Woooo! MFF was a blast. I met a lot of stupidly wonderful people there, but I didn't get to meet all the people I was looking for, nor did I meet all the people who were looking for me there. But planned and unplanned run-ins happened with awesome people like  mobianfox,  ivybeth,  donryu and  gravewalker happened, to name just a few.

I'll be posting some sketches soon (well, soon-ish, I gotta work today), but in the meantime, here are some things I've learned at MFF:

1. My badge sucks.
My badge, which I've been using for years, has the pixelly moose logo I put on all my art, blown up huge (or at least as big as it can go in 4x3 inches), black on bright red, with a tiny plotting Nanihead in the corner. I noticed this year that people would squint at it in nonrecognition for a long while when I talked to them Though it was fun watching their eyes bug out when they did finally piece it together, it's clear that I need a larger and more obvious badge, something that focuses on my name and character and not the logo.

2. Organize contacts beforehand.
Next time I go to a convention with a lot of new people on my "to-meet" list, I need to contact them beforehand and hammer out some way of contacting them during the con. I didn't manage to track down  pierrezaius and  lyenuv until a few hours before I had to catch my flight out of there on Sunday.  [koh] and I, on the other hand, had swapped cell numbers and were able to stalk each other down using SMS early on. I do always have my cellphone on me, so I can do this with SMS, Email, IM, or even god damned FA notes if I have to.

3. Bring signage.
Their Artists Alley is better organized than most other cons I've been to. They have a system where you can sell through the convention, and they deal with all the dumb tax shit for you. If I go again, I may come prepared to do sketchbooks in the alley there. But, I also noticed that a number of the artists there were nearly impossible to recognize -- their table signs didn't feature their artist name, and then their badges are hanging on lanyards, putting them below the table from the customer's point of view.

4. Chicago in late November is fucking cold.
Having lived there for one blizzardy winter many years ago, you'd think I woulda remembered something about that. I guess it's not so much that I didn't remember, just that these many years I've spent away from true Winter have thinned my blood.


On a totally different topic, there seems to have been some kerfuffle about raffles here while I was away... These new rules don't seem to affect the non-spammy sort of raffles I've done in the past, which is good, since I'm planning on doing another one sometime soon.

People seem to be doing the Con Meem thing for the Midwest FurFest, so let's jump in!

What days will you be there?
Late Thursday to early Sunday.

Where will you be most of the time during the day/s?
I really don't know the layout of this con, since I've never been to an MFF before.. but wherever artists congregate, that's probably where I'll be.

Do you do free art?
Yeah, sometimes. Feel free to ask for some horrible porn if I look like I got nothing else going on.

Do you do trades?
Yes! I crave them!! I will force my book into the hands of all the artists!

Do you do commissions / CDs / Badges?
Nope, I'm not looking to do any sort of business there.

What do you look like?
I look like this, except slightly less moosey. But clothed! Usually.

Can I talk to you?
Of course you can. We're talking right now! But you're getting a bit annoying, asking all these strange hypothetical questions.

If I notice that you are drawing, can I stand directly behind you and mouth-breathe loudly?
Yes, that would be lovely.

Can I insert myself into your social circle?
Absolutely! Maybe. Have you bathed?

Can I look in your sketchbook?
Ask first!

Can I draw in your sketchbook?
Ask first!

Can I buy you a drink?
Certainly!

Can I buy you a charming little villa in Tuscany?
Oh, I thought you'd never ask.

Can I take your picture?
If you must.


Here are some other random things I wanna talk about:

- I've been working on the art-viewer on my site, http://nanimoose.furryhome.com/. I haven't had any direct feedback yet, but it's a bit different from what you usually see at art sites. I'm trying to dedicate more screen to the art itself, no more big grid of thumbnails and descriptions, but keeping it quick and responsive -- no slow fadey transition effects like most other JS-based viewers I've seen.

- If you're wondering what happened to that laptop in my last journal, I wasn't able to get it to recognize an external optical drive, so I wasn't able to get Win7 onto it. However, I was able to find a factory reset to stock Win8, so it is at least unbricked, and that's good! So, I've got my portable drawing computer back.

