Thanks guys! You're the best.

FIRE AWAY

What it says up there!

I reserve the right to be vague, to engage in circumlocution, and to send you on wild goose chases if I so desire.

Good thoughts/prayers/whatever appreciated :)

(And before you ask for what: I keep my online and RL selves quite separate, so I won't be answering that question ;) )

It's been a whole week since my computer stopped picking up the wifi at home, and since Wednesday that there's been no internet at all here. And the library has free wifi... which blocks FA.

Thankfully, we're getting the problem fixed early this coming week, with faster speeds o boot. I might even try streaming at some point. We'll see.

I LOVE THIS ARTICLE TOTALLY UNIRONICALLY

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w.....f-9946414.html

... is where I'll be for a month starting next Monday. Fairbanks, to be precise. For work, so I won't have too much free time. Just thought y'all would want to know!

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, and featuring various birds, a squirrel, and a dolphin!

http://online.wsj.com/articles/poll.....its-1411007403

Hey guys!

So my new job involves a commute on public transit, which often lends itself to the stupendous possibility of drawing with pencil on paper!

Thus, I thought I'd open a series of cheap commissions for me to do on the train. I still have to figure out the price scale, but stuff like these could vary between $5-10:

http://i808.photobucket.com/albums/.....psm0rylwvp.jpg
http://i808.photobucket.com/albums/.....psvoylntgx.jpg
http://i808.photobucket.com/albums/.....psdrusbic2.jpg

As always, a full 8.5"x11" sketchpage would be $25.

If you're interested, comment! And we can see about it :)

Hey all!

So, I've noticed a strange trend: people tend to really like even photomanipulations I do for myself (for example, these four from the top five most favorited pics in my gallery). However, when it comes to commissions, people only seem to want manips if they're of themselves. It seems that photomanipulations are viewed as a sort of transformation art instead of a medium of representation in general.

I just had a couple questions:

1. Why do you think this is?

2. Would people be willing to support me on Patreon if the rewards for supporting me where pictures like the ones I linked above? Would making a general contribution to the Khed art fund help people see manips as art in general, not just a mode of TF?

Just passing on an academic call for submissions from H-Net!

Here's the text of the call:

ZooScope—The Animals in Film Archive https://zooscope.english.shef.ac.uk/ ZooScope has moved to a new and improved interactive website which features entries on around forty films. Users can read, data-edit and contribute articles to the archive. Each entry takes the form of a substantial essay analysing the representation of animals and/or human-animal relations in a film. The database includes key film production data and indexing by kind of animal; mode of human-animal relation; and film genre. The archive can be browsed by these categories and is fully searchable.

Animals have played a crucial role in the development of film as an artistic medium, from the literal use of animal products in film stock to the capturing of animal movement as a driver of stop-motion, wide-screen and CGI film technology. The wish to picture animals’ lives, whether naturalistically or playfully, has led to the establishment of key genres such as wildlife film and animation. ZooScope looks at and beyond these major aspects of animals in film, covering animals’ role in film genres and styles; the range of literal and symbolic ways animals appear in film; animals in the film star-system; animal lives and the ethics of film-making; adaptation and the different challenges of filmic and literary representation of animals and human-animal relations.

ZooScope is a research resource for the animal studies and film communities produced by students and academics. In addition to the open call for submissions, we are seeking partnerships with academic colleagues whose students could contribute to ZooScope. Academic partners would act as sub-editors of the site, with their students producing ZooScope entries, for example, as formal assessments (with marking and feedback taking the professional form of editorial review and assessment completion coinciding with publication). This is how the archive has developed so far, as a research collaboration between undergraduate and postgraduate students and staff at the University of Sheffield and York University in Canada. Work on ZooScope challenges students and inspires creativity, enthusiasm, scholarly rigour and professionalism.

ZooScope welcomes submissions at any time via the website’s easy “Submit an Article” interface. There are contributor guidelines and all submissions are peer-reviewed before publication. If you are interested please contact Robert McKay (School of English, University of Sheffield: r.mckay@shef.ac.uk)

On a blog of mine, I expressed my worries about my employability.

One of my followers replied with this, I think in all seriousness:

"I’m sorry :( I applied to a shit ton of jobs. You could try waitressing at a strip club ? They’re pretty good and it’s good tips, where are you located ?"

