting a +50% private fee on these topics (will list below), unless you mention that you're a patron, then the regular commission rate applies. if you are commissioning a lot of these i'd also like it if your level of patronage reflects that. So burnout tax on extreme material unless you're a patron]

Do's:
Honestly most stuff, but more inclined if there's an interesting scenario or bit of a story
Personal tastes are leaning very much toward vanilla subjects at the moment

Subjects I'd like to draw more of (no particular order):
-vanilla
-sfw slice of life
-cis het sex
-cis female
-cis lesbian sex
-cuntboys
-femboys
-human genitalia
-normal sized genitalia
-maledom/femsub
-mild to rough bdsm
-humiliation
-rope bondage
-latex
-lingerie
-historical themes
-fantasy themes

Subjects I'm presently burnt out on (note this does not mean i *dislike* these, just that i did too many of them) This is the general category I mean when I say niche and extreme material:
-vore (all forms)
-extreme transformation/bodymodification
-cumflation
-multicock/multibreast
-dicknipples
-unbirthing
-massive insertions
-prolapses/extreme gapes
-oviposition
-hyperpreg
-urethral sounding/docking
-hyperscat

Niche(ish) subjects I'm actually not burnt out on, although I may still have to regulate the amount of these I do. However there is no burnout tax on these:
-regular hypercock
-mild TF (like werewolf)
-hyper muscle and hyper muscle TF
-macro
-watersports

Hard Don't's (no kinkshame ofc, just not for me):
-gore
-underage
-filth/smegma
-extreme scat
-diaper/other baby play stuff
-parasites/infestation

[edit: slots filled! thank you everyone!]

Putting the finishing touches on february's pics, just have to get the monthly patreon pic done and then will be focused on getting out overdue work for the remainder of the month. This was all meant to be wrapped up last weekend, but i had a whole novel to write instead apparently.

Every month I am taking 5 slots which will be completed on the live stream.

I'll be doing a discount this month of -$50 off on pics with creative freedom. You can submit a list of the stuff you generally like and we can come up with something from there. If you do feel like helping out for whatever reason, i will leave the tip option open. 5 slots are available, either level, first come first serve! prices in bio!

contact (order of preference):
discord: gimmemysmokes
email: gimmemycomms@protonmail dot com
FA note


con update: it's looking like a hard definitely won't be attending, just too many things to deal with this month i'm afraid. but there will be plenty of other opportunities tho.

hear from u soon!
-smoke

ps
here's what my schedule will generally look like in the months going forward while the backlog situation is being resolved
Week 1 - Monthly In-streams
Week 2 - Patreon Pinup, other patreon art
Week 3-4 - backlog

after my journal post yesterday, i received so many kind comments of support, people DMing me to ask me how i'm doing, people who came to check out the personal stuff i'm working on or even upped their pledges.. it was a lot of you.. it's all a little overwhelming honestly.
thank you all so much
<3

This is the condensed version of a much longer post I wrote on my present state of burnout, both burnout on certain commission topics, as well as physical burnout from overwork. 100% of the pertinent information is in this version tho. I think this gets the point across though, so i don't think i need to go into further detail. Sorry it's long, this was kinda tricky to write tbh, this is not the easiest thing to put into words but I've tried (It's taken me like two whole days to write this for the record). you can scroll down for a tl;dr version if you don't have time to read the full version. There's a general newsletter update at the bottom.

⚠️ important disclaimer (pls read)⚠️
no one individual commissioner is causing me to burn out, so eliminate the thought immediately that anything i'm about to say is your fault. this is something i've struggled to communicate for a very long time, so don't feel guilty or anything if you commissioned me to draw your favorite thing, and it turned out to not be my favorite thing. how on earth could you have possibly known? you couldn't is what i'm saying. so don't feel like you have the remotest inkling of a crumb of an iota of responsibility for what i'm about to say, seriously, it's a me problem, not a you problem. but with that out of the way, i do have to live my truth, so no hard feelings okay? thank you <3

-i'm a little burnt out on hard kinks and "furry logic" fetish material. And by a little burnt out, I mean very much a lot burnt out. i'm not just burnt out on the subjects, i'm like completely, physically burnt out in general and pretty mentally fried also. but more on that in a bit.

