For those who don’t follow me elsewhere, I’m releasing a new album on October 1st! The album is called Homecoming, and it’s a concept album following a very long journey of self discovery and sacrifice, and I would appreciate anyone who comes and gives it a listen.

The first single is on all major platforms, but here’s a few links for your convenience:
https://miseryfields.bandcamp.com/a.....he-craving-sun
https://open.spotify.com/album/5QmX.....SPCN6rQeWP9-_w
https://music.apple.com/us/album/ho.....gle/1826956710
https://link.deezer.com/s/30EcLhQsmzevcldhZmwCZ
https://youtu.be/F6ya5tJBXKI?si=ZOjecG8DCpjnQl6I

Just want to give everyone an update as to where I am with my art -

I started looking for jobs today. I've gotten only one commission request in the last two months and with art being my livelihood, I can't do it anymore. People just aren't interested in anything I have to offer, so...if I can't get any commissions, then I have no choice but to quit. I was doing really well for a long time, I made enough to move across the country a couple years ago, but interest in my art has apparently dried up and I can't live on one or two commissions a month. So what choice do I have?

There was an indie metal band I listened to years ago who would say "buy or let die" on their advertisement posts, and if I can't get work, it's the death of my passion, what I went to school for, went $100k into debt for, what I've dedicated my life to. But if no one wants it, passion doesn't feed me or my cat. I don't want this to be the case, I really don't. I've tried so hard for so long. Will I live more comfortably with a normal job? Sure. Will I be happier having more money? Absolutely. Will I feel the same sense of accomplishment of giving life to someone's idea? No, not even a little bit. That's the whole reason I did this, actually. The joy of creating to make someone happy. But if I get a normal job, I'll be fed, and my bills will be paid.

I honestly don't know what other choice I have. I've asked, repeatedly, what people would like to see from me, what I could offer to entice them, and I've literally not once gotten an answer. Obviously what I'm doing isn't what people want, and if no one tells me what they want...what else can I do?

So...that's where I am. If anyone wants art from me, now's your chance.
https://forms.gle/D5NqAnUiUnHSVsVV9

Fuck you, Elon.

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

So the reason I'm doing this Iron Inktober thing is twofold: firstly, I wanted to do it. It's a challenge. My plan was already to do Inktober long before Things Happened™ in Virginia.

Secondly, I'm doing it to make sure I can afford the down payment on a place and get myself out of an abusive and toxic house. I've been living with my sister since March of this year, and last month I got into an extreme argument with her because she decided to express some very transphobic views to me. She tried to dress it up like a conversation but turned it into an argument, eventually ending in her, for several days in a row, screaming in my face to get out and that I'm worth less than an animal because I don't share her views. She couldn't legally evict me on the spot and actually amended the rental contract so that she would be able to do so with only 24 hours notice starting on October 1st. For over a week, I was so stressed and afraid to leave my room that I barely ate or drank anything and lost over 10lbs, until I basically emptied my bank account flying out to a friend's house. I'm currently living in Seattle to save up money for whatever place I end up getting, which is reliant upon being able to do a commission every day that I'm here.

I didn't want to set up any kind of GoFundMe for this, because I just did one earlier this year to get to Virginia in the first place and I was honestly scared to say "hey I know I just did this but here's another moving fund, can ya help me out?", and I didn't think that would be fair to the people who helped me out before.

So that's why I'm doing this. I need to get out and get my own space, and it needs to happen now. On top of my own safety, my cat is currently being cared for by someone else, but only until the end of November, at which point the person caring for him is going to consider him abandoned and put him in a shelter, and I need to make sure that I have a safe place to live before then.

If you want to help me out but don't want to commission me, you can donate to PayPal.me/Kraest, or to $Kraest via Cash App.

You can commission me here:
https://commiss.io/listings/R0Rj

CHALLENGE TIME! I want to do something like Inktober, but I want it to be more...well, more fun. I did this a few years ago and it was a resounding success (you can find the Iron Inktober 2018 folder in my gallery!), so I want to do it again! I want to complete one complete inked commission every single day of October, but I want to make it more interesting than just doing a commission every day. Remember way back when in the ancient days when artists would do the Iron Artist challenge and do a complete commission every day and every piece ended up being a very plain pinup? Yeah, let's have more fun than that.

For the Iron Inktober pieces, you can choose a minimum of THREE and up to FIVE prompts from the lists in the link below (you do not have to choose five, but you cannot choose more than five, and must give me at least three). This will be the entire description that you can give me for what you want for this, and I will interpret these prompts as best I can into an inked image for you. Each prompt can be used ONLY ONCE, and when one is chosen, I will strike out that prompt in the list so that it cannot be used again. Like so. You can also pick only one prompt from each list! So choose carefully!

