i got a new computer with the old win10 ssd a year ago and then the ssd started causing issues so i replaced it with a shiny new nvme m.2 with win11 and i'm pretty sure it's haunted because it has not given me a single day of peace since

also i fell out of bed in september and smashed the fuck out of my finger, rendering it almost entirely unusable until very recently and it may be permanently damaged despite there being no break or dislocation u_u

Breakfast is down for the count and has been for a solid month at this point but I'm busy with deadlines until the end of october so nothing's been done about it yet. i got a new laptop at the end of last year that's been holding me over at least
i'll be working on a new one next month since there was a lot wrong with the old one (including rust in the tower somehow??) even though i know absolutely nothing about putting computers together. I have some of my art saved to an ext hard drive but not all of it, and I don't know if the ssd has been corrupted at all due to it bluescreening in the middle of recovery soooo . fingers crossed

someday people will stop commenting on my art of Fallout Creachures with threats to kill them
yes i know. i know they're enemies in the game. i know you're overcompensating for something with your Really Big Weapons. go away

I went to counselling on this the other day and I've been mulling it over for about six months now, so I feel like now is a good enough time to announce it, but: I will not be reopening commissions to the public. They're staying closed permanently.

this is for several reasons:

first and ultimately, I'm not reliable or timely any more. Communication with the clients still on my queue is pretty much dead in the water. It's unlikely that this will improve.

second: I don't want to. because I'm unreliable and slow on delivery, income was unreliable and slow too. because of that, it became a big source of anxiety, stress and guilt, and no longer enjoyable as an activity. I want to regain that freedom and draw like I used to.


sorry to anyone holding out the hope of getting work from me in the future!

I'll still be working through and/or refunding my current queue, but once that's out of the way I'll have no obligations and will be free to draw what I like without being held back by guilt that I'm not working on what I owe

heyooo been a couple months since I last checked in, I'm doing a lot better (but that's gonna be debatable, I'm about to switch meds) - queue is getting done bit by bit, once it's completely clear of all old material I'll be able to reopen for a larger amount across more sites!

I also have a large amount of leftover con merch, mostly charms, that I want to sell off at some point so I'll figure out shipping costs and whatnot around that and get that done

ALSO also, new computer! I finally figured out how to set up my photoshop brush in a way that my laptop had it loaded, which turns out wasn't actually the way the brush was meant to be used, so I've just been working entirely on coincidence this entire time lmao - it was a big reason why I was falling behind on commissions, too, because I had to work on my laptop and its screen compared to this pc monitor is . awful.
bigass computer though! so once I'm back in an okay mental space for it, I'll be able to stream without any issue at all. (it's a 32GB ram 1TB storage beast of a machine)

it's a pretty tiny update tbh but ! things are going on behind the scenes now and it's good

A month ago my art stopped working entirely, forcing me to be unable to work again for a solid two weeks.
You can imagine how badly that impacted my job!
During that time, I also failed to email clients, and understandably, a few people are upset about it.

It's finally getting back on track, but a lot of damage has been done, and now I'm kicking past me's ass as well as present me bc man. I have left myself one hell of a mess to sort out.

I want to open commissions again - hell, I need to - but when I'm being unfair to everyone involved including myself, I'm not sure what option to take any more.

keep a spicy eye out. slots will be VERY limited!

I'll be establishing a weekly schedule to keep myself in on things properly like I used to, and a bunch of other things I have to finish up real quick but for now it's sort of established that I can do work more consistently than before, so I may as well give it a try!
Prices will also INCREASE after February, from 25USD/hr to 30!

heyoooo been a very long time since I checked in last but I'm still alive! going slow but still going

plan for next year is:
completely revamp my patreon to make it far less pressure on me and just a casual creation place where people can interact and talk about stuff on my fancy exclusive discord and just overall watch me make an ass of myself for the maximum price of $3. that's it theres no big fancy tiers or rewards just hang out and poke me with a stick

Finish current commission queue. it's VERY long and VERY unwieldy and I would like to have it cleared out before I reopen, but i'm slowly chewing through it!