-i'm comfortable drawing hard kink and furry logic fetish pics every now and again, it can be a lot of fun, but i've come to the realization that i'm not exactly comfortable drawing several hundred of them in a row, all day every day, for years on end, with no days off and nothing in between. to be honest, i'm really not even comfortable doing that with nsfw. yeah, this post has kinda been a long time coming.. but I've struggling to bring myself to make it for all kinds of reasons, it's a little awkward.

-allow me to reiterate: it's not any one individual's commissions that are causing me discomfort, you're absolutely fine, i mean it. even you with the really weird stuff.. the really weird stuff... i promise, you're fine. but i am feeling a little bit uncomfy *in general* with the subject matter i'm drawing, because things that used to be an occasional change of pace, are now just the entirety of the whole ass entire pace. it's a problem of proportion more so than composition.

-i haven't crunched the numbers, but the ratio FEELS like 10:1 (or more) between commissions that are extremely demanding to execute and only appeal to a narrow niche, vs. commissions that are simple to execute and have broad appeal. sometimes a niche pic is an unexpected hit, but these are the exception and it's not something that can reliably be manufactured and replicated.

-i'm sure you can guess which category of work has been the most helpful in getting the bsky up and running now that twitter's become untenable.. (hint: it's not the freak shit). i've been uploading stuff from the back catalog, and when I scroll thru the hundreds of pics from over the years, there's only a handful I actually want to promote as something I'd like to draw more of. kind of a disadvantage when there's now this overwhelming moral duty to ditch twitter and you can't even use your back catalog to do so..

-on top of this, hyperkink/furrylogic commissions are actually kinda really extremely tricky to draw in general, due to needing to bend the confines of anatomy as well as the physical laws of the universe in the process. they very frequently go way over schedule and sometimes I'm having to invent some way to quite literally depict the impossible. they're prone to accidents, delays and fuckups. and over-time always comes out of my paycheck and when these go wrong they cause serious pileups that keep me occupied around the clock.

-i'm up for a serious challenge from time to time, but once again a very high proportion of my commissions are black diamond courses involving complex characters bending all constraints of anatomy, physics, perspective and/or taste. i spend a lot of time working at the absolute extreme limit of my drawing and design ability to make these pics like feasible and appealing. and it genuinely takes a lot out of me that i am just not getting back in any way shape or form at the end of the day. the limit pushing stuff actually does kind of push me to the absolute limit too. i'm never able to recover my batteries to 100%.. or even to 60%... I'm starting to feel pretty hollowed out.

-so it may be coming into focus how this is a serious burnout-inducing, hate to use the word crisis, so let's say dilemma. time-consuming, difficult to execute, and largely unmarketable commissions have kind of become the cuckoo chick in the nest as the old swedish folk saying goes (it's a metaphor about brood parasitism). they eat up a lot of time, substantially reducing the number of pics i even produce, they go over schedule and tire me out, further eating into my other commissions as well as all my free time, and when it comes time to finally post them, they only bring in more of the same while repelling the lot of people who would otherwise follow/commission/promote the type of stuff i'd honestly much rather be drawing in the first place.. so it becomes its own dilemma if it's even worth uploading. and this has been a big contributor to my declining upload schedule. there's a large amount of work now that i simply am not uploading or promoting because i wouldn't be able to handle more of it (it's in the early access channel still tho).

-i wish this wasn't as important as it is rn. popularity is becoming something of a critical factor in stability, which means it's becoming a determining factor in survival. hate to put it in crass terms like this, but there is something of an opportunity cost to spending a lot of most of my time drawing subjects that the majority finds unappealing. like i said this wasn't as much of an issue even just a few short years ago. maybe things accelerated like crazy the last few years and we are just firmly in the influencer/social media era now, or maybe the people on the bottom of the totem pole just all get shaken out during a recession because there's no discretionary spending anymore. either way, some of the other artists maybe have noticed this as well, but atm a viral hit post on ur socials is doing a lot more to bring in business than the week's 4th 'commissions open/adopts still available reminder' on FA. sad but true! And really it's not all about popularity or money, doing something unpopular can still be really good for you if it's for your own personal gratification and if it's something you're passionate about that you feel is underrepresented.. but about that..