THESE ARE FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE. So if you send in a request with prompts that someone else has already taken, I will inform you which, if any, have already been taken and ask you to choose another.

The piece will be done in an inking style similar to the Darkest Dungeon art style and will be entirely greyscale except for up to one colour allowance, which I will choose myself.

While I am allowing for NSFW material in these, I would greatly prefer if they were kept SFW, because it is my fondest wish that I can put each of these together in a collection of works at the end of this project to sell in a physical book after the month is up. If you take umbrage with your character being in a physical book that I sell but still want one of these pieces, perhaps use a different character that you don't mind being in a book.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED (and I sincerely hope you are), come drop me a line!
https://commiss.io/listings/R0Rj
https://commiss.io/listings/R0Rj
https://commiss.io/listings/R0Rj
https://commiss.io/listings/R0Rj

PALMS SWEATY KNEES WEAK ARMS SKETTI
n e r v o u s
I HAVE AN EP COMING OUT
AAAAAAAAA
PREVIEW AND PRESAVE IT HERE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/m.....ds/reawakening

You ever uproot your entire life for someone, spend thousands of dollars in the process, get your heart completely and utterly shattered to the point where you call off being in a relationship for good and consign yourself to being single for the rest of your life, cry uncontrollably because literally your entire life comes crashing down around you, and face homelessness because everywhere you had to turn abandoned you, all in less than a week?

0/10 would not recommend.

I do have a plan, and many people have reached out to me with love and support, and things are moving in a good direction now, but...I've never been so utterly betrayed in my life.

So my Patreon has been going for about a year now, and it's feeling kind of stagnant. I've been considering revamping it for a little while, so I'm looking for suggestions! What kinds of things would make you interested in pledging to a Patreon? I can't guarantee that I can implement every suggestion I get, but I will give every suggestion consideration. :)

Because FA is a broken mess an extremely stable website, here's a list of everywhere else you can find me!

Weasyl: https://www.weasyl.com/~kraest
SoFurry: https://kraest.sofurry.com/
Furry Network: https://furrynetwork.com/kraest/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kraest

For commissions, go here: https://commiss.io/kraest
For Patreon, go here: https://www.patreon.com/Kraest
Art streams here: https://www.twitch.tv/kraest

Sup y’all! There’s currently only two pieces in my queue, and I live in the capitalist hellscape that is the US, so I need more to pay rent and also feed myself.

I have a strong preference toward horror/body horror/surreal stuff, but I get that that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, so if you’re not looking for that, that’s also totally chill.

I don’t have a problem with NSFW stuff, but I’d like for there to be a reason in the image for it, you know? Like, a mountain climber with a boner doesn’t really make sense, but someone jerking it by a tree in a mountain setting with his gear on the ground? Makes more sense. Lol

Anyway, I’d love to talk with you and figure out how to make the best possible piece for you! come drop me a line! All of my info and prices, as well as my TOS are listed here: https://commiss.io/kraest

Update: I’m a weepy fucking mess of Studio Ghibli tears right now because it’s...covered. Already. I’m going to take a minute to stop crying so I can make the appointment, but...holy fuck, I love you all so fucking much <3<3<3

‪Y’all wanna hear some bullshit? Let’s talk some bullshit.‬

‪So let’s rewind a bit. I got my wisdom teeth out, one of them had cracked the molar in front of it, causing this one to also need to come out. So I go to the dental clinic and they tell me that it’s a two month wait for my appointment, *however*, they might have a sooner appointment at another location, which also does walk-ins. So I call that other location to ask about walk-ins, and they tell me that the only walk-ins they do are for x-rays, because the location that referred me to them has a broken x-ray machine. *However*, they have *another* location that does do urgent care walk-ins, and they’re open on Thursday (today) and Friday (tomorrow), but they’re first come first serve, so get in early.

So I go in at 10am today and they tell me that they don’t do walk-ins, and then clarified that they’re not the urgent care center, despite having been directed there, but they can take me there and that there’s a doctor available to extract my tooth immediately, I just have to fill out the forms.

So I’m filling out the forms and I hear someone call my name. I go up to the counter and they tell me that the urgent care center is *specifically for people who have never used their services before*, and because I have an appointment set for *fucking February*, that means that I cannot use the urgent care facility, because I have “used their services”. I asked them how that works, since I haven’t had *any* work done at any of their locations, which negates my status of having been a patient, and they tell me that just by having gone to one of their locations, that means I am a previous patient. When I mentioned that I’m in extreme pain, that I can’t eat and I can’t sleep due to pain, the bitch at the counter just said, “everyone here is in the exact same boat.”