- If you've got some spare money, go throw it at the TreasureBear kickstarter at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708092155/treasurebear. This is a PC platformer game that FA's own  redic-nomad is heading up.

A few months ago, I bought this Samsung laptop (a Samsung ATIV Book 6 680z, to be precise) as a thing I can bring around to do digital art from not-behind-my-desk when the situation calls for it. Hardware-wise, it has all the things I've been looking for in a laptop: A nice high-res, high-density screen with vibrant and true colors, a moderately-beefy CPU and GPU, a nice roomy hard drive, and Windows so I can run Sai and the version of Photoshop I own.

Unfortunately, that's Windows 8. Windows 8 and I were content to ignore each other as much as possible, so long as it didn't make accessing Sai too much of a hassle. But when I heard that an upgrade to 8.1 was out and free and might even make the user interface somewhat usable, I rushed into it. And into a black screen. Video drivers for this laptop that worked with Windows 8 are apparently incompatible with 8.1, and no compatible drivers exist yet. The Samsung support page for my model of laptop is missing, and talking to Samsung support directly has proven to be somehow less productive than talking to my cat.

So. My options at this point are:

1. Wait, and hope that they come out with drivers sometime soon, and also hope that that I can find them when they do.
B. Try to downgrade back to Windows 8 and hope things generally fix themselves.
or III, reformat, install reliable old Windows 7.

I'm heavily leaning to option III here. But a big worry I have is that drivers for this particular laptop won't be available. Does anyone here have experience with something like this? What are my chances? I'd swap out the HD to try it, but the only screw-panel I see on the laptop is for memory; to swap out the HD, it looks like I'd have to take apart the whole thing. :[

And, as a side note, can I just say that god damn cunt sucking bastard son of a shit whore, Windows 8 is the most painful, most obfuscated, most poorly thought-out operating system I've ever used, EVER. And I've used VAX/VMS! It takes the biggest, out-of-its-way steps just to stop you from doing things that should be simple. And while this is bad in just regular use, it is exponentially worse when you're chasing down an actual problem. Example: safe mode. I had to get into safe mode to disable the old incompatible video drivers, so I could see what's on the screen again. In any other Windows, getting into safe mode is a two-step process: Hold down F8 when you boot, and then select "safe mode" from the menu that pops up. Not exactly an obvious process, but simple enough once you know. In windows 8 (and 8.1), here's what it takes:

- Hold F8 as the computer boots, but only if it didn't shut down properly; otherwise, it's Shift+F8.
- Wait while Windows 8 does a bunch of self-diagnostics.
- Once the computer has analyzed itself and failed to find anything wrong, it prompts you to restart. Hit "Advanced Options" instead.
- It asks you if you want to boot, power off, or troubleshoot. Hit "Troubleshoot".
- It asks you if you want to refresh the OS, reset the OS, or see advanced options. Hit "Advanced Options".
- More esoteric OS repair options are presented. Hit "Startup Settings".
- Now you get a page that tells you that you'll get advanced boot options on reboot. Hit "Reboot".
- After the reboot, you finally get to the boot menu where you can choose to enter Safe Mode.

Who thinks this way? What kind of twisted mind does it take to conceive of a hell like that?! It's like an operating system designed by a person that's only ever heard about computers, but has never seen or used one. It's like an operating system where they thought they were taking all the sharp edges off to attract luddites who find Apple iOS intimidating and complex, but ended up burying anything of any use or value under five menus of things nobody would ever want.

So yes! Backtracking from Win8 to Win7 on a modern laptop. Can it be done?

I've got my flights and hotel and prereg in order, so I'll be at Midwest FurFest this November! This is gonna be my first not-west-coast con in years and years, so I'm excited to see some peoples I usually don't get to see! I'm not going to have a dealer table or anything, but I'll probably spend a lot of time at whatever tabley area for drawing can be found.

I've been trying to get back into sketching with pencil and paper. I'm now using a soft black lead instead of the nearly impossible to erase hard blue lead I was using before, and I think it's helping me sketch a bit looser. So if you see me, come at me with them sketchbooks!