-i've gotten somewhat pegged as a hyperkink/furrylogic specialist, when the reality is, i'm just a generalist *capable* of drawing hyperkink/furrylogic stuff, but who in all actuality, just prefers everyday slice of life and vanilla themes with maybe some rough bdsm every once in a while as a treat. hope you aren't wiping your coffee off the screen after reading that. most of the stuff in the gallery has more to do with clients' taste than my own, hate to shatter the illusion.. i'm actually not all that horni (sorry). i've been told there aren't enough artists at this level of ability servicing some of these niche subjects, so it makes sense why they're always in demand. but right now it is a lot more than i am actually comfortable with and i think i do have to find a way to get some semblance of balance. i'm creatively frustrated to be honest. regardless of how you feel about getting pegged, surely you don't want to get pegged by your "job" all day every day, 7 days a week.. for years on end..

-things like this are awkward to admit. the level of burnout i'm at currently is kind of serious. by kind of, i mean kind of very. not to cause alarm of course, but i've let it get bad. i've uh.. developed a couple physical and some borderline actual mental problems from the chronic stress, fatigue and overwork at this point, i can't mince words about it or keep pretending i'm like, well. this is all intertwined with a chronic shoulder problem that never gets the rest to heal up ever and 2-3 recurrent RSI problems that regularly flare up in my drawing arm. when i say i'm burnt out i don't mean i'm just a little bored and understimulated in my 9 to 5. i mean that my physical and mental health have in a noticeable way been steadily declining and instead of addressing it, i've been brushing it aside and whipping myself to work harder. once again this isn't anyone's fault, this has more to do with like, deep-seated personal issues within myself that we're not going to go into here.. look, please don't be alarmed by what i'm saying.. i do have an irl support network, i'll be okay. and the silver lining in all this is that i have actually started *working on myself*, so ultimately i am in a better spot than i have been in many years, even if i am sort of *objectively* in a worse spot.. better late than never.. i'm having this long overdue conversation with you, because i've been having some long overdue conversations with myself. i don't even want to talk about this stuff, i don't want you to even know about it, but it's at the point where it is now impossible to brush aside. you don't need to send me get well cards and flowers, but if you feel you want to do something to help alleviate my present burnout, next commission let me do creative freedom or something, i may give a discount, promocode SMOKES (but don't use the promocode if you're a person who can comfortably afford to pay full price..).

-i don't want to say i'm feeling 'trapped', that's a little unfair to you all, but i sometimes feel like i'm flooring the pedal of a jeep stuck in the mud and only digging it in deeper.. i need a bit of a winch to get me out at the moment, but what i actually need in the long run is like a subaru with symmetrical AWD.. (both in the metaphor but come to think of it irl), and that's kind of why i've been working on this rebrand since october (it's slow going, i' don't get a lot of free time).. but that's a whole other topic. i'll describe the winch.

-going forward i will be posting a new ToS where I highlight the point that some subjects have completely worn me out. I do still want to remain open to covering niche subjects, and I don't want to hit my most loyal commissioners with a burnout tax, so here's the compromise i'm going to make, and please let me know if the following is completely beyond the pale:

-I'm going to ask that if you'd like me to work on demanding and unmarketable pictures, that you either pay the private commission fee (we'll call this the burnout tax), or, if you volunteer the information to me that you're a patron when commissioning, i'll charge you at the regular rate, as you are supporting to me to work on my own personal artistic vision. so supporters/fans of the svenonline patreon will be given preference in this regard, but if you're asking me to do a lot of them, i'd like your pledge level to reflect that. I may also be setting some total limit on the number somehow, I've yet to think of the best, fairest way to do this. I do have a couple niche kink regulars who I have an enjoyable collaborative relationship with also, and I don't want them to get fleeced or excluded from getting comms.