None of this makes any sense, though, because in order to even *know* about the urgent care, you have to have gone to one of their locations, which would negate your ability to *use* the urgent care services at all.

So in all of my time going to this clinic and the other clinics that they have referred me to, they’ve just *lied* to me, over and over again, costing us time and money and gas, all for literally nothing to be done. I’m still sitting here with an ice pack to my face, counting down the time until I can take more ibuprofen, and getting dangerously close to overdosing on it until I can get this taken care of.

My partner is calling his stepfather today, because the only other dental clinic around here costs $400 for a single extraction, and I don’t have that much money. I have the amount that Apollo helped me raise, which would cover a little over half of that, so hopefully my partner’s stepfather can cover the rest and just tack on the amount that I’ll owe him for this onto the amount I owe him for covering the wisdom tooth extractions. Whether or not he’s amicable to that is still unknown, but it’s literally the only option I have.

I’m tired.

UPDATE: The bill itself has been covered, and anything else I get right now is just covering the aftercare things like pain meds, soft foods, etc. Thank you so much to everyone who helped me out! <3

So one of the wisdom teeth I got out recently damaged the molar in front of it, and now that molar also needs to come out. In order to get it out, I need $150 that I currently don't have, and I need it by Thursday. Any help would be greatly appreciated

It's currently nigh impossible for me to get any work done due to pain, and if I can't work, I can't pay rent. I'm doing what I can, but it's very little at this point.

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme2/kraest

One of my professors from school, Howard Katz, died today. He had colon cancer. He was the director of the illustration department when I first started, and was the one who let me into the last graduating class of the illustration major without a proper portfolio. I was also in the last class that he taught before his early retirement, a painting class. He was absolutely brutal with students who he knew didn't care, but was gentle and supportive yet firm with students who he knew had the drive to improve.

One of my favourite projects that we did in that class was painting the same image 12 times with different colour schemes, and several students painted their pets. Upon seeing our projects up on display on the walls, his immediate comment was "I'm sorry all of your pets died." When everyone looked confused, he clarified, "None of you painted highlights in their eyes and they look taxidermied."

He wasn't afraid to let everyone know that he had cancer, either. Another project that we did was using several colours of the same value to make swirling patterns in very thin lines to make them look like they were vibrating. When he introduced the project, he said, "I used to grade this project on how nauseous your final made me, but since I'm always nauseous thanks to the chemo, you're going to have to work extra hard!" But he didn't always make light of the situation, he also used it to call people out. When one particularly lazy student complained about the project being too hard and said that he didn't want to do it, he raised his shirt to show him his colostomy bag and said, "Oh, you want to talk about difficult things you don't want to do? I get to deal with people like you who want to waste what little time I have left, rather than putting in the work that you're paying to be here to do." The student tore up his project and walked out, and he just tucked his shirt back in and smiled as he told us that the weak ones get weeded out quickly with little effort.

He was brutal as a professor, which a lot of us needed, but as a director, he fought like hell to make sure that students got the education they deserved. When I had a particularly awful life drawing professor and visited his office about her, he came to observe my class, missing out on a faculty meeting to do so, so that he could see for himself how the professor did an awful job. The entire time he was there, he pretended she didn't exist, except to give her stone faced looks when she tried to joke around with him. To the students, though, he joked, critiqued, asked us how we felt about the class, about the professor, etc. Three weeks later, that professor lost her tenure and her job. Because he cared, and wanted us to have the best.

But, at the end of his life, he was happy. He spent his last year traveling to and from the largest art museums in the world, visiting and revisiting the Louvre many times. I never had a professor like him, and I consider myself honoured that I could be his student, and that he believed in me as much as he did that he allowed me into the illustration major without the requirements.

So I know things have been a little slow on the art front lately, but I have good reason! I had a wisdom tooth that was wrapped around a nerve and I was getting only two hours of sleep at a time and that made work...really fucking impossible? I also had another one that was broken and, while it wasn't giving me problems yet, it would have been soon enough.

Anyway, after three weeks of a six week wait for an appointment to get them out, my roommate found another clinic yesterday and told me about it. I called and made an appointment for today and after taking x-rays, the dentist took out both wisdom teeth in only fifteen minutes!