I get these sorts of questions whenever I do raffles and things, so I figured I should spell out plainly what people can and can't do with my drawings and characters. I'm generally pretty open with it, since I treat it as more of a hobby than a career or income source.

With my drawings, YOU MAY:
- Post them to image boards (e621, fchan, etc)
- Post them to user groups (for example, some of my art has recently been posted on ButtLovers and FA-Wincest-Furs)
- Mangle it in any way you choose (modify it, trace it, re-color it, crudely paste your face in over mine, whatever) so long as there is some attribution back to me if you redistribute it

With my drawings, YOU MAY NOT:
- Do any of the above modifications if a picture contains other peoples' personal characters; get their permission first!
- Try to make money distributing them (besides, I've tried; it won't work)

If I draw something for you, YOU MAY:
- Post a copy into your own galleries
- Crop out bits to use as avatars, tags, etc.

With my original characters, YOU MAY:
- Draw them anyhow you want, doing whatever or whomever you choose
- Have other artists draw them anyhow you want for you (yes, this includes commissioning people to do it)
- Write them into stories (but please be mindful of their personalities)
- Role-play as them (with the exception of NaniMoose -- no impersonating me, please!)
- A corollary, if you run into somebody who IS role-playing as Nani or one of my characters, chances are it's not actually me; for example, a NaniMoose avatar exists in Second Life despite the fact that I've never even installed the game.
- If you do end up using my characters in art or writing, please send me a copy!

Any of these rights may be revoked if you're being a jerk. Other than that it's like a god damned hippie love-in around here.

I've been saying since last AnthroCon that I'd plan on making it to the one this year.. but nope, it's not happening. While there is crash space waiting for me there, I just couldn't spend freaking $700+ on a plane ticket. I was hoping that airfare would make a sudden drop in the last few days available as it sometimes does, but it's gone up to over $1000.

I love and miss all you Easties. But not THAT much, apparently.

Artists going to AC!! If you happen to run into  guppy there (he had to go out east for his job anyway, so getting to AC was easier for him) he's got one of my sketchbooks. I'd be happy to do a digital doodle for you if you draw in it!

I've released version 1.2 of Strip Pai Gow Poker! This update fixes many clock/timing issues, and resolves some touch-input issues. What does that mean? Well, if the game seemed sluggish or unsteady to you before, try it again now, it should be nice n' snappy. Also, the game now works on most tablets and smartphones! I've seen it run on both Chrome for Android on a Nexus, and Safari for iOS on a Gen-2 iPad.

http://nanimoose.furryhome.com/spg/ (NSFW, naturally)

So last night I released Strip Pai Gow Poker and it seems to be pretty well received by most people.. :D But this game has been spying on you! Every time a game is started, won, or lost, a bit of data is posted back to the server.

Check out the statistics here:
http://nanimoose.furryhome.com/spg/stats.php

There's two things that surprised me in the stats. As of this writing, most people actually stuck around and played the game to a win or lose, and only about 30% of plays seem to have been abandoned. I was afraid this number would be more like 80%!

It's been played over a thousand times since last night, that's fantastic! Win percentage seems to be about 9% if you ignore the abandoned games, which is lower than I'd hoped.

But the most surprising thing is that people overwhelmingly choose to play as Raz. He's picked twice as much as the next most popular character, which is Nani. I wonder what the reason is? Maybe most of my watchers are dudes that want to play as a dude, but may think that playing as me would be a bit weird? That's my guess, I dunno.

I'll be at Biggest Little Fur Con in Reno in a couple weeks. It's a newish con in one of those Nevada casino/hotel places. I'm pretty excited for it!

I'm pretty sure that I'll be more productive than I was at FC this year; I seemed to just be totally off my game at FC and really wasn't happy with the few things I did manage to draw. But my drawing mojo seems to really be on lately, so I'm hoping I'll be able to do some good sketches there!

