Commissions

I'm closing commissions for now. A small slot was still open, but I'd rather focus on the 4 remaining orders I have now.
I'll be reopening them likely in mid-September, possibly with a Halloween sale.


Raffle prizes

They'll be started once I'm nearly done with commissions and I'm also likely to record most of them and put the timelapse on my YouTube channel!


Other stuff

Since I need to make quite some money before the end of the year for a few big expenses (biggest being an iPad Pro, which should allow me to work more easily and maybe go to workshops and such), most of my projects are being postponed yet again. Comic work is still on hold, but my partner and I are taking steps to make it easier on me once I actually start.
One of them should however premiere in September if everything goes well (I'm working with another person who has a different schedule), I'll let you know about it!

A relative just passed away. Obligations will take away some time in the next days, but I will try to get back to commissions as soon as possible.
Raffles will proceed as planned and winners will be picked on the 8th, just the expected delivery for the prizes will likely be delayed. Sorry.

In light of the recent outage, here's a list of my active accounts in case anyone wants to follow me elsewhere (I'm staying here, no worries).

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/32310784/

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/32310936/ (+18)

Gonna be quick and short:

Life
Personal crap aside, a heatwave has struck Europe this week and BOI OH BOI we were NOT ready for it. We went from a daily average of 20°C/68°F in late May to an expected 40°C/104°F peak tomorrow. And of course, I have no AC in my house :')
I'm really really glad my heat tolerance has somehow increased this year, but 40°C is a tiny bit too much for even me right now, especially after yesterday I managed to somehow hurt my dumb self in a combination of events that led to me being a wobbly headache on legs. I'm doing better, but whatever stamina I had in store for days like this was burned away yesterday x-x Feels ike living in a fever lol

Art and Website
Needless to say, I won't be able to work until temperatures go down a bit.
Also, I managed to finish the Falconry YCH while dealing with a bit of bs IRL. It will be posted tomorrow, as I've been waiting for feedback from a couple more winners to be clear to post it.
Same goes for website redesign. I started doing stuff for it, I just need to settle the prices and a few other things like art, but I can't do it /now/.
I'll also try to post that other YCH I mentioned, but only once I'm sure I can work on it on a timely manner.

Commissions
I'll likely open them in the first week of July, second at most.
Again, I won't take many slots, so if you're interested feel free to contact me with an inquiry to be put on my Wait List so you can have first dibs!

Hi guys, guess it's time for an update!

Commissions and Change of Pace
I had a few delays with the batch from March, but I'm finally back on track and I'm almost done with it!
After that, I'll take a week or two to work on promised stuff and especially reorganize myself. I need to redo most of my site, rework my prices and fix a few things in my commission-related flow.
I'll take on another batch of commission once all of that is done, likely in late June (early July at worst). I won't take many slots, so if you're interested feel free to contact me with an inquiry to be put on my Wait List!
From this batch forward, commissions will be on a schedule! It won't be set in stone and I'll be able to switch things up when necessary, but commissions will be worked on specific days of the week so I can alternate between them and other projects (personal art, comic, etc) in order to avoid burning out. Clients will be able to check it somewhere, but I still have to figure out how to do it precisely.

YCH
A couple of cheap multi-slot YCHs will go up this week!
The first is a sort of fundraiser/birthday-gift for a friend and will go up later tonight (keep an eye out if you like birbs!), while the second will be another Claw Machine themed YCH with a bunch of cheap plushie slots and it'll go up once the other is closed.
I wanted to do something for Pride Month, I'll see what I can do. Maybe simple and cheap animated icons?

Comic
Sadly the lack of a varied schedule and my health problems pushed the comic further down the line. I'll try working on it once I switch to my new schedule, only after the work has picked up I'll let you know an expected date.
I've also started reworking bit by bit my Patreon to fit both the comic and other future projects, but it'll remain on hiatus until the comic starts for good. I'll leave the link on my page regardless, just in case you want to check it from time to time.

Life
I had to deal with plenty of crappy things lately, my life isn't exactly that great right now, I'm running on maintenance mode for the most part in order to avoid exhaustion. Luckily I made some progress and I'm gradually increasing the amount of hours I can work (currently I'm averaging on 3, but some days I can do 5-6) without having to stop due to my shoulder issues, yet I don't take it for granted or anything.
Also, I admit, I still have to work on myself for a lot of things. I haven't been that great at replying to comments (I often end up deleting them after attempting to reply for minutes or simply don't know what to say), being active on sites or interacting in any meaningful way. I feel superbad about it, but I also know how to recognize my limits and not hurt myself by pushing too far, so I need to find a healthy balance. In the meanwhile, sorry if I missed your comment, I appreciate every little interaction you peeps give me <3

Hey, quick update!

