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~~~MOVING~~~
General | Posted 8 years agoI HAVE MOVED!!!
I have merged my online work identities into a single entity under my most universal self, known about town as
arcanethewoof. You can find me posting there now.
Thank you so much for your support and I hope to see you heading that way!
I have merged my online work identities into a single entity under my most universal self, known about town as
arcanethewoof. You can find me posting there now.Thank you so much for your support and I hope to see you heading that way!
Plan for Outstanding Commissions (please read)
General | Posted 8 years agoIn the wake of my recent announcement, I assured you that I had a plan of sorts for addressing outstanding commissions; this plan was rough and needed fine-tuning and execution, but I hope that I made it plain that I was not welching on my outstanding work and that I would be working hard to serve my clients, who have been so patient and understanding of my situation.
Today I would like to lay out my "Road to Solvency" plan, which is a 5-part plan of action which will ensure that each customer is addressed personally and satisfied to the best of my abilities.
STEP ONE: Modify my Terms of Service
The first thing that needs done is to modify my Terms of Service to reflect my new business model. Not much will change outside of the acceptable material section; clients with outstanding commissions will not be held to the new Terms, but they will hold to all new clients after the date of revision.
STEP TWO: Contact all outstanding clients
It's very possible that some have not read my journal and will not know what's going on; so, the first step is to make contact with all outstanding clients and make them aware of my situation if they aren't already. If their commission is within the bounds of material that I am able to take on now, no adjustment will need to be made; however, if their commission is material I am unable to take on any longer, I will suggest that either the commission be altered to fit my new Terms of Service, or that they request a full refund.
STEP THREE: Re-evaluate queue timeline
I have a well-documented queue of outstanding commissions and an algorithm that I use to determine due dates. This algorithm will be adjusted to account for my increased responsibility as the primary caretaker of my children, and then the new timeline will be posted on my Trello.
In addition, Trello can now be viewed in Calendar mode, enabling clients to have a better idea of when their work will be available.
STEP FOUR: Prepare Road to Solvency Report
I'll be setting up a new page on my website for the purposes of showing my progress towards completing commissions and generating funds for refunds. This step is the most important step in communicating and working with my clients, as it presents information about my business in a transparent and easy-to-read way.
This data will be presented in the form of a graphic showing my expected sources of income, expected expenses, and where on this timeline of incoming and outgoing funds clients can expect me to have enough funds to provide refunds. As income and expenses can not all be predicted, this data will be updated regularly, so clients are encouraged to bookmark the page to keep up to date on changes.
STEP FIVE: Bronze Artist Fundraiser
The Bronze Artist Fundraiser is a Picarto event that costs $5 per ticket to view, and participants have the chance of getting free sketches valued at $15 apiece. In addition, one portrait will be drawn which will be provided exclusively to each participant. Each sketch takes roughly an hour and the event will be held over the course of 8 hours, so approximately $120 of free art will be given out.
The goal of the Bronze Artist Fundraiser is firstmost to pay for the hosting cost of my website, which, while not required, will make documenting the Road to Solvency much easier. It will be easier for clients to track my income and expenses, and when they can expect to receive their refunds. If it is successful, I will conduct further Bronze Artist events in an effort to increase income and accelerate progress towards refunds and solvency.
This plan of action does assume the cooperation of my clients. Clients who are unwilling to alter their commissions or wait for refunds will need to take action through their bank or credit card provider if they wish to receive a refund, as I am not immediately able to provide refunds.
The simple truth of the matter is that life has been extremely difficult for me these last few months, leaving me extremely behind on work and responsible for a great deal more than I was when I started this business. I believe that with time, effort, and your understanding and patience, I can get back on track and restructure this operation to fit into my new life situation.
If you have any ideas or suggestions, I am open to them. I look forward to working with you all.
Today I would like to lay out my "Road to Solvency" plan, which is a 5-part plan of action which will ensure that each customer is addressed personally and satisfied to the best of my abilities.
STEP ONE: Modify my Terms of Service
The first thing that needs done is to modify my Terms of Service to reflect my new business model. Not much will change outside of the acceptable material section; clients with outstanding commissions will not be held to the new Terms, but they will hold to all new clients after the date of revision.
STEP TWO: Contact all outstanding clients
It's very possible that some have not read my journal and will not know what's going on; so, the first step is to make contact with all outstanding clients and make them aware of my situation if they aren't already. If their commission is within the bounds of material that I am able to take on now, no adjustment will need to be made; however, if their commission is material I am unable to take on any longer, I will suggest that either the commission be altered to fit my new Terms of Service, or that they request a full refund.
STEP THREE: Re-evaluate queue timeline
I have a well-documented queue of outstanding commissions and an algorithm that I use to determine due dates. This algorithm will be adjusted to account for my increased responsibility as the primary caretaker of my children, and then the new timeline will be posted on my Trello.
In addition, Trello can now be viewed in Calendar mode, enabling clients to have a better idea of when their work will be available.
STEP FOUR: Prepare Road to Solvency Report
I'll be setting up a new page on my website for the purposes of showing my progress towards completing commissions and generating funds for refunds. This step is the most important step in communicating and working with my clients, as it presents information about my business in a transparent and easy-to-read way.
This data will be presented in the form of a graphic showing my expected sources of income, expected expenses, and where on this timeline of incoming and outgoing funds clients can expect me to have enough funds to provide refunds. As income and expenses can not all be predicted, this data will be updated regularly, so clients are encouraged to bookmark the page to keep up to date on changes.
STEP FIVE: Bronze Artist Fundraiser
The Bronze Artist Fundraiser is a Picarto event that costs $5 per ticket to view, and participants have the chance of getting free sketches valued at $15 apiece. In addition, one portrait will be drawn which will be provided exclusively to each participant. Each sketch takes roughly an hour and the event will be held over the course of 8 hours, so approximately $120 of free art will be given out.
The goal of the Bronze Artist Fundraiser is firstmost to pay for the hosting cost of my website, which, while not required, will make documenting the Road to Solvency much easier. It will be easier for clients to track my income and expenses, and when they can expect to receive their refunds. If it is successful, I will conduct further Bronze Artist events in an effort to increase income and accelerate progress towards refunds and solvency.
This plan of action does assume the cooperation of my clients. Clients who are unwilling to alter their commissions or wait for refunds will need to take action through their bank or credit card provider if they wish to receive a refund, as I am not immediately able to provide refunds.
The simple truth of the matter is that life has been extremely difficult for me these last few months, leaving me extremely behind on work and responsible for a great deal more than I was when I started this business. I believe that with time, effort, and your understanding and patience, I can get back on track and restructure this operation to fit into my new life situation.
If you have any ideas or suggestions, I am open to them. I look forward to working with you all.
The Blank Page
General | Posted 8 years agoAs a burgeoning creative writer in college, I was exposed to a variety of writing techniques designed to spur my creative mind into action. I kept a memo recorder on me so that I could write all the time—in the car, out for walks, in between classes. I "ran the baton" with other writers, each of us writing a paragraph at a time and discovering what we could add to a story. I learned about shower brainstorming: as it turns out, water running over your skin stimulates the nerves and kicks your brain into high gear.
Amidst all of these techniques, none were so effective as the simple practice of free writing, where you just let words flow onto a page. Specifically, the most powerful tool in my arsenal as a writer was simply learning to put something onto a page. A word, a sentence, anything. Put something there and leave it there. Let words flow from a single idea, even if that idea is terrible. I'm doing it right now; "the blank page" was a thought that came into my head and I put it into this word processor as soon as I could.
The blank page is the most significant part of the creative process by far simply because it defeats so many ideas with its mere existence. The blank page is a void, a vast nothingness that is a greater threat to any work than any other hurdle I have experienced in my adult life. Words, lines, notes—whatever your creative tool—disappear in the nothingness that is the blank page; insignificant, small, a speck in a sea of expression yet expressed.
Over the years I've wondered how it can be so hard to overcome the blank page, and it is only recently that I've come to realize the true nature of that glaring emptiness.
Consider the colors of black and white; consider a canvas painted entirely black, and one left untouched, fully white. On first reflection they both appear empty despite one being completely covered in color; they are both a blank slate, empty. Except that they are not.
The black canvas is covered with paint, which consists of pigment that absorbs light so that only certain colors of light reflect back towards you, creating the colors that you know and love. Blue pigment absorbs all colors but blue; green pigment absorbs all colors but green. Black pigment, however, absorbs all the colors, reflecting back nothing (or realistically, very very little). If you mix together every paint in your set, you will get black. It is every pigment.
The unpainted canvas, then, is surely empty, because it has no pigment upon it—and yet, it isn't empty either. Light, you see, is comprised of many wavelengths of color traveling together, and white light is every color traveling side by side. In fact, you can see this demonstrated in the classic grade school science experiment of shining a beam of light through a prism and marveling at the rainbow of colors that emerge out the other side.
The black canvas, a matte of every pigment; the white, a reflection of every color. Both seem empty, and yet both are quite full.
The blank page is not daunting because it is nothing; it is daunting because it is everything. Every idea that could ever be waits unrealized on a blank page. Every masterpiece that has ever been created and ever will be created starts here, on the blank page. Overcoming the blank page is a matter of reaching into infinity and plucking out a single strand of meaning from its depths.
There are fields of creative passion that I feel are lucky beyond words because they need never face down the blank page. Photography, for example; the art of photography lay in framing reality in a way that captures and conveys meaning to the viewer. The skill of a talented and dedicated photographer cannot be overstated, but at the same time, reality never presents the photographer with a truly blank canvas; the world is always there and it is what it is. The world is never nothing, and the camera cannot show something where there was nothing, because there was never nothing.
The infinite possibilities of the blank page may be more easily visualized by its cousin, the block of stone. A common, almost tongue-in-cheek sculpting adage is "to sculpt an elephant, simply carve away everything that doesn't look like an elephant." Of course, this oversimplification of the incredible skill that is sculpture has its roots in the truth: within that block is the potential for an infinite variety of sculptures, and it is the artist's task to remove all but one of them from the block, leaving only the work they sought to create.
The block of stone—the blank page—these are the impossible hurdles that instill in me a deep respect for all artists.
Amidst all of these techniques, none were so effective as the simple practice of free writing, where you just let words flow onto a page. Specifically, the most powerful tool in my arsenal as a writer was simply learning to put something onto a page. A word, a sentence, anything. Put something there and leave it there. Let words flow from a single idea, even if that idea is terrible. I'm doing it right now; "the blank page" was a thought that came into my head and I put it into this word processor as soon as I could.
The blank page is the most significant part of the creative process by far simply because it defeats so many ideas with its mere existence. The blank page is a void, a vast nothingness that is a greater threat to any work than any other hurdle I have experienced in my adult life. Words, lines, notes—whatever your creative tool—disappear in the nothingness that is the blank page; insignificant, small, a speck in a sea of expression yet expressed.
Over the years I've wondered how it can be so hard to overcome the blank page, and it is only recently that I've come to realize the true nature of that glaring emptiness.
Consider the colors of black and white; consider a canvas painted entirely black, and one left untouched, fully white. On first reflection they both appear empty despite one being completely covered in color; they are both a blank slate, empty. Except that they are not.
The black canvas is covered with paint, which consists of pigment that absorbs light so that only certain colors of light reflect back towards you, creating the colors that you know and love. Blue pigment absorbs all colors but blue; green pigment absorbs all colors but green. Black pigment, however, absorbs all the colors, reflecting back nothing (or realistically, very very little). If you mix together every paint in your set, you will get black. It is every pigment.
The unpainted canvas, then, is surely empty, because it has no pigment upon it—and yet, it isn't empty either. Light, you see, is comprised of many wavelengths of color traveling together, and white light is every color traveling side by side. In fact, you can see this demonstrated in the classic grade school science experiment of shining a beam of light through a prism and marveling at the rainbow of colors that emerge out the other side.
The black canvas, a matte of every pigment; the white, a reflection of every color. Both seem empty, and yet both are quite full.
The blank page is not daunting because it is nothing; it is daunting because it is everything. Every idea that could ever be waits unrealized on a blank page. Every masterpiece that has ever been created and ever will be created starts here, on the blank page. Overcoming the blank page is a matter of reaching into infinity and plucking out a single strand of meaning from its depths.
There are fields of creative passion that I feel are lucky beyond words because they need never face down the blank page. Photography, for example; the art of photography lay in framing reality in a way that captures and conveys meaning to the viewer. The skill of a talented and dedicated photographer cannot be overstated, but at the same time, reality never presents the photographer with a truly blank canvas; the world is always there and it is what it is. The world is never nothing, and the camera cannot show something where there was nothing, because there was never nothing.
The infinite possibilities of the blank page may be more easily visualized by its cousin, the block of stone. A common, almost tongue-in-cheek sculpting adage is "to sculpt an elephant, simply carve away everything that doesn't look like an elephant." Of course, this oversimplification of the incredible skill that is sculpture has its roots in the truth: within that block is the potential for an infinite variety of sculptures, and it is the artist's task to remove all but one of them from the block, leaving only the work they sought to create.
The block of stone—the blank page—these are the impossible hurdles that instill in me a deep respect for all artists.
An Open Letter To My Fans (please read)
General | Posted 8 years agoFans and friends,
I have a very difficult announcement to make. I've been agonizing over this situation for months, and I've come to a decision that scares me to death, but that my conscience and my life situation demand of me. I believe that I must come clean with you all. Please know that I understand that you may be distressed, disappointed, even disgusted with me, and that I believe that you have every right to be any or all of those things, but I hope that you will hear me out in full as to why I made these choices and why I must now come to you.
