Well, I've finally gotten with the times. It seems the current way to make money is to post clean or censored art here and adult art on Patreon. As such, expect a flood of clean artwork to be posted here soon, and future commissions and adult personal artwork to be posted there.

Also, I don't currently have any commissions, so I'm not only open for commissions but also should have a quick turn around time. Any takers? I could certainly use the extra Christmas monies. I just paid bills and have literally $16 left on my card. :/ I still have 11 rabbits to find homes for, and I still only have one pitiful offer on my farm that has to be gone by New Year's. If I can get rid of those things, we should be alright after that financially - I hope. But it will be just barely enough and still a very tight budget until the farm is paid off in a year.

In good news, I should be finally finished getting divorced in about a week. Yay! Merry Christmas to me. lol

This is a very basic guide to my art pricing. Please contact me directly to get a more accurate quote for your desired art piece.

All artwork is currently traditional on 8.5"x11" paper, scanned digitally. A sketch will be sent for approval by commissioners before inking and coloring begin unless otherwise noted. All artwork is fully colored in colored pencil with ink outlines unless otherwise specified. If you would like the original, please let me know and I can figure out your shipping cost, but this is only available inside the US.

Single character: $30
~Additional characters: +$10 each
~Background: +$10

Reference Sheet (3 pose): $50

YCH's or adoptables will be priced on an individual basis and in the description of the post. Available adoptables are listed under Scraps.

Highly detailed markings or complex backgrounds or poses may change the price. No added charge for adult or fetish artwork. Clean artwork will be posted here, and adult artwork will be posted to my Patreon unless requested to be private (in which case it will be emailed to you directly only). Adult artwork may be censored for posting on FA to encourage users to pay for the finished works on Patreon.

PayPal: Shayla.Furykin[at]gmail.com

Patreon: www.patreon.com/Shayla

My husband is in jail and never coming back. I'm getting divorced. Unfortunately, I'm disabled and he was our main income. Currently I've got to keep all the bills paid like we were doing before without like 50% of our previous income. I'm about $500 a month short on just paying the bills, and I'm not allowed to sell anything (until the divorce is done) or earn income (ie commissions) for now without risking losing my new Medicaid coverage that I need for the next crisis that's come up.

In all this mess, I also found out I have precancerous lesions on my cervix. I had a colposcopy to check them and they were biopsied, and now I'm having a LEEP procedure (for your own sakes, don't Google that) to remove them on October 10th. Meanwhile, I had a colonoscopy today to check that end because I've also had symptoms of rectal cancer. Maybe it's nothing, but I always hope for the best and prepare for the worst. They didn't find anything so far, but they did a biopsy. So we still don't know what's wrong, but at least it doesn't seem like it's too bad. :/ Still worried.

TL;DR: Please donate so we don't lose our house...
https://www.gofundme.com/qqy2k-save-our-home

Most of you are friends locally and already know what's going on, but for the rest of you, I have been going through the worst level of hell imaginable this past week or so. I had to have my own husband of 6 years arrested on 8/16 for sexually abusing our daughter. See for yourself:

http://www.oklahomacounty.org/coshe.....N_ID=200516106
Edit: We got a new sheriff and they redid the whole site. The link is now:
https://aniisp1.oklahomacounty.org/.....N_ID=200516106

He was our main source of income. So now I'm frantically talking to every government assistance agency trying to afford to not lose our house and keep my kid fed. We've gotten food stamps, and they upped my disability (a whole $50). I'm going to try to use the money from selling the farm to pay down the mortgage on our house so I can refinance it to a reasonable payment... A friend set up a GoFundMe page for us, and we've raised enough to make it through the next two weeks, but I'm still terrified and not sure what will happen after that. I know I've asked for help before, but if there were ever a time we needed it, it's now. v.v,

TL;DR: Blah, blah, blah. I've been panicking for a week straight. Please help us not lose our home because my husband is a shitbag.

GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/qqy2k-save-our-home

Update: No one has donated since I had to turn off my FB account, and I still REALLY need help keeping my bills paid until we can work things out. :'( I'm already falling behind...

I finally have a friend with a scanner. I've updated over 30 images from my gallery and more on my Patreon for my few patrons. If you didn't know, I have a lot more art on my Patreon. Most of my personal art is there too. I mainly post my commissions here (or the rare personal adult piece - since my Patreon is clean art only). Anyway, there are lots of better images now. There are still a few more recent ones left to update, but most are updated now, and the rest will be updated in the coming week or so. Check it out!