I've been trying to do a bit better with my schedule, but I've been almost constantly sick and exhausted due to seasonal sickness and IRL things beyond my control.
I really want to go back to the times I had a quick turnaround for commissions, but for the moment I need not to fall back into full exhaustion, so I'm not pushing myself beyond what my health allows day by day (an average of 2-3 hours of work per day). Doesn't help that any plan I make gets overturned in a matter of days, but I'm not giving up!

Once I get there, there'll be a few exciting things happening, so I can't wait to get better! ;v;

I think I've fully recovered from the flu, although other problems have been resurfacing like headaches and back pains. Nothing that can't make me get a few hours of work in everyday luckily.

For those who got a slot in the Claw Machine YCH: since the YCH went so well and my sickness delayed the expected completition date, you'll receive a complete version of your slot along with the finished pic!

For all those who commissioned me: I will take a 2-days break mid-week to spend time with my partner for our anniversary, then get back to work as regularly as health allows. I might be unreachable during that time.

A set of Pokémon-themed chibi YCHs will be posted once I complete a few orders.

New prices will be published once my queue clears up a bit, but I might not open for commissions right away.

So my famous shitty luck hit me again, this time with a lovely flu 8) This birbwoof can't catch a break lol
I started feeling sick the other night and yesterday I was practically bedridden, while today I can at least get up and do things on my own without risking to faint. Good thing is that it didn't really affect my lungs, so I should recover soon!
I'll take today to rest and recover, in hopes of being ready to work tomorrow.

Welp, so much for wanting to be super productive at the beginning of this year :')
I've been mostly dealing with exhaustion due to poor sleep and stress, which resulted in my body going through different health issues one after the other, from seasonal sickness to other annoying stuff such as toothache (will call the dentis asap on Monday). In short, in the past days I've been too sick to work or at times even simply focus.

Currently I'm trying to find ways to deal with exhaustion and ease the stress. It's too early to say clearly, but I'm making some slow progress and we'll see how it goes from here.
I haven't been able to start on the free stuff I wanted to do, but once I'm in better shape I'll get started on it! ^^ I won't do all of course, but I'll aim for at least enough things to cover my examples for commissions (at worst, 3).

In March I'll be opening a few commission slots. Note that this will be the last batch with the current prices and that I won't take many slots! I'll be contacting my waiting list first, so if you want to call dibs on a slot feel free to send an inquiry!
After that I might do only YCHs for a period of time! (Feel free to suggest themes for those too!)

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/30420579/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/30420579/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/30420579/

2019 has just started and is already beating me up lol

I was on hiatus to let my shoulder recover amongst other things, but apparently the combo of me doing studies traditionally, bad sleeping positions tied to low quality sleep and stress-related muscular tension resulted in my right shoulder giving up.
A week ago I started feeling discomfort and light pain after a bad night of sleep, so as early as I could I booked a massage appointment for this morning (this late because I had to plan around my family's schedule as well). In the past days the pain increased, leaving me unable to draw as of Thursday and getting horribly bad yesterday, going from continuous stiff dull pain to spikes of sharp pain whenever I moved my arm. Now after the massage the inflammation around the area has reduced and the muscles are much more relaxed, but it's clear that if I want it to get better I gotta go see my osteopath next week because something is definitely out of place x-x
Last time I had to deal with this kind of pain was when my jaw kept getting stuck out of its socket whenever I yawned or tried to chew anything as big or bigger than a grape. Luckily it's not as bad as that time since I can make my shoulder rest more easily, but it's still, well, very bad.