To get straight to the point: I am not a female.
As I have already experienced both ends of this spectrum, I realize that some of you have suspected for some time that this may be the case, and this will not be a surprise, and I also realize that some of you have come to know me as a woman and this will be a huge and possibly unpleasant shock. I know that you may feel betrayed, and you may feel that this conduct casts doubt on all of my behavior. Your feelings are justified, yet I hope that you will hear me out to the end.
When I started out on my own in May of 2016, I needed to find a way to monetize my artwork, as I have great difficulty finding traditional work. I was already in the process of securing an illustration job in Black Hole Dawn, but I needed something else to supplement my income. My previous experience had taught me that adult artwork is an excellent source of income for furry artists, and as I was living on my own, I decided to pursue that avenue. However, as I already had an online presence of sorts, because I wanted to be able to pursue SFW opportunities without my adult work causing problems, and because I did not want to risk alienating my family, I decided that it would be prudent to create a pseudonym under which to operate my NSFW business. I created the Robin Wright name to this end, and presented myself as female in order to further separate my artistic identities. I needed a female fursona to be the face of my brand, so drew from an old favorite character design from my college D&D games and created the Robin that you all know.
In preparation for this, I spoke with many of my female and LGBT friends about my plans and only went forward with this practice under their blessing. Had anyone I knew objected, I would never have continued, as I care deeply about women's rights and consider myself a feminist. I hope that those of you who visit my streams and Discord channel know this. I believe that this initial plan was a simple matter of "conducting business as:" and I do not believe that I had crossed the line in this initial intent.
The trouble started when I began to interact more with my clients through notes and streams. People wanted to interact with the artist, and of course the artist was this sort of construct; Robin started to slip into a full persona. As contradictory as it may sound to claim, I strive to be an honest person, and so I have been completely truthful—if a little cagey sometimes—about my life and self, only altering the truth slightly to protect my identity. In the interest of transparency, the only information that I have changed, to my knowledge, is as follows:
• I am not female; I am a cis male. Any "lady things" that I have spoken of have been drawn from my experience with the women in my life. Neither am I transgender; I identify personally as male.
• I am a father; when I have talked about my nephews, I have been referring to my children, and, in a related note, when I have talked about my sister, I have been referring to my ex-wife.
• I realized that I may come off as noticeably less feminine than one might expect, and so I have stated that I grew up with brothers to wave that off. I have only one brother, and when I have spoken of "a brother", I was referring to my only brother.
• I posted a picture of a young lady on my FurAffinity page; this was a friend of mine who modeled specifically for the picture and fully understood what I intended to use the picture for (this picture was taken down some time ago when I first began to deliberate my feelings on this situation).
• I have given false birthday information.
These are the only things that I have misled you about; my life experiences have been shared in truth and from the heart. However, a deeply convicting conversation with a good friend made me realize that I had also become glib about this practice; it is a simple fact that in the field of adult work, women do have some advantages, and I was all too happy to benefit from that.
As time has passed and I have found my fans becoming friends, I have become less and less comfortable with the Robin persona for a variety of reasons, which I will enumerate.
1. It was one thing to use this persona for business and security, but as stated, many of my fans have become my friends and supporters, and some of you have even supported me financially through my hardships. Bear in mind that these hardships have been very real and I have been truthful about them—I have never ever lied about my life situations or tried to use the Robin persona to try to garner sympathy—but I have felt increasingly uncomfortable accepting these outpourings of support given the mask that conceals me from you.
2. I have come to feel as though some of my friends may be developing feelings for me as Robin, and I worry that some of the outpourings of support mentioned above may be the result of those feelings, and I feel awful about it if that is the case. I am pansexual and these feelings are not necessarily unwelcome; however, I also feel awful about the possibility that someone might be falling for someone whom they will never know.
3. I consider myself a feminist and deeply invested in the empowerment and furtherance of women's and LGBT interests. I did not and do not believe that this practice started in the wrong, but as my business operations changed, it evolved into something inappropriate and disrespectful. I believe that I have been appropriating one of the few advantages that women have without dealing with any of the disadvantages, and in so doing have unfairly set myself alongside the likes of women artists far more worthy of their accolades than I. This needs to stop.
4. As of January, I have had, and been fighting for, custody of my children, and no longer feel as though I can support myself through the sale of adult material, as I do not feel comfortable using pornography as a cornerstone of my work when there are children in my home. In my estimation, the chances of that going wrong is too high. That said, many of you are waiting on adult commissions from me, and I will need to work out details with you on how to deal with that, and I won't be able to do so without being honest with you about my situation.
Please know that I never wanted to hurt anybody, and that a large catalyst in coming to this decision was when revealing my identity to a friend caused her to feel hurt and betrayed by this practice. I care deeply about each and every one of you and I hope that you will accept my sincerest apologies for any distress I have caused you.
I would like to address some questions that I anticipate about my plans moving forward.
Who are you really?
I think it's likely that some of my fans will be able to figure this out, but I have decided not to fully and publicly reveal my identity at this time. The intention of the pseudonym still stands: I do want to keep my NSFW work history at least one step removed from my other projects, and whatever I do with my gallery here, this persona is inextricably tied to NSFW material.
Will you continue to offer commissions after this?
I'm not sure; I imagine it will depend on the general response to this announcement. It is possible that I will be largely decried, and if that happens I will remove myself professionally from the community. I never meant to cause harm, and if my continued professional activity would cause distress, then the right thing to do is to retire from this field of work.
If I do continue to work under the Robin pseudonym, it will be under full disclosure that Robin is in fact a pseudonym and character, and that I am male. No more misinformation.
What will you do with the Robin character?
Robin is a character close to my heart. It has been suggested that I sell her or otherwise give her away, but I think I will either keep her around or else retire her, depending on the overall response.
Will you allow Robin to be used in adult material that you do not create?
I'm honestly not sure. I obviously do not object to adult material, and fan art of Robin has deeply touched me in the past, but again, it will largely depend on the response to this announcement. As stated, I did not and do not want to hurt anyone, and I don't want to throw this character in the faces of people who may find her representative of inappropriate behavior.
Has anyone somehow forced you into this decision?
No. While my decision to "out" myself has been strongly influenced by people that I have discussed this with, the decision is fully mine. I believe that I need to accept responsibility for my choices, whatever the consequences of those decisions may be, and that I have allowed this to go on for too long already.
This sounds an awful lot like fraud.
I don't want to get into a big legal discussion in my apology, but suffice it to say, I never sold the fact that I was a woman; I sold art, and those who have received art from me got what they paid for. This is not to say that what I've done is acceptable; only that it isn't fraud.
It sounds like you're hoping people will just let this go.
I am not in any way trying to sweep this under the carpet, nor do I expect this to just go away. I fully expect this to be a dark mark on my work history, and there is every possibility that it will spell the end of this arm of my art career. I do hope, at least, that you will believe me when I say that I never meant to hurt anyone and that I take this action in order to move towards healthier, more respectful business practices.
How can you call yourself a feminist if you're willing to do something like this?
I fully understand your distress, anger, and frustration, and again, please know that I am deeply convicted that I allowed this to go too far, and that this announcement is specifically because I am not willing to do this. In way of explanation and not excuse or justification, as I've stated, I had discussed this with female and LGBT friends beforehand, have had the assistance of women in the execution of this practice, and have revealed my identity to a trusted few who have expressed understanding. The transition into this realm of inappropriate conduct happened subtly, and I realized the potential for harm only recently, at which time I began to reconsider very carefully.
In my history as an artist, I have had the opportunity to interact with and work with several female artists, and I truly believe that some of the greatest wells of talent and ability I've seen rest in the female contingent of the furry subculture, and deserve attention and praise. I also believe that female artists in the subculture work hard to overcome a variety of unfair challenges such as inappropriate comments and behavior directed towards them, a general lack of respect and understanding, and other such difficulties.
I have tried to encourage respectful and positive behavior both within and without the Robin persona, so it does not escape me that my own practice is both disrespectful and potentially harmful. I realize that some of my fans and friends may have been happy to see a strong and successful female artist. I feel terrible about how I have let myself be blind to the negative ramifications of my actions.
I do consider myself a feminist, and I want very much to see women as well as LGBT individuals empowered and successful. I try to do my part to that end, and right now that means putting an end to this practice of appropriation.
Are you saying that adopting a cross-gender persona online is wrong somehow?
No. There are many in the furry subculture who adopt cross-gender personas for their interactions online in a sort of pseudo-transgenderism. Whether it makes them more comfortable in their interactions, or is the only way in which they can express their very real transgender identity, or simply allows them to explore a side of themselves that they are otherwise unable to, or frankly most reasons I can think of, as long as the way a person presents their self online doesn't hurt others, in my opinion, it's fine.
As enumerated above, I believe that there are special circumstances that have caused my own use of a female persona to be inappropriate. I am not here to condemn or condone anyone else's behavior, only to take responsibility for my own.
A final word: I apologize deeply to everyone, but most especially to my most regular fans and followers. You have been there for me and supported me and in all this time there has been this mask between us. Please know again that I do care about each one of you, that aside from this matter of gender, you do know the real me, and I believe that this small community of friends that we've created through streams and Discord has been good for all of us, and I hope that we can continue to be friends, but also that I understand fully if you feel hurt or betrayed and no longer wish to support or even acknowledge me. The people that I've met through Robin have been some of the kindest and most thoughtful and positive people that I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, so I thank you for that from the bottom of my heart.
I will be closely watching feedback and ready to answer questions. I will understand if you need to vent your frustrations at me, but please be civil to each other in any discussion that may arise.
UPDATE
As I am no longer able to provide pornographic commissions, I have opted to clean them out of my gallery as I feel they create a false impression of my services. I believe that I have supplied all of my customers with high resolution copies of each of these works, but if you have misplaced yours, contact me and I will resupply you with them. I have left in ref sheets and artistic nudes because I do not feel that they constitute pornographic material.
I have a very difficult announcement to make. I've been agonizing over this situation for months, and I've come to a decision that scares me to death, but that my conscience and my life situation demand of me. I believe that I must come clean with you all. Please know that I understand that you may be distressed, disappointed, even disgusted with me, and that I believe that you have every right to be any or all of those things, but I hope that you will hear me out in full as to why I made these choices and why I must now come to you.
To get straight to the point: I am not a female.
As I have already experienced both ends of this spectrum, I realize that some of you have suspected for some time that this may be the case, and this will not be a surprise, and I also realize that some of you have come to know me as a woman and this will be a huge and possibly unpleasant shock. I know that you may feel betrayed, and you may feel that this conduct casts doubt on all of my behavior. Your feelings are justified, yet I hope that you will hear me out to the end.
When I started out on my own in May of 2016, I needed to find a way to monetize my artwork, as I have great difficulty finding traditional work. I was already in the process of securing an illustration job in Black Hole Dawn, but I needed something else to supplement my income. My previous experience had taught me that adult artwork is an excellent source of income for furry artists, and as I was living on my own, I decided to pursue that avenue. However, as I already had an online presence of sorts, because I wanted to be able to pursue SFW opportunities without my adult work causing problems, and because I did not want to risk alienating my family, I decided that it would be prudent to create a pseudonym under which to operate my NSFW business. I created the Robin Wright name to this end, and presented myself as female in order to further separate my artistic identities. I needed a female fursona to be the face of my brand, so drew from an old favorite character design from my college D&D games and created the Robin that you all know.
In preparation for this, I spoke with many of my female and LGBT friends about my plans and only went forward with this practice under their blessing. Had anyone I knew objected, I would never have continued, as I care deeply about women's rights and consider myself a feminist. I hope that those of you who visit my streams and Discord channel know this. I believe that this initial plan was a simple matter of "conducting business as:" and I do not believe that I had crossed the line in this initial intent.
The trouble started when I began to interact more with my clients through notes and streams. People wanted to interact with the artist, and of course the artist was this sort of construct; Robin started to slip into a full persona. As contradictory as it may sound to claim, I strive to be an honest person, and so I have been completely truthful—if a little cagey sometimes—about my life and self, only altering the truth slightly to protect my identity. In the interest of transparency, the only information that I have changed, to my knowledge, is as follows:
• I am not female; I am a cis male. Any "lady things" that I have spoken of have been drawn from my experience with the women in my life. Neither am I transgender; I identify personally as male.
• I am a father; when I have talked about my nephews, I have been referring to my children, and, in a related note, when I have talked about my sister, I have been referring to my ex-wife.
• I realized that I may come off as noticeably less feminine than one might expect, and so I have stated that I grew up with brothers to wave that off. I have only one brother, and when I have spoken of "a brother", I was referring to my only brother.
• I posted a picture of a young lady on my FurAffinity page; this was a friend of mine who modeled specifically for the picture and fully understood what I intended to use the picture for (this picture was taken down some time ago when I first began to deliberate my feelings on this situation).
• I have given false birthday information.
These are the only things that I have misled you about; my life experiences have been shared in truth and from the heart. However, a deeply convicting conversation with a good friend made me realize that I had also become glib about this practice; it is a simple fact that in the field of adult work, women do have some advantages, and I was all too happy to benefit from that.
As time has passed and I have found my fans becoming friends, I have become less and less comfortable with the Robin persona for a variety of reasons, which I will enumerate.