-I'd like to emphasize that this policy will be in effect *going forward*, so if you're one of the few people who commissioned a niche commission that I'm presently overdue on, rest assured, I am not expecting any sort of pledge from you; I'm not ransoming the completion of your pic for patronage, although come to think of it that's a great idea... (kidding, i'm sorry about the holdup). This is for future commissions and is just the only way i'll get the situation under control. and if you're someone who commissioned me a niche topic like 3 days ago or something, dw about it either, this is all stuff going forward so don't even sweat it.

-please there's no need to DM me and ask if a commission you asked for was too much, it's completely fine, like I said it's about the proportion of certain comms relative to others, not the composition of individual comms. but having read this, you are now aware that there are certain topics that i am a bit spent on, so in my present condition i do ask that people take this into consideration when asking me to draw them. keep in mind some of these things may feel like you're asking a lot of me... and let's just say if i go to your media tab and see fresh art every day of the week by all the top Name Brand artists.. and photos of you posing in a fursuit by one of Furrydom's top suitmakers.. next to the exact car from Gran Turismo 1 & 2 (you know the one).. i may be asking a lot of you too.. ;))

-thank you for reading my life story <33, let me say for the last time, don't feel bad, don't be alarmed, i am taking the steps to get my workload and burnout situation under control. i am still going to have to work a lot, but just having the personal stuff as variation is doing wonders for my motivation and mental health rn (even though it's causing me to work even harder). as a special little treat for making it this far if anyone can guess what Smokes' actual favorite subject to draw is there's a free in-slot commission slot with your name on it for next month. Comment below. No cheating if i've ever told u the answer of course. One guess per head!

tl;dr:
-i kind of work around the clock on commissions and don't do personal art anymore, i'm sure you guys are stressed out too rn, life is hard rn
-there is and has for several years been a wide mismatch between the subjects i'm frequently commissioned, and what i genuinely enjoy drawing, something of a chasm unfortunately, lack of free time and hobby projects has made this more than a little unbearable atm
-this has led to a feedback loop where the only work i get asked to do is the type of thing people have seen me do
-a lot of this work is niche, extreme, divisive, by it's nature it'll always be underground
-popularity and opportunity are very much intertwined in the current climate, it is what it is, being 100% underground won't cut it anymore (i'm an influencer now :3)
-i'm spending both all my work time and all my free time working on unpopular art that i personally don't get any gratification out of
-on top of this most of these subjects require me to work at my absolute limit of skill and effort to pull off, challenging the laws of anatomy, perspective and physics at every step
-this means that they're prone to delays, fuckups, accidents and being scrapped and reworked, i'm inventing ways to do the impossible sometimes
-this is leading to a level of burnout that is actually deleterious to my health at present, i have to keep it 100, my health is not good, i am operating at 50% capacity or lower most days, the bags under my eyes have bags under their eyes
-this state of things frequently trips me up while working and a large number of pics go over schedule, even ones that are simple and should be unproblematic to draw
-to get things under control again, i'm changing my policy on certain niche topics
-there will be a burnout tax on certain topics, but which patrons will be exempt from, that's the compromise i'm making to not hit loyal customers with a burnout fee
-i might be setting a hard limit on hard kink/furry logic stuff, i'm not sure to what degree, but this may be the only to draw niche subjects without feeling like i'm getting trapped by them, i genuinely want to draw general appeal stuff, it's what i'm actually interested in personally


