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Bit part update:
General | Posted 4 years agoI've compiled a short list of candidates from the provided OC's, and will be doing some test sketches before I determine who gets the part. Things have been unexpectedly busy this past weekend, so I haven't had an opportunity to do a real analysis, but it's coming.
Bit Part: Recruiting a Female Character to play a Cashier
General | Posted 4 years agoI thought about this for a couple of days, so time to just put it out there:
Basically a re-jiggering of events in the next (way-overdue) installment of What, me Furry? have led a re-draw of some pages that now have the characters seen in the latest upload briefly ducking back into another store before continuing home.
For this "event", I need a female character to play a speaking role as a cashier for a couple of pages. It doesn't make sense to use any of my OC's for the role, and I don't want to design a throwaway character for this purpose. But since it's my eventual intent to have suitable OC's of other creators (subject to their permission) passing through as either background characters or actual interaction with the principal cast, I decided it was time to reach out to my watchers (or random passerby) to see of anyone has a female OC that they'd be willing to let me use for a couple of pages for this one-shot role as a cashier in a small discount clothing store. The only limitation I can think of is that the prospective character not be especially exotic or complex.
I'm not requiring any sort of monetary buy-in for this role as the WmF? comic isn't intended to make money on its own (it may inspire future commission ideas among my viewership). I'll hold this casting call out for 4 days ending the night of January 29th 2022 after I get home from work and unwind.
Edit: Update 01/31: Stuff was going on Saturday to fill my spare time and Sinday was semi- busy. I'll review the submissions and announce my pick.
Basically a re-jiggering of events in the next (way-overdue) installment of What, me Furry? have led a re-draw of some pages that now have the characters seen in the latest upload briefly ducking back into another store before continuing home.
For this "event", I need a female character to play a speaking role as a cashier for a couple of pages. It doesn't make sense to use any of my OC's for the role, and I don't want to design a throwaway character for this purpose. But since it's my eventual intent to have suitable OC's of other creators (subject to their permission) passing through as either background characters or actual interaction with the principal cast, I decided it was time to reach out to my watchers (or random passerby) to see of anyone has a female OC that they'd be willing to let me use for a couple of pages for this one-shot role as a cashier in a small discount clothing store. The only limitation I can think of is that the prospective character not be especially exotic or complex.
I'm not requiring any sort of monetary buy-in for this role as the WmF? comic isn't intended to make money on its own (it may inspire future commission ideas among my viewership). I'll hold this casting call out for 4 days ending the night of January 29th 2022 after I get home from work and unwind.
Edit: Update 01/31: Stuff was going on Saturday to fill my spare time and Sinday was semi- busy. I'll review the submissions and announce my pick.
16 Years on FA
General | Posted 4 years ago(background music--open in new tab)
There is a thing called "Sweet 16". I guess its some kind of celebration of one kind of coming-of-age milepost in life. I know I didn't get one, but that's neither here nor there--I didn't lose any sleep over it.
Not too long ago, I became aware that my join date on FA occurred 16 years ago on December 12, 2005. That's....pretty long ago so far as current year majority is concerned. Despite all its missteps over the years, I'm pretty glad I have this place to post my stuff., and even moreso that I have the audience that I do. I'm not on any other platform--most all mainstream social-media is either a bottomless time-sink, or a glowing nuclear murder-hornet dumpster fire. And they all blow donkey unit as art galleries.
Originally when I became aware of this "anniversary" I wanted to post a celebratory pic with my entire OC roster. But, some of the characters that would be included have not yet been formally introduced as full members of the group via the comic I'm working on right now. That effort contracted to a single pic with one character marking the occasion using a cupcake done up like a miniature birthday cake. Even that idea missed the date owing to limited free time during the weekend. As anyone who has read my art-status journal, I've been stuck working an evening tour 11a-7p for the past few years, and add an hour-long commute to both ends. So you get a journal :D
Maybe by my 20-year anniversary I'll be able to put all my OC's together in one pic. I'll start planning for that one now...my 100,000 pageview milestone is much farther away...unless I become some kind of accomplished pornomancer XD.
What's in the future for me artistically?
--Commissions: I plan to resume taking them once the new characters make their debut in What, me Furry?. The reason being that the new additions may well inspire new subject matter ideas for future commissions. Also, their interactions with my existing OC's will give a clearer picture of how they think and socialize, which in turn can open opportunities with like-minded OC's of other creators to cross paths with them, subject to the interest of their owners.
--More artwork: Naturally. In conjunction with the comic, still pics and image sequences. Once I reach the point where all of my OC's have made apperances in the comic and have properly intermixed with the existing roster, I expect the quantity of time devoted to the comic to subside in favor of stuff I haven't been doing over the past year.
There is a thing called "Sweet 16". I guess its some kind of celebration of one kind of coming-of-age milepost in life. I know I didn't get one, but that's neither here nor there--I didn't lose any sleep over it.
Not too long ago, I became aware that my join date on FA occurred 16 years ago on December 12, 2005. That's....pretty long ago so far as current year majority is concerned. Despite all its missteps over the years, I'm pretty glad I have this place to post my stuff., and even moreso that I have the audience that I do. I'm not on any other platform--most all mainstream social-media is either a bottomless time-sink, or a glowing nuclear murder-hornet dumpster fire. And they all blow donkey unit as art galleries.
Originally when I became aware of this "anniversary" I wanted to post a celebratory pic with my entire OC roster. But, some of the characters that would be included have not yet been formally introduced as full members of the group via the comic I'm working on right now. That effort contracted to a single pic with one character marking the occasion using a cupcake done up like a miniature birthday cake. Even that idea missed the date owing to limited free time during the weekend. As anyone who has read my art-status journal, I've been stuck working an evening tour 11a-7p for the past few years, and add an hour-long commute to both ends. So you get a journal :D
Maybe by my 20-year anniversary I'll be able to put all my OC's together in one pic. I'll start planning for that one now...my 100,000 pageview milestone is much farther away...unless I become some kind of accomplished pornomancer XD.
What's in the future for me artistically?
--Commissions: I plan to resume taking them once the new characters make their debut in What, me Furry?. The reason being that the new additions may well inspire new subject matter ideas for future commissions. Also, their interactions with my existing OC's will give a clearer picture of how they think and socialize, which in turn can open opportunities with like-minded OC's of other creators to cross paths with them, subject to the interest of their owners.
--More artwork: Naturally. In conjunction with the comic, still pics and image sequences. Once I reach the point where all of my OC's have made apperances in the comic and have properly intermixed with the existing roster, I expect the quantity of time devoted to the comic to subside in favor of stuff I haven't been doing over the past year.
Folders and Comics...
General | Posted 4 years ago...as many people I've seen use them to organize their comics, why didn't I think to do likewise sooner?
https://youtu.be/Movh9aWrzAU
In any case, I spent most of yesterday sticking What, me Furry? into their own dedicated folders under a general group folder for comics. While I was at it, I updated the early B/W arc to use the current FA navigation links, and in the second arc, I decided to place unofficial page numbers in the description.
Why do this? Some time ago I got it in my head that I couldn't leave certain story elements dangling in mid-air by posting single pages as they were completed, so I got into the habit of drawing "installments"--larger sequences of story that could pause on a more natural-sounding point while I crafted the continuation of the story. As a result, the page numbering became...'chunkier', being numbered by installments with sub-pages. While I'll continue to do this for the forseeable future, I'll now add page numbers in the description continuing from page 40, the first page of the current arc. By doing this, I found that I've drawn 97 pages for WmF?, and thus the next installment will contain the 100th page.
Should be a lot bigger number than that by now, but there was that eleven-year hiatus, soooo....
As time permits, I'll add other multi-page comics to their respective folders (some may need proper nav links), and those developments will be listed as they're done in my 'current activity journal' rather than posting separate journals about them since they are old comics. Recent watchers may be curious about the early reaches of WmF? since they give some clue as to how my OC's think, so I figured I'd announce the addition of comic folders as a generality just this one time.
One other thing. Some of the comic pages are listed out-of-order within the thumbnail view despite my adding them one-at-a-time in the correct order. I don't know why FA did this (might have something to do with the submission number), but if you follow the nav links you can progress forward and back in their proper order.
https://youtu.be/Movh9aWrzAU
In any case, I spent most of yesterday sticking What, me Furry? into their own dedicated folders under a general group folder for comics. While I was at it, I updated the early B/W arc to use the current FA navigation links, and in the second arc, I decided to place unofficial page numbers in the description.
Why do this? Some time ago I got it in my head that I couldn't leave certain story elements dangling in mid-air by posting single pages as they were completed, so I got into the habit of drawing "installments"--larger sequences of story that could pause on a more natural-sounding point while I crafted the continuation of the story. As a result, the page numbering became...'chunkier', being numbered by installments with sub-pages. While I'll continue to do this for the forseeable future, I'll now add page numbers in the description continuing from page 40, the first page of the current arc. By doing this, I found that I've drawn 97 pages for WmF?, and thus the next installment will contain the 100th page.
Should be a lot bigger number than that by now, but there was that eleven-year hiatus, soooo....
As time permits, I'll add other multi-page comics to their respective folders (some may need proper nav links), and those developments will be listed as they're done in my 'current activity journal' rather than posting separate journals about them since they are old comics. Recent watchers may be curious about the early reaches of WmF? since they give some clue as to how my OC's think, so I figured I'd announce the addition of comic folders as a generality just this one time.
One other thing. Some of the comic pages are listed out-of-order within the thumbnail view despite my adding them one-at-a-time in the correct order. I don't know why FA did this (might have something to do with the submission number), but if you follow the nav links you can progress forward and back in their proper order.
The Curious Convergence of Eights, Lap 53
General | Posted 4 years agoSo I went to update the age on my frontpage profile...and just now noticed that detail is no longer there. Must've vanished with the UI update.
Oh, well, I keep being told I don't look my age, so I wonder if that even matters (for now)
What am I going to do? I'll figure that out after work, (yes on a Saturday + birthday)
Oh, well, I keep being told I don't look my age, so I wonder if that even matters (for now)
What am I going to do? I'll figure that out after work, (yes on a Saturday + birthday)
Artistic Spitballing, August 2021
General | Posted 4 years agoSlowly but surely, I'm working my way through my 'What, me Furry?' comic, approaching the point where I can formally introduce new characters that I developed over the past few years, but gave little exposure in my gallery (or anywhere else--FA is the only place I post art currently). A couple have not been mentioned at all here, save for two words in the last journal (can you spot them?). What does this mean for my work going forward? Just some additional characters that may endear themselves to a section of FA's userbase that's probably under-represented among those watching me. I did something that mainstream comics and movie franchises seem incapable of doing in in the present--creating new characters instead of changing existing ones. All of the new additions have defined roles that developed over the years I kept them under wraps, and one aspect of their roles is that all of them are cleared for appearing in NSFW material (that doesn't guarantee that kind of material, it depends on viewers and/or prospective commissioners ' desire to see it). In total, I hope their intergration with my roster will give a better idea of how my characters think and behave amongst themselves, an effort with an hoped-for outcome I'll explain below.
Another aspect that I've only touched upon here and there is how the universe my characters inhabit is meant to be a flexible one capable of intersecting with those of other creators, allowing their characters to exist in the same reality and cross paths with my characters if desired on their part. In this way, the hope is that my characters can eventually become part of social circles incorporating other creators' OC's. This might manifest itself as simple one-off pics of my characters doing common everyday things with those of other creators, all the way to short-form comics depicting casual aquaintence-ships that could develop into recurring walk-on roles made possible by mutual interests previously described. It can even even allow for NSFW hook-ups (dependent on which characters are involved), with just a bit more context behind the encounter/s.
This idea is one I realize has to be carefully managed, as there are some downsides:
-(1) it can fall victim to the pitfall of being seen as means to get 'free art'. I know another artist who effectively prevents that by having prospective guest stars buy-in to cast openings in his ongoing comic or roles in standalone pics, at similar rates to his regular commissions. It's a challenging business model, since he often requires specific character types depending on the scene, so the odds are pretty good that those with the best candidates won't have the $$$ when a casting call goes out.
(Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure this isn't the specific reason guest roles in his work are regulated by buy-in, just that that the effort to include cameos makes them equivalent to a regular commission, which is not at all unreasonable given the amount of work involved in his content.)
Having said that, I don't want to give the impression that I'm considering paywalling interactions with my characters. It's still work to include them, but for my purposes, such depictions could give others ideas for commission subjects with their own OC's interacting with mine. Still, the potential for abuse is something that has to be watched out for.
-(2) A whole bunch of interesting pair-ups simply won't happen because the characters' owners don't cross paths with my own. One would have to randomly run across someone openly advertising their OC's are available to "play" with those of anyone happening by their page. How often does that happen? (also, point #1), not to mention how does one approach a complete stranger out of the blue asking if their OC's would like to meet yours without it seeming weird. This applies even if one or both parties were openly advertising on their gallery homepages that they were looking forward to meeting others here on FA. I've seen many of these people, and I still don't know how I'd broach the subject in a sincere-sounding manner.
-(3) Should #2 be overcome, the prospective characters need to have enough history (or at least established headcanon) behind them to be more than one-trick ponies (a bigger challenge for short comics than for simple pics--and the latter even less so if it's going to be NSFW). The other character/s owner/s need to be able to write their characters' lines or at least be decently able to describe how they'd behave based on who they are interacting with and in a given situation.
---(3a) Some OC's have fleshed out personalities and histories, but carry enough emotional baggage in-canon to make them unapproachable, or at least spectacularly unlikely to strike up a conversation, much less befriend anyone else.
---(3b) Still others inhabit fantasy or science fiction universes that cannot cross paths with my own characters' reality without high-level literary gymnastics.
So, it looks like the best way to see this happen is to let it occur organically, just keep putting out the comics, and once the whole gang is present, put out the welcome mat (with some rules of engagement) and maybe someone with an nifty idea and a suitable character/s will run across it and broach the subject :D
Art stuff:
As I work on my stuff, I make forays into the bigger world of FA to see what else is going on, and in the past couple of months or so, I've been hitting up fave galleries of people watching me, and jumping from there to the gallery pages of some of the better looking pieces, hopscotching through the artist galleries of interesting commission pieces and in-turn looking up the galleries of the commissioners to see what else they're doing with their OC's. Along the way I picked up a couple of visual details that I'm experimenting with as I grind through my comic pages (and occasional side projects to break up the routine).
One of these is ear fluff. For the longest time I did them like a scaled-down version of Tenchi Myuo's 'Ryo-ohki' (the spaceship-cabbit) Lots of long spiny hairs reaching across and out of the characters' ears. Detailed, yes. Also a chore to ink and color. In this latest set of comic pages I've been experimenting with simplifying this detail, merging the hairs into thick upwards-curved tufts that split once towards their outer edges without extending past the ears themselves. Much easier to color and shade.
Another detail I'm looking at is switching from three-toed feet to four-toed with visible pads. The vast majority of the better-looking character models I've seen employ this configuration. I haven't reached the shading/highlight phase of any pics I've sketched out like this, and I see that those steps are needed to bring out the full effect of that detail. This feature won't be evident on most of my work -- while the vast majority of examples I got this from feature barefooted (and mostly digitigrade) characters, I still draw my OC's plantigrade and wearing shoes (I'm fairly decent at them). It isn't that my characters can't appear bare-pawed--they can adapt to the norm of whomever else's universe they could hypothetically appear in. Same goes for four versus five-fingered hands, which I've been a bit inconsistent with as of late.