And check out my Patreon! Even just $1 a month gets you access to over 22 exclusive art pieces (so far)!
https://www.patreon.com/Shayla

Just posting to say I'm almost -finally- caught up with my backlog of commissions (mostly for Cornel). They've stayed open, but I've been really slow since I have poor health and an anxiety problem that often prevents me from even looking at doing art. But, it's safe to say I've been doing a LOT better lately overall. This weekend will be rough since tomorrow is one year since my friend Seka passed away, but for once I'm doing good and handling my problems mostly like a normal person. *gasp* I finally got rid of everything that had been keeping me stressed out and got back to doing things I enjoy with people that make me happy. We still can't afford to move to our farm and have llamas, but we're raising rabbits. Right now I'm hand-feeding 11 baby bunnies from a first-time mom who didn't make enough milk to feed them herself. Busy, busy, busy... But content. <3



In news more related to this page though, I think I'm just going to remove Mullato from my list of waiting commissions. He paid me for 5 pages of a story literally in like... 2013. But I never heard back from him, I don't have access to that email account anymore to look him up there, his page here is deleted, and it's so old that PayPal no longer has record of it. :( I'd like to pay him back at least, but he seems to have disappeared. So if anyone happens to know him offline (he lives overseas somewhere), if he ever shows back up, I'd love to finish his story for him or give him his money back. Otherwise, I guess it's just stuck. Either way, I don't see a reason for it to just sit there on the list forever... :/ So this is my public post: I didn't do his story and I can't, but if he comes back I'd be happy to.

Just as an fyi for all... two... of you whom it matters to: I updated my price guide. Yes, things went up a bit, but not what anyone would consider an unreasonable amount (most went up $5, with full pages going up $10). More importantly, I removed digital art completely because I'm simply unable to do it anymore. I don't have a laptop and my tablet pen has stopped working for some unknown reason (it's not the battery; the button still works, but reinstalling didn't fix it). So until I manage to get an actual laptop in the non-foreseeable future, I cannot do digital art of any kind. Sorry. Traditional only.

I AM opening up commissions again, however, because... well, I'm doing better again and need money. *cough* So if anyone is interested, please let me know. <3 Thank you!

Welcome to summer. I'm melting. It's 85 indoors and nearly 100 outside. x.x

Well, we aren't an official rescue yet, but the rescue work has definitely started. We fostered a bunny (named Bunny!) for a few days last week, and now we have an emergency case. This little boy was just found today in front of an abandoned home with all his stuff. A nice woman had stopped thinking the cage was being thrown out and was going to pick it up when she saw this poor, neglected soul inside! We've checked him over, and he's VERY thin. I can see his spine. He should be at least twice his current weight. His ear is so thick with mites that it is a solid, hard scab all the way down. He's very sweet and friendly and had no problems with me flipping him over to check that he was a boy. Either he has been fixed or he's very young still, but in this condition it's hard to tell.

I've already started him on Nutrical to help him gain some weight quickly, and we'll be treating his ear shortly with some oil and taking him to our vet tomorrow to see if he recommends antibiotics or something else stronger. We'll be reporting him to OKC Animal Welfare in hopes the one who moved and left him in their yard can be found and charged with neglect and abandonment. The poor boy had a bag of hay and all his food and treats in Walmart bags next to him, but he had very little food or water in his nice cage. Someone clearly cared about this rabbit a lot at some point, but then someone left him in the sun alone to die.

If anyone wants to donate toward his care, I'll let you know what his vet bill is when I'm back tomorrow. We'll get him cared for and charge it if we have to. I doubt it'll be too much since we have all the supplies already, but this poor little guy is very bad shape. Never leave a pet rabbit alone outside!!

https://www.facebook.com/tracy.pric.....28505114075670

Still have 3 commission slots open for non-patrons right now... We could really use the help. Our bills are quickly adding up!

We've found the herdsire we'd really like to have, but in order to get him before someone else scoops up this great deal, I need to come up with at LEAST $500! Ouch! I don't want to get overly backlogged, but I'm opening for THREE public commissions of ANYTHING you like. Prices are linked in my homepage, and I draw everything from G to XXX and everything in between. If you can describe it or have a reference, I will draw it!