Raise commission prices because our rent is going up despite our attempts to contest it - the real estate company gave us the run-around until we ran out of time and were forced to agree, because it's impossible to find another place within one month but . prices will increasing from 25/hr to 30/hr so I don't live from paycheck to paycheck as hard as I did in 2018.

get the heck off this government support because im getting it reduced as per work hours I'm able to do. there's a maximum I can work currently, but honestly I want to get rid of it entirely before May at the latest (revision in Feb) and do my own thing again.
I'm not sure where the meds will be at but they're at a dose that's working well for me now and I sorted out the really bad physical side effects with my own two hands, so . they're cheap af so if coming off em doesnt do me favours i can just stay on em easy but they do make me extremely distracted which is never a good time when I have a lot of work to do

maybe visit my gotdamn girlfriend this year if i can raise funds for doing so

that's the overall plan! workin my sorry butt through this mess at long last!

guess who just gone got diagnosed!!! this bitch!!!!!

I haven't been able to complete an artwork since the beginning of July.
This is from a chemical clusterfuck that resulted from coming off of birth control pills - June was a struggle, but this month has been an absolute no-go; total apathy is about the highest point of mood I've had, and it only goes downhill from there.
I couldn't open photoshop without feeling every ounce of meager positivity drain out of my body

This means! I haven't been able to work.
i.e I haven't been heckin paid dollars. considering the presence of living costs, this is a Problem

luckily it's fairly easy to apply for financial aid for medical reasons if you get a doctor-approved medical certificate so I booked that heckin appointment
the doctor was real nice (and not the forgetful Old Man who forgot a bunch of things when sorting out the birth control, including how many ways til sunday it can absolutely fuck up your brain! thanks a whole bunch, you ass, now i have Bigger Problems as a result) and she was impressed since I already knew it was depression and understood the situation thoroughly and knew what I wanted out of it and how to go about it, we managed to devise a treatment plan for it fairly quickly - I now have medication to sort out the initial hell, and once I get forms processed and approved I'll be sent to counselling too.
(ngl since I don't have much personally to work out - i have good self-worth and im not at Personal Risk - im not sure how useful the counselling will be. but it'll be four-ish govt-subsidised sessions so i may as well)

what all THAT means is: art is very very slow and very very backlogged. I have to ease my way into it again, because the antidepressants will take time for my body to get used to them, on top of regulating actually living properly instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel of functionality.
With the financial support, I'll be able to afford living costs, though, so that'll give me a month or so to clear my queue without having to panic and take on more work. It's basically breathing room to get back on my feet.
The financial aid hasn't been approved yet, I have an appointment on this coming Monday, so. we'll see how that goes.

I've been rushing to meet deadlines all through this week and I ditched one art that wasn't gonna make it lmao
but there's a con this weekend! I'll be gone for three and a bit days, and then I'll be reopening commissions (kind of urgently) with a change in tactics ft. a new form to submit to start the process off a lil bit easier, to try and avoid the communication hell I inevitably fall into.

I'll keep you posted!

this likely applies to most other sfw artists' works as well, not just mine-
if we're drawing almost exclusively sfw art? we don't want weird comments on the content.

please don't pick part of the subject i.e webbed feet/hands, slime-type characters, paws, belly, mouth, anything, I've had a bunch of comments on all of them - PLEASE don't say 'i wish this was more visible' or 'i want to see more of this' or 'this is hot' because it's unwarranted, and makes us feel downright uncomfortable.
This art is not for sexualising. These characters are not for sexualising. if they were, they would be in nsfw artworks. The more uncomfortable comments we receive on pieces, the less good we feel about having completed and posted them in the first place. Personal characters especially will start to feel awful when we draw them, because we are always reminded of unwarranted sexual/fetish-related comments.

Brush up on your comment etiquette, and please refrain from saying anything if the context does not call for it - and joking about such things often gets old, doubly so if you're a stranger or--- if you weren't joking, received a less than warm welcome for your comment, and tried to back out under the guise of humor.
We just don't want these comments at all.

tl;dr: if it's not porn, don't make the artist feel like they did something wrong or dirty just because you couldn't help shoving your keyboard down your pants
*and if it is porn? KNOW YOUR BOUNDARIES.

** http://endivinity.tumblr.com/post/1.....appened-and-im an example of what I mean to not say

it's a list of stuff i darn well gotta do! look at all of it! hot dang!