A bigger challenge is the norm of my facial construction. Mine feature human-syle lower lips and jawline. That has made drawing canids and vulpines a bumpier road to travel since well, muzzles don't have lips like that. Strictly speaking, my OC's could probably do well to lose the lower lip and adopt a thinner jawline like proper muzzles have and potentially look better for it. But that's a rather radical restyle that I haven't experimented with, and if I manage to make it look decent, probably won't use it unless needed to fit in visually should I need to depict any of my OC's in someone else's universe where this configuration is the norm, since it would be a jarring departure from my usual style.
Another aspect that I've only touched upon here and there is how the universe my characters inhabit is meant to be a flexible one capable of intersecting with those of other creators, allowing their characters to exist in the same reality and cross paths with my characters if desired on their part. In this way, the hope is that my characters can eventually become part of social circles incorporating other creators' OC's. This might manifest itself as simple one-off pics of my characters doing common everyday things with those of other creators, all the way to short-form comics depicting casual aquaintence-ships that could develop into recurring walk-on roles made possible by mutual interests previously described. It can even even allow for NSFW hook-ups (dependent on which characters are involved), with just a bit more context behind the encounter/s.
This idea is one I realize has to be carefully managed, as there are some downsides:
-(1) it can fall victim to the pitfall of being seen as means to get 'free art'. I know another artist who effectively prevents that by having prospective guest stars buy-in to cast openings in his ongoing comic or roles in standalone pics, at similar rates to his regular commissions. It's a challenging business model, since he often requires specific character types depending on the scene, so the odds are pretty good that those with the best candidates won't have the $$$ when a casting call goes out.
(Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure this isn't the specific reason guest roles in his work are regulated by buy-in, just that that the effort to include cameos makes them equivalent to a regular commission, which is not at all unreasonable given the amount of work involved in his content.)
Having said that, I don't want to give the impression that I'm considering paywalling interactions with my characters. It's still work to include them, but for my purposes, such depictions could give others ideas for commission subjects with their own OC's interacting with mine. Still, the potential for abuse is something that has to be watched out for.
-(2) A whole bunch of interesting pair-ups simply won't happen because the characters' owners don't cross paths with my own. One would have to randomly run across someone openly advertising their OC's are available to "play" with those of anyone happening by their page. How often does that happen? (also, point #1), not to mention how does one approach a complete stranger out of the blue asking if their OC's would like to meet yours without it seeming weird. This applies even if one or both parties were openly advertising on their gallery homepages that they were looking forward to meeting others here on FA. I've seen many of these people, and I still don't know how I'd broach the subject in a sincere-sounding manner.
-(3) Should #2 be overcome, the prospective characters need to have enough history (or at least established headcanon) behind them to be more than one-trick ponies (a bigger challenge for short comics than for simple pics--and the latter even less so if it's going to be NSFW). The other character/s owner/s need to be able to write their characters' lines or at least be decently able to describe how they'd behave based on who they are interacting with and in a given situation.
---(3a) Some OC's have fleshed out personalities and histories, but carry enough emotional baggage in-canon to make them unapproachable, or at least spectacularly unlikely to strike up a conversation, much less befriend anyone else.
---(3b) Still others inhabit fantasy or science fiction universes that cannot cross paths with my own characters' reality without high-level literary gymnastics.
So, it looks like the best way to see this happen is to let it occur organically, just keep putting out the comics, and once the whole gang is present, put out the welcome mat (with some rules of engagement) and maybe someone with an nifty idea and a suitable character/s will run across it and broach the subject :D
Art stuff:
As I work on my stuff, I make forays into the bigger world of FA to see what else is going on, and in the past couple of months or so, I've been hitting up fave galleries of people watching me, and jumping from there to the gallery pages of some of the better looking pieces, hopscotching through the artist galleries of interesting commission pieces and in-turn looking up the galleries of the commissioners to see what else they're doing with their OC's. Along the way I picked up a couple of visual details that I'm experimenting with as I grind through my comic pages (and occasional side projects to break up the routine).
One of these is ear fluff. For the longest time I did them like a scaled-down version of Tenchi Myuo's 'Ryo-ohki' (the spaceship-cabbit) Lots of long spiny hairs reaching across and out of the characters' ears. Detailed, yes. Also a chore to ink and color. In this latest set of comic pages I've been experimenting with simplifying this detail, merging the hairs into thick upwards-curved tufts that split once towards their outer edges without extending past the ears themselves. Much easier to color and shade.
Another detail I'm looking at is switching from three-toed feet to four-toed with visible pads. The vast majority of the better-looking character models I've seen employ this configuration. I haven't reached the shading/highlight phase of any pics I've sketched out like this, and I see that those steps are needed to bring out the full effect of that detail. This feature won't be evident on most of my work -- while the vast majority of examples I got this from feature barefooted (and mostly digitigrade) characters, I still draw my OC's plantigrade and wearing shoes (I'm fairly decent at them). It isn't that my characters can't appear bare-pawed--they can adapt to the norm of whomever else's universe they could hypothetically appear in. Same goes for four versus five-fingered hands, which I've been a bit inconsistent with as of late.
A bigger challenge is the norm of my facial construction. Mine feature human-syle lower lips and jawline. That has made drawing canids and vulpines a bumpier road to travel since well, muzzles don't have lips like that. Strictly speaking, my OC's could probably do well to lose the lower lip and adopt a thinner jawline like proper muzzles have and potentially look better for it. But that's a rather radical restyle that I haven't experimented with, and if I manage to make it look decent, probably won't use it unless needed to fit in visually should I need to depict any of my OC's in someone else's universe where this configuration is the norm, since it would be a jarring departure from my usual style.
The Dusty Crates of my Comic Archives
General | Posted 4 years agoTalk about rabbit holes...
While working on the latest installment of What, me Furry? (WMF?), I needed to dig up an older page for a color sample. A much older page. Like 14 years old as of this writing. For this, I chose to go to one of the local backup drives mentioned in the previous journal. What followed was a dive into the deepest recesses of my gallery archives. While I did locate the page in question (I wanted an uncompressed version free of JPG artifacts), I also turned up a bunch of mislabeled folders, missing description files and even some missing full-size versions of the B/W pages.
Oh, the Huge Manatee!
You see, WMF? pre-dates FurAffinity, having made it's debut on a personal website for 40 B/W pages in the late 1990's until I joined VCL in 2003 and continued it from that point without relocating the earlier series. When FA came online in 2005, I chose to repost the entire comic here, from its primitive beginnings at the dawn of my familiarity with this fandom, continuing for awhile with cross-posted entries (as VCL was the most-used art archive until FA surpassed it), then exclusively on FA to the present. What all this means is there is some really old stuff lurking at the very beginnings of my gallery here.
For the sake of backups, not only do I archive the full-sized versions of all the artwork I post, I also save the descriptions, titles and tags in text files along with the artwork. The idea being that I can in a worst-case scenario rebuild my gallery from the ground up, descriptions and tags included, which is kind-of-important given my long-winded descriptions. Every upload has a project number associated with its title, which I can use to find the original full-sized files. Trouble was, I did a few other comics way back then (mostly one-shots) and instead of titles they simply had numbers, a scheme that carried over into the early project name+number system when I started formally archiving my works...and when "What, me Furry?" went into the archives, their actual "issue" numbers weren't used in the folder names. Not a big deal if I never had to look into those folders again. But you can see where this was headed.
Long story short, I spent the last two days combing through the early WMF? pages, fixing their archive folder names to reflect how they're numbered on FA, updating their descriptions here as follows:
--replacing BBCode navigation links with FA's in-house nav links (starting with the second arc)
--updating original pre-2005 post dates to identify them as VCL upload dates (VCL still functions, BTW)
--adding character names to the tag field
After all this, saving the title, updated descriptions and tags in text files for each page's project folder where that info had been missing, not to mention making sure all this new info was duplicated correctly across the two backup drives at home and a thumb drive needed to carry the changes to the two backup drives I keep in my locker at work* . That made for a whole lot of fiddly repetitive work that very few people would voluntarily put up with today, considering that dumping stuff on Twatter with little or no context is widely considered "the way it's done" nowadays.
What does that mean to you watching me today? Well, I guess you can look through the early issues of What, me Furry? and get caught up with the events that led up to the most recent postings in the present year. While the artwork is primitive, the opening premise especially hackneyed and the writing subpar (not that I claim to be any better at it today :D), there are some nuggets of info that affect my roster of OC's even today. If you have questions on those old submissions go ahead and ask them--and if I have an answer, I'll give it.
--What, me Furry? treats my OC's as cartoon characters that are aware of their existence as such, but start off not being aware of furry fandom as an entity until the events of the first few pages of the comic (hence the title). I first developed these characters (Tanya, Tina and Cynthia) while I was attending DeWitt Clinton HS during the middle 1980s, and during my early years in the workforce (Sherryl, Roland, Tatiana and Todd) in the late 1980's.
--There were no comics during the 1990's. I mostly did B/W pinups showing them wearing typical fashions of the day, since I determined even then that they would not be limited to a single mode of dress. These drawings were presented as "model sheets", though I wasn't aware of how such things were supposed to be done to actually qualify as such since in those pre-Internet days I didn't know anyone who could actually draw, much less make use of properly-done sheets. Eventually these drawings will appear here as "Ancient Art Archive" posts.
--I became aware of furry fandom around about 1997 with my first dial-up Internet access, and attended Anthrocon that year (the last year it was held in Albany, NY). Even though I routinely toured various furry WebRings and lurked alt.fan.furry, I only posted my artwork to a personal website whose address I rarely gave out. The first 40 pages of What, me Furry? were created and posted there, as B/W .GIF images as I had to deal with a 5MB limit on free personal website space included with my dial-up account. It wasn't until 2003 that I finally signed up for an account at VCL, then the fandom's biggest artsite. It is within that context that a new arc of WMF? began, with about 12 more pages posted in B/W before I switched to color.
--Bastien was the first character I developed post-furry-discovery. He was an early example of fandom influence, as I figured I should learn to draw more than just cats. He was followed by Nei'chelle in 2001. No other feline characters were developed afterwards till Kallista in 2008, purely by chance owing to a convention art trade. Other characters, some not yet introduced or posted include a rabbit, a red panda and two otters.
--The main thrust of WMF? I'm working on right now (after an 11-year hiatus O_o) is to formally introduce the newest characters and give viewers an insight on each one's personalities and how they interact with the others. Their residence is a dorm-style two-story building that has private apartments facing an indoor social space where most interaction takes place. Once I have all the characters introduced and have gone a bit into how they play off each other, this location will serve as a jumping-off point for stories involving any combination of my OC's and if appropriate, those of other creators if a suitable idea presents itself. It can also just be a setting for simple pics of various combinations of characters doing typical things, something I used to see a lot of in some art communities back in the day.
*(There's still a sizable chunk of the first arc whose original files are still missing. I'm not even sure if I ever stored the full-size scans in that era--I may have to fire up some very old laptops and hunt through old Zip (and Jaz) disks to find them. At least I still have local copies of the files as posted on FA).
07/18/2021 Edit: I found the original ink drawings of the first arc. I've got some scanning to do. Since the dialogue was added digitally, there is no text on these pages. These won't be posted since the web versions are already on FA, but at least the originals can be digitally preserved/archived at 300DPI. Also I found a stack of 1990's era artwork for the Ancient Art Archive.
While working on the latest installment of What, me Furry? (WMF?), I needed to dig up an older page for a color sample. A much older page. Like 14 years old as of this writing. For this, I chose to go to one of the local backup drives mentioned in the previous journal. What followed was a dive into the deepest recesses of my gallery archives. While I did locate the page in question (I wanted an uncompressed version free of JPG artifacts), I also turned up a bunch of mislabeled folders, missing description files and even some missing full-size versions of the B/W pages.
Oh, the Huge Manatee!
You see, WMF? pre-dates FurAffinity, having made it's debut on a personal website for 40 B/W pages in the late 1990's until I joined VCL in 2003 and continued it from that point without relocating the earlier series. When FA came online in 2005, I chose to repost the entire comic here, from its primitive beginnings at the dawn of my familiarity with this fandom, continuing for awhile with cross-posted entries (as VCL was the most-used art archive until FA surpassed it), then exclusively on FA to the present. What all this means is there is some really old stuff lurking at the very beginnings of my gallery here.
For the sake of backups, not only do I archive the full-sized versions of all the artwork I post, I also save the descriptions, titles and tags in text files along with the artwork. The idea being that I can in a worst-case scenario rebuild my gallery from the ground up, descriptions and tags included, which is kind-of-important given my long-winded descriptions. Every upload has a project number associated with its title, which I can use to find the original full-sized files. Trouble was, I did a few other comics way back then (mostly one-shots) and instead of titles they simply had numbers, a scheme that carried over into the early project name+number system when I started formally archiving my works...and when "What, me Furry?" went into the archives, their actual "issue" numbers weren't used in the folder names. Not a big deal if I never had to look into those folders again. But you can see where this was headed.
Long story short, I spent the last two days combing through the early WMF? pages, fixing their archive folder names to reflect how they're numbered on FA, updating their descriptions here as follows:
--replacing BBCode navigation links with FA's in-house nav links (starting with the second arc)
--updating original pre-2005 post dates to identify them as VCL upload dates (VCL still functions, BTW)
--adding character names to the tag field
After all this, saving the title, updated descriptions and tags in text files for each page's project folder where that info had been missing, not to mention making sure all this new info was duplicated correctly across the two backup drives at home and a thumb drive needed to carry the changes to the two backup drives I keep in my locker at work* . That made for a whole lot of fiddly repetitive work that very few people would voluntarily put up with today, considering that dumping stuff on Twatter with little or no context is widely considered "the way it's done" nowadays.
What does that mean to you watching me today? Well, I guess you can look through the early issues of What, me Furry? and get caught up with the events that led up to the most recent postings in the present year. While the artwork is primitive, the opening premise especially hackneyed and the writing subpar (not that I claim to be any better at it today :D), there are some nuggets of info that affect my roster of OC's even today. If you have questions on those old submissions go ahead and ask them--and if I have an answer, I'll give it.
WMF? first arc (1-40) --- WMF? second arc (41-today) --- My gallery on VCL (for that retro Y2K-era vibe)Some context surrounding those early pages:--What, me Furry? treats my OC's as cartoon characters that are aware of their existence as such, but start off not being aware of furry fandom as an entity until the events of the first few pages of the comic (hence the title). I first developed these characters (Tanya, Tina and Cynthia) while I was attending DeWitt Clinton HS during the middle 1980s, and during my early years in the workforce (Sherryl, Roland, Tatiana and Todd) in the late 1980's.
--There were no comics during the 1990's. I mostly did B/W pinups showing them wearing typical fashions of the day, since I determined even then that they would not be limited to a single mode of dress. These drawings were presented as "model sheets", though I wasn't aware of how such things were supposed to be done to actually qualify as such since in those pre-Internet days I didn't know anyone who could actually draw, much less make use of properly-done sheets. Eventually these drawings will appear here as "Ancient Art Archive" posts.