Also, a few local furs and I have been doing weekly games and brushing up on our poker skills, learning how to estimate odds and nerdy inside stuff like that. Hopefully this will translate into not utterly shaming myself at a real poker table. I've put aside some cash to play at one of the 3-6 tables there.

I expected this to be a fairly small con, but I hear that the pre-reg numbers are higher than expected. So who all's going?

So 2012 has actually been my most artistically productive year in quite some time! I wanted to see exactly how much, so I did the properly nerdy thing and graphed it up! It's my most productive year since 2003, when I was doing quickie oekaki doodles like every other day.

So in 2013, I'll be going to Further Confusion, like I usually do. I also try to do one small furry con a year as well.. in the past this usually meant one of the LA cons, but in 2013 I'll be trying out BLFC in Reno. I'm also going to try to make it to an east coast con for the first time in a long while (AnthroCon and/or Midwest Fur Fest, I'll let you know how it shakes out later in the year).

Okay, FC Q&A time!

How can I spot you?
I'll be the dumpy white guy in a T-shirt! Also, I've got a badge designed for high visibility

Where are you likely to be?
Near other artists. This usually means the Creators Lounge (please please please, convention Jesus, let the lounge be larger and more accessible this year) or after-hours in the Marketplace, or after-after-hours in artist room parties.

Do you do sketch trades?
Yes, always!

Do you do free sketches?
Sometimes, but please don't be pushy about it!

Do you drink?
Yes! Faggy fruity rum drinks for me, please.

Can I hug you?
Well, sure!

Snuggling? Heavy petting? Genital groping?
Uh...

Where can I buy Rohypnol in San Jose?
Gosh, look at the time! I'll see you guys at the convention!

I've been doing a whole buncha trades lately! If you've been watching, you've probably seen my side of 'em, but may not have seen the counterparts. Give these other artists some love! These links are pretty much all NSFW, naturally.

- Inuki drew Jaz in exchange for me drawing her sabretooth girl
- Kailys drew a Nani sandwich for which I have yet to hit him back for -- It's coming soon I promise!!
- Kailys also drew Peggy and Bess for which I drew him getting double-pegged
- Korth and I are constantly drawing horrible porno back and forth
- ShenHibiki had his way with Blackheart and Peggy in exchange for GirlNani and also GirlNani (another exchange coming soon-ish)
- ContessaSkunk had Kayla-Na draw my Nani and her Tallulah in exchange for the same pairing
- ZOMBBH drew Nani and Peggy in exchange for her and Jaz
- PierreZaius drew the best Nani ever in exchange for a couple things
- Also got some (currently unrequited) art-love from Cobalt and AlexSpastic
Have I forgotten anybody?? >_>;

Also, here is some stuff to watch on the YouTubes:
- If you haven't already, you should watch ALL OF EBICHU. Maa-kun is the hero the furry fandom deserves.
- Why didn't anybody tell me that Metal Swing exists? Fucking Sweden, I swear.
- Any oldschool nerds out there should check out this lost episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

I'm looking to unwind this weekend and do some dumb doodles. This worked pretty well with three word doodles a few months ago, so let's up the ante a bit!

Give me a four-word phrase and I may make a drawing based on it!

By the way, your chances of being picked are higher if you suggest something specific (not random words thrown together to form a non-sequitur).

So I grabbed an invite from  muzz to get on that Weasyl site everybody's talking about. You can find me here:
https://www.weasyl.com/profile/nanimoose
But Weasyl is going to get no further uploads from me if they don't address this one tiny niggling issue I have with their site.

It's the same issue that has kept me disinterested in InkBunny.

It's an issue that has a workaround here at FA only because of a bug in the code.

The issue is this: YOU DON'T SHOW ART IN ITS DISPLAY PAGE AT ITS NATIVE RESOLUTION. You're an art site. I draw art digitally. I'm looking for you to present the art IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM. I don't want it shrunk or re-compressed or mangled in any way. Just show it. Show it as I intended it to be shown.

