Just in case you wanted to follow me there as well https://bsky.app/profile/skulldox.bsky.social

So I've been needing to replace twitter with something else so I made one on https://mastodon.art/@Skulldox

So I've made some changes to my website http://www.skulldox.com

I've added a news page which will contain all the latest things I'm working on right now. With twitter no longer being an option for me I have more reason to use it. Plus I get to arrange how my content appears on the website so if I decide to make an animation or share a quick sketch it be an easy place to see it.

I'll continue to upload here as usual but the gallery is messy cause I share just about everything. Not all my art is of the same details so if that bugs you consider checking it out!

So I've made some changes to my website http://www.skulldox.com

I've added a news page which will contain all the latest things I'm working on right now. With twitter no longer being an option for me I have more reason to use it. Plus I get to arrange how my content appears on the website so if I decide to make an animation or share a quick sketch it be an easy place to see it.

I'll continue to upload here as usual but the gallery is messy cause I share just about everything. Not all my art is of the same details so if that bugs you consider checking it out!

A while back I opened up a request form for people to request sketches of their character as a kobold. I'm officially closing it and no longer accepting entries. If you entered you will get a sketch.

Why am I doing this? Simple, the sketches were a fun thing I initially started to keep me practicing. I began to feel the expectations of drawing other people's characters. The quick 10 minute doodles quickly turned into a hour long process of drawing and hunting poses. The quantity made it difficult for me to focus on any other art. I can feel burnout starting to creep in so I need to act.

So what's next? Once I'm done with the sketches and with art fight I do have other projects to focus on. One of these is a comic I've been planning it for a while. Already have 16 pages of drafts ready. It will involve kobolds.

You might have seen me making a lot of Kobolds recently. This was a fun little thing to keep me practicing art so I don't get rusty. I accepted a limited number of them but even in the short period of time I end up with a whooping 42 characters!

I started to spend more time with each character. When making art for other people it forced me to be more careful of how I draw their characters. That kind of pressure only makes it longer to complete each sketch.

So to make sure I have time to work on other art projects I'm going to be working on one each day (with breaks in between). Only thing you need to do is make sure to follow me on any of my social media accounts where I post art.

Here is the link where to submit the references (no longer accepting entries)

Now I want to also announce I'll be opening up a ko-fi. If you like my art then consider making a donation. It would really help me out! And if you sign up for the $10 USD tier I'll be holding a separate raffle for those folks which at the time of this posting pretty much guarantee's your character to be drawn.

Also if you don't want to wait I can draw your character for $16 USD. Just know that these aren't regular commissions. The same terms from the request apply (see google form for details). If any of that interests you then please contact me by DM'ing me through DeviantArt, Twitter, and FurAffinity. All payment is done through ko-fi or paypal.

Wow, it’s been a year since I started to draw? Where did the time fly?

My whole life has changed because of that decision one year ago. I can’t even begin to describe all the positive changes that have come from it. In short, I am happier that I found a career I want to pursue. The support I’ve seen is incredible. I read every comment and I do appreciate them. If I could I would love to draw all of you something.

It wasn’t easy. There are so many reasons to get discouraged. My art and abilities were very basic and sometimes I didn’t feel like I was improving. I wonder if I could ever catch up to other artists I’ve seen. But each piece made me more committed. The more I pushed, the better the artwork became.

For some reason, some artists don’t upload their work and even delete past works. They are afraid it isn’t good enough. So I committed to upload all work. It’s like posting my own diary. Sometimes it made someone else’s day better. According to deviant art I’ve uploaded 174 pieces of art. The only work that doesn’t get uploaded is just rough images like sketches or schoolwork.

Speaking of school, I’m on my 2nd semester in illustration. It feels like it’s paying off as I continue to invest in specific classes. Don’t know what the future holds for me. The world seems crazy right now. What I do know is this is exactly what I need to do. I’m not giving up.