--I became aware of furry fandom around about 1997 with my first dial-up Internet access, and attended Anthrocon that year (the last year it was held in Albany, NY). Even though I routinely toured various furry WebRings and lurked alt.fan.furry, I only posted my artwork to a personal website whose address I rarely gave out. The first 40 pages of What, me Furry? were created and posted there, as B/W .GIF images as I had to deal with a 5MB limit on free personal website space included with my dial-up account. It wasn't until 2003 that I finally signed up for an account at VCL, then the fandom's biggest artsite. It is within that context that a new arc of WMF? began, with about 12 more pages posted in B/W before I switched to color.
--Bastien was the first character I developed post-furry-discovery. He was an early example of fandom influence, as I figured I should learn to draw more than just cats. He was followed by Nei'chelle in 2001. No other feline characters were developed afterwards till Kallista in 2008, purely by chance owing to a convention art trade. Other characters, some not yet introduced or posted include a rabbit, a red panda and two otters.
--The main thrust of WMF? I'm working on right now (after an 11-year hiatus O_o) is to formally introduce the newest characters and give viewers an insight on each one's personalities and how they interact with the others. Their residence is a dorm-style two-story building that has private apartments facing an indoor social space where most interaction takes place. Once I have all the characters introduced and have gone a bit into how they play off each other, this location will serve as a jumping-off point for stories involving any combination of my OC's and if appropriate, those of other creators if a suitable idea presents itself. It can also just be a setting for simple pics of various combinations of characters doing typical things, something I used to see a lot of in some art communities back in the day.
*(There's still a sizable chunk of the first arc whose original files are still missing. I'm not even sure if I ever stored the full-size scans in that era--I may have to fire up some very old laptops and hunt through old Zip (and Jaz) disks to find them. At least I still have local copies of the files as posted on FA).
07/18/2021 Edit: I found the original ink drawings of the first arc. I've got some scanning to do. Since the dialogue was added digitally, there is no text on these pages. These won't be posted since the web versions are already on FA, but at least the originals can be digitally preserved/archived at 300DPI. Also I found a stack of 1990's era artwork for the Ancient Art Archive.
The Glory of Backups
General | Posted 5 years agoA little backstory:
I do backups.
They work.
The end.
Okay, maybe a little more exposition :
My artwork is backed up four different ways:
--On a pair of external laptop hard drives
--On the flash drives they lived on as WIPs
--On an external desktop drive that lives in my locker at work
Each time I complete an art project, I make a copy of the project folder and spread it to all of the rotating hard drives listed above. The "completed" project also remains on the flash drive it lived on as a WIP. Why? Thumb drives are cheap enough to just put a new one in service whenever an old one fills up. I also have a backup log to keep track of when a particular folder was added to a particular drive.
You may have noticed a "Project ID#" appearing in the description of some of my more recent uploads. They come in handy at times when I need to revisit an old project for certain assets, reference images, or just some clue as to how I accomplished some obscure effect. There have been a few instances when this log alerted me to missing projects or incomplete backups, or allowed me to find the errant file/s on a thumb drive (I number them) that filled up years ago. But that's not why I wrote this journal...
My photos are backed up three different ways:
--In the "Pictures" library on my main computer (though this really doesn't count as a 'backup')
--On a pair of external hard drives perched atop my computer desk.
Every time I take a picture with my phone or digital camera, I copy the new files to all three locations, mimicking the format Canon uses for it's CameraWindow software for importing images/videos on the camera--folders for every date in the format YYYY_MM_DD. Not the most intuitive, and I have to do this manually for photos/videos coming from my Galaxy Note 4, but I'm used to it. I think this effort goes back to Anthrocon 2005, when on the trip home I inadvertently left a backpack on the Amtrak train I rode home that stormy Monday following the con. Not ever considering the possibility of such a disaster, I had all the digital pictures I had shot up to that date with me, instead of carrying copies of the images, I carried the original memory cards--and thus the sole copies of these photos--with me to various cons, and used the digital camera as a viewer when I wanted to show off something. That fateful day I lost all of those images, plus two digital cameras and two laptops. That taught me a rough lesson, and ever since, I've had a backup strategy of sorts for the stuff I knew would really bother me if I lost it. The only thing missing from my photo backup strategy was an offsite backup. I put that into effect today...
...but that's not the reason I wrote this journal. It's related, and I'll expound on that a little later.
My music 'collection' is also backed up on the external drives that host second and third copies of my photos. I'm one of those weirdoes who still employ a stand-alone MP3 player (a SanDisk Clip Sport) for music playback. It's small, clips to my shirt, and has way more battery life than my Galaxy Note 4. The one time I had to rely on the phone for a music device, it was an exercise in frustration (I used VLC--and yeah, I know there are a plethora of Android players that could have done a better job, but this was a stopgap measure while I replaced a previous Clip Sport that suffered some sort of hardware failure).
The offsite backup also held a copy of the music folder on my Clip. This drive was only a 250GB one--pretty nice at the time I bought it, not so impressive nowadays. When I decided I needed an offsite backup for my photos, this drive was too small to add my photo collection, running a little over128GB 150GB. So it was at that time that I headed over to my local MicroCenter and picked up a 2TB external drive that would hold everything--photos, artwork, music, pr0n, application installers, and scanned paperwork.
I copied over the photo archive at home, then carried the drive to work where I'd transfer copies of stuff on the offsite drive using my 'away-from-home-art-laptop' ('cause you don't use your employer's computers for that task, durrr). When it came to my music archive, that needed a little tweaking. This bears a little explanation:
I have a peculiar way of arranging my music files. I don't listen to albums, instead I listen to randomized singles from one big folder. And not only that, the filenames are formatted the opposite of common practice--title, then artist name. So, all the stuff I put on the player has reversed filenames from the way I acquired them, whether as free downloads, Bandcamp, Beatport, Amazon, etc.
Something else I do is embed album art in each file. Usually the album art resides by itself in an album folder, but as I mentioned before I don't listen to albums. My Clip Sport will display embedded album art up to 400x400 pixels, but most MP3s come with larger images. I deal with those using an application called MP3Tag, which allows me to extract the included album art to an image file that can be re-sized in an image editor, saved and re-inserted back into the MP3, along with the original-size artwork as a 'back-cover' image) . MP3Tag can also add album art to MP3s that never had any (like those recorded off-the-air). I don't have many of those any more, but they do crop up occasionally and I make a mental note to fix them as they come up in the rotation.
So, for today's music backup, all the files were the same, but a few on the Clip Sport have had album art added to them since the last backup. Rather than hunt those files down and copy them to the existing backup, I elected to nuke the backup folder and clone the Clip Sport to it, ensuring the backup was an accurate image of what I had on the player. This is where things went screwy, and is the actual reason for writing this journal.
About a third of the way through this mass copy of over a thousand files, Windows 10 derped and reported an out-of-memory condition. Uhm, what? On a laptop with a terabyte SSD and 16GB of ram? You're kidding, right? But alas, for reasons that still escape me, it wouldn't complete the job. Looking in my Recycle Bin I found a few gigs of deleted files from when I cleared the folder on the backup drive. That couldn't be the cause, but I emptied the bin anyway and tried again. It was at this point that I noticed the Clip Sport now had about 320 files.
What just happened? 800+ files just vanished from the source?. And to make things worse, there were mysterious files with gibberish filenames that I couldn't delete owing to some file system error. I manage to get rid of them with Windows' own maintenance tools, but now I'm missing most of my player's music. Later that night I try to restore the folder using my at-home backups and find that the even after clearing the music folder, only 2GB of the 8GB storage remain. Using the player's own file explorer revealed a hidden folder named "FOUND.000" with hundreds of unreadable files within. Once made visible and read-only status removed in Windows, I was able to delete the folder and recover the space, followed by a full restore of all the files that were there before. Good thing I happened to use the onboard file explorer, as I was convinced the player had been irreversibly corrupted and I was going to have to look for a new one, which would not have gone well since SanDisk has since rejiggered their Clip Sport line and by all accounts did a lousy job of it.
So yeah, backups work.
I do backups.
They work.
The end.
Okay, maybe a little more exposition :
My artwork is backed up four different ways:
--On a pair of external laptop hard drives
--On the flash drives they lived on as WIPs
--On an external desktop drive that lives in my locker at work
Each time I complete an art project, I make a copy of the project folder and spread it to all of the rotating hard drives listed above. The "completed" project also remains on the flash drive it lived on as a WIP. Why? Thumb drives are cheap enough to just put a new one in service whenever an old one fills up. I also have a backup log to keep track of when a particular folder was added to a particular drive.
You may have noticed a "Project ID#" appearing in the description of some of my more recent uploads. They come in handy at times when I need to revisit an old project for certain assets, reference images, or just some clue as to how I accomplished some obscure effect. There have been a few instances when this log alerted me to missing projects or incomplete backups, or allowed me to find the errant file/s on a thumb drive (I number them) that filled up years ago. But that's not why I wrote this journal...
My photos are backed up three different ways:
--In the "Pictures" library on my main computer (though this really doesn't count as a 'backup')
--On a pair of external hard drives perched atop my computer desk.
Every time I take a picture with my phone or digital camera, I copy the new files to all three locations, mimicking the format Canon uses for it's CameraWindow software for importing images/videos on the camera--folders for every date in the format YYYY_MM_DD. Not the most intuitive, and I have to do this manually for photos/videos coming from my Galaxy Note 4, but I'm used to it. I think this effort goes back to Anthrocon 2005, when on the trip home I inadvertently left a backpack on the Amtrak train I rode home that stormy Monday following the con. Not ever considering the possibility of such a disaster, I had all the digital pictures I had shot up to that date with me, instead of carrying copies of the images, I carried the original memory cards--and thus the sole copies of these photos--with me to various cons, and used the digital camera as a viewer when I wanted to show off something. That fateful day I lost all of those images, plus two digital cameras and two laptops. That taught me a rough lesson, and ever since, I've had a backup strategy of sorts for the stuff I knew would really bother me if I lost it. The only thing missing from my photo backup strategy was an offsite backup. I put that into effect today...
...but that's not the reason I wrote this journal. It's related, and I'll expound on that a little later.
My music 'collection' is also backed up on the external drives that host second and third copies of my photos. I'm one of those weirdoes who still employ a stand-alone MP3 player (a SanDisk Clip Sport) for music playback. It's small, clips to my shirt, and has way more battery life than my Galaxy Note 4. The one time I had to rely on the phone for a music device, it was an exercise in frustration (I used VLC--and yeah, I know there are a plethora of Android players that could have done a better job, but this was a stopgap measure while I replaced a previous Clip Sport that suffered some sort of hardware failure).
The offsite backup also held a copy of the music folder on my Clip. This drive was only a 250GB one--pretty nice at the time I bought it, not so impressive nowadays. When I decided I needed an offsite backup for my photos, this drive was too small to add my photo collection, running a little over
I copied over the photo archive at home, then carried the drive to work where I'd transfer copies of stuff on the offsite drive using my 'away-from-home-art-laptop' ('cause you don't use your employer's computers for that task, durrr). When it came to my music archive, that needed a little tweaking. This bears a little explanation:
I have a peculiar way of arranging my music files. I don't listen to albums, instead I listen to randomized singles from one big folder. And not only that, the filenames are formatted the opposite of common practice--title, then artist name. So, all the stuff I put on the player has reversed filenames from the way I acquired them, whether as free downloads, Bandcamp, Beatport, Amazon, etc.
Something else I do is embed album art in each file. Usually the album art resides by itself in an album folder, but as I mentioned before I don't listen to albums. My Clip Sport will display embedded album art up to 400x400 pixels, but most MP3s come with larger images. I deal with those using an application called MP3Tag, which allows me to extract the included album art to an image file that can be re-sized in an image editor, saved and re-inserted back into the MP3, along with the original-size artwork as a 'back-cover' image) . MP3Tag can also add album art to MP3s that never had any (like those recorded off-the-air). I don't have many of those any more, but they do crop up occasionally and I make a mental note to fix them as they come up in the rotation.
So, for today's music backup, all the files were the same, but a few on the Clip Sport have had album art added to them since the last backup. Rather than hunt those files down and copy them to the existing backup, I elected to nuke the backup folder and clone the Clip Sport to it, ensuring the backup was an accurate image of what I had on the player. This is where things went screwy, and is the actual reason for writing this journal.
About a third of the way through this mass copy of over a thousand files, Windows 10 derped and reported an out-of-memory condition. Uhm, what? On a laptop with a terabyte SSD and 16GB of ram? You're kidding, right? But alas, for reasons that still escape me, it wouldn't complete the job. Looking in my Recycle Bin I found a few gigs of deleted files from when I cleared the folder on the backup drive. That couldn't be the cause, but I emptied the bin anyway and tried again. It was at this point that I noticed the Clip Sport now had about 320 files.
What just happened? 800+ files just vanished from the source?. And to make things worse, there were mysterious files with gibberish filenames that I couldn't delete owing to some file system error. I manage to get rid of them with Windows' own maintenance tools, but now I'm missing most of my player's music. Later that night I try to restore the folder using my at-home backups and find that the even after clearing the music folder, only 2GB of the 8GB storage remain. Using the player's own file explorer revealed a hidden folder named "FOUND.000" with hundreds of unreadable files within. Once made visible and read-only status removed in Windows, I was able to delete the folder and recover the space, followed by a full restore of all the files that were there before. Good thing I happened to use the onboard file explorer, as I was convinced the player had been irreversibly corrupted and I was going to have to look for a new one, which would not have gone well since SanDisk has since rejiggered their Clip Sport line and by all accounts did a lousy job of it.
So yeah, backups work.
The Curious Convergence of Eights
General | Posted 5 years agoI almost posted this...eight days before the day in question, but procrastination...
The curious convergence refers to my date of birth, in which each element ends with "8". So it is, on the 28th day of August, I complete yet another trip around the sun and get to update the age on my FA profile.
What else will I do on that "magical" day?
Feh, it's a workday, and my routine will be much the same as any other, except there will most likely be a low-key marking of the day with a cake and candles (I jointly own a two-family house with my parents in the upstairs apartment). Presents? As I remarked on a post by
black-kitten on a similar subject, I've been fortunate enough to provide for my own "needs" both practical and...less than practical, such that I'm difficult to find gifts for. To that end, I resorted to placing some DVD box sets in my Amazon wish list, for shows that I do have an interest in watching, but owing to various time constraints (and some lousy time managament) that I rarely have time to binge-watch. Indeed, I have a backlog of series I need to catch up on that are on my shelves right now (Samurai Pizza Cats, Futurama, Robot Chicken, Trippin the Rift, and John Callahan's Quads, among others.