So in a week or so, once I've gone through all of my pain meds, streams and whatnot will be back to their normal schedules. :3

Also, like, commission me or donate to help me pay for the extractions because it was almost $900 and I have to pay it off over the next 6 months

Commiss.io/Kraest
PayPal.me/kraest

Thinking very heavily about my art and the things I make and realising I’m not happy is never a good position to be in. It’s not that I don’t like the work I do, or that I’m unhappy with the quality, because I really am, but, if I were looking at a gallery of my work as an outsider with my own personal interests, I wouldn’t fave or like or retweet the majority of what I make. I love what I do stylistically, but not in substance, just because there’s so little of it, at least for me personally.

I’m honestly tired of drawing porn after porn after porn. Nothing that I do for myself is porn anymore just because I’m so jaded to it after so long of doing nothing but porn. I want to do things with substance. And not just substance, I want to do things that align with my interests and goals for my art. I never wanted to be a porn artist, I only started drawing porn as a means to an end. Porn got me new watchers and followers, and what else do artists crave above all else? The end that I was working toward was to draw horror. Blood. Pus. Anger. The macabre nightmares that fester deep inside. Blackness and void given form and purpose. My galleries are so full of happiness and colour and I have such a hard time feeling any of it.

Many times I’ve had the briefest passing thought of nuking my commission queue, and I never recognised that tiny and brief feeling until recently. When I did recognise it, it was like a punch to the gut seeing that I’ve been graduated for almost a year with nothing real to show. I’ve posted before about the feeling of “I want...” and not being able to finish that statement, but trying to finish it anyway. The conclusion that I came to before was just that I wanted to draw more visually impressive things, but it’s more than that. I don’t just want to draw more visually impressive things, I want to paint things that I feel, things that would make me want to fave/like/retweet the work, were I an outsider. It’s not the porn that bothers me, or bright colours, or happiness, it’s that...that’s all I do.

I don’t want to be a porn factory. I want things that resonate with me, that make me feel things. In the simplest way, the end of the “I want...” statement is the same as the beginning. I want...what I want.

TO SEE THE SUN RIIIIIISE AGAAAIIIIIIIN!

I did a new cover that I'm stupidly proud of :3

If you're subbed to my twitch channel, cancel it. I'm done running streams where literally no one shows up except for one person. Even if there is that one person who does who up, Twitch affiliate status needs a certain number of average viewers per stream, and that number isn't just one. To the extremely few people who ever showed up, you have my appreciation, but six months of doing this every single day in the hopes of making something out of it and building a community around it and failing day after day is just too depressing. I'm going to stream Atharen's D&D game after BLFC, and then the game streams are done.

https://twitter.com/kraest/status/1.....320230922?s=21

That is all.

Hey errybody! I hit 1k followers on twitter, so I decided to hold a raffle! The winner, which will be drawn on April 30th, will receive a fully rendered illustration!

The rules are simple:
Retweet this post: https://twitter.com/kraest/status/1.....348790789?s=21
And you must be following me to be eligible! This is a celebration of those who follow me and support me, so if you’re not following me, you’re ineligible. Sorry!

Some restrictions apply, meaning I still won’t draw anything that’s on my “will not draw” list, and no raffle retweet accounts, so if I see little else other than raffle retweets on your account, you’re not gonna win!

Good luck!

https://twitter.com/kraest/status/1.....348790789?s=21

‪We have today, tomorrow, and the day after to get all of our things packed up and moved to the new apartment, so streams are on hold for a few days!‬
‪In the meantime, join the discord maybe? It’s a nice place to chill and hang out!‬
https://discord.gg/RKd2cSd‬

At the suggestion of a few friends, I've made a Discord server for my streams and also to hang out and stuff? :D

Come join! It’s a friendly community for hanging out and sharing creative endeavours! https://discord.gg/RKd2cSd

My commission pricing system has been…It sure has been. It’s this much as a base, but if you want this, it’ll be this much extra, and if you want that it’ll be this much more, and this other thing will also cost you, and a lot of it is entirely subjective and sometimes things get difficult to keep track of. So while it has worked for me for a while, I need a change that’s more fair for you and easier for the both of us to keep track of.

Since I stream all of my work, and thus have witnesses to see how long I’ve spent on a piece, I’ve decided that the best possible system in this instance is a mixture of minimum and per hour amounts. So there will be a base price for sketches, linework with flat colours, and full rendering, and that will guarantee a certain amount of time spent on your piece, but if the piece goes over that time, the “cutoff point”, as it were, then the per hour amount will kick in, and will remain consistent for each level of finish. So sketches, linework and flat colour, and full renders will all have the same amount per hour after the initially granted amount of time has passed. Furthermore, the amount per hour will be for the full hour. So if I spend an hour and fifteen minutes on a sketch commission, it will cost as much as a two hour sketch.