I have some new goals I need to focus on. Love drawing dragons and daily sketches. Those two goals haven’t changed. Since I am focusing on concept art I’ve discovered there is two major fields (landscape and character design). It was a hard decision, but I feel that making characters would be the best choice. The need to expand my understanding of human anatomy will be important so that’s what I’m going to focus on next. Thankfully anthropomorphic art allows me to do that.

One last thing, all previous commission pages are dated. If you are interested in one just private message me. We can discuss price and all that in person.

Anyways, thanks for reading that. YOU are awesome. Here’s to many more years of art.

My style is now focus primary on digital paintings. I've changed the terms to reflect this shift in art. I've also adjusted my prices as well. If you want a style I've previously made then just message me.

https://commiss.io/listings/MNbz
https://commiss.io/listings/MNbz
https://commiss.io/listings/MNbz

So not to long ago I asked a question of what you all of what you thought of my art. Response was positive and some comments of concern. I feel like I should clarify the meaning behind my question. It wasn't out of frustration of my current art abilities or desperation. I seriously wanted to give you all a chance to give me suggestions of improvement without any judgement from myself.

What I learned from that question is I have some awesome people supporting me. Seriously, you guys are awesome and if I had the time to personally thank you I would.

That said, I've been stuck in a strange place. School is devouring my time in a good way. That doesn't leave me much room for personal drawing. When I finally do, reception of my art is mixed. I have a huge warning for any new artist out there who feels like their work isn't being noticed. Most websites are actively work against us. There is so much content being flooded everywhere, all clamoring for attention. Even with the best tips, strategies and everything else we can muster; unless we have a big following of people we probably won't get noticed that much. This can have some serious emotional damage because all those hours spent on hard work can feel like it has no payout.

It's strange to me because I've seen some of my art get a lot of attention and other days it's nothing. Since most feedback I get is just cold numbers of likes/favs it's impossible me to really know what I should or shouldn't do. It's easy to draw false conclusions and lie to myself that no one likes my art. It's simply not true.

It's easy to forget that about 7 months ago my art is nothing like it is today. My work is getting better and I'm growing steadily. Heck I know some people are glancing at my work even if they are not actively watching me. So my reach is much farther than it initially appears.

Now the only downside to being a new artist is I don't have a set style. Reason being is I still have so much more to learn and improve that I really don't want to limit my own growth. So I'm going to keep switching around how I draw. It's why I'll have a bright, colorful piece one day and a stark black & white piece the next. However if you like something I've made please let me know if I should stick with it. I have multiple styles I like revisiting time to time.

One style I will not stop trying at, and my ultimate goal, is getting better at digitally painted works. I want to be a concept artist. I want to eventually paint cool landscapes and characters. There is something wonderful working in that abstract medium. It'll be the only consistent thing I do.

Anyways, thank you for reading my long dump of thoughts. To those artist struggling, remember that each new day is a new opportunity to get better. You will get better.

I want to get your guys thoughts. What can I do to improve as an artist? There is no wrong answers and you can be completely honest with me. If you don't feel comfortable sharing in the public comments please send me a note.

Is there a style you like? Or a style you don't like?
What kind of art would you like me to make more of?

I'm holding an art raffle on Twitter for reaching 50 followers. More details on how to enter can be found in the link below.

https://twitter.com/SkullDox/status.....92578908536833

So I'm looking for alternatives to FA. Weasyl was one of them and it looks nice. So I made an account.

https://www.weasyl.com/~skulldox

If anyone can help verify me that would be great. If not, I already emailed support to get it taken care of. Also I am looking for people to follow there as well.

So the day has finally come where I start taking art classes. I'm excited and nervous. Having looked over the syllabus, my professor is asking me to do 2 high quality sketches on top of the 9 projects he will be asking throughout the semester. It seems pretty intense to me.

This is the perfect time for me to hone my fundamentals and improve as much as I can. But there is something else I need to keep in mind. It's possible I can burnout if I do too much art. It wasn't an issue last semester because I didn't have any art classes. If you wonder why I'm not doing any furry art then you know why.