1. It was one thing to use this persona for business and security, but as stated, many of my fans have become my friends and supporters, and some of you have even supported me financially through my hardships. Bear in mind that these hardships have been very real and I have been truthful about them—I have never ever lied about my life situations or tried to use the Robin persona to try to garner sympathy—but I have felt increasingly uncomfortable accepting these outpourings of support given the mask that conceals me from you.
2. I have come to feel as though some of my friends may be developing feelings for me as Robin, and I worry that some of the outpourings of support mentioned above may be the result of those feelings, and I feel awful about it if that is the case. I am pansexual and these feelings are not necessarily unwelcome; however, I also feel awful about the possibility that someone might be falling for someone whom they will never know.
3. I consider myself a feminist and deeply invested in the empowerment and furtherance of women's and LGBT interests. I did not and do not believe that this practice started in the wrong, but as my business operations changed, it evolved into something inappropriate and disrespectful. I believe that I have been appropriating one of the few advantages that women have without dealing with any of the disadvantages, and in so doing have unfairly set myself alongside the likes of women artists far more worthy of their accolades than I. This needs to stop.
4. As of January, I have had, and been fighting for, custody of my children, and no longer feel as though I can support myself through the sale of adult material, as I do not feel comfortable using pornography as a cornerstone of my work when there are children in my home. In my estimation, the chances of that going wrong is too high. That said, many of you are waiting on adult commissions from me, and I will need to work out details with you on how to deal with that, and I won't be able to do so without being honest with you about my situation.
Please know that I never wanted to hurt anybody, and that a large catalyst in coming to this decision was when revealing my identity to a friend caused her to feel hurt and betrayed by this practice. I care deeply about each and every one of you and I hope that you will accept my sincerest apologies for any distress I have caused you.
I would like to address some questions that I anticipate about my plans moving forward.
Who are you really?
I think it's likely that some of my fans will be able to figure this out, but I have decided not to fully and publicly reveal my identity at this time. The intention of the pseudonym still stands: I do want to keep my NSFW work history at least one step removed from my other projects, and whatever I do with my gallery here, this persona is inextricably tied to NSFW material.
Will you continue to offer commissions after this?
I'm not sure; I imagine it will depend on the general response to this announcement. It is possible that I will be largely decried, and if that happens I will remove myself professionally from the community. I never meant to cause harm, and if my continued professional activity would cause distress, then the right thing to do is to retire from this field of work.
If I do continue to work under the Robin pseudonym, it will be under full disclosure that Robin is in fact a pseudonym and character, and that I am male. No more misinformation.
What will you do with the Robin character?
Robin is a character close to my heart. It has been suggested that I sell her or otherwise give her away, but I think I will either keep her around or else retire her, depending on the overall response.
Will you allow Robin to be used in adult material that you do not create?
I'm honestly not sure. I obviously do not object to adult material, and fan art of Robin has deeply touched me in the past, but again, it will largely depend on the response to this announcement. As stated, I did not and do not want to hurt anyone, and I don't want to throw this character in the faces of people who may find her representative of inappropriate behavior.
Has anyone somehow forced you into this decision?
No. While my decision to "out" myself has been strongly influenced by people that I have discussed this with, the decision is fully mine. I believe that I need to accept responsibility for my choices, whatever the consequences of those decisions may be, and that I have allowed this to go on for too long already.
This sounds an awful lot like fraud.
I don't want to get into a big legal discussion in my apology, but suffice it to say, I never sold the fact that I was a woman; I sold art, and those who have received art from me got what they paid for. This is not to say that what I've done is acceptable; only that it isn't fraud.
It sounds like you're hoping people will just let this go.
I am not in any way trying to sweep this under the carpet, nor do I expect this to just go away. I fully expect this to be a dark mark on my work history, and there is every possibility that it will spell the end of this arm of my art career. I do hope, at least, that you will believe me when I say that I never meant to hurt anyone and that I take this action in order to move towards healthier, more respectful business practices.
How can you call yourself a feminist if you're willing to do something like this?
I fully understand your distress, anger, and frustration, and again, please know that I am deeply convicted that I allowed this to go too far, and that this announcement is specifically because I am not willing to do this. In way of explanation and not excuse or justification, as I've stated, I had discussed this with female and LGBT friends beforehand, have had the assistance of women in the execution of this practice, and have revealed my identity to a trusted few who have expressed understanding. The transition into this realm of inappropriate conduct happened subtly, and I realized the potential for harm only recently, at which time I began to reconsider very carefully.
In my history as an artist, I have had the opportunity to interact with and work with several female artists, and I truly believe that some of the greatest wells of talent and ability I've seen rest in the female contingent of the furry subculture, and deserve attention and praise. I also believe that female artists in the subculture work hard to overcome a variety of unfair challenges such as inappropriate comments and behavior directed towards them, a general lack of respect and understanding, and other such difficulties.
I have tried to encourage respectful and positive behavior both within and without the Robin persona, so it does not escape me that my own practice is both disrespectful and potentially harmful. I realize that some of my fans and friends may have been happy to see a strong and successful female artist. I feel terrible about how I have let myself be blind to the negative ramifications of my actions.
I do consider myself a feminist, and I want very much to see women as well as LGBT individuals empowered and successful. I try to do my part to that end, and right now that means putting an end to this practice of appropriation.
Are you saying that adopting a cross-gender persona online is wrong somehow?
No. There are many in the furry subculture who adopt cross-gender personas for their interactions online in a sort of pseudo-transgenderism. Whether it makes them more comfortable in their interactions, or is the only way in which they can express their very real transgender identity, or simply allows them to explore a side of themselves that they are otherwise unable to, or frankly most reasons I can think of, as long as the way a person presents their self online doesn't hurt others, in my opinion, it's fine.
As enumerated above, I believe that there are special circumstances that have caused my own use of a female persona to be inappropriate. I am not here to condemn or condone anyone else's behavior, only to take responsibility for my own.
A final word: I apologize deeply to everyone, but most especially to my most regular fans and followers. You have been there for me and supported me and in all this time there has been this mask between us. Please know again that I do care about each one of you, that aside from this matter of gender, you do know the real me, and I believe that this small community of friends that we've created through streams and Discord has been good for all of us, and I hope that we can continue to be friends, but also that I understand fully if you feel hurt or betrayed and no longer wish to support or even acknowledge me. The people that I've met through Robin have been some of the kindest and most thoughtful and positive people that I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, so I thank you for that from the bottom of my heart.
I will be closely watching feedback and ready to answer questions. I will understand if you need to vent your frustrations at me, but please be civil to each other in any discussion that may arise.
UPDATE
As I am no longer able to provide pornographic commissions, I have opted to clean them out of my gallery as I feel they create a false impression of my services. I believe that I have supplied all of my customers with high resolution copies of each of these works, but if you have misplaced yours, contact me and I will resupply you with them. I have left in ref sheets and artistic nudes because I do not feel that they constitute pornographic material.
Discord Server!
General | Posted 9 years agoSo some folks have been suggesting I try out Discord. To this end, I have downloaded the apps and set up a server:
https://discord.gg/BqxEQBm
Join me if you'd like to hang out!
https://discord.gg/BqxEQBm
Join me if you'd like to hang out!
Streams This Week
General | Posted 9 years agoHey everybody, just letting you know that at the moment I'm staying with some family for mental health reasons and as a result I probably will not be able to stream much—the internet out here in the rurals is not exactly great. The upload speed here is just good enough to barely cover streaming, but if I use it, I kill all other internet in the house because the stream gets prioritized and all other data requests just sort of sit in limbo forever. Bleh. Streams will resume when I'm able to get back home.
The author of Black Hole Dawn and my family have come through for me in a big way to help me out of my financial crisis, so this week I'll be focusing on getting five pages of BHD done for Ove and then it'll be back to mixing BHD and commission work, at which time I'll be able to issue new, more realistic delivery dates for all of the commissions on my queue.
Thank you everyone for your patience and support, Happy Thanksgiving/Turkey Day/Fat Day, and here's to a better December, and a better 2017. 💖
The author of Black Hole Dawn and my family have come through for me in a big way to help me out of my financial crisis, so this week I'll be focusing on getting five pages of BHD done for Ove and then it'll be back to mixing BHD and commission work, at which time I'll be able to issue new, more realistic delivery dates for all of the commissions on my queue.
Thank you everyone for your patience and support, Happy Thanksgiving/Turkey Day/Fat Day, and here's to a better December, and a better 2017. 💖
Clip Studio 1.6.2 and SALE!
General | Posted 9 years agoHey everyone!
I just wanted to let you know that Clip Studio is currently on sale and that the developers are rolling out a new version, 1.6.2, in December, which will come with a barrage of new features. Most notably:
• They're rolling out Clip Studio Assets, a service whereby CSP owners can search and download thousands of free materials and assets for Clip Studio like tones, textures, 3D models, etc.
• Pen pressure controlled brush opacity, a feature that many users, especially people transitioning from SAI, have demanded
• RETINA SUPPORT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA FINALLYYYYYYY
As always, there are two versions of the software, Pro and EX. The Pro version is what most hobby and semi-pro users will want to pick up, because it is very full-featured; the EX version has some powerful additional features like story management for comics creation, "3DLT" rendering (which is where the software will render your 3D models into the scene following rules you set and using brushes, tones, etc), and doesn't limit how many animation frames you can export (did I mention that Clip Studio is a powerful animation tool? BECAUSE IT IS). Most users will never need these features; it is perfectly possible to create a comic in Clip Studio without buying EX, but personally I find the story management tools invaluable, so it's really up to you.
I'll briefly go over some of the key features that have made Clip Studio Paint such an invaluable tool for me:
• RULERS — CSP has a wide variety of rulers that you can use to assist you in your drawing. You can lay down a line ruler and your pen will snap to it when you get close, allowing you to draw a straight line without losing the expressiveness of your brush stroke. Or you can draw a curve: want to draw that perfect tail swoosh? Make yourself a curve ruler and then SWOOSH, you've got a perfect line, complete with expressive stroke. How about circles? How about CONCENTRIC CIRCLES? How about parallel lines, focus lines, focus curves, rotational and angular symmetry, or 1-, 2-, and 3-point perspective rulers that even snap the selection tools to the perspective grid? The rulers in CSP are one of its biggest draws for me because I have seen exactly zero software that has similar utilities.
• TRANSPARENT PAINT — CSP gives you three paint colors on your palette: a foreground color, a background color, and transparent. You might not realize how big a deal this is, but painting with "negative color" is a paradigm shift. Every tool that can lay down color can erase as well. Use the bucket fill to erase color? Check. Erase with a watercolor brush? Check. It's an impressive feature.
• FILL LEFTOVER — So you draw a character and you grab your bucket tool and start filling the character with flat colors. Naturally, inks can get pretty delicate, and so maybe you end up with some little missed spots, some minuscule bits of white speckling the sharpest corners of your linework where the bucket tool simply couldn't reach. The Fill Leftover tool lets you sweep a brush over your artwork and quickly and easily fill up those little spots without accidentally filling outside the color region. It's really hard to explain how it works, you just have to see it in action. It's a HUGE timesaver.
• PERFORMANCE — It's important to note that all of my art is created at 600dpi, resulting in canvas sizes of around 6000x8000 pixels. The high-resolution artwork you see in my gallery is all scaled to 25% of the original resolution—Even Dreams, which I uploaded at extremely high res to show the detail in my work, was scaled to 50%! Despite this huge canvas size, Clip Studio is usually snappy and crisp, even with fairly complex brushes; I have to really crank the brush size and complexity to get it to a point where it starts being unusable.
I could go on and on, but hopefully this gives you a little idea of how powerful this software is.
Right now, Clip Studio Paint Pro is on sale for $25, and EX is running $79. The sale lasts for three days, so if you've been thinking about picking up this extraordinary software, now's the time to do it! And please share this journal with your artisty friends! THERE IS A FREE 30-DAY TRIAL so you can try the software before you buy it!
Get Clip Studio Paint Pro here for $25
Get Clip Studio Paint EX here for $79
If you have any questions about the software or it's capabilities, please feel free to ask and I'll help you out to the best of my abilities. I've been using Manga Studio and Clip Studio for many years and I'm very familiar with it. Happy Christmas and I'll see you all around! <3
I just wanted to let you know that Clip Studio is currently on sale and that the developers are rolling out a new version, 1.6.2, in December, which will come with a barrage of new features. Most notably:
• They're rolling out Clip Studio Assets, a service whereby CSP owners can search and download thousands of free materials and assets for Clip Studio like tones, textures, 3D models, etc.
• Pen pressure controlled brush opacity, a feature that many users, especially people transitioning from SAI, have demanded
• RETINA SUPPORT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA FINALLYYYYYYY
As always, there are two versions of the software, Pro and EX. The Pro version is what most hobby and semi-pro users will want to pick up, because it is very full-featured; the EX version has some powerful additional features like story management for comics creation, "3DLT" rendering (which is where the software will render your 3D models into the scene following rules you set and using brushes, tones, etc), and doesn't limit how many animation frames you can export (did I mention that Clip Studio is a powerful animation tool? BECAUSE IT IS). Most users will never need these features; it is perfectly possible to create a comic in Clip Studio without buying EX, but personally I find the story management tools invaluable, so it's really up to you.