Who wants to buy some art to help us save llamas? ^.=.^

Alternatively, you can also donate directly here: www.gofundme.com/TherapyLlamaCrew (also has updates and more info)
OR
Become a patron and get exclusive access! Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Shayla

We have officially closed on our land, and you can see pictures on our fundraiser page here:
www.gofundme.com/TherapyLlamaCrew

Woohoo! =D The place is gorgeous and we really want to get out there, but we're still short the $10k to build the cabin. We're working on saving up for it and selling off all we can to help pay to build it, but now we have another major setback. Both our vehicles broke down this week. The car should be fixed by morning; it just had a resister in the fan blow out causing the car to overheat and shut off. The truck, however, is dead. Dead, dead. Had to be towed home today because it died in the middle of the road and will no longer restart. It's been dying and then starting back up for a while now, and the shop said it should be fine to keep going, but this time it didn't start back up and still hasn't. So now we're going to have to sell that vehicle for whatever little we can get out of it, and we're going to need a new one if we're going to move anything. I've found a few we could settle for under $4k, but right now, we only have $1400 total. We're hoping to get another $1500 for the truck (what the mechanic valued it at for us), and we have our old pickup that needs a new ignition to run (like a $20 fix) that we could sell for what we bought it for - $1200. But that will still force us to clear out all the savings we've saved up for our farm to get a newer (used - probably '03-'06) truck. We don't want to destroy our meager savings, so we're going to deal with just having the car for now and hope it'll keep going a while longer. In case of emergency, we'll try to get our roommate's car fixed up and insured, but her car isn't exactly in good shape either. Our car is the newest by far as an '02. x.x

Besides our car troubles, our house here is falling apart again too. The kitchen sink refuses to drain even after 2 bottles of Drano and snaking it until nothing is coming up. A friend is looking at it in the morning, but that could be a major problem. We haven't been able to do dishes all week and have been forced to eat out a lot because we haven't got anything clean to eat on or with or cook on or with. x.x

And, of course, the bathroom is still a hole in the wall. Literally. Hoping to finally make a little progress on it tomorrow if possible. But that's another major expense to remodel that we really can't afford right now. As has been my favorite word lately... UGH!! Everything is breaking at once, and my poor husband has stressed himself literally sick over it. If anyone can help, we'd really appreciate it, even if it's just letting me bum a ride places... x.x

---

That's upsetting. On to the good news!

Our farm is awesome, and we finally got to see the catfish pond. We saw a coyote take off as we drove up the driveway, and there were plenty of deer tracks around the pond. Yay for hunting. Totally willing to rent out hunting space until we get moved in if anyone is interested. There's also literal TONS of huge rocks - I LOVE rocks. I may be selling many of them to help pay for the farm stuff. Just gotta dig them up and find a way to move rocks that weigh more than I do.

Our last rabbit kit sold today! Now the only bunny we have left to find a home for is our pet-only handicapped girl, Tyr. She's very sweet but has a gimp foot from her miraculous survival of a dog just about biting her leg off at 2 weeks old. If anyone is interested in a sweet pet bunny and can overlook her messed up foot, her info is here:
http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....183996956.html

We have 3 more litters to be born this month (2 first-time moms!) beginning on the 23rd. So we'll have LOTS of baby bunnies for sale come mid-October or so when they're weaned. Already had at least 5 people say they want one or more when they're ready, so if you want one, you best pre-order one now! lol There's no telling how many or few will be born or survive with 2 new moms to keep an eye on, but if all goes well, we should have around 18-20. Fingers crossed our new moms do well!

I've sold a fair amount of stuff, but we still have a TON of stuff to sell to try to afford our farm. If we can get it all sold, we'll be set. Once we get our cabin built and this place patched up and sold, we'll be back in the green with plenty of savings in the bank. But for now, everything is pretty tight. I'll try to do some art auctions in the near future to try to raise money for our farm. As seen in my gallery, my art has been steadily improving. ^.=.^

If anyone can help out by buying things, here's what we have for sale that I have photos and links of:

http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....183996956.html - Tyr bunny, as mentioned above; $10 or $30 with cage and all her stuff
http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....153043872.html - Antique 1910 table sewing machine; reduced to $1000
http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....151460072.html - 300+ Beanie Babies, more not pictured; will take $1000 for ALL
http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....151048458.html - VHS collection; $1 each or $20 takes the whole lot
http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....193489682.html - 2 sweet cats; FREE but must meet requirements listed
http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....174925360.html - vintage women's jewelry
http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....202612949.html - men's jewelry
http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....173356776.html - 4 prom dresses, various sizes; $15 each or $50 for all 4
http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....215492787.html - metal window awnings; $100 each or $500 OBO for all 7

Lots more to get rid of, but this is what I have posted up so far with pics and details. Thanks!

www.GoFundMe.com/TherapyLlamaCrew

We finally have a closing date!! WOO! We close on our new farm at 9am on Tuesday! YAY!!