Shall we count the ways in which I've been hilariously misread? XD

… and found this:

“Faline is the main female protagonist of Bambi. She is not an official Disney princess because she is a deer.”

“Kiara is the daughter of Simba and Nala, and the main female protagonist in The Lion King II. She is not a princess because of the fact she is a lion.”

“Maid Marian is the main female protagonist in Robin Hood. She is not a princess due to the fact she is, in fact, a fox.”

“[Nala] is not a princess because her love interest was a king, and she is a lion.”

“[Vanellope von Schweetz] is not an official Disney Princess because she is not a real, live being in her universe (she is a computer program sub-routine).”

SPECIESISMMMMMMM

Go see it! It's well-paced, well-characterized, and simply gorgeous visually. (I love everything they did with the villain. Aaaaah.)

The most outstanding element to me, however, was the blending of emotional gravity with humor; you got the sense that the humor came from these characters authentically responding to serious circumstances, not from a scriptwriter striving to wring misplaced laughs out of the audience.

And I got to see it with a bunch of Mormon furries, which was a bonus :)

At 3:30pm in Carterville Park!

Sorry, I should have been publicizing this earlier XD

"Write an assumption you have about me below, and I'll tell you if it's true or not."

(I withhold the right to answer vaguely if I want, hehe.)

Alright! Since the TF artists post was so successful, I thought this would be a fun sequel!

Basically, we're taking the humorous style of this article describing famous artists' styles and applying it to commissioners in the TF fandom. I'll start us off:

-- "If it's an animal becoming anthro, it's ehh123."

-- "If it's a football-playing eagle, it's pheagle."

-- "If it has large muscles, long hair, and a thick, black lower lip, it's drest13."


Have at it! But be nice!

So, splice and I took this article presenting humorous descriptions of famous artists' styles and thought, why don't we do this for TF art?

Here were some examples we devised:

-- "If everyone looks sweaty, in pain, black and white, and in the dark, it's Gryf."

-- "If everyone has hypertrophied muscles and bursting clothes and is yelling, it's BlackRat."

-- "If it involves melting and cars, it's probably Lance Foxx."

-- "If you can't tell what's going on because of the crosshatching and forget that it reads from right to left, it's Nojo."

-- "If it looks like early animation and a censored Kama Sutra written by Dali had a lovechild, it's Swatcher."


What would you say about other artists? What would you say about me? XD

Just... be nice when you comment :P

...I probably didn't thank you enough.

I've been called out on my lack of gratitude or acknowledgement of others' kindness in the past, but I always excused my non-reaction by thinking that I didn't have to be effusive for some reason or another (often because--and I see the biting irony in it--I hadn't asked for the gifts, so giving me a gift was a sort of unwanted imposition on my emotional and moral faculties).

In an effort to remind me of how many friend I've had and how many people have been kind to me, I've made a folder on my computer of gift art alone.

So... if you have done or paid for art for me in the past, please remind me. I don't want to forget your kindness. :)

Win it for my toucans :D

Back early next week! Happy Fourth, Americans! :D

Because that's where I am!

I have a Monoprice 6251, and for the most part it's been awesome. It was relatively very cheap, has lasted nearly three years now, and is large compared to many.

But every once in a while, the drivers decide, on a whim, not to work. That is, I lose pressure sensitivity, which makes a tablet only slightly more useful than a mouse.

And I have to jump through a ton of hoops I don't really understand to try to get it working again.

Well, it did that again. And I forgot the driver installation CD at home. And the drivers from online, for whatever reason, aren't working.

I'm close to just throwing in the towel on it and saving up for a new tablet, even if it's a small, cheapish Bamboo or something.

(And yes, this is a notice that drawing commissions will be even more delayed. Maybe I'll have a burst of patience next week and figure out what to do, but ugh, I feel like I've tried everything.

Sorry for the complaining. :/

If you had no idea what species I liked and were asked what animal I would be (based on anything else: looks, personality, etc.), what would you say?

I'm really curious! So far on Twitter I've gotten a couple options. :)

So, when I was creating Seba's backstory, I named his Argentine basketball club -Club Sokol- after an athletic club down the street from where I once lived.

I decide to Wikipedia it today only to find out that "Sokol" is the general Slavic word for "falcon." All too appropriate for a half-Polish toucan, eh? :D