The irony is, during my early twenties, I collected a lot of VHS recordings of animated shows I really liked, that provided consistent laughs. I'd record them off the air while I was at work, then copy the recording to an "archive" tape, editing out the commercials such that the continuity looked like a commercial release. I rarely re-watched these series compilations, figuring that decades from "now" I'd have time to entertain myself with them after I'd ceased to find new stuff interesting and long after short-term memories of specific (mostly late '80's-early 90's) programs had faded. I didn't count on a constantly growing stream of interesting material appearing before me well into middle age and beyond. Now the challenge is to digitize those old recordings (many if not most of which aren't available on home video or streaming services) before my last decent VHS machine (a S-VHS deck with time-base correction) dies of disuse. And even with some shows being available for streaming, there's something to be said for local copies--they aren't subject to disappearing due to ratings or expiration of broadcast rights (eyes his Megas XLR and Drinky Crow Show archives)
As for artwork, hmm...let's see where I'm at:
-Commission-wise, I've got a very short list, fortunately. I find myself working on them mostly on the weekends, as even though I carry a digital workstation to work (A 15" Lenovo W541 ThinkPad with a Wacom Intuos 4 Medium, so kinda weighty) every day, I don't get to actually use it a whole lot--I've set it up on the side of my "work" workstation and not touched it till time to pack up more times than I care to recall. And ever since the pandemic set in, the lone free hotspot next to the office is so swamped that its SSID doesn't even show up most of the day, or I can't connect to it even when it does appear. Yes, there is an office hotspot independent of the company network, but I try not to let personal devices connect to it for "reasons".
--Personal-wise, I've re-started work on my long-neglected What, me Furry? comic, the last pages posted some ten years ago. One change was upgrading to an all-digital workflow which addressed one of the glaring flaws in my earlier comic work. They were originally drawn on letter-sized paper. The artists out there know that stuff tends to come out better when you can draw "large"instead of "small". Due to this, I made the panels excessively large, and as such, each addition to the story needed way more pages than practical in order to not leave off in an awkward place while working on the next page/s. Normally each installment should be one page like a regular webcomic (The Depths, UberQuest), but I'm not a sufficiently skilled writer to compress events that well. The installment I'm re-drawing now had been seven pages--I'm trying to fix the sequence of events so I can split it at the second or third.
The reason for re-focusing on this ancient comic (it began before FA existed) is I feel I need it brought to present-day so it can serve to introduce my three newest characters to the existing roster of OC's, as they all reside in a common facility for purposes of cross-interaction and base-of-operations (you may have noticed that none of the three, Kallista, Konani and Damian--have been depicted alongside my main cast in any artwork). That necessarily recasts the Tropic Fun 101 project as a side story rather than something that needs to complete before the main thrust of WmF can continue. Once fully integrated via formal introduction, standalone artwork mixing the newcomers with my existing OC's can commence. But all of this is subject to my limited time, which is frustrating to say the least. Being one of those "essential workers", I was never subject to lockdowns and thus did not gain any additional time to catch up on things. I won't complain about that though--it meant I had my normal income during this mess, which is a more than a whole lot of people can say.
The curious convergence refers to my date of birth, in which each element ends with "8". So it is, on the 28th day of August, I complete yet another trip around the sun and get to update the age on my FA profile.
What else will I do on that "magical" day?
Feh, it's a workday, and my routine will be much the same as any other, except there will most likely be a low-key marking of the day with a cake and candles (I jointly own a two-family house with my parents in the upstairs apartment). Presents? As I remarked on a post by
black-kitten on a similar subject, I've been fortunate enough to provide for my own "needs" both practical and...less than practical, such that I'm difficult to find gifts for. To that end, I resorted to placing some DVD box sets in my Amazon wish list, for shows that I do have an interest in watching, but owing to various time constraints (and some lousy time managament) that I rarely have time to binge-watch. Indeed, I have a backlog of series I need to catch up on that are on my shelves right now (Samurai Pizza Cats, Futurama, Robot Chicken, Trippin the Rift, and John Callahan's Quads, among others. The irony is, during my early twenties, I collected a lot of VHS recordings of animated shows I really liked, that provided consistent laughs. I'd record them off the air while I was at work, then copy the recording to an "archive" tape, editing out the commercials such that the continuity looked like a commercial release. I rarely re-watched these series compilations, figuring that decades from "now" I'd have time to entertain myself with them after I'd ceased to find new stuff interesting and long after short-term memories of specific (mostly late '80's-early 90's) programs had faded. I didn't count on a constantly growing stream of interesting material appearing before me well into middle age and beyond. Now the challenge is to digitize those old recordings (many if not most of which aren't available on home video or streaming services) before my last decent VHS machine (a S-VHS deck with time-base correction) dies of disuse. And even with some shows being available for streaming, there's something to be said for local copies--they aren't subject to disappearing due to ratings or expiration of broadcast rights (eyes his Megas XLR and Drinky Crow Show archives)
As for artwork, hmm...let's see where I'm at:
-Commission-wise, I've got a very short list, fortunately. I find myself working on them mostly on the weekends, as even though I carry a digital workstation to work (A 15" Lenovo W541 ThinkPad with a Wacom Intuos 4 Medium, so kinda weighty) every day, I don't get to actually use it a whole lot--I've set it up on the side of my "work" workstation and not touched it till time to pack up more times than I care to recall. And ever since the pandemic set in, the lone free hotspot next to the office is so swamped that its SSID doesn't even show up most of the day, or I can't connect to it even when it does appear. Yes, there is an office hotspot independent of the company network, but I try not to let personal devices connect to it for "reasons".
--Personal-wise, I've re-started work on my long-neglected What, me Furry? comic, the last pages posted some ten years ago. One change was upgrading to an all-digital workflow which addressed one of the glaring flaws in my earlier comic work. They were originally drawn on letter-sized paper. The artists out there know that stuff tends to come out better when you can draw "large"instead of "small". Due to this, I made the panels excessively large, and as such, each addition to the story needed way more pages than practical in order to not leave off in an awkward place while working on the next page/s. Normally each installment should be one page like a regular webcomic (The Depths, UberQuest), but I'm not a sufficiently skilled writer to compress events that well. The installment I'm re-drawing now had been seven pages--I'm trying to fix the sequence of events so I can split it at the second or third.
The reason for re-focusing on this ancient comic (it began before FA existed) is I feel I need it brought to present-day so it can serve to introduce my three newest characters to the existing roster of OC's, as they all reside in a common facility for purposes of cross-interaction and base-of-operations (you may have noticed that none of the three, Kallista, Konani and Damian--have been depicted alongside my main cast in any artwork). That necessarily recasts the Tropic Fun 101 project as a side story rather than something that needs to complete before the main thrust of WmF can continue. Once fully integrated via formal introduction, standalone artwork mixing the newcomers with my existing OC's can commence. But all of this is subject to my limited time, which is frustrating to say the least. Being one of those "essential workers", I was never subject to lockdowns and thus did not gain any additional time to catch up on things. I won't complain about that though--it meant I had my normal income during this mess, which is a more than a whole lot of people can say.
The Ancient Art Archive: An Overview
General | Posted 5 years agoI've been drawing stuff relevant to this fandom since the late 1980's when in high school I graduated to drawing my own anthropomorphic OC's over doing fanart of The Catillac Cats. One of the distinguishing characteristics of my creations was that even though they had defined outfits, I was able to draw them in lots of different clothing (defying the 'limited wardrobe' trope of Western animation). To that end, I did a lot of artwork of my OC's, updating their outfits as "model sheets" every time fashions changed. There being no internet, there was no competition for 'recognition' and as such I rarely did more than ink most pics I did.
Fast-forward through the early era of personal websites, webrings (how I discovered furry) and online galleries such as VCL and YERF. Once I found these as a means of sharing my works with like-minded others, my output dropped quite a bit. Now I could get greater 'recognition' of my works, but it 'needed' to be colored in order to be noticed, and undue influence from Yerf gatekeepers only added to that in the form of including drawn backdrops in almost every piece (I never actually tried to get into YERF--it was notoriously hard to get accepted in, and requirements were constantly escalating--but I followed its newsgroups, and one bone of contention among the mods was applicants to YERF who didn't/couldn't do backdrops. I didn't have to do them--it was just held forth as a mark of quality, and I wanted to aspire to that.
Anyhoo, I still have a lot of un-posted material from "back in the day". And I have enough followers to have some who would be interested in them, but there is a dilemma. While I am extremely fortunate to not need commission income to make ends meet, I am aware of an issue some artists who do, have with their older works--namely that allowing them to remain visible could have a negative impact on the perception of their current abilities by potential commissioners, and thus they'll remove older pieces from their galleries so that only their newest artworks remain on showcase. Sometimes it's not even that--some artists are just 'meh with their drawings once they're done with them. Twitter/X appears to be the ideal place for these artists -- the endless scrolling page format makes it a chore to see past the newest posts, and around the time of the "X" rebrand your ability to rummage through older posts is restricted unless you join the site (and kick in a $ubscription).
I don't see things that way, but there is a glimmer of a point in this. Since my current new (fully colored) artworks only appear roughly once a month, having old works appearing too often could affect perception of what I can do among those not familiar with my body of work, and may skip an interaction or commission with me with a snap judgement based on one old piece they happened across without investigating further. So, in order to display these drawings, I had to come up with a means of presenting them that makes it glaringly obvious that they don't represent my current abilities. What I came up with is what you'll see if you follow -->this link<--, artwork embedded within a standardized title/information frame presenting them as old work posted for historical purposes. The overall idea had actually been defined for a couple of years now, but running across some original 'vintage' artwork (I never threw out my old stuff) right as I was looking for some 'me for me' stuff to do after completing a commission, prompted me to finally "do something".
These pieces will appear as occasional uploads into my main gallery (often preceding a "current day" upload), but will be assigned to their own dedicated space within the folder heirarchy, named the "Ancient Art Archive" and will be numbered as a series as I re-discover and process them for inclusion in this folder. Depending on how many of these I run across, I may even link them comic-style, but that is still up in the air. Who knows, maybe this effort will prompt some artists to consider similar means of presenting their older works. FA has been around long enough that a fair number of creators have passed on, and the only trace of their creative efforts lies on this site. While I plan on being around a good long time, it'd be nice to have a historical aspect to my gallery for interested folks to poke around in and discuss while I'm still around to answer questions about that stuff.
Fast-forward through the early era of personal websites, webrings (how I discovered furry) and online galleries such as VCL and YERF. Once I found these as a means of sharing my works with like-minded others, my output dropped quite a bit. Now I could get greater 'recognition' of my works, but it 'needed' to be colored in order to be noticed, and undue influence from Yerf gatekeepers only added to that in the form of including drawn backdrops in almost every piece (I never actually tried to get into YERF--it was notoriously hard to get accepted in, and requirements were constantly escalating--but I followed its newsgroups, and one bone of contention among the mods was applicants to YERF who didn't/couldn't do backdrops. I didn't have to do them--it was just held forth as a mark of quality, and I wanted to aspire to that.
Anyhoo, I still have a lot of un-posted material from "back in the day". And I have enough followers to have some who would be interested in them, but there is a dilemma. While I am extremely fortunate to not need commission income to make ends meet, I am aware of an issue some artists who do, have with their older works--namely that allowing them to remain visible could have a negative impact on the perception of their current abilities by potential commissioners, and thus they'll remove older pieces from their galleries so that only their newest artworks remain on showcase. Sometimes it's not even that--some artists are just 'meh with their drawings once they're done with them. Twitter/X appears to be the ideal place for these artists -- the endless scrolling page format makes it a chore to see past the newest posts, and around the time of the "X" rebrand your ability to rummage through older posts is restricted unless you join the site (and kick in a $ubscription).
I don't see things that way, but there is a glimmer of a point in this. Since my current new (fully colored) artworks only appear roughly once a month, having old works appearing too often could affect perception of what I can do among those not familiar with my body of work, and may skip an interaction or commission with me with a snap judgement based on one old piece they happened across without investigating further. So, in order to display these drawings, I had to come up with a means of presenting them that makes it glaringly obvious that they don't represent my current abilities. What I came up with is what you'll see if you follow -->this link<--, artwork embedded within a standardized title/information frame presenting them as old work posted for historical purposes. The overall idea had actually been defined for a couple of years now, but running across some original 'vintage' artwork (I never threw out my old stuff) right as I was looking for some 'me for me' stuff to do after completing a commission, prompted me to finally "do something".
These pieces will appear as occasional uploads into my main gallery (often preceding a "current day" upload), but will be assigned to their own dedicated space within the folder heirarchy, named the "Ancient Art Archive" and will be numbered as a series as I re-discover and process them for inclusion in this folder. Depending on how many of these I run across, I may even link them comic-style, but that is still up in the air. Who knows, maybe this effort will prompt some artists to consider similar means of presenting their older works. FA has been around long enough that a fair number of creators have passed on, and the only trace of their creative efforts lies on this site. While I plan on being around a good long time, it'd be nice to have a historical aspect to my gallery for interested folks to poke around in and discuss while I'm still around to answer questions about that stuff.
Error 404: Con Not Found
General | Posted 6 years agoShort form:
I might do some streams and take short-form B/W commissions
Long form:
[Grey Still Plays voice]
"Alright..."
Today would normally be my "packing day" where I get my ducks in a row, printing up prints for my "book of art", banging out extra business cards, and then play Tetris with a pair of suitcases, so I can get no sleep whatsoever before setting out for a distant convention with 90+ pounds of luggage and an abundance of nervous tension called "fear of missing the Amtrak train that is my major mode of long-distance travel...)
It's the CON TRIP...
...We're not doing that (THWACK!)
[me again]
I'd tell a coronavirus joke right here, but you might... "get it"
So, Furnal Equinox is canceled (same for FWA and pretty much any gathering of ten or more people, you know, to limit the spread of the virus), and I have these vacation days that I did not cancel*, that would have encompassed the aforementioned packing, travel to the con and back, plus a recovery day before returning to work.
In light of having not a lot of better stuff to do during this time, I came up with the idea of virtualizing the bulk of my con activities, which consisted of sitting in Artist's Alley taking on-the-spot B/W commissions. I'm doing pretty well with digital drawing, have a Picarto account and have figured out a technical compromise that lets me use Krita and Open Broadcaster without the two murdering each other. Oh, and I have Paypal, so there's that.
I'm figuring that during the normal hours of artist-alley operations (typically 10am-5pm) I can complete at least two full-body B/W drawings. Because the above time constraint no longer applies, I might be able to do a little more than that if there's sufficient interest (history shows that's usually wishful thinking ), but I'm not trying to do a marathon session. Naturally, familiar characters will take less time.
--So, what'll it cost? For the aforementioned B/W digital full-body pic: 30USD, $15 extra for each additional character--same as the convention rate. Color upgrades are available later on for additional cost.
--What kind of content? from G to NSFW, excluding the usual list of squick topics (cub, scat, diaper, hyper, you know the drill)
--Payment method? PayPal. Payment will be due upon approval of the initial low-detail pencil sketch
--Delivery method: Mediafire link. You get a package of the 300dpi image, and a pre-shrunk 30% size version for posting on your gallery, Twatter, etc (I'll have to Bluetooth them to another PC to accomplish this, owing to technical issues I can't stream Krita in such a way that other activity remains hidden from view. When I get more familar with Clip Studio I can stream it in the manner where you only see that app.)
Slots? Technically I could start taking them today, but I will most likely start tomorrow, 3/19. You can indicate interest here in the comments, and follow me on Picarto so you get notifications when I start the stream.
Since I'm not a regular streamer and don't get a lot of commission traffic, I'll be tweaking the process as I go for this go-round. When FWA's time slot rolls around things may be a little more polished should I choose to repeat this performance.