That said, we're still a long way off from affording to build our cabin out there so we can get moved. Llamas aside, we REALLY want to be moved in by next August so Eevee can start school there instead of transferring later. PLEASE consider donating, share our posts, and tell your friends about our project! I've done a TON of work to get this going, but we need YOU!

We've worked out the best way to build our home, and we're going to build in stages. Stage 1 is a simple little cabin with 2 rooms, a dining area, and a bathroom. It will allow us enough space to stay on weekends to get set up. Stage 2 adds the kitchen and proper dining room, and that should be fine a little more long-term, but Travis and I will still be basically sleeping on a couch. By step 3, we'll have the den done and plenty of space. Lastly, stage 4 adds the laundry room, master bed and bath, and the deck.

If we can get even stage 1 done, we can start setting up to take in animals. I've priced everything I can off Craigslist and online, and it should be around $2500 to build stage 1. Travis asked that we raise $5000 before we start building just in case, which is a reasonable request and may get is through to stage 2. If we can get that far, we can move and make sure everything is working out.

We need about $10k to build the whole house, which is REALLY not bad for an almost 2000sq ft home! We've pulled down the price to as little as possible and had all our windows and some bathroom sinks donated by a wonderful lady named Pamela. But we still need MONEY to get the rest.

Two more rabbits sold this week, and a third (Tyr) is on her way out Friday. We just have 2 doe rabbit kits left until mid-October when the next round are ready. I've posted new items daily for sale, and I will continue to sell off as much of our belongings that we don't NEED to keep as possible, but that likely won't bring us the full amount. Even if you can only donate a few dollars, it'll go a LONG way. It may not seem like much, but $5 could get us a light fixture, a fence post, or go toward any other needed item! PLEASE donate whatever you can spare!

Now that we have a closing date set, I know I have an additional $500 to add to our savings (my disability check for the month), so we're almost half-way to stage 1 with what we already had saved up. If we can make it to $5k, we can get this thing going!! HELP?!

Not only will our farm be rescuing llamas, we'll be adopting farm-friendly shelter/rescue dogs, TONS of barn cats, and likely other unwanted livestock animals as well. We have ducks waiting for us, and we'll be helping the environment with sustainable farming! Help us help animals, help the planet, and help others! Thank you!

Currently for sale:
Doe kits: http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....183919056.html
VHS collection: http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....151048458.html
300+ Beanie Babies: http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....151460072.html (more found, will add later)
Antique Table Sewing Machine: http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....153043872.html
Four Prom-Type Dresses: http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....173356776.html
Vintage Jewelry: http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....174925360.html
Men's Jewelry: http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....202612949.html

Alright, friends! We've added our offline sales to our fundraiser to get to $208. If we can get to $500, our fundraiser will show up on GoFundMe's main site so others can help donate! Please consider donating a small amount or buying some of our items for sale so we can reach the very important $500 mark! Thank you to all our donors, customers, and friends! Share, share, share!

Sadly, we're too late to save Steve the goat. He's started keeping our friends' ram from doing his job, so he has to go to the freezer. =( But we can still help the llamas if we can get the funds raised in time! We have our Muscovy ducks lined up and in waiting now too! And, of course, once we have a barn set up, we'll be adopting plenty of barn cats from the OKC pound and/or Humane Society and a few good livestock dogs from other local rescues! Please help us help animals and people with our farm and future therapy-trained llamas!

Please consider donating, sharing, and buying our stuff for sale! (Stuff for sale listed here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6953855/ )

Fundraiser: www.GoFundMe.com/TherapyLlamaCrew

Well, the fundraiser is going poorly at best, so here's my last resort... I'm selling basically anything and everything that I don't need, don't want, or just don't want to have to move! So here's your chance to get anything from antiques and collectibles to modern jewelry, plush toys to adult art. Please consider buying something. If we can raise even $3k, we can move and rescue the llamas! We're already too late for Steve the goat, but we can still help seven llamas get a new home where I can train them for therapy work... I can't go much lower. I can beg, barter, and draw, but I can't save them without HELP. Everything is in place except MONEY for a house or building materials... So here's hoping something will sell.