I'll briefly go over some of the key features that have made Clip Studio Paint such an invaluable tool for me:
• RULERS — CSP has a wide variety of rulers that you can use to assist you in your drawing. You can lay down a line ruler and your pen will snap to it when you get close, allowing you to draw a straight line without losing the expressiveness of your brush stroke. Or you can draw a curve: want to draw that perfect tail swoosh? Make yourself a curve ruler and then SWOOSH, you've got a perfect line, complete with expressive stroke. How about circles? How about CONCENTRIC CIRCLES? How about parallel lines, focus lines, focus curves, rotational and angular symmetry, or 1-, 2-, and 3-point perspective rulers that even snap the selection tools to the perspective grid? The rulers in CSP are one of its biggest draws for me because I have seen exactly zero software that has similar utilities.
• TRANSPARENT PAINT — CSP gives you three paint colors on your palette: a foreground color, a background color, and transparent. You might not realize how big a deal this is, but painting with "negative color" is a paradigm shift. Every tool that can lay down color can erase as well. Use the bucket fill to erase color? Check. Erase with a watercolor brush? Check. It's an impressive feature.
• FILL LEFTOVER — So you draw a character and you grab your bucket tool and start filling the character with flat colors. Naturally, inks can get pretty delicate, and so maybe you end up with some little missed spots, some minuscule bits of white speckling the sharpest corners of your linework where the bucket tool simply couldn't reach. The Fill Leftover tool lets you sweep a brush over your artwork and quickly and easily fill up those little spots without accidentally filling outside the color region. It's really hard to explain how it works, you just have to see it in action. It's a HUGE timesaver.
• PERFORMANCE — It's important to note that all of my art is created at 600dpi, resulting in canvas sizes of around 6000x8000 pixels. The high-resolution artwork you see in my gallery is all scaled to 25% of the original resolution—Even Dreams, which I uploaded at extremely high res to show the detail in my work, was scaled to 50%! Despite this huge canvas size, Clip Studio is usually snappy and crisp, even with fairly complex brushes; I have to really crank the brush size and complexity to get it to a point where it starts being unusable.
I could go on and on, but hopefully this gives you a little idea of how powerful this software is.
Right now, Clip Studio Paint Pro is on sale for $25, and EX is running $79. The sale lasts for three days, so if you've been thinking about picking up this extraordinary software, now's the time to do it! And please share this journal with your artisty friends! THERE IS A FREE 30-DAY TRIAL so you can try the software before you buy it!
Get Clip Studio Paint Pro here for $25
Get Clip Studio Paint EX here for $79
If you have any questions about the software or it's capabilities, please feel free to ask and I'll help you out to the best of my abilities. I've been using Manga Studio and Clip Studio for many years and I'm very familiar with it. Happy Christmas and I'll see you all around! <3
Run On The Bank
General | Posted 9 years agoLately I've been getting refund requests from people who are becoming concerned that the delays in my schedule means that they are not going to receive their commissions. Perhaps you are getting to this point yourself. I understand your concerns—the furry art community as a whole is not what you'd call reliable.
Do you remember that scene from It's A Wonderful Life, where there's a run on the bank and George Bailey simply doesn't have the money to cover everyone's demands? In this scene, the bank is faced with the real danger of being withdrawn straight out of business, and it happens because the townspeople are scared that they will lose their money.
These refund requests are my run on the bank, and if I can't get on top of the situation, they will run me straight out of business. Here's the rundown.
As you know, October was a terrible month for me that threw me way behind and crippled me financially. My savings is already low as the result of medical expenses, and my commission work is a major source of income for me. Without a steady outflow of work, I don't attract new clients; without a steady inflow of new work, I sink. Being unable to work on commissions for a whole month has completely decimated my income.
Meanwhile, my primary job illustrating Black Hole Dawn has also fallen behind for the same reason, and that job pays my rent. Without regular work on BHD, I'm even worse off, so I need to devote time to that. Frankly, at this point, that job should be my priority, and that was my intention coming into November: catch up on Black Hole Dawn, then tackle commissions.
Then the refund requests started coming in, and knocked me on my ass again. Refund requests with Square work similarly to PayPal; if I issue a refund, Square will pull the amount from my bank to cover the refund. Because I scrape by on this commission money, I don't have a nest egg sufficient to issue refunds from my personal funds, so I cannot do it without costing myself hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees. This means that dissatisfied customers will need to file a claim with their credit card company, at which time I will have to make a case that Square should protect me from the chargeback, a case that will be difficult to make without lying through my teeth—something I'd rather not do. If I fail that case, Square will take the amount from my bank balance, hitting me with the same overdraft fees and damaging my relationship with the payment processor. If it happens enough, I will lose the ability to use Square at all, and my business will be dead in the water.
Because refunds are so dangerous to my business, I have no choice but to deal with them, meaning that Black Hole Dawn gets pushed further and further back—and as a result, as of this morning, I have 11 days to finish 15 pages of comics, so that I can pay two months' rent and two months' bills. Since that is frankly impossible, I have to come up with $1500 to cover my ass until I can get this all caught up.
The situation went from bad to impossibly bad because my clients are panicking. They are terrified that I am going to run off with their money and never complete their commission, and they're trying to protect themselves in the only way they know how: by requesting a refund. I assure you: nothing could be farther from the truth. I want to be a successful creator in my own right; I'm tired of working long hours being miserable so that I can come home and fight to do the thing I actually love to do. October was a shitty month, but I can come back from that, and get my work back on track. I can finish your commissions.
I can't do it if you guys don't give me a chance.
Fortunately for George, he's able to make a plea to reason and work with people to give them only what they actually need, and together they save the bank. This is my plea to you: give me time to get to your pieces, and I will deliver. They will be great; I've honed my techniques over the last few weeks to deliver even better quality images. If you have a legitimate time limit on your pieces—for example, if they were a Christmas present or some other time-sensitive piece—let me know via e-mail and I will do everything I can to ensure you get it on time. Please don't abuse this; if everybody claims a time crunch, nobody will get anything and the whole thing will fall apart.
I'm counting on you guys to have faith and patience and work with me. I hope that the reason you commissioned me is that you love my art. Unfortunately, if I stop being able to make income from commissions, I'll have to find other sources of income, and that will limit if not eliminate my ability and incentive to create work for the furry community, which would make me very sad; since my return here, I've built a fanbase that makes me proud and with whom I love to spend time. I've met friends and started projects that I think will make an impact. I don't want to have to turn my back on that because of money.
Please give me a chance to come through for you.
~Robin
Do you remember that scene from It's A Wonderful Life, where there's a run on the bank and George Bailey simply doesn't have the money to cover everyone's demands? In this scene, the bank is faced with the real danger of being withdrawn straight out of business, and it happens because the townspeople are scared that they will lose their money.
These refund requests are my run on the bank, and if I can't get on top of the situation, they will run me straight out of business. Here's the rundown.
As you know, October was a terrible month for me that threw me way behind and crippled me financially. My savings is already low as the result of medical expenses, and my commission work is a major source of income for me. Without a steady outflow of work, I don't attract new clients; without a steady inflow of new work, I sink. Being unable to work on commissions for a whole month has completely decimated my income.
Meanwhile, my primary job illustrating Black Hole Dawn has also fallen behind for the same reason, and that job pays my rent. Without regular work on BHD, I'm even worse off, so I need to devote time to that. Frankly, at this point, that job should be my priority, and that was my intention coming into November: catch up on Black Hole Dawn, then tackle commissions.
Then the refund requests started coming in, and knocked me on my ass again. Refund requests with Square work similarly to PayPal; if I issue a refund, Square will pull the amount from my bank to cover the refund. Because I scrape by on this commission money, I don't have a nest egg sufficient to issue refunds from my personal funds, so I cannot do it without costing myself hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees. This means that dissatisfied customers will need to file a claim with their credit card company, at which time I will have to make a case that Square should protect me from the chargeback, a case that will be difficult to make without lying through my teeth—something I'd rather not do. If I fail that case, Square will take the amount from my bank balance, hitting me with the same overdraft fees and damaging my relationship with the payment processor. If it happens enough, I will lose the ability to use Square at all, and my business will be dead in the water.
Because refunds are so dangerous to my business, I have no choice but to deal with them, meaning that Black Hole Dawn gets pushed further and further back—and as a result, as of this morning, I have 11 days to finish 15 pages of comics, so that I can pay two months' rent and two months' bills. Since that is frankly impossible, I have to come up with $1500 to cover my ass until I can get this all caught up.
The situation went from bad to impossibly bad because my clients are panicking. They are terrified that I am going to run off with their money and never complete their commission, and they're trying to protect themselves in the only way they know how: by requesting a refund. I assure you: nothing could be farther from the truth. I want to be a successful creator in my own right; I'm tired of working long hours being miserable so that I can come home and fight to do the thing I actually love to do. October was a shitty month, but I can come back from that, and get my work back on track. I can finish your commissions.
I can't do it if you guys don't give me a chance.
Fortunately for George, he's able to make a plea to reason and work with people to give them only what they actually need, and together they save the bank. This is my plea to you: give me time to get to your pieces, and I will deliver. They will be great; I've honed my techniques over the last few weeks to deliver even better quality images. If you have a legitimate time limit on your pieces—for example, if they were a Christmas present or some other time-sensitive piece—let me know via e-mail and I will do everything I can to ensure you get it on time. Please don't abuse this; if everybody claims a time crunch, nobody will get anything and the whole thing will fall apart.
I'm counting on you guys to have faith and patience and work with me. I hope that the reason you commissioned me is that you love my art. Unfortunately, if I stop being able to make income from commissions, I'll have to find other sources of income, and that will limit if not eliminate my ability and incentive to create work for the furry community, which would make me very sad; since my return here, I've built a fanbase that makes me proud and with whom I love to spend time. I've met friends and started projects that I think will make an impact. I don't want to have to turn my back on that because of money.
Please give me a chance to come through for you.
~Robin
Trello Update
General | Posted 9 years agoSome of you may have noticed some updates to the Trello, including stripping all of the current due dates off of the Trello cards, and this may be cause for concern. I'd like to bring everybody up to speed on what's going on. First, I'd like to talk about what a shitshow October was, since I only really discussed it in my stream, and if you weren't there you probably don't know.
In mid-September, my nephew and niece started preschool at a school to which they could not get busing, and because my schedule is flexible, I offered to drive them in the mornings using the family car. This turned out to be a mistake; more on this later.
On September 25, I was in a major car accident while driving the family car. I was running errands for family using the car, so it wasn't like I was out doing silly things or drunk or anything, but still: it wasn't my car, it wasn't my insurance, and basically it threw my family's life (and mine) into chaos for a good two weeks while we scrambled to replace the vehicle (it was totaled) before two of the family—my sister and her girlfriend—flew to Italy for a vacation they'd been planning for months. Nobody was hurt in the accident, thank god, but I was badly emotionally affected by the incident and by how guilty I felt about the whole thing, and it just wrecked me for a good while.
In the second week of October, I moved out of my apartment and into my sister's place temporarily to help watch the kids while they were on their aforementioned vacation. I packed up my computer and everything so that I could work while I was there, but unfortunately it turns out that taking care of kids basically by yourself is a 24-hour soul-sucking job (side note: oh my god thank you Mom). Meanwhile, in Italy, some British Airways employees decided not to come to work on the day that my sister's flight was due to come home, and they were unable to file a complaint because the complaint system was literally full of complaints. What was supposed to be a sub-week trip turned into two weeks while they scrambled to get access to money that they could buy $2000 worth of tickets with—not to mention the additional hotel fare, food, etc. (lesson for you potential vacationers: always have a backup plan)
When I finally got home, I found that driving the children had become extremely stressful; I was spending the most wakeful and productive hours of my day in a death box with CHILDREN IN THE CAR surrounded by people running red lights, cutting me off, and walking out into traffic. It was infuriating and terrifying all at the same time; it was like waking up and spending seven hours browsing 4chan before sitting down and trying to make art happen. I would sit at the screen and stare at a blank canvas and ultimately give up. It would be one thing if I could put anything onto canvas and sell it, but I can't; you guys expect quality from me, and I just didn't have it in me to make that happen.
The end result of all this has been basically a month plus with extremely little time or energy to summon forth quality art, and as a result I fell drastically behind. Overdue notifications stacked up on my Trello, Black Hole Dawn fell behind to the point where I was forced to accept a loan to pay my rent. I've had to process a refund or two, and that drained my bank account so that an incoming Spotify payment threw me into the negatives and started racking up overdraft charges, which blindsided me because my bank was recently bought by a new bank that changed the overdraft policy without notifying me. Yes, I will be switching banks.
It is my policy not to blame uncontrollable circumstances for the failure of my business. I believe very strongly that if my business falls apart because of unforeseen problems, I am at fault for not preparing sufficiently. I dramatically underestimated the amount of time and energy that maintaining this business requires; I should never have committed to driving the children, or to babysitting. I should have been more wary of the bank transition and more actively pursued understanding policy changes. I should have been more careful about building a deeper nest egg to cover potential losses and refunds.
However, I believe this situation is still salvageable. Here's what I'm doing to get back on the ball:
• I am currently getting myself out from under the driving commitment. I'm working with my sister and her family to find alternate transportation solutions for the children so that I can get back to focusing on my business.
• I have cleared all of the old due dates on the Trello cards because they aren't realistic and are frankly detrimental to the morale of both myself and my clients. This week I'm focusing on completing my most overdue commission, Public Indecency, after which I'll re-evaluate due dates to give realistic deadlines for the remaining commission work.
• I've gone over my personal budget and trimmed the fat to an extreme degree to try to allow for more savings.
• I've got the Trello back up and running and will be updating it completely today before my stream. I know some users are concerned because their commissions aren't on the Trello; this will be shortly rectified.