(Disclaimer: I'm not in dire need of funding for real expenses. I am looking at acquiring a used Thinkpad laptop (i7, 16GB ram, IPS screen and preferably a discrete graphics card) to replace the Toshiba that's been living in my backpack for art-ing afield and is starting to suffer for it. I could buy something with those specs with the PP funds I have now, I just would like to not completely devastate my balance by buying it)
(Disclaimer edit 04/11/20: I bought the Thinkpad (a W541, Core i7 2.9Ghz, 16GB ram, 1TB hd, Nvidia Quadro k2100 video). And an Intuos 4 Medium to go with it since the ancient Grafire 2 I had been using with the aforementioned Toshiba came down with a case of 'cord fatigue-induced disconnections')
I might do some streams and take short-form B/W commissions
Long form:
[Grey Still Plays voice]
"Alright..."
Today would normally be my "packing day" where I get my ducks in a row, printing up prints for my "book of art", banging out extra business cards, and then play Tetris with a pair of suitcases, so I can get no sleep whatsoever before setting out for a distant convention with 90+ pounds of luggage and an abundance of nervous tension called "fear of missing the Amtrak train that is my major mode of long-distance travel...)
It's the CON TRIP...
...We're not doing that (THWACK!)
[me again]
I'd tell a coronavirus joke right here, but you might... "get it"
So, Furnal Equinox is canceled (same for FWA and pretty much any gathering of ten or more people, you know, to limit the spread of the virus), and I have these vacation days that I did not cancel*, that would have encompassed the aforementioned packing, travel to the con and back, plus a recovery day before returning to work.
In light of having not a lot of better stuff to do during this time, I came up with the idea of virtualizing the bulk of my con activities, which consisted of sitting in Artist's Alley taking on-the-spot B/W commissions. I'm doing pretty well with digital drawing, have a Picarto account and have figured out a technical compromise that lets me use Krita and Open Broadcaster without the two murdering each other. Oh, and I have Paypal, so there's that.
I'm figuring that during the normal hours of artist-alley operations (typically 10am-5pm) I can complete at least two full-body B/W drawings. Because the above time constraint no longer applies, I might be able to do a little more than that if there's sufficient interest (history shows that's usually wishful thinking ), but I'm not trying to do a marathon session. Naturally, familiar characters will take less time.
--So, what'll it cost? For the aforementioned B/W digital full-body pic: 30USD, $15 extra for each additional character--same as the convention rate. Color upgrades are available later on for additional cost.
--What kind of content? from G to NSFW, excluding the usual list of squick topics (cub, scat, diaper, hyper, you know the drill)
--Payment method? PayPal. Payment will be due upon approval of the initial low-detail pencil sketch
--Delivery method: Mediafire link. You get a package of the 300dpi image, and a pre-shrunk 30% size version for posting on your gallery, Twatter, etc (I'll have to Bluetooth them to another PC to accomplish this, owing to technical issues I can't stream Krita in such a way that other activity remains hidden from view. When I get more familar with Clip Studio I can stream it in the manner where you only see that app.)
Slots? Technically I could start taking them today, but I will most likely start tomorrow, 3/19. You can indicate interest here in the comments, and follow me on Picarto so you get notifications when I start the stream.
Since I'm not a regular streamer and don't get a lot of commission traffic, I'll be tweaking the process as I go for this go-round. When FWA's time slot rolls around things may be a little more polished should I choose to repeat this performance.
(Disclaimer: I'm not in dire need of funding for real expenses. I am looking at acquiring a used Thinkpad laptop (i7, 16GB ram, IPS screen and preferably a discrete graphics card) to replace the Toshiba that's been living in my backpack for art-ing afield and is starting to suffer for it. I could buy something with those specs with the PP funds I have now, I just would like to not completely devastate my balance by buying it)
(Disclaimer edit 04/11/20: I bought the Thinkpad (a W541, Core i7 2.9Ghz, 16GB ram, 1TB hd, Nvidia Quadro k2100 video). And an Intuos 4 Medium to go with it since the ancient Grafire 2 I had been using with the aforementioned Toshiba came down with a case of 'cord fatigue-induced disconnections')
2019 Convention Event Recorder
General | Posted 6 years agoJust a yearly reminder of the timetable I observed in making my yearly convention plans. I use this information to properly time my pre-con activities, namely registering for the convention, reserving a hotel room, and finally securing transportation. This info is culled from my frontpage where I list my activities as a convenient "to-do" list, and gets reset every year, the data being moved to journals like this.
[08/18/2018]: Reserved room for Furnal Equinox 2019
[08/18/2018]: Registered for Furnal Equinox 2019
[01/31/2019]: Reserved/purchased train tickets for Furnal Equinox
[02/01/2019]: Reserved room for Anthrocon (Ten minutes to head of line from starting queue position 681)
--(Tried for the Drury, could only get the Omni)
[04/01/2019]: Reserved room for Furry Weekend Atlanta
[04/03/2019]: Registered for Furry Weekend Atlanta
[04/15/2019]: Purchased train tickets for Furry Weekend Atlanta
[04/29/2019]: Submitted application for PA sales tax license (Anthrocon Artist Alley)
[05/06/2019]: Received PA sales tax certificate (Anthrocon Artist Alley)
[05/06/2019]: Registered for Anthrocon
[05/30/2019]: Purchased train tickets for Anthrocon
[06/10/2019]: Signed up for Anthrocon Artist's Alley
[08/14/2019]: Reserved hotel room for Furnal Equinox 2020
[08/14/2019]: Reserved hotel room for FA:United
[08/29/2019]: Pre-registered for FA:United
[09/18/2019]: Purchased train tickets for FA:United (note to future me: get train tix >a month prior to a con not two weeks, because bucket$)
[08/18/2018]: Reserved room for Furnal Equinox 2019
[08/18/2018]: Registered for Furnal Equinox 2019
[01/31/2019]: Reserved/purchased train tickets for Furnal Equinox
[02/01/2019]: Reserved room for Anthrocon (Ten minutes to head of line from starting queue position 681)
--(Tried for the Drury, could only get the Omni)
[04/01/2019]: Reserved room for Furry Weekend Atlanta
[04/03/2019]: Registered for Furry Weekend Atlanta
[04/15/2019]: Purchased train tickets for Furry Weekend Atlanta
[04/29/2019]: Submitted application for PA sales tax license (Anthrocon Artist Alley)
[05/06/2019]: Received PA sales tax certificate (Anthrocon Artist Alley)
[05/06/2019]: Registered for Anthrocon
[05/30/2019]: Purchased train tickets for Anthrocon
[06/10/2019]: Signed up for Anthrocon Artist's Alley
[08/14/2019]: Reserved hotel room for Furnal Equinox 2020
[08/14/2019]: Reserved hotel room for FA:United
[08/29/2019]: Pre-registered for FA:United
[09/18/2019]: Purchased train tickets for FA:United (note to future me: get train tix >a month prior to a con not two weeks, because bucket$)
Behind the scenes, late 2019 edition
General | Posted 6 years ago...for the lack of a better title since I've never defined any sort of themed title for these sort of life status journals as I don't actually talk much about my behind the scenes goings-ons. I'm not one of those extreeeemely private individuals, there's just not a whole lot of unusual stuff going on behind the scenes. I don't inhabit the "usual" social media outlets, as I long ago judged them to be major time sinks that would interfere with my art activity, and politically they tend to encase you in an echo-chamber bubble which is incompatible with my customary look-at-multiple-sides approach to things.
My online activities involve FA, YouTube and a handful of online forums catering to my hobbies. I'm aware of the trend to use social media like Twitter in place of art sites, but I don't see myself moving to or even adding a Twitter feed--I've browsed art on Twitter and it's just...awkward. I do have Discord on my PC and mobile, and participate in a couple of servers (Creative WAM, The Depths and 'Skidd & Phuffy's Sanctuary'). Sometimes I'll post an unreleased/incomplete pic here and there on that platform, but that's infrequent and not meant to be exclusive. Picarto activities currently are limited to watching streams, but at some random point I'll resume doing my own streams here and there till I can figure out whether I can keep up with a predictable "schedule"
Not terribly active on gaming owing simply to constraints on time, although I have put a few hours into Cities Skylines and have American Truck Simulator waiting to be installed (I have a Thrustmaster TMX racing wheel, but haven't sprung for a shifter accessory). My Xbox 360 and XB1 see me occasionally as well.
Pushing back a little from the present, I'm getting over a cold. Not a major one, but an annoyance like they all are. Totally killed my art motivation (and my appetite) for the duration, coupled with the effects of a screwed up body clock that has me wide awake after midnight, and in a degraded physical/mental state during the day. I'm trying to nudge things back to some sort of normalcy since it is lousing up my work/life balance, and tossing in some Vitamin C supplements (Emergen-C in this case) since I realized there's no way I was going to be able to cram down enough citrus to make the recommended intake.
Pushing waay back, I don't think I mentioned it here, not long after Anthrocon I was slowed down for about seven weeks owing to a skateboard mishap. Some background:
Having learned to ride one in my childhood, I picked up the activity again when my co-worker (only have one in my current location) went on disability for rotator cuff surgery. The building I work in is more than 200' long and much of my work involves walking its entire length multiple times a day. For a while I was flying solo in there, and the repeated trips back and forth got old real fast. So I bought a skateboard and re-acquired the muscle memory needed to stay on it. and began zipping up and down the smooth tile floors as I did my work. I won't say I haven't taken a tumble here and there, but I analyzed each mishap, found what went wrong, and made sure they didn't happen again. I can get on, ride from point A to B without falling off (or looking like I'm about to), footbrake, and smoothly step off at low speed such that the board stops completely, then tap the tail such that the nose springs up to where I can catch the nose without bending and carry it.
Now, I don't do tricks on the thing--in fact the board I ride is a cruiser-type that resembles a surfboard and isn't suited to stunts, as opposed to the double-ended tiny-wheeled skateboards you see most skaters using. Here's a pair of photos of my board, before and after I outfitted it with larger longboard wheels for improved outdoor use. Yeah, outdoors, now? After my co-worker came back, I started carrying the board home on long weekends, seeing as the streets in my neighborhood are mostly good enough to skate on, and I've actually put a few miles of A-to-B skating on it. Those new wheels are softest available and owing to thier size, are very fast---I had to institute a rule to never coast faster than one can push, as this board can pick up an unsettling amount of speed, in an alarmingly short length of time, on seemingly insignificant hills.
This leads up to the only spill I've taken outdoors since taking up the activity in adulthood. And it wasn't even a high-speed one. Using the board to skate to a different work location about 17 blocks from home, I had completed a nice run on a long segment of new sidewalk, crossed the next intersection onto some truly terrible sidewalk. I was looking at an upcoming driveway to see if I could safely get back into the street when I let my speed drop so low (like, slightly more than walking speed) that an uneven expansion joint caught my wheel and sent me airborne, landing on my right knee, belly, and right palm. Only suffered some minor abrasions on my hand and knee--my (new) jeans didn't even show evidence of having hit the ground. I got up, dusted myself off, and continued on the last three blocks to the office.
Didn't think anything of the mishap till the next day when my left knee started acting like I had sprained it. Completely mystified me as that side wasn't involved in any impact. But act like a sprain it did, and it massivley slowed me down while the stiffness and limitation of movement ran its course (I didn't seek medical attention, as nothing felt like anything more than a pulled muscle--if anything felt like a bone was involved I would have had it checked out), all the while having to keep the joint in motion to keep it from stiffening up. I could walk, climb stairs and even ride the skateboard, but any sort of twisting motion was a no-no till it completely recovered. Back to the present, there are no lingering effects and range of motion is normal.
My online activities involve FA, YouTube and a handful of online forums catering to my hobbies. I'm aware of the trend to use social media like Twitter in place of art sites, but I don't see myself moving to or even adding a Twitter feed--I've browsed art on Twitter and it's just...awkward. I do have Discord on my PC and mobile, and participate in a couple of servers (Creative WAM, The Depths and 'Skidd & Phuffy's Sanctuary'). Sometimes I'll post an unreleased/incomplete pic here and there on that platform, but that's infrequent and not meant to be exclusive. Picarto activities currently are limited to watching streams, but at some random point I'll resume doing my own streams here and there till I can figure out whether I can keep up with a predictable "schedule"
Not terribly active on gaming owing simply to constraints on time, although I have put a few hours into Cities Skylines and have American Truck Simulator waiting to be installed (I have a Thrustmaster TMX racing wheel, but haven't sprung for a shifter accessory). My Xbox 360 and XB1 see me occasionally as well.
Pushing back a little from the present, I'm getting over a cold. Not a major one, but an annoyance like they all are. Totally killed my art motivation (and my appetite) for the duration, coupled with the effects of a screwed up body clock that has me wide awake after midnight, and in a degraded physical/mental state during the day. I'm trying to nudge things back to some sort of normalcy since it is lousing up my work/life balance, and tossing in some Vitamin C supplements (Emergen-C in this case) since I realized there's no way I was going to be able to cram down enough citrus to make the recommended intake.
Pushing waay back, I don't think I mentioned it here, not long after Anthrocon I was slowed down for about seven weeks owing to a skateboard mishap. Some background:
Having learned to ride one in my childhood, I picked up the activity again when my co-worker (only have one in my current location) went on disability for rotator cuff surgery. The building I work in is more than 200' long and much of my work involves walking its entire length multiple times a day. For a while I was flying solo in there, and the repeated trips back and forth got old real fast. So I bought a skateboard and re-acquired the muscle memory needed to stay on it. and began zipping up and down the smooth tile floors as I did my work. I won't say I haven't taken a tumble here and there, but I analyzed each mishap, found what went wrong, and made sure they didn't happen again. I can get on, ride from point A to B without falling off (or looking like I'm about to), footbrake, and smoothly step off at low speed such that the board stops completely, then tap the tail such that the nose springs up to where I can catch the nose without bending and carry it.
Now, I don't do tricks on the thing--in fact the board I ride is a cruiser-type that resembles a surfboard and isn't suited to stunts, as opposed to the double-ended tiny-wheeled skateboards you see most skaters using. Here's a pair of photos of my board, before and after I outfitted it with larger longboard wheels for improved outdoor use. Yeah, outdoors, now? After my co-worker came back, I started carrying the board home on long weekends, seeing as the streets in my neighborhood are mostly good enough to skate on, and I've actually put a few miles of A-to-B skating on it. Those new wheels are softest available and owing to thier size, are very fast---I had to institute a rule to never coast faster than one can push, as this board can pick up an unsettling amount of speed, in an alarmingly short length of time, on seemingly insignificant hills.
This leads up to the only spill I've taken outdoors since taking up the activity in adulthood. And it wasn't even a high-speed one. Using the board to skate to a different work location about 17 blocks from home, I had completed a nice run on a long segment of new sidewalk, crossed the next intersection onto some truly terrible sidewalk. I was looking at an upcoming driveway to see if I could safely get back into the street when I let my speed drop so low (like, slightly more than walking speed) that an uneven expansion joint caught my wheel and sent me airborne, landing on my right knee, belly, and right palm. Only suffered some minor abrasions on my hand and knee--my (new) jeans didn't even show evidence of having hit the ground. I got up, dusted myself off, and continued on the last three blocks to the office.