STUFF:

VHS collection - http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....151048458.html
Beanie Babies - http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....151460072.html
---> Some are no longer $5 because I've found their worth WAY more. Those are:
..........Legs the frog with MISPRINTED tag: http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/281768973279?
..........Squealer the pig with MISPRINTED tag (same error, not listed yet but taking offers)
UNIQUE Heirloom 1910 Era Table Sewing Machine - http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....153043872.html
TONS of adoptables in my Scraps folder
Two Rabbits - Bink: http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....162045999.html
---> and Frey: http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....162120168.html
We have 7 baby rabbits I will consider selling when weaned in 2 weeks as well for $20 each.
5 prom-type dresses - http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/.....173356776.html

Here's what else I have available but haven't taken pictures of yet to post:
TONS of Pokemon Cards (and some Yugioh, Beabie Baby, Digimon, and Neopets cards)
Random jewelry (already sold all the real gold for weight value; this is nice stuff but not expensive)
BOOKS - 1900's forward, all kinds... HUNDREDS.
Neopets plush toys - dozens, small and medium
OLD-style MLP toys
Tons of clothes
Lots of kid toys of every variety

Heck, I'll even sell my Warhammer 40k army that's half-painted (Eldar), my NES, Super NES, N64, Gameboy Color, and all the games I still have if it'll get these llamas here and us moved. I can't properly explain how much this means to me to be able to get out to our farm so we can have our llamas... So if you can buy something, donate, or even just SHARE any of this stuff, I would greatly appreciate it... I would go tent camp and live with them at this point, but I have a 3-year-old to care for and a picky husband who refuses to live without privacy and at least basic modern conveniences. x.=.x

We've bought our first farm, but we need help funding getting it set up. A generous woman is donating SEVEN llamas to our therapy llama cause, but we need to raise a few thousand ($30k would be GREAT, but every little bit helps!) by the end of winter. We were unable to get a loan (always been the "pay with cash" type and didn't have the credit), so we had to put ALL our savings into buying the land. Now we don't have anything left over for fencing, a trailer for us to stay in, and other farm needs like a barn or tools. Every little bit helps! Please donate if you can, even if it's just a few dollars! Even if you can't donate, please share the link so your friends will hear about it. There are even rewards for larger donation amounts! Thanks!


To donate or for more info:

CLICK HERE --->> www.GoFundMe.com/TherapyLlamaCrew <<---- DONATE

Yep. I'm still alive. We just haven't had a good computer til now. My wonderful husband spent way too much on me this Christmas and got me a SurfacePro 3. Now I can finally start to pick up where I left off. Sorry to the few of you who have had to wait so long, but now progress can finally get made. I'm still not going to open regular commissions just yet though. I want to get caught up, get some practice in, find a working photoshop download, and focus on Patreon. My art will go there first, and I am gradually moving all my clean art there. If you want to see cute things or even be allowed to request art topics, support my patreon! (@ http://www.patreon.com/Shayla ) Any patrons are welcome to request any clean topic or theme by commenting or messaging me there. Patrons also get to have their characters drawn at random in my monthly uploads. The more you donate, the more often I will try to include your character in my art! ;) With my new tablet, I can do simple digital work and get traditional art up faster. Things are looking up!

Unfortunately, the downside is that my dear husband spent our savings to get me this nice $1000 machine... So I really need more patrons and sales...vI'll try to get some auctions and whatnot open asap. Thanks in advance to my friends and supporters. Love you all. Stay tuned for more art! =)

So, I spent the afternoon doing a lot of math. MATH, not meth. D=< Silly furs. Here's what I came up with.

What we have to pay off over time:
New tires (it's own credit card): ~$600
Credit card (random food/gas expenses): ~$1500

Things we want to save for:
Computer (TOP need, so I can get back to digital art!) ~$500
Raised vegetable beds - $1500 (5 very large cedar frames and dirt)
New rabbit cages - $250
scooter/motorcycle (need better gas mileage) - $2k+
Fursuit (last on my list because not needed) - $1800

Farm stuff to save for:
40 acres - $60k
house - $30k
truck - $2k+
livestock trailer - $1k+
chainsaw - $200
livestock ~ $5k+
show shears/blow dryer - $800


This is what we're saving for. If you buy my many adoptables in my scraps or my other art when it's available, this is what your money goes towards, broken down bit by bit.

We have some money saved up in stocks to buy our next home with once we're ready to move and can afford all the farm stuff to go with it. This money is for EMERGENCY only or the house, so no, I don't have a ton of money to go spend on whatever I want. My husband's paycheck is all we live off of right now besides my art, and it has to pay for our house, bills, food, and any other needed items for me, my husband, our daughter, and feeding our roommate, Anu, who helps me with taking care of the house. Am perpetually broke... x.=.x Also, no, we can't get a mortgage for the house because my husband has no credit (because of past medical bills), and I have no reliable income. 'Murica. =/

Anyway, if anyone can help us out in our goals by buying some premade art, bidding on auctions as they come up, donating, becoming a Patron on my Patreon (here: http://www.patreon.com/Shayla ), or just spreading the word so more people see my Scraps full of adoptables and whatnot, we will greatly appreciate it. Thanks all!