As such, I'm going to stop taking any more request until further notice. Request I have already accepted will be completed when I get the chance. Commissions will remain open for now (I only had 2 last year so it's not a big deal).

Thankfully, once this is all done I'll be a better artist and closer to my ultimate goal.

I love making art for people. There is something about it that just makes my day after spending a few hours to get that small thank you. It really keeps me going.

The more art I make for others, the more friends I seem to make. Again, thank you all for making this difficult journey that much more enjoyable.

But I'm torn! Each piece takes me multiple hours to create and I can't keep promising everyone free art. So I came up with a fair solution in that I'll just start holding more frequent raffles. They will most likely be YCH so that it stays within my art ability and I will open it up to all species.

If you guys have any suggestions on what I should do to improve the raffle (or raffle requests), please let me know.

Last thing to mention is the art raffle winner was Canis_alpha. Thank you everyone who participated!

So I actually have a discord server. Many great people have joined it and it's become one of my favorite places to hang out. Some of the people who regularly use it are

 74hc595,  dreampelt,  monodoe,
 bunnybutt999,  deranderepelzig
(forgive me if I didn't list you)

It's made up of some the most awesome people across the internet. What started off as something simple place to for me to share art has become a regular place to hang out.

We love to see more faces. Artist or not feel free to join in!

https://discord.gg/AQvJhHBRjd

Going out of town next week on the 8th and won't be back till the 15th. I won't be able to do any kind of digital art.

The final weeks of school are here as well. So I'm gonna focus on that first. I hope I might squeeze in a few more digital pieces in before. If not, you at least know why.

Anyways, happy holidays everyone! Anyone want to do a Holiday Art Trade/Commission? I'm itching to try out this new style. I'll have until mid January to make as much as much art as I can. I'll willing to do a $8USD flat rate on all art pieces that normally would cost more until January 1st. Click here for more details.

Where has the time gone? I can't believe I'm already 3 months since I started all this. I'm grateful for everyone who has supported me along the way. Seriously, I can't thank everyone enough for the favorites, the watches, and the comments.

Recently I haven't been uploading as much art. The reason is I'm doing a ton of fundamental practice with http://www.drawabox.com. Basically a college course of the art fundamentals for free. Anyone who follows me on discord knows I give them high praise. It's a tough course. It holds nothing back. With it's lessons, I was able to get a number of improvements that can be seen in my art.

Just within the last 24 hours I started to hone in on just line art. Trying to vary my lines to different thicknesses based on what needs to be drawn. It's not perfect but it was something I feel works well with my images. Also trying some new brushes that I feel mixes the color better.

The biggest announcement I have is that I'm switching my college degree from Engineering to Illustration. This isn't something I did on a whim. I had to think it over many days. It just feels right. It's going to be a rough journey for me. I know I got several things I need to work on. These next few years are going to be really tough. While this kind of pressure might intimidate others, I'm eager to see what pans out. I know I'm still an art noob now but this is my dream. Something I always wanted but denied myself from doing because of a lie "There is no jobs in art". I wonder what would of happen if I had started 10 years ago back in high school.

In any case, get ready to see some amazing work because I'm not backing down now. I love art.

The following stats is just me recording what I have up to this point. It's really neat seeing the numbers change. Every single one is a person doing a single act of kindness. I'm overwhelmed to just how awesome you all are! Again, thank you!
* Watchers 42 (Whoa!)
* Total Submissions 79
* Total Views 565
* Total favs 368 O_o
* Comments received 144 (That's insane)
* Most fav'd art piece (13 favs) - Bandit
* Most view art piece (101 views) - Fire Light
* Number of commissions 1 - Thanks  Caunre

I've been thinking last night. Just everything I've done so far. I can't believe it has already been about a month I started here. I had nothing to my name but just the little art talent I can scrap together. With the last piece I made it made me truly grateful for the improvements I've gained over these weeks. I am thankful for everyone who has seen my art and the friends I made in such a short period of time. To all my 25 watchers here, I can't say it enough: Thank you!