Didn't think anything of the mishap till the next day when my left knee started acting like I had sprained it. Completely mystified me as that side wasn't involved in any impact. But act like a sprain it did, and it massivley slowed me down while the stiffness and limitation of movement ran its course (I didn't seek medical attention, as nothing felt like anything more than a pulled muscle--if anything felt like a bone was involved I would have had it checked out), all the while having to keep the joint in motion to keep it from stiffening up. I could walk, climb stairs and even ride the skateboard, but any sort of twisting motion was a no-no till it completely recovered. Back to the present, there are no lingering effects and range of motion is normal.
FA:U 2019: The Trip Home
General | Posted 6 years agoThe usual travel journal that helps me plan my departure and connection times, being that I'm traveling by public transportation (2 bus lines, a subway, Amtrak, another subway and a bus).
Since the con was much better this time around, I'll add some details once I'm en-route and between timepoints
--09:48a Dp. Hotel
FAIRFAX CONNECTOR
--09:56a Ar. Dulles Corner Dr bus stop. Next arrival is 10:15
--10:10a Dp. Dulles Corner Dr bus stop, Rte 985. Fairfax Connector allows riders to stay on both routes at their far-end terminus without paying an additional fare. In my case, the transition was made almost without stopping
--10:50a Ar. Wiehle-Reston Metro bus stop
DC METRO
--10:54a Ar. Wiehle-Reston Metro Ballston-MU bound platform
--10:59a Dp. Wiehle-Reston Metro station, Silver line
--11:02a While cruising along at 50-ish MPH, our train suffers an emergency brake application. We then limp along at reduced speed until the cab signaling indicates normal speed is in effect. It should be noted that this trip is being short-turned at Ballston-Marymount University (first underground stop after joining the Orange line) so I'll have to transfer. An investigation into a collision between two out-of-service trains the previous night has things in disarray.
--During this time I update my Amtrak reservation to the next departure at 1:05pm, as it's fairly obvious I'm not going to make the 12:05 train as originally intended. It costs me $21 to make the change.
--11:31a Ar. Ballston-MU. An Orange line train's headlights are visible in the tunnel behind our departing out-of-service train
--11:36a Dp. Ballston-MU, Orange line service
--11:56a Ar. Metro Center Metro station, lower level
--12:00p Ar. Metro Center Metro station, upper level
--12:06p Dp. Metro Center Metro station, Red line service
--12:09p Ar. Union Station Metro station
--12:18p Ar Union Station, gate L, after checking my SmarTrip card's balance (11.60) for next year's trip. Of note: while the escalators leading to outside Union Station get you to platform level without bumping up/down a short flight of steps, there are revolving doors to contend with, as I did with my double-trailer luggage (ps: I got them through it, but it was awkward)
AMTRAK
--12:40p: Boarding call for Train 184
--12:50p: Boarded Train 184, second coach # 82767
--01:05p Dp. Washington DC
--01:15p Ar. New Carrolton
--01:17p Dp. New Carrollton
--01:33p Ar. BWI Airport
--01:34p Dp. BWI Airport
--01:47p Ar. Baltimore, MD
--01:49p Dp. Baltimore, MD
--02:33p Ar. Newark, DE
--02:24p Dp. Newark, DE
--02:44p Ar. Wilmington, DE
--02:45p Dp. Wilmington, DE
--03:05p Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:07p Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--03:37p Ar. Trenton, NJ
--03:39p Dp. Trenton, NJ
--04:03p Ar. Metropark, NJ
--04:04p Dp. Metropark, NJ
--04:14p Ar. Newark Liberty Airport sta.
--04:16p Dp. Newark Liberty Airport sta.
--04:20p Ar. Newark, NJ
--04:22p Dp. Newark, NJ
--04:41p Ar. New York Penn Station
NYC TRANSIT
--04:52p Ar. 34th Street Penn Station subway station
--04:53p Dp. 34th Street Penn Station subway station, #2 service
--05:45p Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--05:50p transferred to local bus
--05:55p Ar. Local bus stop
--06:00p Ar. Home
Since the con was much better this time around, I'll add some details once I'm en-route and between timepoints
--09:48a Dp. Hotel
FAIRFAX CONNECTOR
--09:56a Ar. Dulles Corner Dr bus stop. Next arrival is 10:15
--10:10a Dp. Dulles Corner Dr bus stop, Rte 985. Fairfax Connector allows riders to stay on both routes at their far-end terminus without paying an additional fare. In my case, the transition was made almost without stopping
--10:50a Ar. Wiehle-Reston Metro bus stop
DC METRO
--10:54a Ar. Wiehle-Reston Metro Ballston-MU bound platform
--10:59a Dp. Wiehle-Reston Metro station, Silver line
--11:02a While cruising along at 50-ish MPH, our train suffers an emergency brake application. We then limp along at reduced speed until the cab signaling indicates normal speed is in effect. It should be noted that this trip is being short-turned at Ballston-Marymount University (first underground stop after joining the Orange line) so I'll have to transfer. An investigation into a collision between two out-of-service trains the previous night has things in disarray.
--During this time I update my Amtrak reservation to the next departure at 1:05pm, as it's fairly obvious I'm not going to make the 12:05 train as originally intended. It costs me $21 to make the change.
--11:31a Ar. Ballston-MU. An Orange line train's headlights are visible in the tunnel behind our departing out-of-service train
--11:36a Dp. Ballston-MU, Orange line service
--11:56a Ar. Metro Center Metro station, lower level
--12:00p Ar. Metro Center Metro station, upper level
--12:06p Dp. Metro Center Metro station, Red line service
--12:09p Ar. Union Station Metro station
--12:18p Ar Union Station, gate L, after checking my SmarTrip card's balance (11.60) for next year's trip. Of note: while the escalators leading to outside Union Station get you to platform level without bumping up/down a short flight of steps, there are revolving doors to contend with, as I did with my double-trailer luggage (ps: I got them through it, but it was awkward)
AMTRAK
--12:40p: Boarding call for Train 184
--12:50p: Boarded Train 184, second coach # 82767
--01:05p Dp. Washington DC
--01:15p Ar. New Carrolton
--01:17p Dp. New Carrollton
--01:33p Ar. BWI Airport
--01:34p Dp. BWI Airport
--01:47p Ar. Baltimore, MD
--01:49p Dp. Baltimore, MD
--02:33p Ar. Newark, DE
--02:24p Dp. Newark, DE
--02:44p Ar. Wilmington, DE
--02:45p Dp. Wilmington, DE
--03:05p Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:07p Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--03:37p Ar. Trenton, NJ
--03:39p Dp. Trenton, NJ
--04:03p Ar. Metropark, NJ
--04:04p Dp. Metropark, NJ
--04:14p Ar. Newark Liberty Airport sta.
--04:16p Dp. Newark Liberty Airport sta.
--04:20p Ar. Newark, NJ
--04:22p Dp. Newark, NJ
--04:41p Ar. New York Penn Station
NYC TRANSIT
--04:52p Ar. 34th Street Penn Station subway station
--04:53p Dp. 34th Street Penn Station subway station, #2 service
--05:45p Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--05:50p transferred to local bus
--05:55p Ar. Local bus stop
--06:00p Ar. Home
Off to FA: United 2019
General | Posted 6 years agoThe usual travelogue guys. I'LL add more as my trip progresses. Today's trip will be via Amtrak train #125, departing NY Penn Station at 11:35am
--10:10a dp. Home.
NYC TRANSIT :
--10:13a: Ar. Local bus stop
--10:22a: Dp. Local bus stop
--10:28a: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--10 33a: Dp. Gun Hill Road subway station
--11:21a: Ar. 34th Street Penn Station subway station
AMTRAK:
--11:26a: Ar. Amtrak concourse, NY Penn Station
--11:27a: Boarding call for Train 125 announced (14E)
--11:29a: Boarded Train 125, coach no. 82813
--11:37a: Dp. NY Penn Station
--11:50a: Ar. Newark, NJ
--11:52a: Dp. Newark, NJ
--12:04p: Ar. Metropark, NJ
--12:06p: Dp. Metropark, NJ
-- 12:28p: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--12:30p: Dp. Newark, NJ
--01:06p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--01:25p: Ar. Wilmington, DE
--01:28p: Dp. Wilmington, DE (est)
--02:36p: Dp. Baltimore, MD
--02:42p: Ar. BWI Airport
--02:45p: Dp. BWI Airport
--02:58p: Ar. New Carrolton, MD
--02:59p: Dp. New Carrolton, MD
--03:10p: Ar. Washington, DC (est--took awhile to get my stuff together. Good thing this is a locomotive change point 9_9
DC METRO
--03:31p: Ar. Union Station Metro station
--03:33p: Dp. Union Station Metro station, Shady Grove bound Red Line
--03:38p: Ar. Metro Center Metro station
--Escalator is busted, have to wait for an elevator (remember my 95 pounds of double -trailer suitcases). Fortunately the next arriving train is an Orange line. Hot on its heels is a Silver Line train.
--03:46p: Dp. Metro Center Metro station, Wiehle-Reston bound Silver line
--04:15p Dp. Tysons Corner (not detailing times for these intermediate stations since they're close together)
--04:27p: Ar. Wiehle-Reston Metro station
FAIRFAX CONNECTOR
--04:35p Ar. Wiehle-Reston bus stop, Rte 924/926/929
--04:49p: Dp. Wiehle-Reston East bus stop, Route 929
--05:00p: Stuck in rush-hour traffic. Standstill traffic, like Cities Skylines traffic jam. Biffa Plays Indie Games would call it "chockablock"
--05:14p: Ar Herndon-Monroe Park/Ride, which has been relocated to a strip of asphalt hastily pasted alongside Sayward Boulevard due to construction. The aforementioned rush-hour traffic jam cost me a quick transfer to the 927, which pulled out just before I got there. Half hour wait for the next one.
--05:41p: Dp. Herndon-Monroe park-and-ride, Route 927
--05:56p: Ar. Sunrise Valley Dr and Sayward Boulevard bus stop
--06:04p: Ar. Hotel
--06:11p: checked in and In-room
--
--10:10a dp. Home.
NYC TRANSIT :
--10:13a: Ar. Local bus stop
--10:22a: Dp. Local bus stop
--10:28a: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--10 33a: Dp. Gun Hill Road subway station
--11:21a: Ar. 34th Street Penn Station subway station
AMTRAK:
--11:26a: Ar. Amtrak concourse, NY Penn Station
--11:27a: Boarding call for Train 125 announced (14E)
--11:29a: Boarded Train 125, coach no. 82813
--11:37a: Dp. NY Penn Station
--11:50a: Ar. Newark, NJ
--11:52a: Dp. Newark, NJ
--12:04p: Ar. Metropark, NJ
--12:06p: Dp. Metropark, NJ
-- 12:28p: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--12:30p: Dp. Newark, NJ
--01:06p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--01:25p: Ar. Wilmington, DE
--01:28p: Dp. Wilmington, DE (est)
--02:36p: Dp. Baltimore, MD
--02:42p: Ar. BWI Airport
--02:45p: Dp. BWI Airport
--02:58p: Ar. New Carrolton, MD
--02:59p: Dp. New Carrolton, MD
--03:10p: Ar. Washington, DC (est--took awhile to get my stuff together. Good thing this is a locomotive change point 9_9
DC METRO
--03:31p: Ar. Union Station Metro station
--03:33p: Dp. Union Station Metro station, Shady Grove bound Red Line
--03:38p: Ar. Metro Center Metro station
--Escalator is busted, have to wait for an elevator (remember my 95 pounds of double -trailer suitcases). Fortunately the next arriving train is an Orange line. Hot on its heels is a Silver Line train.
--03:46p: Dp. Metro Center Metro station, Wiehle-Reston bound Silver line
--04:15p Dp. Tysons Corner (not detailing times for these intermediate stations since they're close together)
--04:27p: Ar. Wiehle-Reston Metro station
FAIRFAX CONNECTOR
--04:35p Ar. Wiehle-Reston bus stop, Rte 924/926/929
--04:49p: Dp. Wiehle-Reston East bus stop, Route 929
--05:00p: Stuck in rush-hour traffic. Standstill traffic, like Cities Skylines traffic jam. Biffa Plays Indie Games would call it "chockablock"
--05:14p: Ar Herndon-Monroe Park/Ride, which has been relocated to a strip of asphalt hastily pasted alongside Sayward Boulevard due to construction. The aforementioned rush-hour traffic jam cost me a quick transfer to the 927, which pulled out just before I got there. Half hour wait for the next one.
--05:41p: Dp. Herndon-Monroe park-and-ride, Route 927
--05:56p: Ar. Sunrise Valley Dr and Sayward Boulevard bus stop
--06:04p: Ar. Hotel
--06:11p: checked in and In-room
--
Something something about dates that end with eights...
General | Posted 6 years ago...and I complete another trip around the sun. (updates age in profile)
What am I going to do with today? Um, go to work, and sometime during the day, fill out my PA sales tax return :D (fun fact: the money I earned at Anthrocon this year doesn't get reported till January/February's return). Still feels weird to be regarded as a "business".
Addendum: I contacted the PA department of revenue about my electronic sales tax filing, as I understood these were reported bi-annually with the filing windows being July/August for the first half of the year, and January/February for the second. After accessing my "E-Tides" account and being confronted with a message stating I had to wait till the end of my first period to file, I was a bit puzzled, as I had applied for and recieved the tax ID number in late April/early May. As it turns out, because the application stated the start of the event, (Anthrocon) and presumably its effective date was July 5, my first period falls in the latter half of the year. So, I wait till after New Years' to file (a payment of about $8 :D )
What am I going to do with today? Um, go to work, and sometime during the day, fill out my PA sales tax return :D (fun fact: the money I earned at Anthrocon this year doesn't get reported till January/February's return). Still feels weird to be regarded as a "business".