12h:Redblackdragon - paid, uncomplete
7h?:Syd/Adbraxis - paid, uncomplete
2h:Asurasleeping - 1/2 paid, uncomplete
Farath - Patreon rewards
Simpl1 - Paid, uncomplete x2 + Patreon rewards
2h:Becaria - Paid, uncomplete x2
almonihah - Patreon rewards
7h:Haxar - 1/2paid, uncomplete


TRADITIONAL:

1h:Syrinoth - paid, uncomplete, requires update, possible refund offer
6h:Tayruu - paid, uncomplete


probably more when I remember them!! if you're meant to be here but aren't, let me know

Heyoooo I just moved house last week, a bunch of things basically went sideways, I'm significantly in debt and have precisely $8.80 to my name at the moment so
I have patreon income processing over the next couple of days to help me for the next week. but I will have to open commissions very fast and get on to work

that being said!
A lot of things went a bit bad last year. It was a lot to do with the flat itself and the particular flatmate we've now ditched, was impacting our quality of life in a very negative manner. It's going to take a while to uncoil my nerves and get on track with working again. The feel of the new place is better, much more relaxed, and with far less risk of high intrusion and general Awful Flatmate-ness I should get to a work standard I wanted to over a year ago.

My goals are;
Set up a checking system where I have a list of who I've emailed, who I've sent WIPs to, hours completed, and art completed (Trello is good but doesn't do it for me since it's not in front of my face and physically interactable);
Start streaming frequently, including dual streaming with Hanmonster sometimes;
Work a set amount of hours each week instead of abstract amounts and letting my queue stretch out ridiculously
Easily accessible public lists of progress, like I used to >:T

Those are.. hopefully easy enough to attain! I'll start posting commission openings each week again. God I haven't done that since I moved out of Auckland. that's almost two years what the Heck where did my life go
So! I'm trying, we'll see how it goes; I'll start off with 8-10 hours per week to cover rent+living costs and branch out from there so I don't overwork myself.

answer. your. goddamn. emails. kullen.

though it sort of looks like it hey hi

My productivity since returning from the America trip has taken a HUGE hit. like. incredibly huge. It's largely due to my flatmates who won't leave me alone, contributing to tension, lack of focus, and just general bad mood. I know this because I'm housesitting for a week and a half, and that time being alone was .. while the focus wasn't Great, my mood was absolutely fantastic, which would inevitably lead to me being better about doing work.
The downside was that I was absolutely ravaged by hayfever; my eyes are constantly itchy/painful there's raw patches in my nose that sting even when it's not itching like hecko, which is most of the time. it's hmmmmm
to say it's distracting is putting it mildly

I've got commissions open on tumblr/twitter as a couple of people who follow me there have noticed! They're not open publicly here because I'd get swamped, and my workload is suffering enough as it is - but I'm low on funds. Dangerously low on funds. My entire computer savings are gone.

If I don't pick up on this work ethic soon, I'll be in a whole world of trouble, because I'll have none of the money, and yet all of the work from it that I need to complete.

What I need to do is;
tell my flatmates to back the heck off. They both do art and understand the freelance deal, but they don't fully comprehend the fact that home =/= available; and also leaving me alone for a day is Ehh, but to really recharge I need to be left alone for a week or more. That gives a day to get over any bad social energy, and the rest of the time to acclimate and do my goddamn work
And Then when that's all sorted, I'll amp up my Patreon. there's a handful of patrons on it, but I'm probably not instilling the highest trust that I'll get onto the project goals I have set, if I can't even manage the monthly 1-hour sketches the corresponding tier promises. (Or, if Drip promises to be a better service, I'll switch to them, since Patreon still won't release the charge-upfront feature even after rolling out unrelated update after update.)

If I can set things up properly (and sleep schedule allowing), hanmonster has proposed a dual-stream setup, so if I get premium Picarto even for the last month I'm in this house, hopefully that'll let me be more productive! regular streams on my own are sort of. hm. weird if I'm talking at people and they're not responding, but a dual stream sounds like a Hella Good time, so it's promising.