Mental health had some good spikes over the past weeks, but ultimately I've gone through a few more or less bad relapses already. The whole shoulder issue also made me super letargic due to how much energy it's draining from me. I've sort of isolated myself further because at times typing is painful or I'm just too tired to keep a conversation up. I'm also bored whenever I can't do anything and it's not helping me feel better lol

If anything, in my free time I've been able to do some organizative stuff for my website and projects, but until my shoulder is fixed I won't be able to draw much, if at all.
I hope 2019 is being kinder than this to y'all :')

[Long ramble ahead, you've been warned lol]

Welp, let's see my 2018 list:

Art-related:
[✓] -Get better at drawing (goes without saying). [I think I sort of did]
[✓] -Get more commissions (possibly to the point of becoming a proper business). [The appreciation I have for each and everyone of this year's commissioners is not quantifiable]
[X] -Work on Play of Life again (and this time don't let it go on hiatus). [Some prep work was done, but not enough to mark this positively]
[X] -Draw traditionally again (this will be hard since I don't have a place to do it). [As expected, I failed]
[X] -Post at least a short animation again on YouTube. [Sad to see this failed, but at least I tried]
[✓] -Start my speedpaint channel on YouTube. [Not as active as I planned it to be, but better than nothing for sure]
[X] -Stream regularly/often enough. [I tried]
[/] -Draw more fanart and personal art. [Ehhhhh sorta failed but there was an attempt I think]
[X] -Start a sketchy experimental comic with my GW2 characters. [Nope, but at least I got clearer plans]
[X] -Do the art for Pokémon cards trades. [Welp, another time I guess]
[X] -Do a proper reference for Okami (and maybe Doryx too). [Welp I guess that's a goal for 2019 since I only did a form specific simple one]

Personal:
[X] -Become more social online and in general. [AHAHAHAH]
[X] -Gain more friends. [AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH]
[?] -Be a better friend. [Can't say I didn't try]
[✓] -Save up (and don't spend everything on emergency expenses). [Sorta did that, it's at least more than what I started this year with lol]
[X] -Improve my mental health as much as possible in my situation. [AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH failed miserably]
[/] -Lose the last kg and start exercising again (if my toe will let me). [I lost the extra weight, but I couldn't start an exercise routine]
[/] -Get a better routine so I can be more efficient (aka sleep better for the right amount of time). [Nope that didn't happen]
[X] -Play more games because right now I have a longass list waiting for me. [Nope I did not]
[✓] -Stay alive. [I guess I'm still here, so yay]

6.5/20
Pretty embarassing lol

<sub>I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, this year was pretty awful, filled with emotional traumas, betrayals on multiple sides, petty drama that almost managed to ruin one of the few fun things I can still do to relax, pet deaths, health problems and bad shit happening everytime I thought it I could get a break.
In all honesty, my current situation is everything but ideal and I'm not sure how much I'll hold on, my mental health was pretty much a wreck for the whole year and the best days I had were those filled with apathy lol.
The beginning of the year was horrible already due to serious IRL things happening, but I managed to pull myself through it sort of well until my cat's death in June, then everything started going downhill. I thought I finally had some resemblance of support systems in multiple parts of my life and could build on them, but that wasn't the case and I sort of crumbled on myself. The past months have been increasingly grueling on various levels and stressful beyond my ability to process it all, definitely affecting my ability to work on art or function in general.
I did not meet the deadlines I set for myself and I'm ashamed of that, but in retrospect I'm also glad I let myself ignore them and didn't push myself to the point of hating my art in the process.
I can't thank enough the few who remained and tried to make my distraught self a bit cheerier or at least understood. Same goes for all those that supported my art, this year alone I've earned more than I did in the past 4 whole years, which leaves me honestly speechless, flattered and with a spark of hope for my future.

As for next year, I know it'll be hard and I'm bracing myself for whatever happens. I don't expect life to be nice to me at all, so I won't make a goal list since it will only make me feel worse in the end. At most, the one and only goal is to "survive" and possibly not let things rot the small light that's still in me.
For sure I can say I've learned a lot of hard but important lessons. Sadly, the way I learned them broke me at a deep deep level, so I can only hope these wounds will still lead me to a way for me survive and not lead to even more problems.

If anything, all the bad things that happened this year made me realize many things, mainly how much the passive toxicity from external sources was slowly changing me for the worse, so now I have the chance to better myself and I've already took some massive steps towards that. There's lots of re-kindled serious trauma for me to get through even if I'm lacking the necessary medical support as it was pulled away from me, but even if I gotta do it on my own it's vital for me to process it all here and now. So many things were buried out of fear and denial of them ever happening to me, but now I'm facing and analysing them on my own to render them harmless in the long run. If anything, now I might actually have the inner strenght to say no to things and set some boundaries, maybe then I won't end up in situations where past trauma can still hurt and rot me from within.