Gonna go hide in my room and cry until I can't... ;.=.;

 CassandrusBlackclaw and  Miss.Anthro took me out to tell her goodbye. She tried to get up when I walked up to her and all she could do was shift herself to one side a bit. I gave her lots of hugs and kisses. She even cried on me almost as much as I cried on her, something I had never seen a llama do and didn't even know they could.

Winter was already humming (a sign of being upset) too. He knows Lucy's not doing well. He's been standing over her guarding her since she laid down and couldn't get up. Even when he shied away from us, he never left sight of her and ran the puppies away from her. Eevee brought her a flower, and I took a picture of Lucy with it.

I think Lucy knew this was goodbye. She laid her head on my hand and reluctantly let me kiss her face even though she's always hated that. She was SO thin. She was drooling and her eyes were sunken and watery. You could see little tear streaks in her face fluff. I think she knew what was happening. She could tell I was upset, and just as she always has, she let me hug her and cry into her neck fluff.

I know she knew I loved her very much. She closed her eyes and leaned against me, and we sat there together a while. I petted her neck and told her what a wonderful girl she is and how much she means to me and has done for me. She helped me through one of the hardest parts of my life, and I'm glad I got to be there for her in hers, even if it was just for a little while. I will never forget my Lovely Lucy - the way she always was: sweet, fluffy, lovable, easily excitable, moody, silly, and sometimes infuriating but always gentle and adorable. She brought joy to the lives of everyone around her - and sometimes frustration for Ragnar - and I know she doesn't need to just lay there and suffer. Craig said he would take care of her as best he could, but if she kept getting worse, he would put her out of her misery and bury her there for us. We'll be back out in two weeks, but I doubt she'll make it more than a few more days.

I think she was ready to go when I left her. She seemed to understand there was nothing anyone could do to help her, as much as I wished I could. Her teeth are too old and worn down to chew the grass, and the little bit of grain she's been swallowing isn't enough and will progressively poison her without the added fiber and nutrients she needs from what should be her main food source. I don't have much hope she'll improve at this point. I'm glad I got to tell her goodbye and make sure she knew one last time how much she meant to me. I love her dearly, and she will always be my guard angel llama...

I don't think I've gone an hour without crying all day... Livestock or not, Lucy is my baby and will be in my heart forever.

Finally got the hairstyle I've been talking about getting for years. Is short, black, and has blue in the front. I was all excited and doing great, and then Craig called with some very bad news...

Lucy is dying.

My llama is an old girl and in pitiful health it seems. Since we left the farm last, she has started going downhill fast. At first she was losing lots of weight (and was already thin). They brought her up to her pen to feed her grain, and now she can't even stand up anymore. Her teeth are so old and worn down that she can't eat grass properly anymore. Lucy is dying. She's starving and wasting away unable to eat. We were going to go see her this weekend, but the truck had to get the tires replaced and Hibdon decided to be dumb and take ALL day to replace them... Lucy's not going to make it much longer, and I'm not even going to get see her again before she passes... Eevee never got to ride her on her saddle she got for Christmas... I love my llama, and she's dying without me across the state...


*cries*

So yeah. My computer... is dead. Very dead. Won't even start up dead. The hard drive or motherboard or something in there fried, and it won't even load up at all. Just a blank screen. A friend who fixes computers for a living took it apart and said it was pretty much dead and would probably cost as much to fix as to replace. So... I don't have a computer. I won't be online. (Borrowing  Anu_Thane's right now.) Sorry to disappear suddenly, but until we can afford a new computer, I have no internet. And unless we can afford a similar computer and recover my data from the old one, I will no longer be able to draw digital art at all. =/ I was getting so much better too... Oh well. Anyway, goodbye internet. See you when I see you. It'll probably be a month or so before we can afford another computer. If you need to contact me, text me. If you don't have my number, well... Then you get to wait until I get back to hear from me or until I can borrow a computer again. Sorry. In the meantime, I'll be doing traditional art and hopefully getting paid for it at my new "job" for a friend. Sorry for having to put everything on hold AGAIN, but the computer got struck by lightning last week and finally decided I don't have an operating system. >.=.<

Goodbye all. I will miss you. =( See you when I can. -.=.-;

So the last few weeks have been very busy for me. We made some new friends (or, well, became friends with people we were previously hardly acquainted with) who are running a Pathfinder game we're playing in. Ragnar was thrilled that for the first time in over a decade, he gets to play instead of GM. But this new friendship led to all kinds of fun new opportunities.