At InkBunny, they limited the size of the art because the whole site has a fixed-width layout. The site is designed to fit within a 1024 pixel-wide display. My monitor is 1920x1200. My browser doesn't even take up my full screen width, but the InkBunny site looks like this:

| < M A S S I V E _ T R E N C H > | (content) | < M A S S I V E _ T R E N C H > |

And any art that gets displayed in that space gets shrunk down to fit, at a maximum of 920 pixels horizontally or vertically.

Weasyl also operates in a fixed-width layout, but it's a little smarter about it. Their site is designed to render at 1650 pixels wide, but scales down to fit smaller browsers. This is great, I thought, the largest of my recent pictures is 1500 pixels wide, so obviously there's room for that!

Well there's room for it, yes, but it goes unused. Weasyl shrinks down any displayed artwork to fit within 800x600. Eight hundred! By six hundred! What is this, the late 90's?! Ridiculous!

Once again I'm left with FurAffinity as my only option, not because of any technological edge it has, but for the sort of wild-west lawlessness its loose and buggy code allows. FA says when you upload something that the maximum image dimensions are 1280x1280. And indeed, when you first upload something larger, it is shrunk down to fit within those dimensions. But if you go back and "update" the art again, with the very same file even, then it doesn't bother to check the dimensions and lets it through. (this is why artists who upload big things are always telling you to "hit F5" to see it bigger)

I'm constantly afraid that some day FA is going to start actually enforcing that 1280 max. I swear, FA, if you take this away from me, I'm leaving and making my OWN art site! (with blackjack! and hookers!)

So a final plea to any art site admins or coders out there. You're making an ART site. It's not about little features like folders or groups. It's not about friending and faving. It's the art, stupid. An art site's focus should be on the art. Everything else is secondary.

Who blares mariachi music out of their back yard at 8 in the morning on a Sunday?

Who even has a broken turntable or tape deck or something anymore that causes the pitch of the music to warble up and down randomly, taking away all rhythm and musicality?

My next door neighbor, that's who.

And here I am, slightly hung over from our Dr. Who season premiere - slash - tiki drink party. (we call it the Hula Who)

It's my birthday you guyyysss! So I figured now is the best time to do something utterly shameless and self-centered. That's right, it's an art raffle for myself!

Leave a comment that speculates wildly on how NaniMoose has sex. What does he do to get off? Who (or what) does he do it with? Where, when, and in God's name, WHY?!

I'll pick some of the entries that are the most hot/amusing/deviant and draw them. Artists, if you see a suggestion you're keen to draw, or have one of your own, by all means, go right ahead and draw it!

Do your worst, people!

(also, check out this HTML-based sprite engine I've been noodling on for Redic's Con Story game concept; this is a stress test to see how well it handles a whole buncha moving sprites at once)

I feel like doing some weird quickie doodles and I'm looking for ideas/inspiration. Give me a three-word phrase and we'll see if I can make anything of it!

(credit where it's due,  hottapwater did something kinda like this a few months back)

It's really fucking hot outside, so I'm turning on my Air Conditioner!

I'm going to try hard to make it to AnthroCon NEXT year. There's so many east coast type peoples I haven't seen in years and years (or ever at all). I didn't make it to Califur either. Bad, bad me!

As an apology, let me offer this photo from my recent vacation! It's a hand-carved wooden tiki idol thing, depicting a big-breasted anthro in a bikini top:
http://nanimoose.furryhome.com/stuff/pigtits.jpg

Lately I've been noticing a lot of pictures of people dressed as Star Wars stormtroopers doing decidedly unstormtrooperlike things. Here they are at the London Eye. Here they are as zombies. Here's one washing a car.

That's when I realized it: Stormtroopers are the fursuiters of the sci-fi fandom.

No, think about it! They get their kicks by going out in costume to some highly-visible public place, but under the security of anonymity. They get their picture taken, they pose with the kids, they ham it up for the crowd. There's probably some weird subset that engages in clunky plastic stormtrooper sex.

So the next time some sci-fi nerd makes fun of furries using fursuiters as the scapegoat, you have your rebuttal.

I'm suddenly getting a whole bunch of requests for art trades (thanks, you two), so I figured I'd publicly explain my policies on this sort of thing.

