When you commit yourself to drawing every night for 3 hours, it means that there's 3 hours' worth of other activity that you can't commit to. You effectively make art your part-time job. You need to treat it with all the seriousness that that entails. If the skills you need for a full-time job aren't up to par yet, then the time you could be using to make a living is being sacrificed for things that won't. You'd better be hoping that the rest of your day is being spent on growing your skills. You'd better hope that the time you spend reading news articles, think-pieces, or press releases is going to help you get a job. You'd better be using that writing to make yourself a better person, whether it's in raw skill, in professional attitude, in worldly knowledge, or in off-the-cuff charisma.

You know, it turns out, all I need to put out content in these journals is 10 minutes to my thoughts. But -- there's the question -- did those 10 minutes really provide anything of value? Or is it just overwrought anxiety that will be forgotten about tomorrow?

Ah well. I will be shading the alligator tonight. I also need to color in more of the scales -- I have a vague notion on what to do. I just hope it won't be a dead-end. Well, I will keep working until it is done.

https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET.

The nice thing about streaming for a consistent period of time every evening is not only that it gives me a ritual-like activity to look forward to and demarcate the day, but also it gives me a relatively consistent metric for evaluating both how much time it takes to draw and how much I do draw, without having to devote time and resources to some background monitoring system (like I did in my early art years). It also ensures I don't burnout from drawing too much, and it lets me promise consistent updates to commissioners.

I don't really have a greater point here, aside from making a list of things I'm thankful for.

Stream will be at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 pm ET, for more commission work and wildlife documentaries. See you there!

I probably don't need to keep making these stream journals. I do it so regularly, often with so little content, that I wonder if their only contribution is to smolder a desire in others for FA to enable auto-filtering.

People with bigger streams than I, they either don't announce it (that's what Picarto notifications are for), or they announce it via an FA picture, or they occur more rarely but run much longer, 8-12 hours or more. They somehow end up with thriving conversations and communities, despite my best to run the streams professionally, on schedule, and with a quality product (unless the background music drives people away?). Despite being open for commissions at dirt cheap prices for months, I still don't get any responses. After a year or two of doing this with no improvement, it's hard not to wonder if there is something more I could be doing, or if there's something wrong with what I am doing, or if I should just accept that I am just one of hundreds of artists, and not truly a stand-out artist besides, and that I'm lucky enough just to be drawing.

I'll put together a picture so I can properly announce I'm open for commissions, and list prices and examples. That should definitely help people out (though when I do, I'll definitely have to raise prices again... I feel like the more public I make myself, the more I should bring my prices in-line with what other artists are offering).

Stream will be at 3:00 PM ET at https://picarto.tv/Rimme . I'm doing it early so that I can have more free time with my husband tonight.

Phew, I got my homework done today, so now... I will inking @@artguy's werecroc commission tonight. Though the subject in this case more closely resembles an alligator.

There's something so satisfying about focusing a TF on someone, watching the changes slowly progress. Glad I got the chance to do this!

I'll be at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET, see you soon!

Tonight I'll be starting a new commission, so the first step will be sketching it: an 8-panel werecroc sequence for   artguy .

I'm curious how well dividing up work into "figures" / "half-figures" really does accurately estimate how much time it takes to draw. I've gotten to the point where I can reliably draw 7 figures over the course of my 4-day process, but I've never stretched out those full 7 figures to 14 half-figures, all of different characters (my cop-out method for more characters is to just paint smudges). This page only has 3 different characters total, so it shouldn't be too difficult (compared to AFCAH). In fact, I'm excited to see how it turns out once everything is staged.

It'll be at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at the usual time (6:30 PM ET). Be sure to come in on time so you can catch me watching a funny 40-minute video about the Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron.

https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET.

Another day in, another stage out, another length of time to practice art.

https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my days to get easily distracted. Mostly I've been catching up on reading and doing the next set of homework assignments. I spend a bit of time fretting about whether I should send out job applications or build up my resume. And just like that, the day is almost over, and I wonder where all the time went.