I want to thank all of my clients for your patience. I appreciate that many of you feel that my art is worth waiting for, and thankfully most of you are behind by about a month at most. I understand that the furry art industry is notoriously unreliable, and I hate that I've contributed to that problem. I'm doing everything I can to get back on track.
I'll be streaming regularly, so I hope to see you there~
~Robin
In mid-September, my nephew and niece started preschool at a school to which they could not get busing, and because my schedule is flexible, I offered to drive them in the mornings using the family car. This turned out to be a mistake; more on this later.
On September 25, I was in a major car accident while driving the family car. I was running errands for family using the car, so it wasn't like I was out doing silly things or drunk or anything, but still: it wasn't my car, it wasn't my insurance, and basically it threw my family's life (and mine) into chaos for a good two weeks while we scrambled to replace the vehicle (it was totaled) before two of the family—my sister and her girlfriend—flew to Italy for a vacation they'd been planning for months. Nobody was hurt in the accident, thank god, but I was badly emotionally affected by the incident and by how guilty I felt about the whole thing, and it just wrecked me for a good while.
In the second week of October, I moved out of my apartment and into my sister's place temporarily to help watch the kids while they were on their aforementioned vacation. I packed up my computer and everything so that I could work while I was there, but unfortunately it turns out that taking care of kids basically by yourself is a 24-hour soul-sucking job (side note: oh my god thank you Mom). Meanwhile, in Italy, some British Airways employees decided not to come to work on the day that my sister's flight was due to come home, and they were unable to file a complaint because the complaint system was literally full of complaints. What was supposed to be a sub-week trip turned into two weeks while they scrambled to get access to money that they could buy $2000 worth of tickets with—not to mention the additional hotel fare, food, etc. (lesson for you potential vacationers: always have a backup plan)
When I finally got home, I found that driving the children had become extremely stressful; I was spending the most wakeful and productive hours of my day in a death box with CHILDREN IN THE CAR surrounded by people running red lights, cutting me off, and walking out into traffic. It was infuriating and terrifying all at the same time; it was like waking up and spending seven hours browsing 4chan before sitting down and trying to make art happen. I would sit at the screen and stare at a blank canvas and ultimately give up. It would be one thing if I could put anything onto canvas and sell it, but I can't; you guys expect quality from me, and I just didn't have it in me to make that happen.
The end result of all this has been basically a month plus with extremely little time or energy to summon forth quality art, and as a result I fell drastically behind. Overdue notifications stacked up on my Trello, Black Hole Dawn fell behind to the point where I was forced to accept a loan to pay my rent. I've had to process a refund or two, and that drained my bank account so that an incoming Spotify payment threw me into the negatives and started racking up overdraft charges, which blindsided me because my bank was recently bought by a new bank that changed the overdraft policy without notifying me. Yes, I will be switching banks.
It is my policy not to blame uncontrollable circumstances for the failure of my business. I believe very strongly that if my business falls apart because of unforeseen problems, I am at fault for not preparing sufficiently. I dramatically underestimated the amount of time and energy that maintaining this business requires; I should never have committed to driving the children, or to babysitting. I should have been more wary of the bank transition and more actively pursued understanding policy changes. I should have been more careful about building a deeper nest egg to cover potential losses and refunds.
However, I believe this situation is still salvageable. Here's what I'm doing to get back on the ball:
• I am currently getting myself out from under the driving commitment. I'm working with my sister and her family to find alternate transportation solutions for the children so that I can get back to focusing on my business.
• I have cleared all of the old due dates on the Trello cards because they aren't realistic and are frankly detrimental to the morale of both myself and my clients. This week I'm focusing on completing my most overdue commission, Public Indecency, after which I'll re-evaluate due dates to give realistic deadlines for the remaining commission work.
• I've gone over my personal budget and trimmed the fat to an extreme degree to try to allow for more savings.
• I've got the Trello back up and running and will be updating it completely today before my stream. I know some users are concerned because their commissions aren't on the Trello; this will be shortly rectified.
I want to thank all of my clients for your patience. I appreciate that many of you feel that my art is worth waiting for, and thankfully most of you are behind by about a month at most. I understand that the furry art industry is notoriously unreliable, and I hate that I've contributed to that problem. I'm doing everything I can to get back on track.
I'll be streaming regularly, so I hope to see you there~
~Robin
Trello is back
General | Posted 9 years agoHey guys!
After much back and forth with Trello and searching for potential alternatives, I've determined that the best thing to do is just strip my Trello queue of all images and call it square. I've had to store your images on my computer locally, which isn't ideal: unlike the Cloud, I only have one backup, and it makes keeping track of which refs are for which commission trickier and more prone to failure. However, you guys seem to really like the public queue, so I've done what's necessary to bring it back.
That said, now that you can see the queue, you'll probably notice that I am AGES behind. This is true and I promise I'm working my ass off to get caught up. Thank god for nicotine! Ha ha! TT _TT
'Til next time doot doot
After much back and forth with Trello and searching for potential alternatives, I've determined that the best thing to do is just strip my Trello queue of all images and call it square. I've had to store your images on my computer locally, which isn't ideal: unlike the Cloud, I only have one backup, and it makes keeping track of which refs are for which commission trickier and more prone to failure. However, you guys seem to really like the public queue, so I've done what's necessary to bring it back.
That said, now that you can see the queue, you'll probably notice that I am AGES behind. This is true and I promise I'm working my ass off to get caught up. Thank god for nicotine! Ha ha! TT _TT
'Til next time doot doot
Shame, Etc.
General | Posted 9 years agoYou may have read this journal already. If so, please skip to the addendum at the end.
I've been seeing this sentiment aroundabouts the web and it's pissing me off. Furries going around coming down on porn and people who like or draw porn because "It gives us a bad name" and "it makes us all look like perverts", etc.. Look, if you don't like porn, that's your prerogative, and I don't judge you for it. It just doesn't work for some people, some people find it gross, some people find it offensive. I seriously don't care how you feel about porn. But I cannot abide this habit so many furs are in of treating people who like bizarre pornography like they're less than civilized or bringing the rest of us down somehow.
I try to be a positive person, but sexual oppression—if you hadn't noticed—is one of the things that infuriates me most about human society today. Not just American society, mind you—I mean everyone, because it comes from all sides of the field. There is absolutely zero reason anymore for us to engage in this petty, ignorant bullshit, and yet I hear furries bitching and moaning about pornography over and over and over again. Even people who enjoy porn crack wise about the negative stigma. This shit makes we stupid angry. It makes me so angry I misspell things and can't be arsed to fix them and would rather just point at my own mistakes in frustration with myself.
One of the reasons the furry community has always appealed to me, even when it was going through growth spurts where it was filled with huge assholes and drama like 24/7, is that it at least purported to be tolerant of, and even accepting of, sex and sexuality. This was a place where you could generally be gay, lesbian, trans, bi, pansexual, asexual, or basically whatever you wanted and that's cool. It's one of our strongest features, and yet on the subject of pornography, "Let's spend an hour pissing about how much porn there is here!" Or sometimes "Let's talk about how creepy furry porn is!"
Look, I think we should be considerate with adult images that contain subject matter that could be harmful to certain people—in fact, my terms of service specifically address that issue. And I believe in supporting and encouraging all artistic endeavors, sexual or not—and some of the best art here on FA is non-sexual and it absolutely does not get enough attention. But what I can not stand in the least is people spreading shame about pornography, as though enjoying sex and sexuality is something that we need to hide and be ashamed of. I've heard propositions, both casually and seriously, that porn should be buried on FA, that it should be something you have to deliberately search for regardless of your SFW settings, and similar ideas.
Fuck. That.
If our little subculture likes it some sex, that's something we should be fucking proud of. Yes, a huge number of our artists are sex workers, and that's not something shameful. That is something that we can hold up as evidence of having risen above all of the oppressive bullshit that our various societies have dumped on us. We've created a community where we (ostensibly) don't have to hide who we are and what we enjoy, and where we can buy or draw a hot cheetah getting railed by just the biggest fucking horse cock you've ever seen (maybe two or three or twelve, fuck it) without having to worry about what that says about our character. Yes, some of the stuff you can find here on FA is undoubtedly unorthodox, and I admit that there is material that I am not comfortable drawing—but if you're honest-to-god not hurting anyone with your kinks and fetishes, nobody should give a shit what you like. And that extends to the whole damn community: if we, as a group, love us some porn, that doesn't make us a bunch of perverts. It makes us a bunch of people who like porn.
The idea that one's sexual interests and preferences are in any way indicative of the quality of their person is backwards and harmful to our community, and it needs to stop. Nobody should be made to feel like they're "selling out" or "abandoning their scruples" if they discover that they can make good money (fucking AMAZING money sometimes) drawing pornography. Nobody should have to choose between a "good reputation" and eating.
So: if you can't handle the fact that the furry community throws its doors open for sex workers, if you can't handle the fact that this subculture has become a place to express non-traditional adult interests and commune with others who share that interest, if you can't handle the simple fact that a lot of people here enjoy something that you don't, and you feel the need to express your contempt and discomfort by shaming the people around you, get the fuck out. You are toxic and we don't need you. Go find some wholesome group to be a part of. I hear the 4H club is always looking for members.
Please, spread the word to stop porn shame. Let people know—preferably more politely than I have here, please—that their words do us harm. Let them know it has to stop.
ADDENDUM: ON "SJWs"
Several folks responded to the original Shame journal by blaming the issue on SJWs and "Tumblrites". Before you respond to this journal with a similar response, please read the following:
First of all, even if I didn't find the term SJW offensive, which I do (more on this in a bit), I don't think this is an SJW issue, because SJWs (gods I hate this term) are, in their way, trying to speak out on some social issue that they think is important, such as racial inequality, gender inequality, rape culture, etc. etc. Whether you think SJWs are full of shit or not, porn shaming is the exact opposite of what SJWs are ostensibly trying to do, which is right social wrongs. Any form of sexually-based oppression is exactly the opposite of their goal, because sexual oppression is a social issue. This here just isn't in their wheelhouse.
So why do I hate the term SJW? Because it demonizes people who are, however poorly, trying to help. Because it is a slur, and slurs only make discussions stupider, more generalized, and less informed.
A forward: I believe that inequality and other social issues are problems at the root of society, not on the surface; surface solutions like legislation will not solve the underlying causes of social issues that plague humanity. The only thing that will help is changing minds, and that means open and constant dialogue about the issues. It means reaching out and connecting people, creating empathy and understanding, and growing a culture of compassion.
Enter the so-called "SJW". These are people who, according to Urban Dictionary, the authority on all things slang, "repeatedly and vehemently engage in arguments on social justice on the Internet, often in a shallow or not well-thought-out way, for the purpose of raising their own personal reputation." Notice that this definition clarifies that these people are speaking out not to help, but to further their own self-interest. If this were exactly how this term were applied, I'd give it a grudging pass. I don't give it a pass, because, like any slur, it's become a way to dismiss a person's argument without actually seriously engaging it. Here are just a few ways I've noticed.
• People are often slapped with the SJW slur when they don't fall into the category of people they are defending—for example, if a male speaks out on gender inequality, or a cis person speaks out on transgender rights. The label is applied because "They aren't a [group], so they can't understand the issues of [group], so they are unqualified to make arguments for [group]." This is a fallacious logical jump that assumes first that empathy is required to understand a social issue, and second, that human beings are incapable of empathizing with a circumstance they have no personal experience in. To rebut: you don't have to have been a slave to know that being a slave strips people of their inherent humanity and personhood and to argue therefore that slavery is wrong.
— A more cynical variation of this argument is "They aren't a [group], so they have nothing to gain by defending [group], therefore their motives are not to help [group]." This argument assumes wrongly that rectifying social justice issues that relate specifically to one group or class will not feed back improvements into society as a whole.
• People can be slapped with the SJW slur for being uneducated, regardless of sincerity. This is especially true on Tumblr, which is dominated by youth who may not have had the opportunity to be fully educated or may lack the maturity to fully understand an issue. This use of the slur I find particularly heinous because if you know enough about an issue to know that a person is lacking a full measure of understanding regarding said issue, by choosing simply to use pejorative terms to insult the person, you are missing an opportunity to educate someone who sincerely cares about the issues at hand and better equip them to contribute to the discussion—and on top of that, you are lowering the discourse from something that could be intellectual to something vulgar and destructive.
• The most common way I see SJW used is simply to dismiss an issue, toss up deuces and walk away from the conversation. This use basically slaps the SJW slur on anyone who speaks out on any social issue anywhere anyhow, and a great example of this use was during "Gamergate", when it got stamped on anyone who tried to argue for minority rights and representation in games, gaming culture, and game development. This is the most cynical use of the term and therefore the most depressing, because it means that the user thinks the issues are simply not important and don't need discussion, vehement or otherwise, and anyone who speaks out on these issues is simply making talking points to look good. Basically, this is patently and demonstrably untrue. People care about social issues because people care about people. Not everyone is a self-absorbed egomaniac.
I'm not coming down on you folks who used the term; it's possible that you've never thought of it as a slur or realized that by using it you're contributing to a destructive discourse. Just know that using any slur reduces your credibility in any argument, because slurs are unintelligent oversimplifications and only serve to demonize your opponent for lack of a proper, intellectual argument, and I know my fans are better than that. If you think that the people who are porn-shaming are only doing so to look better, or that their arguments are half-cocked, just say so. Make a reasoned, impassioned argument. Raise the bar.