Addendum: I contacted the PA department of revenue about my electronic sales tax filing, as I understood these were reported bi-annually with the filing windows being July/August for the first half of the year, and January/February for the second. After accessing my "E-Tides" account and being confronted with a message stating I had to wait till the end of my first period to file, I was a bit puzzled, as I had applied for and recieved the tax ID number in late April/early May. As it turns out, because the application stated the start of the event, (Anthrocon) and presumably its effective date was July 5, my first period falls in the latter half of the year. So, I wait till after New Years' to file (a payment of about $8 :D )
One Driving Test you Don't Want to Take
General | Posted 6 years agoMore interesting than a boring travelogue of a past con trip...
https://youtu.be/WWwiKjCli94
If that wasn't enough, somebody took my suggestion in a comment on the above video (hey, 121 likes!) four years ago--okay it was going to happen regardless--to edit a bunch of dashcam clips to the same song:
https://youtu.be/aVg6AnMuO0c
https://youtu.be/WWwiKjCli94
If that wasn't enough, somebody took my suggestion in a comment on the above video (hey, 121 likes!) four years ago--okay it was going to happen regardless--to edit a bunch of dashcam clips to the same song:
https://youtu.be/aVg6AnMuO0c
Ac2019: The trip home
General | Posted 6 years agoLogging my travel for future reference. Stuff will be added below as I progress home. First up is my train to NYC, Amtrak's Pennsylvanian, departing Pittsburgh at 7:30am
-07:00a: Dp. Omni William Penn Hotel
AMTRAK:
--07:10a Ar. Amtrak Pittsburgh station
--07:20a Boarding call for Train 42
--07:20a Dp. Pittsburgh, PA coach number 25052
--08:11a Ar. Greensburg, PA
--08:13a Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:23a Ar. Latrobe, PA
--08:27a Dp. Latrobe, PA
--09:13a Dp. Johnstown, PA
--10:04a Ar. Altoona, PA
--10:07a Dp. Altoona, PA
--10:25a Ar. Tyrone, PA
--10:52a Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--11:27a Ar. Lewistown, PA
--11:30a Dp. Lewistown, PA
--01:09p Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--01:22p Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:23p Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:38p Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:40p Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:16p Ar. Exton, PA
--02:18p Dp. Exton, PA
--02:27p Ar. Paoli, PA
--02:28p Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:58p Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:26p Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--03:55p Ar. Trenton, NJ
--04:01p Dp. Trenton, NJ
--05:00p Ar. New York Penn Station platform
[B]NYC TRANSIT[B/]
--05:13p Dp 34th Street Penn Station subway station
--06:04p Ar Gun Hill Road subway station
--06:08 Dp Gun Hill Road subway station, Bx39 bus
--06:15p Ar. local bus stop
--06:20p Ar. home
-07:00a: Dp. Omni William Penn Hotel
AMTRAK:
--07:10a Ar. Amtrak Pittsburgh station
--07:20a Boarding call for Train 42
--07:20a Dp. Pittsburgh, PA coach number 25052
--08:11a Ar. Greensburg, PA
--08:13a Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:23a Ar. Latrobe, PA
--08:27a Dp. Latrobe, PA
--09:13a Dp. Johnstown, PA
--10:04a Ar. Altoona, PA
--10:07a Dp. Altoona, PA
--10:25a Ar. Tyrone, PA
--10:52a Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--11:27a Ar. Lewistown, PA
--11:30a Dp. Lewistown, PA
--01:09p Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--01:22p Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:23p Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:38p Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:40p Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:16p Ar. Exton, PA
--02:18p Dp. Exton, PA
--02:27p Ar. Paoli, PA
--02:28p Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:58p Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:26p Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--03:55p Ar. Trenton, NJ
--04:01p Dp. Trenton, NJ
--05:00p Ar. New York Penn Station platform
[B]NYC TRANSIT[B/]
--05:13p Dp 34th Street Penn Station subway station
--06:04p Ar Gun Hill Road subway station
--06:08 Dp Gun Hill Road subway station, Bx39 bus
--06:15p Ar. local bus stop
--06:20p Ar. home
AC2019 Artists Alley Activity
General | Posted 6 years agoTracking my commission activity:
Friday:
--Commission for
strredwolf 98% complete, pending approval of commissioner
10:24a--Commission for
lionkingcmsl Lightboxed foreground and backdrop into sketchbook. Now penciling
So it appears I have a few shekels to toss at the PA revenue dept :)
Saturday:
Same table, finishing up some stuff
--11:23p completed commission for lionkingcmsl
--01:30p completed commission for strredwolf
Sunday:
To be determined
Friday:
--Commission for
strredwolf 98% complete, pending approval of commissioner10:24a--Commission for
lionkingcmsl Lightboxed foreground and backdrop into sketchbook. Now penciling So it appears I have a few shekels to toss at the PA revenue dept :)
Saturday:
Same table, finishing up some stuff
--11:23p completed commission for
lionkingcmsl--01:30p completed commission for
strredwolfSunday:
To be determined
Heading out to Anthrocon 2019..
General | Posted 6 years agoMy usual travelouge journal, where I track my progress to Pittsburgh, via Amtrak's Pennsylvanian, train 43. I'll add more here once I board my train prior to it's 10:52am departure.
At the con, I'll be in Artist Alley all three days, and will be open to most sorts of social stuff after hours. Or during hours too--I have no problem conversing during 'Alley hours--if need be, I can talk and draw at the same time :)
--09:11a Dp. home
NYC TRANSIT
--09:13a Ar. Local bus stop. A bus was there, I could've caught it if I ran for it, but 95 pounds of luggage argued against it.
--09:21a Dp. local bus stop, Route Bx39
--09:25 Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--09:27a Boarded southbound 2 train. We were delayed a couple of minutes because the doors on the front half of the train failed to open
09:30a Dp. Gun Hill Road subway station, 2 line
--10:14a Ar. 34th Street Penn Station subway station
--10:26a Ar. Amtrak waiting area. Train 43 is the next departure listed on the board.
--10:37a Boarding call for Train 43
--10:53a Dp. NY Penn Station, coach number 25009
--11:07a Ar. Newark, NJ
--11:10a Dp. Newark, NJ
--12:12p Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--12:42p Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--01:06p Ar. Paoli, PA
--01:11p Dp. Paoli, PA
--08:07p Ar. Pittsburgh, PA (8 minutes late)
--08:40p Ar. Omni, check-in and room
--
At the con, I'll be in Artist Alley all three days, and will be open to most sorts of social stuff after hours. Or during hours too--I have no problem conversing during 'Alley hours--if need be, I can talk and draw at the same time :)
--09:11a Dp. home
NYC TRANSIT
--09:13a Ar. Local bus stop. A bus was there, I could've caught it if I ran for it, but 95 pounds of luggage argued against it.
--09:21a Dp. local bus stop, Route Bx39
--09:25 Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--09:27a Boarded southbound 2 train. We were delayed a couple of minutes because the doors on the front half of the train failed to open
09:30a Dp. Gun Hill Road subway station, 2 line
--10:14a Ar. 34th Street Penn Station subway station
--10:26a Ar. Amtrak waiting area. Train 43 is the next departure listed on the board.
--10:37a Boarding call for Train 43
--10:53a Dp. NY Penn Station, coach number 25009
--11:07a Ar. Newark, NJ
--11:10a Dp. Newark, NJ
--12:12p Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--12:42p Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--01:06p Ar. Paoli, PA
--01:11p Dp. Paoli, PA
--08:07p Ar. Pittsburgh, PA (8 minutes late)
--08:40p Ar. Omni, check-in and room
--
Headed Home from FWA 2019
General | Posted 6 years agoAnd yet another travelogue journal gets posted to record my journey home. Tonight's trip starts out a little differently. Because my first few trips home involved trains that showed up in Atlanta on-time (no small.feat since by that time they would have been travelling almost 12 hours). I always left the hotel with the blind assumption that the train would arrive and depart on-schedule. After getting cooped up in the too-small for its ridership Peachtree street facility a few times, I now check the Amtrak app for actual arrival times (and their Twitter account for reporting delays and their causes).
Today my train was delayed an hour and 55 minutes due to connecting buses (presumably from New Orleans) arriving nearly two hours late at Birmingham, AL. Meanwhile, FWA'S Artist's Alley staff announced that the Alley would remain open till midnight (instead of 5pm, for however long artists are still using the space), so I took advantage to linger at my table to complete a pic of Tina rollerskating with 2D (it wasn't a commission) Nearing the 8:00 hour, I elected to pack up "The Art Trailer" and make my exit.
Not all stations are shown--the Amtrak portion of this trip takes place overnight and I can still sleep well enough in coach to not notice a stop here and there.
--08:29p Depart Artist's Alley
[MARTA]
--08:40p Dp. Peachtree Center MARTA station, on a train that insisted it was headed to Indian Creek terminal, despite the impossibility (MARTA rail users wil know what I mean)
--08:47p Ar. Arts Center MARTA station
--08:51 Boarded Buckhead -bound Rte 110 bus, already waiting to begin it's run
--08:57p. Dp Arts Center MARTA station, Rte 110 bus. I get a notification that the 9:27 arrival has been pushed up to 9:37
--09:01p Ar. Atlanta Amtrak station
--we get word that the train is due to arrive at 9:47
[AMTRAK]
--09:43p the rumble of diesel locomotives below the waiting room announces the arrival of Train 20. Sleeper passengers are the first to be boarded after everyone getting off in Atlanta does so.
--09:47 Boarding call for coach passengers. To use one door, so another wait on line to board
--10;06p Dp. Atlanta, GA, car number 25004
--11:01p Ar. Gainesville, GA
--11:46p Ar. Toccoa, GA
--11:47p Dp. Toccoa, GA
--01:05a Ar. Greenville, SC
--01:09a Dp. Greenville, SC
--03:30a Ar. Charlotte, NC
--03:50a Dp. Charlotte, NC
--05:05a Ar. High Point, NC
--05:06a Dp. High Point, NC
--05:39a Dp. Greensboro, NC
--09:11a Ar. Charlottesville, VA
--09:18a Dp. Charlottesville, VA
--10:10a Ar. Culpeper, VA
--10:14a Dp. Culpeper, VA
--10:53a Ar. Manassas, VA
--10:55a Dp. Manassas, VA
--11:40a Ar. Alexandria, VA
--11:41a Dp. Alexandria, VA
--11:58a Ar. Washington DC
--12:30p Dp. Washington DC
From this point on, the Crescent stops to only to discharge passengers, so stops are very short in duration
--01:28p Ar. Baltimore, MD
--01:29p Dp. Baltimore, MD
--02:20p Ar. Wilmington, DE
--02:21p Dp. Wilmington, DE
--02;44p Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--02:47p Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--03:21p Ar. Trenton, NJ
--03:22p Dp. Trenton, NJ
--03:59p Ar. Newark, NJ
--04:02p Dp. Newark, NJ
--04:20p Ar. New York Penn Station
[NYC TRANSIT]
--04:33p Ar. 34th Street Penn Station subway station
--04:38p Dp. 34th St Penn Station subway station
--05:28p Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--05:30p Dp. Gun Hill Road local bus stop
--05:34p Ar. local bus stop
--05:40p Ar. Home
Today my train was delayed an hour and 55 minutes due to connecting buses (presumably from New Orleans) arriving nearly two hours late at Birmingham, AL. Meanwhile, FWA'S Artist's Alley staff announced that the Alley would remain open till midnight (instead of 5pm, for however long artists are still using the space), so I took advantage to linger at my table to complete a pic of Tina rollerskating with 2D (it wasn't a commission) Nearing the 8:00 hour, I elected to pack up "The Art Trailer" and make my exit.
Not all stations are shown--the Amtrak portion of this trip takes place overnight and I can still sleep well enough in coach to not notice a stop here and there.
--08:29p Depart Artist's Alley
[MARTA]
--08:40p Dp. Peachtree Center MARTA station, on a train that insisted it was headed to Indian Creek terminal, despite the impossibility (MARTA rail users wil know what I mean)
--08:47p Ar. Arts Center MARTA station
--08:51 Boarded Buckhead -bound Rte 110 bus, already waiting to begin it's run
--08:57p. Dp Arts Center MARTA station, Rte 110 bus. I get a notification that the 9:27 arrival has been pushed up to 9:37
--09:01p Ar. Atlanta Amtrak station
--we get word that the train is due to arrive at 9:47
[AMTRAK]
--09:43p the rumble of diesel locomotives below the waiting room announces the arrival of Train 20. Sleeper passengers are the first to be boarded after everyone getting off in Atlanta does so.
--09:47 Boarding call for coach passengers. To use one door, so another wait on line to board
--10;06p Dp. Atlanta, GA, car number 25004
--11:01p Ar. Gainesville, GA
--11:46p Ar. Toccoa, GA
--11:47p Dp. Toccoa, GA
--01:05a Ar. Greenville, SC
--01:09a Dp. Greenville, SC
--03:30a Ar. Charlotte, NC
--03:50a Dp. Charlotte, NC
--05:05a Ar. High Point, NC
--05:06a Dp. High Point, NC
--05:39a Dp. Greensboro, NC
--09:11a Ar. Charlottesville, VA
--09:18a Dp. Charlottesville, VA
--10:10a Ar. Culpeper, VA
--10:14a Dp. Culpeper, VA
--10:53a Ar. Manassas, VA
--10:55a Dp. Manassas, VA
--11:40a Ar. Alexandria, VA
--11:41a Dp. Alexandria, VA
--11:58a Ar. Washington DC
--12:30p Dp. Washington DC
From this point on, the Crescent stops to only to discharge passengers, so stops are very short in duration
--01:28p Ar. Baltimore, MD
--01:29p Dp. Baltimore, MD
--02:20p Ar. Wilmington, DE
--02:21p Dp. Wilmington, DE
--02;44p Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--02:47p Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--03:21p Ar. Trenton, NJ
--03:22p Dp. Trenton, NJ
--03:59p Ar. Newark, NJ
--04:02p Dp. Newark, NJ
--04:20p Ar. New York Penn Station
[NYC TRANSIT]
--04:33p Ar. 34th Street Penn Station subway station
--04:38p Dp. 34th St Penn Station subway station
--05:28p Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--05:30p Dp. Gun Hill Road local bus stop
--05:34p Ar. local bus stop
--05:40p Ar. Home
FWA 2019 Artist's Alley Activity
General | Posted 6 years agoNow set up on the first day of "stuff goin' on". Open for commissions and stuff. I'll update this journal as time goes on at the con, as I don't have the usual compliment of mainstream social-media accounts
Day 1--Thursday May 9: Now set up at table 92, open for commissions as I fiddle with miscellaneous stuff
--Event: Commission from
coyttl - in-progress
Day Two--Friday May 10: 10:30a: The Alley is full, so I don't have a slot till some participants leave the room. I will update when a slot opens up.
--Commission for coyttl: Pencils started while I wait for an Alley table
--Event: 1:50p--I finally got an Alley slot. Find me at Table 151
-- 04: 50p Commission for coyttl: Pencils complete, seeking lunch before starting inks
--05:55p Inks to begin
--07:45p Inks 90% complete
--08:20p Complete.
--08:45p Begin commission test sketches for
muddyleafeon
Day Three: Saturday May 11:
--09:30a--Frozen out again, along with
daq and 2-3 others. This might be a long wait
--
Trivia: at 162 seats, FWA's Alley is bigger than Anthrocon's (128)
--01:30p-- Alley is still full. And you need a Telegram account to find out when tables open up. I know TG is the fandom's flavor-of-the-month communication platform, but geez, another SM account to feed?. I'll look in there again after 3pm.
--04:00p Commission for muddyleafeon complete
--05:00p Event: I finally get a seat at Table 57
Day Four: Sunday May 12:
--09:00a Seat Got! I am at Table 153 at the end of the room, and wide open for commissions
-- 6:00p It is announced that the Artist's Alley will remain open till midnight, as long as artists are still working there. My train is 2 hours late, so I only linger tII'll near 8pm, finishing up a pic of Tina rollerskating.with 2D from Gorillaz. :D
--Oh, and I sold a print XD
08:55p Dp. Arts Center MARTA station, Rte 110 bus
09:06p Ar. Amtrak station
Day 1--Thursday May 9: Now set up at table 92, open for commissions as I fiddle with miscellaneous stuff
--Event: Commission from
coyttl - in-progress Day Two--Friday May 10: 10:30a: The Alley is full, so I don't have a slot till some participants leave the room. I will update when a slot opens up.
--Commission for coyttl: Pencils started while I wait for an Alley table
--Event: 1:50p--I finally got an Alley slot. Find me at Table 151
-- 04: 50p Commission for coyttl: Pencils complete, seeking lunch before starting inks
--05:55p Inks to begin
--07:45p Inks 90% complete
--08:20p Complete.