Anthony has several computer-related jobs from building PCs to coding websites. So since he had like a dozen PCs in his garage, he's giving one to Ragnar. Now maybe he'll finally actually log in to  thebigkitty. He also said he needed a lot of art for the three websites he's currently building, and offered to hire me as the only artist for the sites! So now I may soon have an actual JOB doing --CLEAN-- art from home and actually make more than minimum wage. Woo~! (Fyi, the art I sell here works out to around $1-2 an hour. This is a by the hour position for 10 hours a week from home.)

In other news, I've been working on a not-so-secret project that my patrons have already seen (if you want to know what's coming up soon, sign up as a patron. http://www.patreon.com/Shayla ). As a preview of the coming series of pics, I put one up on my new RedBubble account. Check out the adorableness here:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/sha.....f=recent-owner

^^^At this site you can buy my adorable creatures as stickers, pillows, prints, phone cases, and plenty of other items. I get a small portion of the proceeds. If people buy these, I'll add more. ~.=.^ This gives me something to do with all those old (and new) adoptables that never sold. Instead of paying $10-$20 for a character you'll never use, you can spend $2 and get a cute sticker to put on your stuff! Check it out.

http://www.patreon.com/Shayla

Congratulations! You're paid!
$133.27 was just sent out to you from Patreon covering earnings up to 06-01-2014.

Woohoo~! *party dances* I'm like... A "real" artist now or something. Yay for making money drawing what I love and learning to better my artistic abilities. ^.=.^ If anyone else would like to sponsor me, you can set a limit per piece and a limit of pieces you donate toward per month and you can cancel at any time. I have set myself a limit of no more than one piece a day, so max is 30 pieces, though my goal is more around 20 pieces of art per month. Only clean art can be posted on Patreon, so this will not include my adult commission work. This is to help me practice and get better. However, patrons enjoy several perks including being regularly drawn in my posted art on Patreon for no additional charge and getting preference in slots when I have commissions available. The more you donate, the more often you get free [clean] art. If you donate, I'll be sure to do my best to make it worth your while. ~.=.^ Thanks everyone!


Also, for those of you who didn't know, we now have bunnies! We have 3 huge New Zealand White rabbits in our backyard to raise babies for food and fur. We've named the girls Snow and Angel and the boy Frey. Snow is a space cadet, Angel is picky bitch (much like her MLP namesake, yes), and Frey is terrified of everything... At any rate, Angel is due to have babies anytime. So soon we will have little baby buns to take care of. A couple are already spoken for once they're old enough to leave, but the rest will stay for 3 months before being food. We'll have more each month after that, so if anyone wants a pet bunny, they'll be $10 each. Please keep in mind these are BIG bunnies and are around 12 pounds by 6 months. If you want one, you'll need to get them a big cage and supplies. We don't have any extras of all that, sorry.

In other news, we got Lucy shaved last weekend. That old brat was not having any of it either. It took us SIX HOURS to chase her down and get her in her pen. Then we spent another several hours trying to get her rough cut. She doesn't look too great right now, but she's cooler. We'll go back out and get her all smoothed and pretty for photos in a few weeks.

Hello all. I happened upon a great new site that gives a whole new way to support your favorite artist. Meet Patreon. My link is:

http://www.patreon.com/Shayla

Now. I do not -yet- have any patron-exclusive art up, and I doubt I'll be posting adult artwork to that site either. But this is a great way for you all to help support me and my work and making me not feel like it's a waste of time when I sit down and draw art for myself or my friends or other non-commissioned art that greatly helps me improve my skills. It's simple. You sign up as a patron donating, say, $1 every time I post up a picture I've finished (and I'll only be posting finished works here, not sketches or rough drafts!). I draw what I'm inspired to draw at the time, post it up for your enjoyment, and get that $1 for my time I spent drawing and improving my skills. That way, when I get back to commissions, I'm even better! AND patrons will, of course, get priority when I do open for commissions. ~.=.^ And don't worry - you can set a max per month as well as cancel at any time if you decide you don't want to keep supporting or don't have the funds. Check it out!


---> http://www.patreon.com/Shayla <---- Click me!

