This has been an incredibly difficult period for me over the last few months and I'm taking time out for some serious self help. I could end my explanation there, but I want to talk about these personal events. I have a bad habit of pocketing my issues and I guess I'm just hoping to have some kind of cathartic experience at the end of this by finally discussing it. Yeah, I know I'm doing this not-so-discretely in my porn gallery "journal" on a furry website, but if I can't even confess my crappy ordeal to anonymous furs in my private little section of the internet, then I just don't know where else to start.

WARNING! At this point I should mention there's possible triggers ahead. I don't know what triggers people but I'd like to avoid upsetting anyone since this entry will primarily cover topics of suicide and depression.

Several months ago I received an impersonal text from my sister announcing that her son passed away. I wasn't long into my grieving when I was forced to end my 4 year relationship abruptly after discovering my (now ex) boyfriend is a criminal. I was, and still am, so painfully ashamed of him and his crime that I lied to nearly everyone by saying he cheated on me instead. I moved back to my hometown out of state as fast as I could. Moving was chaotic and, even though this happened months ago, I'm still living out of unpacked boxes. The idea of finding anything we shared or being reminded of him in any way fills me with such dread and anxiety that I haven't managed to pull out any items that aren't immediately necessary.

I found out via facebook a friend of mine committed suicide after secretly battling with postpartum depression. She shot herself during an emotional fit leaving behind her newborn and 3 young children. I stopped eating after that. My stomach feels like it's in permanent knots and even now I'm currently 40 pounds lighter and still dropping. My sleeping habits grew erratic and my only relief between breakdowns came in the form of planning how I'd like die so I didn't have to feel this way anymore. During a particularly bad episode of this phase is when I gave up. I can't really say that I decided to kill myself any more than someone decides to scratch a mosquito bite. I know it sounds trite but suicide honestly just felt necessary and it was the only solution I could come up with. Obviously my attempt failed. I'm still a little nervous to acknowledge just how close I was to that goal considering it was a total fluke that saved my life.

When I recovered is when I finally realized how badly I'm going to need outside help if I ever expected myself to cope. Not wanting to alarm friends or family, I started with calling the suicide prevention lifeline. It was from there I was given free information about local resources and scheduled an appointment with a mental health clinic. Eventually I opened up to a few close friends and relatives about how I was feeling but their well intended advice didn't really help. I heard a lot of "You'll get over it eventually," and "Stop working yourself up so badly," before opting to call the suicide prevention lifeline again and talk to them instead. On that note, I'm not sure if people know this, but you don't have to be suicidal or even in a crisis state to call the number and talk to someone. I'd call them just to vent about petty shit sometimes because I didn't feel like I had anyone else to talk to. In fact, those little talks probably did more for keeping me sane and grounded.

The brief period of recovery allowed me enough time to start processing the ex boyfriend situation. I had every intention to report him but somewhere between losing my nephew, moving out of state, and losing my friend, it kept getting pushed aside. The first week of this November is when I finally contacted the proper authorities and reported him. I felt immediate relief once it was done, but of course I'm not allowed any kind of reprieve because, I shit you not, within the hour I received a call from my mom saying there were several firetrucks, police cars, and an ambulance in front of my little brother's house. The following morning I got the dreaded call informing me he committed suicide that night. Even now I keep finding myself looking at his facebook wall and re-reading old messages as if he's still around but just not online. My chest still feels physically wounded when I remember he's gone. I spent the 22nd of this month at the cemetery since it would have been his 20th birthday.

On the plus side of things this week I'm scheduled to start grief counseling alongside long-term (but hopefully temporary) medication.

That's still a really paraphrased version of events in the last few months but I think I covered all the big ones. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for sticking around despite my absence. This wasn't the cathartic experience I wanted to take away, but I DO feel better. For the record, the suicide prevention lifeline webpage can be found here with all the information you'll need for either yourself or a loved one. http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ Please take suicidal behavior seriously and educate yourself on how you can help if you or someone you know is suffering from suicidal thoughts or extreme depression. I want to also throw out there that I'm still far from OK but I'm not suicidal anymore since I made the effort to call and accept help. This time of year can be particularly hard but I can at least say from experience that it DOES get better if you continue to hang on.

Hey all! I'm temporarily open for commissions again. This time I thought I'd throw in a bit of a bonus. I'm opening for 10 slots. The first 10 people to commission art will have a 1 in 10 chance of winning an extra free 1 character monochrome commission like the example on the left http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10940139/ Note me with details if you're interested. Thank you and good luck!

Slot 1:  drye

Just letting everyone know I moved out of state so it'll be awhile before I recoup and open commissions again. I'm not sure when that will be.