I'm gonna start clean on some levels, though it might be a gradual change to adjust to in order to keep my balance. Many things ended up turning me into a bitter mean person filled with negativity, even if I genuinely always tried to keep a positive attitude towards everyone and act as nicely as I could. While being passively changed into something I do not like at all is not my direct fault and many times I was not in full control of myself, I will take responsibility where it's due for wrong and misled behavior and apologize for not handling a few things in the right manner no matter what my reasoning was at the time. I will change for the better where I can, not for others but for myself first and foremost.
In light of this, I'm cleaning the slate for almost everyone I had issues with in the past, even those of hurt me, yet with very few IRL exceptions tied to serious matters I'm not willing to forgive and forget. There's no use in having beef with anyone right now, especially since I can't afford to fill the little emotional space I have control of with negative emotions or waste energy I don't have towards it.
In the end I'm not angry or anything for what happened in my life, I'm just sad and sorry things went the way they did, but I know when to take the hint and I'm accepting silence or whatever else so I'm not going to bother anyone with it, yet at the same time I'm open to talk in order to at least settle things peacefully and move on.

As for art/work, I'm hoping I'll be able to pick up the pace after this slump is over, whenever that will be. I feel horrible for all the promises I didn't maintain in this regard, but all I can do is to move forward and actually do them instead of feeling sorry for myself.
Comic and other projects will get worked on whenever I'm ready. Commissions will reopen whenever I feel like I can complete them in a timely matter. Personal art will take some important spot during the work routine I hope to stick to. I'll have to be careful with myself, since I'm the only one who can do that responsibly.

I'm not expecting 2019 to be my year, but if I survive it, it'll be already a success.
I have many plans I want to see completed. I must make it.</sub>

Just dropping this here to say a few things:
- I have a bit of a backlog of stuff to post, I'll try to upload what I have a bit by bit before the end of the year.
- I did my first blood donation at the end of November, so I'm officially a donor, woo!
- The yearly memes are being assembled, but I still need a proper piece for December, which is in the works. Will probably post it all between xmas and new years.
- Mental health has been shit for weeks and it's going down even further, which makes it hard to function at all. I wish I was in a better environment that eased improvement and didn't antagonize recovery, but I guess the self-discovery stuff that's happening in the meantime is also important so idk
- I feel like shit because I wanted to do so much stuff before the end of the year and yet I couldn't. I could have time to work on one project, but I don't know if it'd be healthy to even just touch it at this point. I'm probably just gonna take that break I had to do weeks ago now lol
- New logo incoming, woo!
- Here's hoping that the new year will be more productive than how it's been for the past months :v

Good news first: I'm officially a blood donor!
I mean, I still have to wait a couple of weeks to actually go and donate it due to the fact that a full month has to pass after the blood tests, but I've been approved!
I've been wanting to donate blood since I was a kid, but when I came of age I was not fit for it as I was too thin (you gotta weight 50kg minimum) and in the past years many factors delayed the sign up procedure. Still, considering my blood type is "0-" I never gave up on that idea and now, after the initial signing up in July and lots of setbacks, I'm finally considered able to do it! :'D Now let's hope not to fall sick before it lol

Now, the rest of updates:
-Commissions will probably be closed until January minimum and prices will be updated by then. At this point I'm not gonna give a proper date for reopenings because I cannot foresee eventual additional setbacks, but, aside from maybe a YCH or two during December, I'm pretty much closed for business until 2019.
-Mental health is still crap and it's hurting my sleep schedule even further, along with my ability to work. I feel like I'm nearing on mental exhaustion and it might be affecting me physically as well since I've been getting frequent headaches.
-Due to that, after I'm done with the last commissions, I'll be taking a few days completely off and I might result unresponsive on here or other sites.
-After the break, I'll tackle personal projects. Something will come out on YouTube before the end of the year for sure, while other things will see the light of day only in 2019.

So today I set everything up to start working... And apparently Windows' update from yesterday night fucked my tablet's drivers.
It gave the same problems I had last year when I first got the tablet, so I tried everything just in case and then contacted support in hopes of some beta drivers that could save my butt like last time.
Now all I can do is wait and curse my bad luck. I can still work and will do so, but it's not the most ideal thing and I did not need this extra stress.
The support's response was lightning quick, turns out their on-site beta drivers are updated despite what's written in the file. Not sure yet if I'll have any problem with them, but it's as good as it gets for me lol

__________________

I've also come to the decision of not taking commissions in November.
I will still take any commission previously discussed, but no further commissions will be taken until December.
As much as I like working on commissions, I need a break to focus on recovery and other projects I had to leave aside due to the little time I could put into art.