HOPEFULLY IT'LL ALL WORK OUT. AND MAYBE I'LL answer some emails. a christmas miracle

HEY SO i approached a bunch of people and now theyre all gay, meanwhile I took photos of all the cats I met

Journey progressed: Went to NYC, Jonah Lobe wasn't able to meet up after all since he was in DC during that time, so that was a bit of a letdown but I explored the place and hung out on subway trains for a couple days,
On to Savannah where I hung out with latenoonglory and snowstoat who are huge nerds
then on to Tampa. maybe I got a girlfriend there, who knows, it's a mystery, but I was at Metrocon for the final day if anyone else was there! Mostly just bought sombra and orisa merch, because I'm a problem
Didn't stick around in Oklahoma but that was where hanmonster and simpl1 Obtained me and held me captive in a car up to colorado
(wolf-nymph locked me in her basement for a week, in return for a handful of pennies and some tiny clay dicks hidden about her house) (i left my shirt behind as a parting gift apparently) (and the vegemite) (im so organized)
I went to a Rooth Party though!!! oH MAN OH MAN ALL THE COOL KIDS WERE THERE I got to meet darknatasha and caninehybrid among a LOT of others, and I climbed on the roof like the delinquent i am
and then i was trapped in Oregon with STINKL until I headed home again, but Haxar was there and she was good and had the fattest cat of them all

Pros: Im Fuckin Gay, I held a snake for the first time, and also a tarantula
Cons: I miss my girlfriend and I really REALLY want a snake but theyre 100% illegal in NZ

I'll be heading back at an unknown date for a wedding! the .....wedding this trip was meant to be planned around, but was postponed indefinitely. lmfao

Work will resume shortly! I have a huge list, my savings are very severely chewed into, all is about expected
AND! My Patreon will launch by the end of the month o: There's no specific goal in mind for that yet though, it's mostly an extra content and WIP generator that you can get in on for the time being, which is what I see most people using it as, so.

it's in five days but I'm covering my bases now
I will be gone for the entire month of August! 30 July - 31 August is the dates of the trip.
I'm doing my level best to complete all current commissions, especially the traditional pieces so I can have those sent out like I should have like.. three months ago, rip
but yes hard deadlines are getting in place and I've been working solidly for the last week (i.e overwatch is only in the wee hours of the morning when it's too cold to do anything else)
my Trello is currently loaded up and progressing at an Alarming Pace so you know I'm getting stuff done, https://trello.com/b/YvX96oWZ/commi.....ions-by-kullen

because I will not be able to work on anything while in America, strict visitation requirements - I don't have a working visa, and I won't be taking my computer with me.

Of the America trip, it's highly likely that I'll be at Metrocon FL
aaaand there's a total solar eclipse happening on the 21st while I'll be in OR! which is exciting as hecko and I have a solar viewer from the 2012 australia eclipse B )

anyway, party hard, if I don't exist for ages at least yall know where I am
(I really need this holiday you have No Idea)

[screaming]

Alright. Okay. Alright.
Everyone who's waiting on commissions already knows this from experience obvs because i hAVENT REPLIED TO THEM FOR A COUPLE WEEKS
people on FR are waiting and have been for over a MONTH

lies on the floor

What I do is, I don't have any updates to show, or something is preventing me from replying bc I feel I should do that something first before talking to anyone, but then something else prevents me from doing that thing or progressing on art (which is currently the cold, my hands are fuckin freezing and I don't have a reliable way to warm them for a long period of time. cold hands lose their fine motor functions) and then things just drag on for a long time
but I'm chewing into savings again and desperately need to take on more work, some of which is waiting on my reply to get going, but of course i'm me, and the cycle continues

someone just come to my house and punch me in the figurative dick




(im gonna try and reply to many things today regardless of any shit thats sittin in the way)

I'm standing here waiting for peanut butter choc chip cookies to finish baking so I can hole myself up in my room again lmao so
may as well Do Some Updating

GOOD NEWS: I got my laptop back about a week ago! it's got windows 8 on it again! I installed photoshop and all the good stuff!
BAD NEWS: it runs slower than before I sent it away. I can't speedpaint without a 20 second brush lag - I'm not even kidding, it's like watching a slow movie of someone doing a colorful scribble, with a brush that has no additional effects, it's just a regular brush. If you play FR and have experienced lag spikes in the coliseum where everything's like 3fps, it plays like that permanently for me so I can't coli grind for the wind festival. Everything takes a long time to load on any web browser. I can't even play FNV without it stuttering.