Been going to bed with major migraines on the left side of my head right behind my left eye and waking up with numbness/tingling that eventually goes away after about 4-5 hours. I can't express how weird and creepy it feels not being able to move a part of my face. D: My (half)sister has MS and it's sounding pretty similar but I'd rather avoid jumping to conclusions and googling symptoms. Anyone else go through this? Pro tip: I'm stressed to the max with the loss of 3 people, a major meltdown, and several personal arguments gone out of hand. Can stress be a factor of my symptoms?

I promise! Sorry to worry you guys D: I got out of the house, I talked to some people, I made a plan and I think I'm alright for right now. Thank you all!

Closing again. Thanks Everyone!

Slot 1  foxjump (Painting)

Thanks again, everyone!

A big contract blew in like a whirlwind so I won't be able to open for commissions. The turnaround on this project is ridiculous so I probably won't be available to chat for the next 4-6 weeks. Sorry folks.

I'm still not taking commissions at the moment but  bhawk and myself will soon be offering limited slots for traditional collaborative commissions very soon (within a week or two.) We plan to open 5 slots as ladder auctions on FurBuy only. I choose FurBuy because I personally feel a lot more secure handling auction transactions through an actual auction site. I'm not saying it's a steel fortress or anything, but with a lot of troll bids I see on FA journals, I think I'll stick with what I know best and use a site that's given me no issues thus far. So save your pennies for the next couple of weeks while  bhawk and myself throw down on some collaborative personal pieces to get our creativity flowing again and we'll announce when we're ready for commissions again soon!

I feel I should apologize for being bad at responding to people online. I just get crazy anxious over comments and then they pile up and then I get even more anxious so I avoid the internet for a while and then rinse.repeat.reuse. I'm GREAT over the phone or in person. I don't know what it is about text that intimidates me so much. You'd think it'd be the other way around. O.o Anyways, I'm sorry about the random phases of silence. I REALLY want to be more interactive but I'm gonna have to take baby steps until i can better adjust to this newfangled text machinary. So please accept this as my blanket excuse for why I didn't respond or why I responded to a comment weeks later. :O I'M TRYING! HNNNG!

YAAAAAAY! Thank you everyone. It boggles me that this many people want to look at my homemade porn collection XD I really, really wanted to post a 3000 kiriban celebration picture but I'm currently dealing with tablet/computer issues so that'll have to wait. In the meantime, THANK YOU, ALL! 3,000 is a big number O.O

I wanted to give a big thanks to all my new watchers for stopping by and deciding to stick around. I also want to thank all my old watchers for their patience as I upload all these old images (again.) I only have a few more digital pieces left to upload but I'll wait a little while before the final flood O.o So thanks again for all the new watchers, old continued watchers, comments, and favorites! :D

I actually still have a LOT more to re-upload but I think I'll take a break from overflowing people's inboxes for now. Sorry about that, all.

I have a new goal of getting myself on a schedule of (hopefully) 1-2 sketches a day 5 days a week. I don't want to make myself any promises because I don't want to hate myself if I fall miserably short of that, but it seems reasonable enough. We'll see. At the moment, I'm going to be taking a break from commissions and sticking with auctions and personal pieces but at least there'll be more art in the works here pretty soon. MISS U GUISE OMG

Good news is I'm going to upload a couple pieces relatively shortly after this here long wait. The bad news, however, is that I don't know when I'll be back after this. I think for a while I'm going to stick with a new regimen that requires art time outside of FA for a bit. I'm definitely not leaving but I'm not sure when I'll be back. :< But you guys are the best! I'll attempt to keep peeps informed as I make my way around all this new life stuff that's happening.

So i was having a bit of a family crisis and although nothing went the way I anticipated it to go, it's finally over, I suppose. Then...then there was a lot of outside drama that turned out to be a little TOO exciting for me. There's still this massive influx of chaos happening in my life and I'm doing my best to keep some kind of order. So for now, I will have to close commissions. I'm very behind on what I owe as it is and I'm having a difficult time keeping track. I'm honestly not this scatterbrained or late but it's been an overwhelming past few weeks. I should have a few things up for you guys soon and hopefully I can get back on schedule again quickly and without further incident.

BRB WHILE I WHIP LIFE BACK INTO ORDER! *whipcrack* HYAAA!

So the tooth situation got fixed for a decent price, but I was sadly too hazy on the hydrocodone they gave me to get any significant amount of work done. I was also locked out of my hotmail. I'm very sorry if I spammed some of you or if anyone got ghost messages from me. I managed to get the account back but it took 2 days. D: Anyhoo, it seems like everything is back to normal. I'll have updates this week for those that are waiting and I thank you guys for being so patient with me. :3

 spyn0ff Is having some car issues and is open for commissions. Check her journal out for more details.