So I figure why not go over some of the important art pieces I did. While I always strive for improvement the following pieces are extra special to me. Alas, I can't just include images into this journal else I feel it would flow much more smoothly.

How it all began

The first image I submitted was a simple wolf icon. Nothing too fancy. It was my test run of trying out digital art. One of the first goals I set was to make sure that the line art was as clean and clear as I possibly can make it. Since I didn't have any confidence in using a computer drawing tablet I drew everything on paper first. I then traced over everything using a mouse in a program called Inkscape. It was tedious but it got the job done.

The next milestone I feel is Skulldox, the black and white image of a canine skull. I realized the importance of having good references for drawing. While it wasn't the first piece to have shading I did learn some cool new brushes to spice things up.

Literally the next image I jumped straight into a lineless style. Eddie's Werewolf was when I decided to switch up my style but this time by removing all the black lines from my drawings. No particular reason other than I liked how it looked. It wasn't an easy style to deal with cause now I had to rely more on having good colors. Which thinking about it now I might of rushed into it too soon. I still had fun and that is the only thing that matter to me.

Shortly after that I started to use a tablet. My Snow Fox bust was the first one I made. I was really happy I could finally just draw straight into the computer. It saved a lot of time and allowed me to focus more on learning different things quickly.

Now I'm not entirely sure when it happen but there was something funny going on with my tablet between the Snow Fox Bust and the Green Fox Bust. The tablet I was using was slightly stretched compared to the computer screen. This means that drawing was significantly more difficult because the ratio was longer horizontally and shorter vertically. Which means the lines I was making before I fixed it was always coming out wrong. When I finally figured this out it literally night and day just how much of a difference it made in my art. I'm positive it was on the Green Fox where I finally fixed it but I didn't leave any notes behind. One more thing I started to do at this point is always make the characters do something interesting. I don't care if it was a cool pose or emotion. I just didn't want more static images I was starting to draw a lot of. So it was a new rule and I continue to do this.

Anxiety is significant for many reasons. It started off as a cool picture. I was feeling really off that day. Once I finished it I realized how much I missed drawing with black lines. In fact, I didn't just want any lines, I wanted thick, expressive lines. I also wanted to try new things that I never did before. In a way I was getting bored of the art I was making. It's hard to describe, I think the lineless art felt way to soft and comfy for me. And I wanted more chaos and edge in my art. This art piece really helped me to realize what I was craving.

Which brings me to my last art piece Glow Wolf. My last couple of art pieces I knew I wanted to make something with strong, black lines. Only problem is I just didn't know how I was going to accomplish that. Most references I had didn't match what I was imagining. Until I came across some beautiful art by :forestfright:. It finally clicked. This last image I drew is the perfect capstone for this period. I feel like I finally found a style I wanted to make. Not only was the lines exactly how I wanted them to be but I got the right proportions, the right colors, and I made something that I can fully say I'm proud of. Not that any of the previous art pieces were bad. I'm still glad I got to draw them. I just felt like I had evolve from a Charmander to a Charmeleon once I had finished it.

It's been an amazing journey. I've come to really enjoy making art more than playing video games. Which is huge for me because it's what all I did outside work. Thank you for sticking around and reading this. Here is some interesting stats that I wish to record for when I look back to this day:

My Stats
* Watchers 25
* Total Submission: 41
* Most Number of favs on a single art piece: 9
* Most views on a single art piece: 93
* Number of commissions made: 0
* Number of friends made: A lot.
* Regrets: 1
* Original Characters Created: 9 (I'm probably won't count this in the future)
* Accounts made for my art: 14
* Number of breathtaking people: 25
* Meals skipped: 4
* Brothers contacted for help: 1
* Cheese eaten: 11lbs
* Blender projects completed: 1

From now on, all my commissions will be through https://commiss.io/skulldox. It doesn't require you to have an account to use except an email.