The price guide so far (subject to change)
Sketch: $30 – Cutoff point of 1 hour
Linework with flat colours: $50 – Cutoff point of 3 hours
Full render: $80 – Cutoff point of 6 hours

So this seems really simple, doesn’t it? And I think it covers everything I had before in my massive list of things that would incur extra charges without me seeming like I’m trying to nickel and dime the hell out of my clients. I wasn’t, I just knew that those things that cost extra would take more time, and I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing a hugely expansive piece for the same price as a very simple piece because then the person who got the simple piece might feel like they got ripped off, and that’s not fair to anyone. This system guarantees an amount of time spent on a work that’s average to how long it usually takes for that kind of piece, and if you want armour, backgrounds, extra characters, extreme character design…well, I don’t have to list it out anymore to say “Hey, you have this that and the other and, according to my list, that's going to double the price of your piece. Sorry!” and now it’s just…you pay for this amount of time and if it takes longer, you pay for that too.

So I hope that this system is clear and makes sense to you guys, and most importantly, for the people who are currently in my commission queue, this WILL NOT change the price of your piece! You commissioned me during the Olde System, so you're still paying that price. For anyone who does decide to commission me after the point that I hit the post button on this journal, you'll be using the system detailed above.

IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED IN COMMISSIONING ME! While I still need to update my page for this new system, you can still propose a project to me over here at https://commiss.io/kraest

Kindly go fuck yourself all the way off to the unfollow button. I've been on the Do Not Post list since they first instated it for a fucking reason, and if I wanted my work there, I would put it there my fucking self.

Anyone who does post to e621, I hope you realise that unless you are given explicit permission by the artist and the client (if applicable), you are literally actually breaking international trademark and copyright law. Copyright to the artist, and trademark to either the artist or the client or both, where applicable.

Honestly, the best thing that could ever happen to any furry artist would be for that fucking website to crash and permanently burn. It exists to break the law and to rob artists of the views and traffic they deserve just so a few pieces of shit can jerk off a little bit faster.

It is NOT the time of year to be seeing this kind of stuff (IT’S FUCKING JANUARY GOD DAMN IT), but I’m still seeing it, so yes, if you are disparaging anyone’s choice of medium for Inktober, you are 100% being an elitist. Digital, traditional, even WRITTEN works are all accepted.

You are no better of an artist than any other just because of your choice of medium, and telling people to “get out of their comfort zone” for something that they’re doing FOR FUN is just shitty and makes people not want to do the thing. “But you’re robbing yourself of a learning experience!” is really shitty to say because what if digital IS that learning experience that they’re looking for? What if they’re not doing it to learn something but are instead doing it to challenge themselves just to do it at all? What if, instead of telling someone that they’re doing it wrong, you instead applaud them for even trying at all? Or congratulating them for doing something their own way and for the fact that they succeeded in doing something that a lot of people fail at doing?

Telling someone to “get out of your comfort zone” with their chosen medium and then following it up and telling them to use yours absolutely makes you a fucking elitist because it is NOT your place to tell anyone to do a single fucking thing with their art unless you are either a.) their client, or b.) their art director.

Listen, I did Inktober last year, digitally, because I’m a digital artist, and at the time I was also a student of illustration and I was three months away from graduating with my Bachelors degree. I was in a class with 6 other illustrators who were working just as much as I was in their own classes and jobs, and I was still the only one out of all of us who tried who actually finished. Did I disparage any of them for not finishing? Absofuckinglutely not, because I’m not an elitist prick. I did, however, congratulate them for the amount that they did do, because that is how you support people for Inktober. You don’t tell them they’re doing it wrong, you fucking congratulate them for trying at all.

Opened in 1968, the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, while celebrating its 50th year, closed its doors for the last time. I was a member of the final graduating class, receiving my bachelor of science in illustration, and while I’m not the best violinist (yes I know my grip is bad), felt the need to be the tiny and insignificant Nero of our generation and played my fiddle only moments after the acting dean walked out and locked the doors for the final time. I felt that, due to the enormity of the situation, the only fitting piece of music would be Clint Mansell’s piece from the soundtrack for the film The Fountain, “Death is the Road to Awe”. It’s a small way to mourn the stomping grounds to which I’ll never be able to return, and the only thing that will remain of this historic institution is the legacy which myself and the final members of my graduation class will carry.

(I know I’m off key and out of time at many points, I just started learning the violin earlier this year. I also couldn’t hear the music over my violin at the start, and couldn’t hear my violin over the music at the end)