COMMISSIONS:
As a rule, no, I don't do full commissions. It isn't about pride or anything like that; it's just that I'm genuinely terrible at it. Drawing furry porno is what I do to blow off steam from my day job and real life. Taking commissions would turn that outlet into just more stressy work shit. Not happening.

FANART/TRADES:
So here is my fanart policy: Yes.

To elaborate, you have my permission draw any of the characters I've created, doing anything, with anybody. You don't need to ask, just go nuts and have fun with it. I've even put up this handy guide to some of my regulars:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7583898/

But if you do, I get the option FOR REVENGE to draw one of your characters doing what I want in return. Again, I kinda need this to be a relatively stress-free thing. I don't want to have a "queue" that gets in the way of drawing when inspiration strikes.

STAND-INS:
What's that? You don't draw, but you still want a chance to appear in my art? And you've read all the way down here in my boring journal that otherwise wouldn't apply to you? Hey, you're in luck!


Sometimes I'll get the urge to draw some character of mine in some particular situation, and I'll draw some random nameless one-off as their partner. I figure, why use a boring nobody when I could use an actual somebody? This is a similar concept to the "one of your characters with one of my characters" raffle I did a few months ago, except it's truly open-ended; a file of characters I'm free to use, whenever I get the urge to use one.

So if you'd like to volunteer for the thankless job of having sex with my characters, let me know! Send me a private note or comment below with some character refs and what sort of stuff you're up for, and I'll put you down in my little black book. And if you ever change your mind about it, be sure to let me know that, too.

This stand-in thing isn't really working out on a technical level.. Tell ya what, I'll make journal announcements when I need volunteers. Keep yer eyes peeled!

My FC journal was up way out of season, so I'm going to bitch about something of no relation or consequence to anything.

Every time there's a YouTube video of dancing robots or some shit, there's always some guy who says "Look at those dancing robots, we truly are living in the future", to which some jerk inevitably replies, "If this is the future, where's my flying car?"

Fuck your flying car, man, it's never going to happen. Just think about it!

If a regular guy like you gets a flying car, that means that every idiot out there can get a flying car. Do you want that? Do you want millions of idiots driving drunk and road raging IN THE AIR with you?

People don't properly maintain their cars, and they wouldn't properly maintain their flying cars. If a car breaks down, it just stops. Think of all the broken-ass cars you see on the side of the highway every day. Now, think about a flying car breaking down. When this happens, it DROPS OUT OF THE SKY wherever it is. Above a school, above your house, wherever.

People have no respect for how dangerous driving can be, and they wouldn't have any respect for how absolutely deadly flying is. They'd be singing to music, texting on phones, checking their makeup in the rear-view while in the air. A tiny distracted bump in your car, and you pull over and exchange insurance info. A tiny distracted bump in a flying car, and DOWN YOU GO.

With all this going on, the ground would experience a constant rain of flaming debris and body parts from above. The only solution would be to put all the people in buildings ABOVE the flying cars, like maybe on stilts, so the debris doesn't-- HOLY SHIT THE JETSONS SUDDENLY MAKES SENSE!!

But most importantly, flying cars already exist. Right now!! There are over a dozen different makes of flying car in prototype or even already available. But these are ungodly expensive and require a pilot's license, as it should be. These still have to take off and land at regulated airfields with strict pre-flight checklists, AS IT SHOULD BE.

The idea of a flying car where you can just jump in and take off from your house is utter fiction, a cruel trick played on us residents of the future by the short-sighted futurists of the past. Those assholes!

Here's that thing that people are doing for the thing!

Where are you staying? Nearby

What day are you getting there? Late Thursday

Who will you be with? Artist-type People, usually? Probably folks like  guppy  argonvile  fel  lilglenndoggy

Do you do free art? Sometimes

Do you do trades? Usually

Do you do commissions? I'll do cheap-o book doodles, yeah

Do you do badges? No

What is your gender? Bepenised

How old are you? Fairly

Are you taken? Ish

What suits will you have? I do have one suit for formal occasions, but I plan to leave it at home.