+General Update
-there is a remote possibility i will attend Lone Star Fur Con in Austin at the end of the month. depends on if i can scrape together some pocket money. i'm practically a stone's throw away, so really i just need a $10 amtrak ticket, a small bit of uber money, the floor ticket price and food/beer money for the weekend.. a friend said i could crash on the couchbed in their room. it's not looking likely due to several large bills i had to pay this month, but like i said a remote possibility exists. the hurdle is not particularly high by like normal standards, i need like 200 bucks (and 3 days off)..
-February's In-streams are almost finished, would have had them done this weekend, but instead I had to write this long, gay substack post. but i've spent two straight days writing it because it's actually a little bit of a delicate subject and does need to be delivered with some degree of tact or everyone will think i hate them (which would be bad).
-So I expect in-streams to wrap tomorrow, at which point I will be opening publicly for March's batch. 2 are taken already so 3/5 slots are still available.
-The pinup for patreon will go up this week as well.
-After that it's back to backlog and getting WIPs and updates out for the winter 2024 comms that are still waiting on them.
-The monthly work schedule is shaking out to look something like this:
Week 1 - Monthly Instreams
Week 2 - Patreon Pinup, other patreon art
Week 3-4 - backlog
-i will not be able to have months as productive for shaving off the queue as i did in january very often. i worked an insane amount of hours, and had a bit of a windfall because december saw an uncommon uptick in business, which bought substantial extra time to knock out things in the backlog
-this made me realize, that the more consistent my cash flow is, the more consistently i can knock things out of the queue, so monthly slots and patreon obligations are going to be a necessity, even though i hate promoting them while there's someone waiting on an overdue assignment, but it's what reducing my stress level so i am starting to be able to think straight again. i need the stability to get things under control. i can't like, get things under control first and then pursue making my life stable afterwards, that hasn't worked..
-i'm working on my personal art, would mean a lot if you checked it out, it's not ready to go live, but i'm posting a lot.. (it's not porn tho sry)
(free membership tier) https://www.patreon.com/c/svenonline
(wips channel) https://discord.gg/6dEAaebmC8

xoxoxooxo luv u
-smoke

After seeing bonifasko's post about how twitter is straight up labeling real images as being generated by the grok AI, I think I've had to advance my timeline for leaving twitter.

This is actually somewhat stressful as bsky is just not really there yet. It's working for some of the bigger name artists for sure, but it's far from everyone. So if you're a lurker, a commissioner, an art fan etc. do consider locating your favorites on bsky and supporting them there. I think people will only keep leaving in larger droves and the ones that are left are mostly there because they're financially dependent on the network effect. I see a fair bit of judgmentalness rn about the artists who are still using twitter. I think this is pretty inconsiderate and unfair and is largely based on the survivorship bias of seeing already successful artist achieve success on bsky without much effort. So if you do see artists still using twitter, please don't give them a hard time, it's probably not their first choice. Like I'd be lying if I didn't say a viral post USUALLY results in an uptick in business.. so this is a very difficult call to make and not everyone is at a stage where they can do it comfortably. I'm at a stage where I can probably do it, just uncomfortably..


You can find me at
http://smokes.anthroartist.community
http://lungpushups.bsky.social

i'm changing it up a bit. moving things in a new direction. I'm posting WIPs constantly on patreon, 0$ tier, free, no down payment. it's all OC. as a matter of fact, it's all my own OCs. all personal art..

it's not ready for a public release yet, but there's free exclusive early access..

https://www.patreon.com/c/svenonline

new account:  svenonline

Hey! Thanks to everyone who got in-streams in february, those are *almost* done and dusted! Been wrapping up this month's patreon obligations as well. I expect the last of those will be finished tomorrow or day after, so will be putting out a call then. I'll probably make another newsletter post updating everyone on where i'm at and how it's going!

Just like last month, 5 slots will be available at the standard tier, all to be completed in March.

last month's newsletter:
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11061035/


Also big big thanks to everyone who gave a repost, like, comment, bell notification on the gothic strap-on pic the other day!! I appreciated it <3
It's a post I'm still trying to get out there a bit so..
on bsky
on twitter


last thing, i do have to mention this every post, every day every.
there is unreleased, free art for 0$ that costs no money and is completely gratis on my patreon if you care to go....
i know what you're thinking, 'how much will this set me back?' what if i told you 'nothing'
https://www.patreon.com/c/svenonline
should be easy to navigate at the free tier now!


luv u xoxo,
smoxoke