EDIT: a bunch of settings were set to factory default, including battery performance both on and off power, and the graphics card was set to auto where it only picked up the integrated one, so I set it to NVIDEA and high power performance and that cleared up a LOT of things. minor processes still run slow and it absolutely HATES web browsers but I can deal with that, as long as PS runs smooth af I can survive until desktop
/EDIT

I'm also putting together my itinerary for the America trip! It's looking like I might stop over in NY first off (to meet Jonah Lobe if I can arrange something) and make my way from there.

so. lots of spending ahead, I'm going to drain my savings a lot and also die and HOPEFULLY GET THIS FUCKING LAPTOP WORKING
HOLY SIGMAR

its my laptop
IT'S BEEN 8 WEEKS

WHAT A NIGHTMARE

I actually got a call last Friday that my laptop was repaired and ready for pickup in-store so I head in
the girl behind the counter is so excited to have it back like shes been there several times when ive inquired about the repair status because Solvup NEVER UPDATED THE CASE FILE and NEVER CONTACTED ME THEMSELVES

the worst part is that Solvup, whos the company behind the warranty repair and finds an actual repairer to send the thing off to, gave me a survey to fill out about their communication, repair quality, and time taken.
so the JBHiFi staff were great, and the repair was great, but everything else was shit and i made sure they damn well heard that from me
submit the survey
404 error
ok.jpg i guess the asshole rending is canceled today kids

anyway I pick up the laptop (i touch it with my hands. i confirm that it is real and not a myth. a cryptid) and I look at the form. check this shit out. this is beautiful. and by beautiful I mean all my emotions have fled my body and I am an empty shell now
"Replaced the fan, heat-sink, wi-fi NIC, wi-fi cable and HDD. Reimaged with Windows 10 and activated it and updated. BIOS updated. Free antivirus firewall loaded but customer has to load the paid one for complete protection. Office 2016 loaded, customer has to activate it to use it."

oh boy! i can't wait to Replace Office 2016 With Free Software

anyway I sent the laptop back because they didnt ask permission to install an entirely new goddamn OS on my work computer so im still sittin around crying into the void
the poor girl at JB was still there when I brought it back. she saw me with the laptop. she gave me the saddest 'nooooo...' bc she knew it was my work computer and i probably looked so dead inside

rest in pieces kullen 2k17

WHAT ARE THEY DOING WITH IT. IT'S BEEN A MONTH.

I sent it off to get repairs, didn't hear back within ten days like the guy said, and when I went in to investigate, he said it'd been sent to Auckland. And still hadn't been assessed for repair yet. That was last week
I'm going to head in again today and fuckin fight them (im probably going to start crying in the store bc im stressed as shit lmao How Embarrassing)

because I have enough money left for one week of rent before I start dipping into the savings for the new work computer and that's a shit deal

basically they've put me out of a job for a month, and there's NO ESTIMATE RETURN TIME.
I also don't want to take on a preorder queue, because then I'd end up with more of a backlog - there's already a fairly hefty queue in place and taking more onto that would be unfair to both those clients and to my wrist and hand ;x
On top of that, my sleeping has gone completely out of whack, and I've only been able to get about three hours of sleep every night this week so i cant even do quality work aaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

though niksync (she my flatmate now) has been extremely nice in that shes lending me her tablet to use for digital work, so I'm sloooowwwly working through the queue of pieces from last year. it's far from optimal since i can't actually prop it upright without it sliding around but it's something

tl;dr: kinkshame simpl1

WE DID IT we found a place we really liked and applied for it that same day (bc its REALLY hard to get a place in wellington around this time that isnt moldy and damp, students will be looking so we got in fast) and we got it confirmed this morning!
Theres just down payments to go which is a hassle bc im paying for two people on that, which kicks me down about 55-60 hours worth of work, Ill have to make that back and get the new computer :Y
So i will be opening fulltime commissions again at long last, and we wil be getting unlimited internet at the new place, AND my laptop will be repaired by the time i move in so.. STREAMIIIING aw yiss



Also on a side note i finally installed PokeGo, starter is a Charmander and my first catch was a Squirtle ahah

Look at all this stuff happening! Woo!