Can I touch you? Depends. Are you the type of guy who'd appear out of nowhere and straight-up ask a creepy question like "Can I touch you?"

Can I talk to you? You may! (unless you are batshit crazy)

Can I buy you lots of drinks? You may! (unless I am already stinking drunk)

Can I give you lots of money? You may! (unless you are expecting something for it)

Can I hug or snuggle with you? You may! (unless you are diseased)

How tall are you? Middlin'

Are you nice? What kind of a question is that? Fuck off!

Are you cliquey? My crew says I'm not, and I trust them over normal people

Can I stalk you? Eh, doesn't "stalking" kind of imply "without permission"? Was the guy who wrote these questions trying to make furries seem even creepier than they are?

Do you have an artist table? Nope, not this year

Do you like parties? To a point.. once there's like standing room only in a tiny room party, I usually leave

If I see you, how should I get your attention? Point at me, and then turn to the person next to you, and whisper "OMG, there's that totally awesome guy I was telling you about earlier!"

Can I hang out with you? Sure.

How can I find you? Wherever there are dicks and titties being drawn, I'll be there. Wherever there are artists swapping books, I'll be there. Wherever the thirsty cry out for furry porn, I'll be there!

Are you aware of the difference between a meme and a fucking questionnaire? Why, yes!

So I'm going to a not-furry, business-type convention, and they did something brilliant. For people who pre-register, they mail their badges to them beforehand. In the mail! Before the con!

So, when I go to this convention, I won't have to deal with with slow/broken badge printers, or registration computers going down all the time, or any lines at all. I can just walk right in.

FURRY CONS. MAKE THIS HAPPEN! I'd gladly pay a few bucks extra to have this option.

My raffle closed at nearly the same time Skyrim came out? What a weird coincidence!

So, Oblivion was one of my favoritest games ever. I'm a big fan of assassin/thief type characters that can snipe people across a room, hidden in the dark, and there was a lot of stuff designed for that kind of character in Oblivion. Another thing I really liked (on the PC anyway) was that it was very extensible and had lots of really good mods for it (and some disturbing adult ones).

So yeah, Skyrim! I've played it now for a few hours, and it's mostly good, but it seems a little rough around the edges.

The first learning stage in the game is where you're a prisoner set to be executed, but there's a dragon attack and you manage to slip away in the confusion. You have the choice of following an Imperial soldier or a Nord rebel out of the base -- I chose the rebel. We escape, and I walk with him to the nearest town. As we walk through the gate, he says to me in his ridiculous Scandinavian accent "Güd! Lüks like we got here befüre the nüs of the dragün attåck." And AS he is saying this to me, in the SAME time span, one of the villagers is saying to another, "OMG did you hear about the dragon attack?!?!"

Oh boy. So this is how it's going to be, huh? Let's dive into it.

First gripe, the controls. These controls are obviously optimized for a gamepad. Keyboard/mouse support feels thrown in and untested. The dialog selector will sometimes just pick the line that's on the gamepad-style select arrow rather than the line you clicked on. "Quick" select weapons are another scroll-and-select menu, rather than bound to the number keys, which are totally unused. And the big one -- looting corpses. The button to open the loot screen is the same button to take an item. There is NO mention anywhere in any screen of the button used to close the loot corpse screen. The first corpse I looted, I accidentally took everything (all the heavy, useless weapons and armor) and spent a good few minutes looking for how to drop any of that shit or close the dialog (it's Tab, by the way). The inventory is, guess what, scroll and select. No shift-click to drop, no dragging items from here to there.

You see this over and over -- everything is scroll and select, scroll and select. It shouldn't be this way on the PC! We've got a keyboard with >more than six buttons<, and a mouse that we can use to >point and click< -- and a scroll wheel, mind you; if we must scroll and select, how about always letting us scroll with the scroll wheel?

Second gripe, graphics. Now maybe this one is my fault; I've got a video card that was pretty good when I bought it, a few years back (it's a GeForce GTS 250). Despite the card's age, the game runs surprisingly smooth on it, but some of the effects just don't seem to be there. There's fire pits with heat waves above them but no actual fire in them; I get tangled up in spider webs that are totally invisible; calm water and some spells are nearly invisible too.