--08:45p Begin commission test sketches for
muddyleafeonDay Three: Saturday May 11:
--09:30a--Frozen out again, along with
daq and 2-3 others. This might be a long wait--
Trivia: at 162 seats, FWA's Alley is bigger than Anthrocon's (128)
--01:30p-- Alley is still full. And you need a Telegram account to find out when tables open up. I know TG is the fandom's flavor-of-the-month communication platform, but geez, another SM account to feed?. I'll look in there again after 3pm.
--04:00p Commission for muddyleafeon complete
--05:00p Event: I finally get a seat at Table 57
Day Four: Sunday May 12:
--09:00a Seat Got! I am at Table 153 at the end of the room, and wide open for commissions
-- 6:00p It is announced that the Artist's Alley will remain open till midnight, as long as artists are still working there. My train is 2 hours late, so I only linger tII'll near 8pm, finishing up a pic of Tina rollerskating.with 2D from Gorillaz. :D
--Oh, and I sold a print XD
08:55p Dp. Arts Center MARTA station, Rte 110 bus
09:06p Ar. Amtrak station
Headed to FWA 2019
General | Posted 6 years agoOnce again, I toss up a travelogue journal to document my progress to a con. This time, it's FWA, an entirely-by-public transit trip dominated by a 17-hour overnight stint on Amtrak. I post these journals as a means of judging my departure and connection times over history, much like the overall convention preparations I list on my homepage. As I progress from NYC to Atlanta, I'll add entries to this page. Or you can follow Amtrak Train 19, the Crescent on the "Track-a Train" page on https://www.amtrak.com. My departure from NYC is 2:15 pm
--12:15p Dp. Home
--12:25p Ar. Local bus stop
--12:36p Dp. Local bus stop
--12:46p Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--12:50p Dp. Gun Hill Road subway station
--01:36p Ar. 34th St Penn Sta
--01:58p Track number for Train 19 posted on departure board
--02:00p Boarding call for Train 19 announced
--02:05p Boarded Train 19, coach number 25105 (car 2)
--02:17p Dp. NY Penn Station
--02:32p Ar. Newark, NJ
--03:16p Ar. Trenton, NJ
--03:22p Dp. Trenton, NJ
--03:55p Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--04:17p Ar. Wilmington, DE
--04:19p Dp. Wilmington, DE
--05:08p Ar. Baltimore, MD
--05:13p Dp. Baltimore, MD
--06:29p Dp. Washington, DC
--09:19p Ar. Charlottesville, VA
--A highly agitated/argumentative passenger (been that way since she boarded in Baltimore) and her daughter was removed by police here.
--09:42p Dp. Charlottesville, VA
--10:52p Ar. Lynchburg, VA
--10:55p Dp. Lynchburg, VA
--12:09a Ar. Danville, VA
--12:15a Dp. Danville, VA
--01:09a Ar. Greensboro, NC
--01:14a Dp. Greensboro, NC
--01:31a Ar. High Point, NC
--01:37a Dp. High Point, NC
--02:48a: Ar. Charlotte, NC
--03:04a Dp. Charlotte, NC
(had to wait for a northbound NS freight to rumble out of the way here)
-- 03:40a Dp. Gastonia, NC
--04:35a Ar. Spartansburg, SC
--04:38a Dp Spartansburg, SC
--05:34a Ar. Greenville, SC
--05:39a Dp. Greenville, SC
--06:32a Passed Clemson, SC station (it's still closed, for..."reasons")
--07:30a An hour later, I awake to find ourselves cooling our heels roughly across from the intersection of US 123 and Fernside Drive in Toccoa, GA. Which is not quite Toccoa, GA station.
--07:38a Norfolk Southern rumbles past on the northbound track
--07:43a We begin moving...
--07:47a Ar. Toccoa, GA, with a lurch, and another Norfolk Southern freight train passes by on the northbound track
--07:50a Dp. Toccoa, GA
--08:30a Ar. Gainesville, GA
--08:35a Dp. Gainesville, GA
--09:30a Ar. Atlanta, Georgia
--10:00a Ar. Atlanta, GA station house
--10:07a Ar Peachtree st / 25th Street MARTA route 110 bus stop
--10:18a Dp. Peachtree Street / 25th Street, MARTA Route 110 bus
--10:24a Ar. Arts Center MARTA station busway ent.
--10:32a Ar. Arts Center MARTA station platform (needed to reload my Breeze card)
--10:38a Dp. Arts Center Station
--10:44a Ar. Peachtree Center MARTA station
--10:50a Ar. Marquis lobby
--11:11a Ar. hotel room
--
--12:15p Dp. Home
--12:25p Ar. Local bus stop
--12:36p Dp. Local bus stop
--12:46p Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--12:50p Dp. Gun Hill Road subway station
--01:36p Ar. 34th St Penn Sta
--01:58p Track number for Train 19 posted on departure board
--02:00p Boarding call for Train 19 announced
--02:05p Boarded Train 19, coach number 25105 (car 2)
--02:17p Dp. NY Penn Station
--02:32p Ar. Newark, NJ
--03:16p Ar. Trenton, NJ
--03:22p Dp. Trenton, NJ
--03:55p Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--04:17p Ar. Wilmington, DE
--04:19p Dp. Wilmington, DE
--05:08p Ar. Baltimore, MD
--05:13p Dp. Baltimore, MD
--06:29p Dp. Washington, DC
--09:19p Ar. Charlottesville, VA
--A highly agitated/argumentative passenger (been that way since she boarded in Baltimore) and her daughter was removed by police here.
--09:42p Dp. Charlottesville, VA
--10:52p Ar. Lynchburg, VA
--10:55p Dp. Lynchburg, VA
--12:09a Ar. Danville, VA
--12:15a Dp. Danville, VA
--01:09a Ar. Greensboro, NC
--01:14a Dp. Greensboro, NC
--01:31a Ar. High Point, NC
--01:37a Dp. High Point, NC
--02:48a: Ar. Charlotte, NC
--03:04a Dp. Charlotte, NC
(had to wait for a northbound NS freight to rumble out of the way here)
-- 03:40a Dp. Gastonia, NC
--04:35a Ar. Spartansburg, SC
--04:38a Dp Spartansburg, SC
--05:34a Ar. Greenville, SC
--05:39a Dp. Greenville, SC
--06:32a Passed Clemson, SC station (it's still closed, for..."reasons")
--07:30a An hour later, I awake to find ourselves cooling our heels roughly across from the intersection of US 123 and Fernside Drive in Toccoa, GA. Which is not quite Toccoa, GA station.
--07:38a Norfolk Southern rumbles past on the northbound track
--07:43a We begin moving...
--07:47a Ar. Toccoa, GA, with a lurch, and another Norfolk Southern freight train passes by on the northbound track
--07:50a Dp. Toccoa, GA
--08:30a Ar. Gainesville, GA
--08:35a Dp. Gainesville, GA
--09:30a Ar. Atlanta, Georgia
--10:00a Ar. Atlanta, GA station house
--10:07a Ar Peachtree st / 25th Street MARTA route 110 bus stop
--10:18a Dp. Peachtree Street / 25th Street, MARTA Route 110 bus
--10:24a Ar. Arts Center MARTA station busway ent.
--10:32a Ar. Arts Center MARTA station platform (needed to reload my Breeze card)
--10:38a Dp. Arts Center Station
--10:44a Ar. Peachtree Center MARTA station
--10:50a Ar. Marquis lobby
--11:11a Ar. hotel room
--
The 50K'th...
General | Posted 6 years agovisit to my FA homepage occurred today, sometime during the 7pm EST hour (I was only able to screenshot 49998, 49999 and...50001). It figures that I would come up with a commemorative pic idea way too late to have it anywhere near ready for today...and for some reason the pace these pageviews were accumulating picked up unexpectedly as the count neared 49000. Not a clue why, but anyways, I'm working on a commemorative that includes all my present OC's, which will be the next pic that appears here.
In addition, the long-lost 60th and 61st installments of What, me Furry? have resumed work, as I decided the comic needed to resume in order to formally introduce the last three new OC's to my current roster. Pagecount is uncertain, but eleven pages are currently scanned into the queue (they're drawn up in batches (the "installments") that conclude at an appropriate place to pause the story) with more to be plotted out as there are at least one or two more installments that need to take place before I can bring in the newcomers. The "intense" focus on these will help improve the visuals when I switch back to some other projects that I have left hanging, (like Tropic Fun 101).
Next con: FWA. If you're going and think you might want to get a pic or two out of me there, start brainstorming :D
In addition, the long-lost 60th and 61st installments of What, me Furry? have resumed work, as I decided the comic needed to resume in order to formally introduce the last three new OC's to my current roster. Pagecount is uncertain, but eleven pages are currently scanned into the queue (they're drawn up in batches (the "installments") that conclude at an appropriate place to pause the story) with more to be plotted out as there are at least one or two more installments that need to take place before I can bring in the newcomers. The "intense" focus on these will help improve the visuals when I switch back to some other projects that I have left hanging, (like Tropic Fun 101).
Next con: FWA. If you're going and think you might want to get a pic or two out of me there, start brainstorming :D
FE: The Trip Home (complete)
General | Posted 7 years agoReturn trip travelogue. I'LL be adding more to this once I cross the border and have access to US cell signal/Amtrak wifi
--07:40a Dp. Hotel.
--08:00a Ar. Union Station concourse
--08:07a Boarding call for train 7097, coach #25097
--08:20a Dp. Union Station
--08:47a Ar. Oakville, ON
--08:50a Dp. Oakville, ON
--09:04a Ar. Aldershot, ON
--09:05a Dp. Aldershot, ON
--09:53a Ar. St Catherine, ON
--10:19a Ar. Niagra Falls, ON
--10:26a: Dp. Niagra Falls, ON
<Canada/US Border>
--10:32a Ar. Niagra Falls, NY.
---US Customs inspection proceeds here. One difference between here and Canadian customs--here everyone's luggage gets put through an X-ray and inspected by two contraband-sniffing dogs)
--12:17p Dp. Niagra Falls, NY
--12:53p Ar. Buffalo-Exchange Street, NY
--01:00p Dp, Buffalo-Exchange Street, NY
--01:17p We're cooling our heels at a red signal near the intersection of Oneida Street and Smith Street. From this are delays born (a CSX doublestack train is crossing in front of us to reach a branch visible above our location in Google Maps (Emslie neighborhood of Buffalo))
--01:44p We get the green and lurch back into motion
--02:00p. Now stopped next to a CSX yard alongside Highway 130
--02:02p Back in motion, again with a jolt
--02:06p Ar. Buffalo/Depew, NY
--02:11p Dp. Buffalo/Depew, NY
--03:05p Ar. Rochester, NY
--03:08p Dp. Rochester, NY
--04:20p Ar. Syracuse, NY
--04:29p Dp. Syracuse, NY
--05:10p Ar. Rome, NY
--05:12p Dp. Rome, NY
--05:24p Ar. Utica, NY
--05:27p Dp. Utica, NY
--06:28p Ar. Rome, NY
--06:29p Dp. Rome, NY
--06:47p Ar. Schenectady, NY
--06:49p Dp. Schenectady, NY
--07:10p Ar. Albany-Rensselaer, NY
--07:31p Dp. Albany-Rensselaer, NY
--07:52p Ar. Hudson, NY
--07:55p Dp. Hudson, NY
--08:15p Ar. Rhinecliff, NY
--08:17p Dp Rhinecliff, NY
--08:33p Ar. Poughkeepsie, NY
--08:34p Dp. Poughkeepsie, NY
--09:14p Ar. Croton-Harmon, NY
--09:14p Dp. Croton-Harmon, NY (no one getting on--no one getting off, so in-and-out)
--09:32p Ar. Yonkers, NY
--09:34p Dp. Yonkers, NY
--10:00p Ar. NY Penn Station
--10:20p Ar 34th Street Penn Station subway station (I stopped to pick up a sandwich )
--10:22p Dp. 34th St Penn Station subway station, #2 train
--11:10p Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
(Transfer to a local bus paralleling the subway--because there's an elevator here and 90-ish pounds of luggage)
--11:21p Dp. Gun Hill Road subway station (local bus)
--11:25p Ar. "home" local bus stop
--11:29p: Ar. home
--07:40a Dp. Hotel.
--08:00a Ar. Union Station concourse
--08:07a Boarding call for train 7097, coach #25097
--08:20a Dp. Union Station
--08:47a Ar. Oakville, ON
--08:50a Dp. Oakville, ON
--09:04a Ar. Aldershot, ON
--09:05a Dp. Aldershot, ON
--09:53a Ar. St Catherine, ON
--10:19a Ar. Niagra Falls, ON
--10:26a: Dp. Niagra Falls, ON
<Canada/US Border>
--10:32a Ar. Niagra Falls, NY.
---US Customs inspection proceeds here. One difference between here and Canadian customs--here everyone's luggage gets put through an X-ray and inspected by two contraband-sniffing dogs)
--12:17p Dp. Niagra Falls, NY
--12:53p Ar. Buffalo-Exchange Street, NY
--01:00p Dp, Buffalo-Exchange Street, NY
--01:17p We're cooling our heels at a red signal near the intersection of Oneida Street and Smith Street. From this are delays born (a CSX doublestack train is crossing in front of us to reach a branch visible above our location in Google Maps (Emslie neighborhood of Buffalo))
--01:44p We get the green and lurch back into motion
--02:00p. Now stopped next to a CSX yard alongside Highway 130
--02:02p Back in motion, again with a jolt
--02:06p Ar. Buffalo/Depew, NY
--02:11p Dp. Buffalo/Depew, NY
--03:05p Ar. Rochester, NY
--03:08p Dp. Rochester, NY
--04:20p Ar. Syracuse, NY
--04:29p Dp. Syracuse, NY
--05:10p Ar. Rome, NY
--05:12p Dp. Rome, NY
--05:24p Ar. Utica, NY
--05:27p Dp. Utica, NY
--06:28p Ar. Rome, NY
--06:29p Dp. Rome, NY
--06:47p Ar. Schenectady, NY
--06:49p Dp. Schenectady, NY
--07:10p Ar. Albany-Rensselaer, NY
--07:31p Dp. Albany-Rensselaer, NY
--07:52p Ar. Hudson, NY
--07:55p Dp. Hudson, NY
--08:15p Ar. Rhinecliff, NY
--08:17p Dp Rhinecliff, NY
--08:33p Ar. Poughkeepsie, NY
--08:34p Dp. Poughkeepsie, NY
--09:14p Ar. Croton-Harmon, NY
--09:14p Dp. Croton-Harmon, NY (no one getting on--no one getting off, so in-and-out)
--09:32p Ar. Yonkers, NY
--09:34p Dp. Yonkers, NY
--10:00p Ar. NY Penn Station
--10:20p Ar 34th Street Penn Station subway station (I stopped to pick up a sandwich )
--10:22p Dp. 34th St Penn Station subway station, #2 train
--11:10p Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
(Transfer to a local bus paralleling the subway--because there's an elevator here and 90-ish pounds of luggage)
--11:21p Dp. Gun Hill Road subway station (local bus)
--11:25p Ar. "home" local bus stop
--11:29p: Ar. home