~Robin
I've been seeing this sentiment aroundabouts the web and it's pissing me off. Furries going around coming down on porn and people who like or draw porn because "It gives us a bad name" and "it makes us all look like perverts", etc.. Look, if you don't like porn, that's your prerogative, and I don't judge you for it. It just doesn't work for some people, some people find it gross, some people find it offensive. I seriously don't care how you feel about porn. But I cannot abide this habit so many furs are in of treating people who like bizarre pornography like they're less than civilized or bringing the rest of us down somehow.
I try to be a positive person, but sexual oppression—if you hadn't noticed—is one of the things that infuriates me most about human society today. Not just American society, mind you—I mean everyone, because it comes from all sides of the field. There is absolutely zero reason anymore for us to engage in this petty, ignorant bullshit, and yet I hear furries bitching and moaning about pornography over and over and over again. Even people who enjoy porn crack wise about the negative stigma. This shit makes we stupid angry. It makes me so angry I misspell things and can't be arsed to fix them and would rather just point at my own mistakes in frustration with myself.
One of the reasons the furry community has always appealed to me, even when it was going through growth spurts where it was filled with huge assholes and drama like 24/7, is that it at least purported to be tolerant of, and even accepting of, sex and sexuality. This was a place where you could generally be gay, lesbian, trans, bi, pansexual, asexual, or basically whatever you wanted and that's cool. It's one of our strongest features, and yet on the subject of pornography, "Let's spend an hour pissing about how much porn there is here!" Or sometimes "Let's talk about how creepy furry porn is!"
Look, I think we should be considerate with adult images that contain subject matter that could be harmful to certain people—in fact, my terms of service specifically address that issue. And I believe in supporting and encouraging all artistic endeavors, sexual or not—and some of the best art here on FA is non-sexual and it absolutely does not get enough attention. But what I can not stand in the least is people spreading shame about pornography, as though enjoying sex and sexuality is something that we need to hide and be ashamed of. I've heard propositions, both casually and seriously, that porn should be buried on FA, that it should be something you have to deliberately search for regardless of your SFW settings, and similar ideas.
Fuck. That.
If our little subculture likes it some sex, that's something we should be fucking proud of. Yes, a huge number of our artists are sex workers, and that's not something shameful. That is something that we can hold up as evidence of having risen above all of the oppressive bullshit that our various societies have dumped on us. We've created a community where we (ostensibly) don't have to hide who we are and what we enjoy, and where we can buy or draw a hot cheetah getting railed by just the biggest fucking horse cock you've ever seen (maybe two or three or twelve, fuck it) without having to worry about what that says about our character. Yes, some of the stuff you can find here on FA is undoubtedly unorthodox, and I admit that there is material that I am not comfortable drawing—but if you're honest-to-god not hurting anyone with your kinks and fetishes, nobody should give a shit what you like. And that extends to the whole damn community: if we, as a group, love us some porn, that doesn't make us a bunch of perverts. It makes us a bunch of people who like porn.
The idea that one's sexual interests and preferences are in any way indicative of the quality of their person is backwards and harmful to our community, and it needs to stop. Nobody should be made to feel like they're "selling out" or "abandoning their scruples" if they discover that they can make good money (fucking AMAZING money sometimes) drawing pornography. Nobody should have to choose between a "good reputation" and eating.
So: if you can't handle the fact that the furry community throws its doors open for sex workers, if you can't handle the fact that this subculture has become a place to express non-traditional adult interests and commune with others who share that interest, if you can't handle the simple fact that a lot of people here enjoy something that you don't, and you feel the need to express your contempt and discomfort by shaming the people around you, get the fuck out. You are toxic and we don't need you. Go find some wholesome group to be a part of. I hear the 4H club is always looking for members.
Please, spread the word to stop porn shame. Let people know—preferably more politely than I have here, please—that their words do us harm. Let them know it has to stop.
ADDENDUM: ON "SJWs"
Several folks responded to the original Shame journal by blaming the issue on SJWs and "Tumblrites". Before you respond to this journal with a similar response, please read the following:
First of all, even if I didn't find the term SJW offensive, which I do (more on this in a bit), I don't think this is an SJW issue, because SJWs (gods I hate this term) are, in their way, trying to speak out on some social issue that they think is important, such as racial inequality, gender inequality, rape culture, etc. etc. Whether you think SJWs are full of shit or not, porn shaming is the exact opposite of what SJWs are ostensibly trying to do, which is right social wrongs. Any form of sexually-based oppression is exactly the opposite of their goal, because sexual oppression is a social issue. This here just isn't in their wheelhouse.
So why do I hate the term SJW? Because it demonizes people who are, however poorly, trying to help. Because it is a slur, and slurs only make discussions stupider, more generalized, and less informed.
A forward: I believe that inequality and other social issues are problems at the root of society, not on the surface; surface solutions like legislation will not solve the underlying causes of social issues that plague humanity. The only thing that will help is changing minds, and that means open and constant dialogue about the issues. It means reaching out and connecting people, creating empathy and understanding, and growing a culture of compassion.
Enter the so-called "SJW". These are people who, according to Urban Dictionary, the authority on all things slang, "repeatedly and vehemently engage in arguments on social justice on the Internet, often in a shallow or not well-thought-out way, for the purpose of raising their own personal reputation." Notice that this definition clarifies that these people are speaking out not to help, but to further their own self-interest. If this were exactly how this term were applied, I'd give it a grudging pass. I don't give it a pass, because, like any slur, it's become a way to dismiss a person's argument without actually seriously engaging it. Here are just a few ways I've noticed.
• People are often slapped with the SJW slur when they don't fall into the category of people they are defending—for example, if a male speaks out on gender inequality, or a cis person speaks out on transgender rights. The label is applied because "They aren't a [group], so they can't understand the issues of [group], so they are unqualified to make arguments for [group]." This is a fallacious logical jump that assumes first that empathy is required to understand a social issue, and second, that human beings are incapable of empathizing with a circumstance they have no personal experience in. To rebut: you don't have to have been a slave to know that being a slave strips people of their inherent humanity and personhood and to argue therefore that slavery is wrong.
— A more cynical variation of this argument is "They aren't a [group], so they have nothing to gain by defending [group], therefore their motives are not to help [group]." This argument assumes wrongly that rectifying social justice issues that relate specifically to one group or class will not feed back improvements into society as a whole.
• People can be slapped with the SJW slur for being uneducated, regardless of sincerity. This is especially true on Tumblr, which is dominated by youth who may not have had the opportunity to be fully educated or may lack the maturity to fully understand an issue. This use of the slur I find particularly heinous because if you know enough about an issue to know that a person is lacking a full measure of understanding regarding said issue, by choosing simply to use pejorative terms to insult the person, you are missing an opportunity to educate someone who sincerely cares about the issues at hand and better equip them to contribute to the discussion—and on top of that, you are lowering the discourse from something that could be intellectual to something vulgar and destructive.
• The most common way I see SJW used is simply to dismiss an issue, toss up deuces and walk away from the conversation. This use basically slaps the SJW slur on anyone who speaks out on any social issue anywhere anyhow, and a great example of this use was during "Gamergate", when it got stamped on anyone who tried to argue for minority rights and representation in games, gaming culture, and game development. This is the most cynical use of the term and therefore the most depressing, because it means that the user thinks the issues are simply not important and don't need discussion, vehement or otherwise, and anyone who speaks out on these issues is simply making talking points to look good. Basically, this is patently and demonstrably untrue. People care about social issues because people care about people. Not everyone is a self-absorbed egomaniac.
I'm not coming down on you folks who used the term; it's possible that you've never thought of it as a slur or realized that by using it you're contributing to a destructive discourse. Just know that using any slur reduces your credibility in any argument, because slurs are unintelligent oversimplifications and only serve to demonize your opponent for lack of a proper, intellectual argument, and I know my fans are better than that. If you think that the people who are porn-shaming are only doing so to look better, or that their arguments are half-cocked, just say so. Make a reasoned, impassioned argument. Raise the bar.
~Robin
Trello Has Gone Dark
General | Posted 9 years agoMy Trello has been flagged for inappropriate content, and I've been required either to remove all of the useful information from it, or make it private. Trello is primarily a tool for me to keep track of commissions, so I've opted to make it private—at least until I finish discussing the matter with Trello support (if they ever get back to me).
I find this flag to be... odd. I don't believe that Trello has the time or incentive to watch the content of every single public board on their service. I also don't believe they have some magical analyzer that watches incoming images for boobies and dicks. And of all my friends who use Trello for this sort of thing, mine is the youngest board, and the only one to be so flagged. I am fairly sure that the only reason my board would have been flagged is if Trello had received a complaint. I mean, I suppose I could have been the victim of a random search, but what are the odds of that?
I have a good idea who it was, too. I don't have hard evidence, but there are too many coincidences for me to ignore. I'm not going to call this person out because the fact is I can't prove they did it and honestly it wouldn't accomplish anything even if I did: I've no interest in starting a war.
If you did do it, you know who you are, and you win. You have made my operation harder to maintain, made me do more work to keep up my business, and have made it so that until I get a solution squared away, my clients will not be able to track progress on their commissions. I hope that in making your point you realize that you've hurt my business, myself, and my clientele.
To everyone else: I'll get this worked out. It may not be as elegant a solution, but I will get something worked out.
EDIT: Trello has been very positive on this so far. They have used very neutral communications, have not postured or made aggressive threats. They used the term "objectionable" in place of "offensive" or other negative words, and even phrased the request to remove the offending images as a question. I'm very pleased with how they're handling this. So to be clear: I'm not upset at all with Trello. They have to protect their business.
I have suggested that they follow Tumblr's example and give users the option to mark a Trello board as containing mature or adult content to allow users like me to continue to use the service without exposing my work to those who would find the material "objectionable". We'll see if they respond.
I find this flag to be... odd. I don't believe that Trello has the time or incentive to watch the content of every single public board on their service. I also don't believe they have some magical analyzer that watches incoming images for boobies and dicks. And of all my friends who use Trello for this sort of thing, mine is the youngest board, and the only one to be so flagged. I am fairly sure that the only reason my board would have been flagged is if Trello had received a complaint. I mean, I suppose I could have been the victim of a random search, but what are the odds of that?
I have a good idea who it was, too. I don't have hard evidence, but there are too many coincidences for me to ignore. I'm not going to call this person out because the fact is I can't prove they did it and honestly it wouldn't accomplish anything even if I did: I've no interest in starting a war.
If you did do it, you know who you are, and you win. You have made my operation harder to maintain, made me do more work to keep up my business, and have made it so that until I get a solution squared away, my clients will not be able to track progress on their commissions. I hope that in making your point you realize that you've hurt my business, myself, and my clientele.
To everyone else: I'll get this worked out. It may not be as elegant a solution, but I will get something worked out.
EDIT: Trello has been very positive on this so far. They have used very neutral communications, have not postured or made aggressive threats. They used the term "objectionable" in place of "offensive" or other negative words, and even phrased the request to remove the offending images as a question. I'm very pleased with how they're handling this. So to be clear: I'm not upset at all with Trello. They have to protect their business.
I have suggested that they follow Tumblr's example and give users the option to mark a Trello board as containing mature or adult content to allow users like me to continue to use the service without exposing my work to those who would find the material "objectionable". We'll see if they respond.
I'm bored.
General | Posted 9 years agoOwie :c
General | Posted 9 years agoHey guys! Sorry I've been quiet the last few days.
On Friday night I broke a tooth so badly it exposed the nerve and left me basically crippled. It was already in need of repair, so I guess I just crossed a threshold of suck. Anyhoo. After a night of misery I was able to get someone to take me to the ER and get some painkillers to tide me over until I could see a dentist.
I spent the weekend high as balls and then yesterday had two teeth extracted (apparently I have the longest roots they've ever seen at their office—yay record-setting). The second was a wisdom tooth they said should probably come out while they were in there. I'm afraid I look rather a mess now—they had to beat my face for about an hour to get the broken tooth out—but I'm healthy and recovering.
This was the first surgical procedure I've ever gone through and I'll admit it was terrifying, but my dentists are excellent and it was almost completely pain-free (the shots, y'know).
I'll be returning to work this week and I'll probably run a couple sketch streams to recoup my financial losses—no insurance yet, you see.
See you soon!
On Friday night I broke a tooth so badly it exposed the nerve and left me basically crippled. It was already in need of repair, so I guess I just crossed a threshold of suck. Anyhoo. After a night of misery I was able to get someone to take me to the ER and get some painkillers to tide me over until I could see a dentist.
I spent the weekend high as balls and then yesterday had two teeth extracted (apparently I have the longest roots they've ever seen at their office—yay record-setting). The second was a wisdom tooth they said should probably come out while they were in there. I'm afraid I look rather a mess now—they had to beat my face for about an hour to get the broken tooth out—but I'm healthy and recovering.
This was the first surgical procedure I've ever gone through and I'll admit it was terrifying, but my dentists are excellent and it was almost completely pain-free (the shots, y'know).
I'll be returning to work this week and I'll probably run a couple sketch streams to recoup my financial losses—no insurance yet, you see.
See you soon!
Deadline Updates and Other Big Deals
General | Posted 9 years agoOkay, so I'm not going to belabor this point: I've had to push back my deadlines. Again. Ugh. I'm not going to dwell on it, either; if you're still waiting on a commission from me, check your e-mail: you've got an apology, an explanation, and a coupon code from me.
