Heyo! OK, so it's only been (checks watch) ... (looks at calendar) ... six ... yeah, six years. Sooo, a lot has happened since then. >_>
Long story short, in case I haven't already spoken to you about it - I focused on getting my career going in the animation industry, and it (eventually) paid off. I work at Disney TV Animation now, as a Technical Director!

I'm swinging through here to say hello and welcome to all the followers I've gotten while I've been gone, but also to say, I'm streaming again!
I am giving my old Twitch account a makeover and will be streaming on Twitch. So if anyone still follows me on Picarto, please take note!

Also, please note that this is NOT a strictly furry art stream, but more of a general doodles and maybe comics and animation kinda thing. Also, more or less SFW, as there may be kids and Disney fans visiting too. So come on by and say hello! My next stream will be ... (checks watch) ... in just a few minutes!

http://www.twitch.tv/jucostream

* * * * * * * *

Please note -

While I don't mind, and even appreciate, any publicity you are willing to give my own **PERSONAL** animated GIFs and SWFs by uploading them around the internet (as long as you don't claim ownership), this does NOT APPLY to my commission work.

Please remember that my commissions were paid for, often at no small expense, by people who own the creative rights to the characters featured in them. I usually give full ownership of these animations to the commissioners. These are their characters and they often care very deeply about them.

My commissioned artwork will always be marked with the word "Commission" in the title. From now on, by default I will always put a watermark on these animations that I upload to FA, unless the commissioner gives me permission to upload the unaltered version.

PLEASE ASK PERMISSION from the people who paid for these commissions BEFORE you spread the animation around the internet. If it is NOT a commission (or if it's Beast's Fury related), then feel free to download / upload / whatever.

Thank you!


* * * * * * * *

Hey everyone,

My friend  StormyChang is in need of some commissions, so check her out! She's done a lot of amazing work and has a flexible style... Plus, she TOTALLY deserves it because she's a super kind person!

Please help her out and if you have some ideas for her, let her know!

____
Her prices:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13970658/

We're on the home stretch everyone!
With just a couple hours to go, our Beast's Fury Kickstarter is incredibly close to hitting our goal! Now is the time to help us out, if you can!
https://www.kickstarter.com/project.....sts-fury-going

Hey everyone,

So my fiancee,  Daggerocha is currently open for animated commissions, and she REALLY REALLY needs some financial help at the moment! We've been trying to pay expenses with our art and it hasn't been going too well. Please, if you can think of anything you'd be willing to pay her for, let her know! But my recommendation is to keep it simple unless you're really willing to spend a lot of money, because 2D animation is hard work and can get expensive quickly.

Here's her journal about it:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5798288/

As for myself, I am also starting to work through my old commissions waiting lists, while we keep our fingers crossed on the ongoing Beast's Fury Kickstarter. If you contacted me in the past to get on the waiting list then I may be contacting you soon(ish). But, I am not open for new animated commissions yet... but Daggerocha definitely is, so go forth and get animated!!

We have a new Kickstarter for  BeastsFuryStudio's 2D fighting game, Beast's Fury! Check it out:
https://www.kickstarter.com/project.....sts-fury-going

As some of you may know, we have been working on it nonstop since it launched almost a year ago, but we need some help to bring a small team on board full-time to finish this demo in the next few months, so we can show it to publishers and gaming conventions. So check it out, spread the word, and consider donating to the Kickstarter!

So here's the deal...
I have recently adjusted my schedule so that I will be working on Beast's Fury 3 days a week. The rest of the week will be spent trying to earn additional money or to further my career as an animator in other ways.
This means I will be FINALLY resuming work on those few commissions I still have.

**HOWEVER**

I am in a bit of a financial squeeze right now and need some money fast. Unfortunately, PayPal - my usual method of payment - takes 3-4 business days to transfer to my bank account. The only methods of payment that are fast enough for my current needs are Chase Bank's Quickpay (takes 2-3 days to enroll), or Bitcoin (instant transfer but 1-2 days to get to my bank account, from Coinbase), or Western Union transfer.

So, my question is this:

Would anyone out there be willing / able to pay up front for an animated commission, today or tomorrow morning, using either Bitcoin or Chase QuickPay, or Western Union? I will add you to my commissions list on my FA page and will be working through that list starting this week. Each animation will probably take a couple of weeks to do, on average.

The commissions can be pretty much anything. Just remember that frame-by-frame animation gets expensive quickly.
Here are some examples:

$40 - Blinking face icon. Fully colored and shaded.
$60 - Simple 1/2-second loop, head and shoulders. Flat colors.
$80 - Simple 1/2-second loop, waist up. Flat colors.
$180 - Full body walk cycle. Flat colors.

Alternatively, I can offer a price quote if you have something else in mind. Check out  Daggerocha as well - she is also looking for some quick commission money. So what do you think?

[ To pay using Chase QuickPay, you would need to enroll in the service using a U.S. bank account and an e-mail address, using the link below. ]
https://chaseonline.chase.com/Publi.....sonalInfo.aspx
[ To send money through Western Union, I don't think you need an account. Just visit their website: http://www.westernunion.com/Home ]
[ To pay using Bitcoin, it would help if you already have some Bitcoins or are set up with an online wallet service. If not, you can set up with Coinbase.com, although you would have to do the instant account verification in order to get the payment to me in time! ]

Hey everybody - Thanks to all your support, we have less than $500 to go before we reach our main stretch goal for the Beast's Fury game, which will pay for a fully playable PC Demo!
But there are only 4 days left in the fundraiser... Check it out and spread the word!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqqEz30-ujY

( Almost forgot - Here's the link to the fundraiser: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/b.....s-fury-project )

Hey everybody!