I'll be inking the next kangaroo picture now -- it looks like there will be 13 pages total in the sequence (my longest yet), so no matter what, I will not be able to release it during FebROOary, even if I had nothing else to work on. Maybe sometime in late March? We'll see.

I'll be at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET. See you then!

Just letting you know that I'll be doing more drawing in my Picarto stream at 3 PM ET instead of later tonight, as I have plans for the evening.

If you want to see kangaroo sketching, I'll be at https://picarto.tv/Rimme in an hour. See you there!

Whoops, I got carried away and forgot to post any journal about my plans for tonight.

Instead of doing the comic page, I'm going to do something a little indulgent and quick tonight: a rhinoceros TF. I'll be at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET.

I'm almost finished with my current commission, just need to add shading to the MLP TF commission for my client.

Afterwards, I will do some layout work for AFCAH #74; I find it's very helpful to devote one hour of sketching and layouts away from the 2.5 hours of refining, especially for these big comic pages. Not that this next page is too complicated, though it does have a little decompression in the middle before the last scene of phase 1.

I'll be at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET (5:30 PM CT). See you then!

I will be working on a commission for someone, doing a TF of 2 people into MLP characters, at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at my usual time, 6:30 PM ET (or 5:30 PM CT).

Reminder that commissions are OPEN! If you want a commission, please fill out this form and send it off! You could also reach me through FA notes or through Discord (Rimme#9079), the form just makes it much easier to keep track of your details as well as how many stages you want so we can settle things out faster.

See you soon!

https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET

Also, here's a cool webcomic about wolves.

And listening to obscure prog rock songs.

https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET

The kangaroos are coming along very well. As with my previous sequences with me and Jack, I am drawing them all out of order, drawing the endpoints and drawing backwards. So the sequence won't be released until most of it is done. If I get any commissions or have any quick ideas, then my submission rate will be pretty thin until then.

https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET.

https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET.

https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET.

I've been very restless the past few days.

I don't want to share too much here, but I found a significant plot hole in my characters' motivation that I've been patching over with new dialogue and a different backstory, while preserving everything that's been seen. The handy thing about writing is that nothing is set except for what was revealed -- I feel like I've said this before in another journal.

I think it's okay now. The shading is going to be in an hour. Feel free to put a pair of eyes on me: https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM ET.

Going to start much earlier, since I have plans for this evening. I'll start at 12:30 PM ET, and I'll be at my usual https://picarto.tv/Rimme

Continuing today. Forgive the short message, on my phone.

https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:15 PM ET

Going to start an hour early, to account for the lengthy process that inking always takes. I'll be at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 5:30 PM ET. See you then!

Back to the drawing board tonight. Only 3 pages left to draw. A lot of the exciting stuff has been dealt with, this next one will be one of the most important pages in the comic -- it's another moment in the comic where backstory is brought up, and this one is really important for nailing down the motivations of some enigmatic characters (you'll know who if you watch the sketch at https://picarto.tv/Rimme).

Feel free to watch me, I go live at 6:30 PM ET as usual!

It's Christmastime. I'll be off for the next 2 weeks, but I will still be checking email, FA, and commission requests periodically. Do be aware that I won't be so easily reachable on Discord or Telegram, so please have patience if you prefer to contact me that way.

Yes, I am still taking commissions, available via the link in the header. I'd be especially happy to hear from new commissioners, whether it's frequent commissioners or other artists who make commissions. I'd love to hear from others with experience at this.

I slept in late today, but as part of my ongoing effort to make sure I keep posting stream announcements an hour in advance, and part of my concerted effort to finish my commission early today, I will be working on it at 11:30 AM ET.

https://picarto.tv/Rimme

For the werecroc picture. Come in if you want a sneak peek, it's turning out very good so far (but also very NSFW):

https://picarto.tv/Rimme , 5:30 PM ET