NOW MORE EXCITING THINGS
Y'all motherfuckers better bookmark http://robinwrightcommissions.com because it's my new center for commission information. All of my pricing will be listed there in a convenient gallery that I'll flesh out with more examples as I create them, and a handy-dandy quote request form that you can use when you want to commission me!
I've also got a whiffy-spiffy new email address: robin@robinwrightcommissions.com! I had to get it because I'm using MailChimp to fire out e-mails to my customers (and do things like send out coupon codes!), and apparently various email hosts would tell you that my e-mails are spam and kill them. That's no good.
In short: I done fucked up. Nice thing about business though, is that fuckups let you see what you're doing wrong and give you a chance to do better business.
Look for more comics from me soon!
NOW MORE EXCITING THINGS
Y'all motherfuckers better bookmark http://robinwrightcommissions.com because it's my new center for commission information. All of my pricing will be listed there in a convenient gallery that I'll flesh out with more examples as I create them, and a handy-dandy quote request form that you can use when you want to commission me!
I've also got a whiffy-spiffy new email address: robin@robinwrightcommissions.com! I had to get it because I'm using MailChimp to fire out e-mails to my customers (and do things like send out coupon codes!), and apparently various email hosts would tell you that my e-mails are spam and kill them. That's no good.
In short: I done fucked up. Nice thing about business though, is that fuckups let you see what you're doing wrong and give you a chance to do better business.
Look for more comics from me soon!
A Lengthy Essay About Patreon
General | Posted 9 years agoI've recently noticed a wave of websites complaining about ad blocker software and how it's killing their business. "Please, dear customer," they say, "we need you to enable these obnoxious and potentially dangerous elements on our website because it's the only way we can make money!"
I'm sorry, but if you're not making money, your business model is wrong.
And that got me thinking. Patreon has become very popular with furries, but a lot of them are using it wrong—and I know they're using it wrong, because they're complaining about how people are cheesing the system. So, to help, I have some basic online business guidelines for you to learn and share!
1) If your business model is vulnerable to piracy, your business model is wrong.
2) If you can't handle producing your rewards for ten thousand patrons, your business model is wrong.
3) If your customers can exploit your operation to get more for their money than you intend, your business model is wrong.
4) If you don't understand why you're not making money, your business model is wrong.
Let's elaborate on each of these points.
POINT 1: Piracy is not the enemy; bad business models are the enemy.
There are people out there who are dedicated to fighting Patreon as a means of making a living. Seriously. They will subscribe to your Patreon, and actually pay you, so that they can post all your patron-only material someplace for free, and cripple your operation. These people HATE that you expect money for your hard work.
You could spend hours and hours hunting down this leaked material, trying to track down the people who are leaking it, and struggle endlessly to keep your content securely behind that paywall. You will fail. People with way more money and resources than you have failed. You cannot stop piracy, and if you try, you'll collapse under the cost and effort.
But you can circumvent it.
There are things that cannot be pirated. You can pirate a finished comic page, but you can't pirate the chance to chat with me while I draw it. You can pirate a finished commission, but you can't pirate the chance to get a commission from me. You see what I'm getting at? Products can be stolen; experiences and services can't.
The main fact that makes digital products vulnerable to piracy is that they are able to be duplicated. If you want your patreon to be invulnerable to piracy, then you should make your duplicatable material free, and only put services and experiences behind a paywall. Patreon themselves even advocate this practice by saying that your main content stream should be free. This means there's nothing to pirate. You haven't stopped piracy, you've just made it so that your income isn't based on something that can be gotten for free.
That brings us neatly to...
POINT 2: Your rewards should scale, or you'll regret it.
Patreon rewards are meant to be given out every month. I have a friend on Patreon who made the mistake of promising a sketch every month to every $10 patron. He now has 60 ten-dollar patrons and has to do two sketches every day to keep up. He's getting to the point where he doesn't have time for his main content, and he's not sure what to do because he doesn't want to renege on his promise to his patrons. He couldn't possibly have 1000 $10 patrons.
Your rewards need to be scalable; if you find yourself in a place where you have to turn away customers, how do you expect to be successful?
Let's say you're making a comic. A scalable reward would be a printed copy of the book. Your printer can presumably print any number of copies, and since you're not the one printing it, it doesn't translate to more work for you. Other good rewards would include credits in your book, periodic Q&A e-mails, private streams that any number of people can watch.
Now you might think that a digital image, which can be duplicated any number of times, would make a good reward, but see POINT 1 above. You've put a duplicatable item behind a paywall! Oops!
POINT 3: Don't blame Patreon because you don't know how to use it.
I've seen complaints by people who have suggested that Patreon is cheesable. For example, it is possible to subscribe for a month, get the reward, and then bail. I've also seen complaints that patrons can ask for refunds of their subscription fees. Patreon, what the hell?
The fact is, if you're conducting your business properly, the fact that people can do these things should affect you very minimally, if at all. Put yourself in the shoes of a patron: if you feel that you were defrauded by a creator, you should be able to get a refund! And if you realize you can't afford to support a creator, you should be able to bail out at any time.
As a creator, your Patreon campaign should be designed to handle these events. If you follow the above guidelines, you should be fine. It won't cost you any extra time or money to provide patrons with your rewards, and you won't have any content vulnerable to piracy that they can abscond with.
And the truth is, the people who will take your content and then get a refund are assholes, and in my experience, if you aren't an asshole yourself, most of your fans won't be either. The majority of your Patreon income will be secure and regular. So the lesson here is, don't be an asshole!
POINT 4: If you're not making money, it's your own fault.
If you're aiming to make money from your art, your art is a business, and business is brutal. The first lesson anyone hoping to be successful in business needs to learn is when you fail, it's your fault; when you make it, it's because YOU MADE IT.
It's a harsh lesson, because many times it feels like we're blindsided by things we could never have anticipated—but just because we didn't see it coming and had no control over it doesn't mean we shouldn't have been prepared for it. You should be setting aside money for emergencies, you should have contingencies in plan for disasters, you should be able to withstand problems.
Be humble. Recognize and own your failures. Your customers and clients will be better disposed to your screwups if you are willing to be responsible for them. Your excuses will be seen by your clientele as exactly that: excuses. Be honest about your fuckups and take responsibility.
When you've realized that you and only you are responsible for your success, you'll stop blaming everyone else for the fact that your business is doing poorly, and you'll start doing the productive thing, which is asking yourself, "What am I doing wrong, and how can I fix it?"
POINT 5: YOUR ART IS VALUABLE.
This last point is mostly opinion on my part, so I didn't include it above, but it's worth considering. Patreon rewards are optional. It's easy to forget, but the main point of Patreon is to support art. Patreon is not a store where you buy rewards; it's a place where you have the ability to help the artists that you love make more art that you love.
For example, I'm going to be launching a webcomic on Patreon soon, and I'm strongly considering not having any reward levels for the comic. What I will have is milestone goals, which would be simple things like "I'm making enough money to do 2 more pages per month now."
I wouldn't feel bad about this, because by supporting my comic, you get: my comic. The comic itself is valuable! Artists on Patreon seem sometimes to feel as though they owe their patrons even more because they're getting money, but, at least in my opinion, the whole point of Patreon is to support an artist.
The point of rewards is to encourage people to pledge more money to your campaign by offering them extra incentives—but it's entirely up to you whether or not you want to take on the responsibility of providing those incentives. You may find that people who love your work are generous without needing coaxing or marketing tactics. Or you may find that you need the extra boost provided by a rewards scheme. It's up to you, but remember: if you promise people incentives, you have a responsibility to provide them.
Closing Thoughts
I hope this gives you a little insight into Patreon and why some artists are struggling with it. Patreon seems to me like an amazing tool for artists, but like most tools, you have to use it right to get the maximum utility from it.
Good luck out there!
I'm sorry, but if you're not making money, your business model is wrong.
And that got me thinking. Patreon has become very popular with furries, but a lot of them are using it wrong—and I know they're using it wrong, because they're complaining about how people are cheesing the system. So, to help, I have some basic online business guidelines for you to learn and share!
1) If your business model is vulnerable to piracy, your business model is wrong.
2) If you can't handle producing your rewards for ten thousand patrons, your business model is wrong.
3) If your customers can exploit your operation to get more for their money than you intend, your business model is wrong.
4) If you don't understand why you're not making money, your business model is wrong.
Let's elaborate on each of these points.
POINT 1: Piracy is not the enemy; bad business models are the enemy.
There are people out there who are dedicated to fighting Patreon as a means of making a living. Seriously. They will subscribe to your Patreon, and actually pay you, so that they can post all your patron-only material someplace for free, and cripple your operation. These people HATE that you expect money for your hard work.
You could spend hours and hours hunting down this leaked material, trying to track down the people who are leaking it, and struggle endlessly to keep your content securely behind that paywall. You will fail. People with way more money and resources than you have failed. You cannot stop piracy, and if you try, you'll collapse under the cost and effort.
But you can circumvent it.
There are things that cannot be pirated. You can pirate a finished comic page, but you can't pirate the chance to chat with me while I draw it. You can pirate a finished commission, but you can't pirate the chance to get a commission from me. You see what I'm getting at? Products can be stolen; experiences and services can't.
The main fact that makes digital products vulnerable to piracy is that they are able to be duplicated. If you want your patreon to be invulnerable to piracy, then you should make your duplicatable material free, and only put services and experiences behind a paywall. Patreon themselves even advocate this practice by saying that your main content stream should be free. This means there's nothing to pirate. You haven't stopped piracy, you've just made it so that your income isn't based on something that can be gotten for free.
That brings us neatly to...
POINT 2: Your rewards should scale, or you'll regret it.
Patreon rewards are meant to be given out every month. I have a friend on Patreon who made the mistake of promising a sketch every month to every $10 patron. He now has 60 ten-dollar patrons and has to do two sketches every day to keep up. He's getting to the point where he doesn't have time for his main content, and he's not sure what to do because he doesn't want to renege on his promise to his patrons. He couldn't possibly have 1000 $10 patrons.
Your rewards need to be scalable; if you find yourself in a place where you have to turn away customers, how do you expect to be successful?
Let's say you're making a comic. A scalable reward would be a printed copy of the book. Your printer can presumably print any number of copies, and since you're not the one printing it, it doesn't translate to more work for you. Other good rewards would include credits in your book, periodic Q&A e-mails, private streams that any number of people can watch.
Now you might think that a digital image, which can be duplicated any number of times, would make a good reward, but see POINT 1 above. You've put a duplicatable item behind a paywall! Oops!
POINT 3: Don't blame Patreon because you don't know how to use it.
I've seen complaints by people who have suggested that Patreon is cheesable. For example, it is possible to subscribe for a month, get the reward, and then bail. I've also seen complaints that patrons can ask for refunds of their subscription fees. Patreon, what the hell?
The fact is, if you're conducting your business properly, the fact that people can do these things should affect you very minimally, if at all. Put yourself in the shoes of a patron: if you feel that you were defrauded by a creator, you should be able to get a refund! And if you realize you can't afford to support a creator, you should be able to bail out at any time.
As a creator, your Patreon campaign should be designed to handle these events. If you follow the above guidelines, you should be fine. It won't cost you any extra time or money to provide patrons with your rewards, and you won't have any content vulnerable to piracy that they can abscond with.
And the truth is, the people who will take your content and then get a refund are assholes, and in my experience, if you aren't an asshole yourself, most of your fans won't be either. The majority of your Patreon income will be secure and regular. So the lesson here is, don't be an asshole!
POINT 4: If you're not making money, it's your own fault.
If you're aiming to make money from your art, your art is a business, and business is brutal. The first lesson anyone hoping to be successful in business needs to learn is when you fail, it's your fault; when you make it, it's because YOU MADE IT.
It's a harsh lesson, because many times it feels like we're blindsided by things we could never have anticipated—but just because we didn't see it coming and had no control over it doesn't mean we shouldn't have been prepared for it. You should be setting aside money for emergencies, you should have contingencies in plan for disasters, you should be able to withstand problems.
Be humble. Recognize and own your failures. Your customers and clients will be better disposed to your screwups if you are willing to be responsible for them. Your excuses will be seen by your clientele as exactly that: excuses. Be honest about your fuckups and take responsibility.
When you've realized that you and only you are responsible for your success, you'll stop blaming everyone else for the fact that your business is doing poorly, and you'll start doing the productive thing, which is asking yourself, "What am I doing wrong, and how can I fix it?"
POINT 5: YOUR ART IS VALUABLE.
This last point is mostly opinion on my part, so I didn't include it above, but it's worth considering. Patreon rewards are optional. It's easy to forget, but the main point of Patreon is to support art. Patreon is not a store where you buy rewards; it's a place where you have the ability to help the artists that you love make more art that you love.
For example, I'm going to be launching a webcomic on Patreon soon, and I'm strongly considering not having any reward levels for the comic. What I will have is milestone goals, which would be simple things like "I'm making enough money to do 2 more pages per month now."
I wouldn't feel bad about this, because by supporting my comic, you get: my comic. The comic itself is valuable! Artists on Patreon seem sometimes to feel as though they owe their patrons even more because they're getting money, but, at least in my opinion, the whole point of Patreon is to support an artist.
The point of rewards is to encourage people to pledge more money to your campaign by offering them extra incentives—but it's entirely up to you whether or not you want to take on the responsibility of providing those incentives. You may find that people who love your work are generous without needing coaxing or marketing tactics. Or you may find that you need the extra boost provided by a rewards scheme. It's up to you, but remember: if you promise people incentives, you have a responsibility to provide them.