So the Beast's Fury crowdfunding on IndieGoGo not only reached its primary $5,000 goal...

It has now appeared on the main page of the site, in the showcase at the top of the page!
http://www.indiegogo.com/

Thanks for all the hard work and help so far, everybody, and let's keep it up - with 32 days left, if we reach $20,000 we will have enough money to complete a playable PC demo!

Here's the project page:
http://igg.me/at/beastsfury

 StormyChang has a friend who is in dire need of some quick cash in the next couple of days, in order to avoid being evicted. I just wanted to spread the word... check out her journal below for more info!

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4607022/

Hey everyone,

So I've been gone for a while and haven't been Livestreaming or responding to Notes, while I dealt with a few real life issues, bought a new tablet, entered an animation into a competition, and other things.

This week I will be kicking things back into gear, not the least of which is a brand new IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign for the Beast's Fury game! I really recommend that you all check this one out -  BeastsFuryStudio has a great funding page with a video (which has me in it) and lots of info and graphics to explain what we're doing...

http://igg.me/at/beastsfury

He also has a new website where you can follow the updates for the game:
http://www.beastsfury.com

I'll see if I can get the livestreams going again this week. Stay tuned!

So once again, I am posting an update to say I probably will not be livestreaming.
Over the past couple days, something has been turning off my anti-virus and my firewall, so I think it's time I did a virus scan and made sure everything is updated and current. This will probably take a couple hours but I don't feel comfortable doing much of anything online until this is resolved.

Work will continue as always but the livestream is off. We'll have to play it by ear for the second stream tonight. Sorry and have a good Friday!

Hey everyone, heads up -

The lovely and talented  Daggerocha is open for still art commissions.

Check out her FA page, or click this link to read her Journal about it:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4519385/


DO IT! DO IT NOW! IT'S NOT A TUMUH

Hey everyone,

So in my endeavor to make a living doing what I do, I am announcing a regular schedule of two 3-hour "Jucostreams" every weekday. The schedule is:

Monday - Friday

4:30 pm - 7:30 pm EST
11:00 pm - 2:00 am EST

This schedule may be changed depending on how this week goes.
Here is the link to my livestream:

http://www.livestream.com/jucostream

So I finally got everything set up on my new computer, which should mean fewer crashes, smoother animating, and just all-around good things. However, I had to redo all my preferences and layouts for Toon Boom (which took forever), so at this point I may as well hold off on streaming until tomorrow. Sorry!

Coming back to the world of the living...

Jucostream later tonight!

Hey again, got a new update here regarding the Beast's Fury game I've been animating with  BeastsFuryStudio

There's a NEW Indiegogo fundraiser going on! If you haven't heard of Indiegogo, it's basically Kickstarter's closest competitor for crowd funding. If you're interested, spread the word!

Find out more about it, here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4272628/

Hey everyone!

So I've been working with  BeastsFuryStudio for a while now on 2D sprite animation for his fighting game, Beast's Fury, in-between my other commissions. It's gonna be an awesome game... visit his userpage to see some of the artwork for it, and I'll upload some of my work on my own page, too.

It's worth mentioning that Beasts is trying to maintain a high standard of quality for this game, and like all things animated, quality costs money. So if you like what you see, please consider donating any amount to him to support the game's development. Here's his journal about it:

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4229672/

Thanks!

Finally back from seeing the family for the holidays. I should now be able to put some semblance of an ordered schedule into action as I move forward on these commissions. I'll be doing a full-time push on these so hopefully I'll have more finished animations soon.

Hope everyone had a great holiday season! Back to the grind.
Any interesting New Year's resolutions?

P.S. To anyone who sent me a Note recently that I haven't responded to, I'll be getting back to everybody shortly.

Just a heads up, I'm traveling to visit family for the next couple of weeks. I'll be livestreaming (in Eastern Standard Time, for once!) whenever I can because I'm a bit behind on commissions, but it's hard to say when or how often.

Bluhh! So much to animate. Good thing I love animating.

So I hate to say it, but I'm swamped! Since my ad went up there's been a huge flood of interest - a little more than I was expecting I guess. I'm honored and I thank you all so much for the attention, and it's great to see so much enthusiasm for 2D animation. I'll be working on current commissions over the next few weeks, and I'll accept more as soon as I'm able.

The exception is anybody that I'm already in talks with. If we close a deal then I'll add you to the commissions list, although it may be as long as a month before I can start working on it.

If you ever want to watch me work, there will be plenty of livestreaming over the coming weeks! On that note, I had an extra one planned for tonight but I've been so busy that I didn't have the time. Anubis is up next, and I'll be working on more Beast's Fury too. I plan to do a lot of streaming tomorrow.

Thanks again!

Just a heads up, I'll be streaming in probably an hour.
I'm overdue for a livestream. Been very busy the past couple of days, especially since my ad went up. Lots of work to do!

Just a heads up for those waiting to see today's stream, it will start a little later and might end a little sooner than usual. Busy day today. Probably get it running around 4:00 - 4:30 Pacific time (7:00 EST) and probably go for an hour or two.

Hey everyone. Here it is... my new website! Please let me know if you have any issues with the site's loading or functionality, and by all means subscribe to my feed if you want to see my updates! :)

http://www.halsteadart.com

Now for the slow process of switching back over to the other half of my brain so I can stop coding and get back to art...

Some samples of my 2D animation, and some 3D. Check it out:



More at
http://www.halsteadart.com