So... My laptop was supposed to be fixed in a week. That became over a month, and it's already doing the same BS again that started the problem... THREE HUNDRED dollars later. NEVER - ever, ever, ever - EVER! ...use Computer Wiz in Midwest City. Since they took so long they "helped" by putting unwanted anti-virus and remote access software on my computer. FOR A HARDWARE ISSUE. They had no reason to even be turning ON my computer, but instead added software I didn't want and had to go delete that kept annoying me with pop-ups wanting login info. Their "fix" didn't solve the problem, the new charger they charged me another $30 for made NO difference, and the problem has already started again. Fuck.

[/end rant]

---

Art Stuff:

Whew. That said, I have my computer, but it's SCA event season. We've been to several events and another this weekend, and we also went to Wild Nights. I've been drawing, but it's all been offline stuff. I actually drew SIX full-page, full-color HUMAN illustrations in six days the week before last for the Baronial Champions. They each got a piece of themselves in their garb with their titles in ink and pencil. Oh. My. Gawd. I have never drawn so much so fast in my LIFE. I found out a WEEK before they were to be handed out that no one had done them, and I got them done. Totally proud. =) At any rate, I'm going to try to FINALLY get back to work finishing  Guan's and  Charem's comic. I have some people wanting commissions after that, but honestly, I really haven't been up for it lately. =( It's hard drawing on command what someone else wants. It's a TON easier to draw things I feel inspired to draw. I might focus on just making some more adoptables and pre-made tribals. It keeps me WAY less stressed and in better health to work at my own pace on things I'm inspired by. I will continue to take commission requests, but please understand if I take a long time to do them or simply say that I'm just not inspired to draw your ideas. =(

---

Personal stuff:

I'm doing much better with the arthritis and whatnot, but all these conventions and events are really taking a toll on my legs. Some new shoes are helping my feet not swell so much. I'm annoyed with my computer and am ignoring digital art. I picked up my sketchbook while the comp was out of commission, and now I don't want to let go of it. D= Traditional art is where it's at! >.=.>

Ragnar's having some personal stuff right now to work out with his family. Doubt he wants to talk about it. He never wants to talk about anything. >.=.< But it's important and taking up a lot of our time for now. o.O

This:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11659541/
^THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS!!!^

This is great. Now I have a better idea of average prices to set mine by. =D I've been here five years. In another two, I will have built my resume enough to finally charge reasonable prices by this guide. Since I've been so down on art anyway, I think I may just edit my prices to be more like these when I get back into the swing of things and draw commissions regularly again. It also gives me a better idea of what the average amount of commissions I SHOULD be doing is. I was trying WAY too hard before, and I've already drawn so much this month that I've done 2/3 of an average month in a week... So I'm taking it easy a while and going to focus on getting this comic done. Once that's done, I can start setting appropriate limits for myself so I don't get worn out or beat up or stress myself out. Woo! Good things to come. =3 Stay tuned. ;3

My laptop stopped charging, so my poor baby is in the shop all week. Apparently the port where the charger plugs in has come off the board and they'll have to take the whole thing apart to fix it. =( We have the desktop, so I can rarely check messages and whatnot, but I won't be able to work on anything digital or even scan and post my traditional art until I have my laptop back. x.=.x

On the plus side, I'm not wasting time. Without the distraction of the internet, I've done some remarkable art improvement. o.=.O; I've been doing drawing after drawing of my dog in realistic fashion and made an awesome lioness adoptable with custom matching tribal tat. =3 Ragnar liked it so well he thought I should keep it for myself, but I really have no desire for any other fursona or more random characters to draw. >.=.>;

Also, the meet last night was EPIC. There hasn't been that many furs at an Oklahoma meet, let alone that one, in like... 3 years or something. o.=.O

Ragnar had a great birthday Friday. There was much drinking and partying, and he got Pokemon Y, which he has yet to walk away from for more than a few minutes at a time since. But... I expected that. I'll probably be the same way for a while when I inevitably get X. ^.=.^;

My car still has two flat tires, my laptop is in the shop all week and will cost us at least another $100 we don't have, Eevee's sick, my heart rate dropped to around 30bmp all weekend because I didn't sleep enough, we're barely keeping enough money to not go broke, and now we're getting snowed in. Joy. But at least my art is improving, I'm finally starting to learn markers, I'm delving into realism, and my general current inspiration is starting an entire novel in my head. >.=.> Fun times all around.

Hope everyone is doing well. Sorry, but no updates this week art-wise. =(