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3843432/

Went to bed with a tooth on my right side throbbing in pain. Woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I got hit by a truck and now it's throbbing on both sides. Called an emergency dentist at 3am in tears asking what can be done because I only have a couple dollars on me until payday and I don't have insurance. Was told it'd be $210 just to get looked at and possibly extract one out of the two infected teeth. My only solution was to take some tylenol and try my best to sleep it off. As you can imagine, that didn't help very much. So my head is throbbing, I can't eat, I feel like invisible ninjas are repeatedly punching me in my face and I'm very sorry but updates and progress on commissions will have to be delayed for the next few days until I get paid and get this handled. I really appreciate your patience so far and hopefully I'll have something for you guys to look at by the end of this week.

Please check out http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8632315/ for what I have available, prices, and TOS. Thanks everyone!

I've actually been arting up a storm lately but it's nothing furry related so i haven't bothered posting. I've also been trying to make it to one of my local life drawing sessions more often and i'm attempting to revamp my portfolio during all of this. So the good news is that Lizebra is still drawing but the bad news is that i'm pretty bogged down with personal projects which means there's going to be a quite a gap before posting furry again. Just thought i'd give folks a heads up.

tl;dr - DOING STUFF BRB

I took on a few more projects since last week and I just won't have the available time to make more icons but thank you all that signed up. For those of you currently on my queue, I will finish soon.

Check it out and note me if you're interested. I'll be taking up to 10 slots at a time. Examples here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8246150/

Current Slots:
1. partran (waiting on details)
2. yeaniaaeon (currently sketching)
3. Claudia_Vial (currently sketching)
4. ElunaOdis (not yet started)
5. Kenson (not yet started)


I receive these questions quite often so I thought I'd take the time and attempt to explain the most frequently asked ones and hopefully clear up how I do things and what's been going on with my gallery deletion and closed commissions.

1. Do you use reference? - Yes I do and quite often. Normally I think of an idea and dig up different references along the way as guides and inspiration. In the case of this image i was inspired by this one. This also included different googled references for hyena skulls and hyenas in general. Even if I can successfully mimic the shape or face of an animal, I'm better off if I understand what makes the shape of that animal such as bone and muscles structures.

2. Do you use direct reference? - Occasionally I'll run into an adult image whether it's from a magazine (i own a LOT) or through a simple google search of a vague idea I'll have, and just use it as I see it without much modification. Since all the images I google or view through a magazine are human, I still have to make skull and muscle studies on a separate piece of paper to make proper use of the anthro I'm trying to breathe life into. Again, I can mimic poses all day long but the process gets really boring for me so I only tend to use direct reference when i'm lazy or simply out of ideas or if I manage to find an image that's interesting or striking enough for me to be inspired by. Such as this image being directly referenced from this one. <--- I'm assuming this last link is ok since there's no actual nudity. D:

3. Do you trace? While I don't get this question often, I've still been asked a handful of times. The answer is no. I do not trace outside of my job. What I mean by that is that I subcontract graphic designs for apparel and a client will hand me a licensed character they purchased and will ask that I use the EXACT image of this particular character with perhaps a few changes such as clothing or expression. Overall the rest of the character has been traced. I don't apply this to my personal or furry art at all. Personally, it's actually a bit difficult for me and more time consuming in the long run. I'd receive no benefit from the process artistically or time-wise.

4. Are you open for commissions/trades/requests? Not at this time. I'm attempting to post at least ONE image a day of my own choosing for auction and that's currently my supplemental income. It's a fast and simple process I can do between contract work and doesn't require revisions or added detail. Also, as a side note, I NEVER do requests outside of immediate friends and family members and even that's pretty rare. I get pulled in a lot of different directions with requests and currently it's too much for me to handle on top of my already growing work pile.

5. What happened to your digital art? Why did you remove some of your images? I pulled down all of my digital pieces after a very personal and hurtful attack on my digital art from a close friend and fellow artist whom I've always looked up to. It was painful for me to keep them up. I'm not sure if I ever intend to repost them but if you google "Lizebra" they're still around on other sites like e621. During this time I've decided taking a break from digital pieces is for the best. I'd still very much like to continue but for now I need a break.

There's a few minor questions I get asked from time to time but I believe I answered the bulk of them. If anyone else is curious about something then don't hesitate to ask. :3

 tyelle has a bit of an emergency currently. Please read his journal for the full details and any donations towards his situation would be a great help. Journal link - http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3503605/