Okay so first, my computer has stumped up with hard disk issues, the fan sounds REALLY AWFUL like something's caught in it (which it might be? gross) and it's just really slow in general. There's a month left on its warranty, so I'll send it off asap - this means I'm imposing a crunch time on my queue and won't be accepting any new work sent in after this point.
Everything is backed up to an external drive, which I've been working off for a couple of weeks since the disk issues first popped up, but the wait time on laptop maintenance to this extent is about a month and I don't want to keep anyone waiting for that long.


Second, due to other circumstances, the wedding in america has been canceled - which is a real sad time since it was for Dumb Reasons out of the couple's hands
but it also means that i can now ATTEND RMFC 2017
I'm probably going to start off in Florida/Georgia and just go straight to RMFC from there, so. hold onto your butts bc Kullens comin for em >:3c
It'll actually be my first furcon! a good time. so if you're hangin out to meet me, that'll be the time to do it (bear in mind that I'm incredibly faceblind, and I also have a hard time distinguishing words in crowded situations. a very delicate child)

so them's the plans now! basically it's [loud screaming]

firstly, good ol' depression is kickin my ass
and on top of that, I have a little under two weeks to finish all the book illustrations (I'm down to three, I powered through the other four in a week) and then I'll finish my queue off at long last

I'm still lookin for a place to move! except I can't afford bond+deposit on that AND get a new computer currently, so I'll need to start up commissions after Christmas again. I think everything will be easier once I move out of here, though.
except now I also have to have dental work done - it's likely that a cavity has popped up within the last few months and it's starting to become a problem, AND my final wisdom tooth seems to be impacting but I'd need an xray to be sure since it hasnt actually come through the gum yet. if it is? goddamn chill you useless tooth

everything would also be fine and dandy if my laptop hadn't said 'hey you got hard disk issues, get it repaired/replaced immediately and try not to use it at all ever until youve done that" which is. shit
it basically means i cant do squat until I get it repaired, but I also can't afford to lose time given all the above paragraphs so ultimately Its Heck

I've backed everything onto a harddrive though! so if the laptop crashes and burns I've got all the stuff saved and mum has photoshop on her mac so I can do that in a pinch but I hope it doesn't come to that :/

I'll be doing quickfire portraits soon, to see if I can scrounge up enough Cash Money to cover the dental stuff, at least.

[yelling]

HONEY YOU GOT A BIG STORM COMIN' [poses]

First things first I'm going to try and ravage through my remaining commissions and have them done this week

BUT MORE THAN THAT, I'M PLANNING..
a trip to America
(yes, regardless of presidency. let's not talk about that.)

I've been invited to a wedding in August, and since getting there one way is like. $1000, I figured I should make a trip of it. ON THE BUTT END OF SUMMER. I'm going to fuckin die I cant tolerate temperatures over 25C, rip in peace
So far the list is: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kansas, Colorado, Oregon, finally down to LA, and then back home. ..though I should probably go grand canyon also. thats tentative. the Best part is that everyone I'm visiting has a cat, so I'm gonna take a bunch of cat selfies and it's gonna be great
I'm going to be hanging around for about a month! I'm not really going for tourist stuff, just visits. and eating everyone's food. ALL OF IT. (but please dont ask me if I'll visit you - I'm very very picky about the company I keep!)

So big things on the list include:
Getting a new passport + 18+ card ($220)
Paying off student loans. oh boy. ($?????)
get a new gotdamn phone?? pls ($eh)

The student loans aren't Huge, but funds for the america trip will be paid out of the same savings that will be funneled into the loans, so I need to get that under control on my own terms as fast as possible.
I'm going to be holding a bunch of auctions for original ballpoint pieces over the next few months! They'll be a bunch of fanart, like deathclaws, Dark Souls, Pokemon, Digimon, MonHun, Skyrim; all the good stuff. Also maybe this
So keep an eye out for those! They'll be starting at $150, and I'll have a list, so if there's one you want to start saving for, you'll be able to check ahead.

(as for the plans of moving house, those fell through for this year, so I'm unlikely to be able to get a new computer any time soon - and unable to stream consistently. rip)

Well then, them's the plans! I have a lot of work ahead of me, so I best get to it :U