Closing Thoughts
I hope this gives you a little insight into Patreon and why some artists are struggling with it. Patreon seems to me like an amazing tool for artists, but like most tools, you have to use it right to get the maximum utility from it.
Good luck out there!
IMPORTANT Queue Update
General | Posted 9 years agoHey lovelies!
I have a confession to make. This queue practice is new to me, and as a result I overbooked myself this month. I didn't leave myself enough time to work on all the commissions I've taken AND my normal illustration job. Basically, I got all excited to be making all this art for you guys and forgot how time works.
I want to make sure that I give you guys the best quality art, and with my work crammed together like it is, quality's going to drop off as I get tired and am constantly running up on deadlines.
So, I've decided that I need to move some deadlines around. I'll be taking this week to catch up on my illustration job and Public Indecency, and then the deadlines will be spread out a just a bit so I can fit in the rest of the comic work.
"Well great, dumbass. So when will my work be done??" I hear you ask, hypothetical angry client. Have no fear: at most you'll be waiting a couple more weeks (if you're on the tail end of the queue). Most of you will have to wait an extra week or so.
I'm very sorry if this is an incovenience. If you were expecting your work by my deadline for something important like a birthday, please let me know and I'll try to shift my schedule to accommodate.
You'll be able to see the adjusted schedule soon at http://bit.ly/RobinQueue
Have a great day!
I have a confession to make. This queue practice is new to me, and as a result I overbooked myself this month. I didn't leave myself enough time to work on all the commissions I've taken AND my normal illustration job. Basically, I got all excited to be making all this art for you guys and forgot how time works.
I want to make sure that I give you guys the best quality art, and with my work crammed together like it is, quality's going to drop off as I get tired and am constantly running up on deadlines.
So, I've decided that I need to move some deadlines around. I'll be taking this week to catch up on my illustration job and Public Indecency, and then the deadlines will be spread out a just a bit so I can fit in the rest of the comic work.
"Well great, dumbass. So when will my work be done??" I hear you ask, hypothetical angry client. Have no fear: at most you'll be waiting a couple more weeks (if you're on the tail end of the queue). Most of you will have to wait an extra week or so.
I'm very sorry if this is an incovenience. If you were expecting your work by my deadline for something important like a birthday, please let me know and I'll try to shift my schedule to accommodate.
You'll be able to see the adjusted schedule soon at http://bit.ly/RobinQueue
Have a great day!
IS MY BIRFDAY
General | Posted 9 years agoI'M 31 HOW DID THIS HAPPEN
STOP THE MADNESS
STOP THE MADNESS
Quickbooks
General | Posted 9 years agoSo, this here is exactly what I was talking about in my earlier journal about PayPal being bad.
I've used Quickbooks Self-Employed for a few months now to keep track of my income and taxes and so forth. It's a very useful tool, but Quickbooks Online offers invoicing, which would be super handy for me to have. I was in a pickle: In order to get all of the nifty benefits, I'd need to pay for both services. Yech. That's why I started using Square.
Quickbooks has just as of today rolled out invoicing for Self-Employed, though. And I'll be honest: it would make my life a lot simpler to have my accounting software be directly tied to my payment processing. So there's a good chance that I'll switch over (since invoicing is now included in the regular fee I already pay for Quickbooks).
What does this mean for you? Absolutely nothing. You don't have to do anything. If you've already paid me, your payments to me are still good, and you don't have to sign up for anything. Because I don't use a controlled payment ecosystem like PayPal, nothing will change for you guys if I swap processors. The look of the invoice will be a little different, and now I'll be able to accept Discover cards AND direct bank transfers (something I couldn't do with Square).
If you're an artist, I implore you to look into leaving the PayPal ecosystem for your own good and for the good of your clients. If you're not sure how these payment processor things work, note me or respond to this journal and I'll help you be more professional starting today.
EDIT: Quickbooks invoicing is still in the development stages, so I probably won't be switching just yet but they're looking to improve the service before a full rollout. I'll be sending them feedback to try to get it up to speed with Square. But! Again, you can expect no big changes on your end other than more convenience :}
I've used Quickbooks Self-Employed for a few months now to keep track of my income and taxes and so forth. It's a very useful tool, but Quickbooks Online offers invoicing, which would be super handy for me to have. I was in a pickle: In order to get all of the nifty benefits, I'd need to pay for both services. Yech. That's why I started using Square.
Quickbooks has just as of today rolled out invoicing for Self-Employed, though. And I'll be honest: it would make my life a lot simpler to have my accounting software be directly tied to my payment processing. So there's a good chance that I'll switch over (since invoicing is now included in the regular fee I already pay for Quickbooks).
What does this mean for you? Absolutely nothing. You don't have to do anything. If you've already paid me, your payments to me are still good, and you don't have to sign up for anything. Because I don't use a controlled payment ecosystem like PayPal, nothing will change for you guys if I swap processors. The look of the invoice will be a little different, and now I'll be able to accept Discover cards AND direct bank transfers (something I couldn't do with Square).
If you're an artist, I implore you to look into leaving the PayPal ecosystem for your own good and for the good of your clients. If you're not sure how these payment processor things work, note me or respond to this journal and I'll help you be more professional starting today.
EDIT: Quickbooks invoicing is still in the development stages, so I probably won't be switching just yet but they're looking to improve the service before a full rollout. I'll be sending them feedback to try to get it up to speed with Square. But! Again, you can expect no big changes on your end other than more convenience :}
The PayPal Problem
General | Posted 9 years agoPayPal is a problem for artists, and not just because it makes life hard for artists with its draconian policies. I'm going to propose to you that it's not PayPal's policies that are at fault, it's their overall business model. PayPal alternatives like Serve or Google Wallet would be just as big a problem—and in fact, the introduction of PayPal alternatives would make the situation even worse.
If you use PayPal to handle your payment processing, you are requiring all of your clients to exist in a very specific payment ecosystem. They have to abide by PayPal's rules and policies in order to pay you, because PayPal is the only way to pay PayPal—you can't use, say, Serve to pay a PayPal user unless you get a PayPal account and attach your Serve card. To make matters worse, your clients will then go out from you and encourage other artists also to use PayPal because it's just simpler to do so.
Over time, we all get trapped in PayPal's ecosystem, and when PayPal decides it's time to fuck us, we can't do a whole lot about it.
I've switched to Square because it completely eliminates the constraint of payment. Whatever bank you use, I can accept your card. If you don't like your bank, and you decide to switch banks, I will still be able to accept your card. My payment processor does not lock my clients in to policies that they may not support. Neither does it lock me into such policies; if I want to, I can switch to another payment processor, like Quickbooks or Due or vCita, or even just pay for a merchant account and manually do my own invoicing. And if I do that, my clients won't have to do anything different; they'll just enter their card information and be done.
PayPal is bad for our community because they basically own our community. They get to tell us how we do business, which is not cool.
If you would like more information on how to use Square to sell your art, please feel free to send me a note and I'll get you all the info you need. It's simple, powerful, and safe. And you'll get a free card reader so you can sell art at conventions quick and easy, too! :}
This journal not paid for by Square or its affiliates I just sweet jesus cupcake fucking christ do I hate me some PayPal
If you use PayPal to handle your payment processing, you are requiring all of your clients to exist in a very specific payment ecosystem. They have to abide by PayPal's rules and policies in order to pay you, because PayPal is the only way to pay PayPal—you can't use, say, Serve to pay a PayPal user unless you get a PayPal account and attach your Serve card. To make matters worse, your clients will then go out from you and encourage other artists also to use PayPal because it's just simpler to do so.
Over time, we all get trapped in PayPal's ecosystem, and when PayPal decides it's time to fuck us, we can't do a whole lot about it.
I've switched to Square because it completely eliminates the constraint of payment. Whatever bank you use, I can accept your card. If you don't like your bank, and you decide to switch banks, I will still be able to accept your card. My payment processor does not lock my clients in to policies that they may not support. Neither does it lock me into such policies; if I want to, I can switch to another payment processor, like Quickbooks or Due or vCita, or even just pay for a merchant account and manually do my own invoicing. And if I do that, my clients won't have to do anything different; they'll just enter their card information and be done.
PayPal is bad for our community because they basically own our community. They get to tell us how we do business, which is not cool.
If you would like more information on how to use Square to sell your art, please feel free to send me a note and I'll get you all the info you need. It's simple, powerful, and safe. And you'll get a free card reader so you can sell art at conventions quick and easy, too! :}
This journal not paid for by Square or its affiliates I just sweet jesus cupcake fucking christ do I hate me some PayPal
Square Primer (or: How To Use Square To Pay Me)
General | Posted 9 years agoSo you read the journal saying I can't use PayPal and am switching to Square, and you said to yourself, "Oh no! I don't have Square! How do I pay the pretty dragon lady?" Okay, here we go!
Step One: I send an invoice to your preferred contact e-mail.
Step Two: You fill out your debit or credit card information.
Step Three: I get paid!
I get a lot of people coming to me from the PayPal ecosystem who are concerned that they won't be able to work with me because I use Square instead of PayPal. It's important that everyone (especially artists who are looking for a PayPal alternative) understand that Square is not like PayPal; you don't have to sign up for anything to use it. It's just a payment processor: you just pay with your card.
If you are using PayPal and would like to order something from me, PayPal offers a totally free debit card that connects directly to your balance, and because it is a Mastercard I can totally accept it with no problems at all.
Hopefully this clears some stuff up! I'll also post a journal here in a little bit explaining why PayPal is bad for you as an artist and why you should be considering an alternative payment processor like Square.
Step One: I send an invoice to your preferred contact e-mail.
Step Two: You fill out your debit or credit card information.
Step Three: I get paid!
I get a lot of people coming to me from the PayPal ecosystem who are concerned that they won't be able to work with me because I use Square instead of PayPal. It's important that everyone (especially artists who are looking for a PayPal alternative) understand that Square is not like PayPal; you don't have to sign up for anything to use it. It's just a payment processor: you just pay with your card.
If you are using PayPal and would like to order something from me, PayPal offers a totally free debit card that connects directly to your balance, and because it is a Mastercard I can totally accept it with no problems at all.
Hopefully this clears some stuff up! I'll also post a journal here in a little bit explaining why PayPal is bad for you as an artist and why you should be considering an alternative payment processor like Square.
PayPal Update
General | Posted 9 years agoYesterday morning I was greeted with an unpleasant notification from PayPal: they are instituting a new policy wherein I will only have immediate access to the first $500 I make each month; all payments made beyond that first $500 are withheld for 21 days.
I called PayPal about it because art is my only job, and I cannot have some of my "paycheck" kept back for almost a month every month. I was informed that they could do nothing about it because my account is too new, and that I was informed of the new policy when I created my account.
I was not. I read every document carefully, and during the first month of my account I received roughly $900 without any funds withheld. This policy change was rolled out, for me at least, with no warning.
After discussing the matter with some very pleasant PayPal representatives, I concluded that there was no way to make an exception for my account in any way, and as a result, PayPal is not going to be a viable payment option for me.
I really tried to give them a fair shot, and to their credit, they have excellent invoicing and customer tracking options; however, I live on the money I make from you guys. Putting a significant amount of it aside "to protect PayPal" (which is what they told me) is simply unacceptable.
So, as of this week, I will be transitioning toQuickbooks Payments Square for my invoicing and payment solution. I already use Intuit products heavily in managing my business, so upgrading my business software to include payment processing is a natural step. It turns out that Quickbooks Online does not have many of the features I'm utilizing in Quickbooks Self-Employed, and invoicing alone is not worth an extra $13 a month, since Square does it for free. I won't be able to handle bank transfers, but that probably would comprise a very small percentage of my clients.
I will be able to accept all major credit cards (including the PayPal card)and bank transfers. I do apologize if this causes any inconvenience.
UPDATE: PayPal has just updated my account and increased my limit to $1000, and there's a possibility that it might continue to increase over time. This comes too little, too late for my taste; as pleasant as their support staff was, I was deeply disturbed both by this policy, by the way it was rolled out, by the inherent dishonesty that I encountered, and by some other info that cropped up during my conversation with support that has led me to believe that PayPal cannot be trusted with processing my payments. So I'm not going back to PayPal, but I felt I should post this update to be transparent about it.
I called PayPal about it because art is my only job, and I cannot have some of my "paycheck" kept back for almost a month every month. I was informed that they could do nothing about it because my account is too new, and that I was informed of the new policy when I created my account.
I was not. I read every document carefully, and during the first month of my account I received roughly $900 without any funds withheld. This policy change was rolled out, for me at least, with no warning.
After discussing the matter with some very pleasant PayPal representatives, I concluded that there was no way to make an exception for my account in any way, and as a result, PayPal is not going to be a viable payment option for me.
I really tried to give them a fair shot, and to their credit, they have excellent invoicing and customer tracking options; however, I live on the money I make from you guys. Putting a significant amount of it aside "to protect PayPal" (which is what they told me) is simply unacceptable.
So, as of this week, I will be transitioning to
I will be able to accept all major credit cards (including the PayPal card)
UPDATE: PayPal has just updated my account and increased my limit to $1000, and there's a possibility that it might continue to increase over time. This comes too little, too late for my taste; as pleasant as their support staff was, I was deeply disturbed both by this policy, by the way it was rolled out, by the inherent dishonesty that I encountered, and by some other info that cropped up during my conversation with support that has led me to believe that PayPal cannot be trusted with processing my payments. So I'm not going back to PayPal, but I felt I should post this update to be transparent about it.