Third gripe, bounding boxes. Somebody was lazy here. One of the first optional dungeons I explored, I found this group of poachers who were skinning a mammoth. So I sneak into the room, and try to snipe the leader, who's at a desk over at the far side of the room. I'm on a balcony overlooking the room, shooting above a deer head that's mounted on the wall below, and the arrow gets stuck in mid-air, in the empty space between the antlers. Sigh. So I find another vantage point where there's no deer heads and a gap in the railing.. and guess what, the arrow gets stuck in the air in the gap in the railing.

These are just little disappointments. Overall, I'm having a lot of fun with the game. I expect my interface woes will be addressed by some clever modder within a few weeks' time, and maybe there's some setting somewhere that will help me with my graphics problems.

I've been having a blast doing the images for the Sexy Art Raffle. In the past two days I've done four arts, all with color even! This far exceeded my expectations. Now, I plan to keep the raffle going for a while yet, but things are going to slow down as I've gotta go back to my day job on the weekdays.

I'm enjoying drawing all your characters a lot more than I thought I would.. I think I was pretty much in a rut with my own characters. Doing these has gotten me past that, and it's getting me to draw things I normally wouldn't draw, which is always a good thing.

You may know that I really, really hate doing commissions. I had some bad experiences with them early on, which soured me to them pretty hard. Plus, I've got a pretty good day job that lets me keep the furry art thing as just a hobby. Doing these raffle one-offs lets me make some art that's got some personal meaning to people other than myself, without the frustration and anxiety of commission-land.

Anyway, hope y'all are enjoying these, even if you haven't been picked yet.

Raffle info/entry is over here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2836266/

This raffle is closed! The original post and replies will remain here, but no new winners will be picked.

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Please read this entire journal before responding! Especially the "RULES" section!!

I'm gonna try something a bit different while I've got my drawing mojo going. Hopefully this gives me some interesting ideas for things to draw as well as lets me do something special for all y'all.

So I'm holding a free sexy art raffle! Basically I'm looking for suggested pairings of one of my characters with one of yours. The pairing(s) that get picked will be drawn in some sort of sexual situation of my choosing.

So if you're interested, write a reply to this journal and include the following information:

1. Write "Yours:" followed by the name (or general description, if unnamed) of one of my characters. Literally any of 'em, including but not limited to Jasmine the purple wolf, Bess the cow, Blackheart the skunk, that herm cat who really needs a name, Berry-Blue the pony, Raz the motherfucker, or even dumpy old NaniMoose.

2. Write "Mine:" and the name of one of your own characters, or your fursona.

3. Link up some sort of depiction or description of your character. If you've got a character sheet or some piece of art that shows the character close to how you like it, that would be ideal. Otherwise, link up (don't write it out in the reply please!) a text description of the character.


RULES:

A. Adults only. Not 18 or over? Not eligible.

B. Don't stuff the ballot box. One entry per person. If I find out a single person has been using multiple user accounts to enter multiple times, their entries will all be taken out of the pool, and the person will be publicly mocked.

C. You don't get to set content restrictions. I decide what the sexual situation will be. I'm not looking to be purposefully offensive, but the drawing may take one or two steps over into weird territory, as I do. If you're not comfortable with your character getting drawn doing the sorts of situations I draw, don't enter.

D. I reserve the right to remove entries from the pool for any reason at all. For example: "I've drawn you free art before." Or: "Your 7-tailed, 3-cocked, hybrid dragon-groundhog character frightens and confuses me, and I don't want to draw it."

E. This is an open-ended raffle. I hope to do a bunch of these; I may do just one; I may flip the table in a fit of selfish petulance and do none at all. I'm gonna start doing these this weekend (Oct 22), and I'll stop when I feel like stopping. It will remain open for new entries until I stop.

F. No whining! Some of these may be quickie doodles, and others may be in full color. No money is involved, so don't complain about what you do or don't get. My characters tend to be pretty slutty, so don't be offended if they never call you afterwards.