Just wanted to put that in amongst all the "We're back!" journals in your inbox.

Creativity: working with ideas in a medium, rather than solely in your head

Talent: the drive or desire to create, to work in a medium

Skill: practiced understanding of the principles of a medium

Hope this helps someone.

You can fav and comment on it >here<, but I figured I'd post it somewhere it can embed too. :)

I put some new links up there ⬆️ on where else to find me, besides what's on my userpage. :)

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on planet Twitter, Elon had always assumed that he was more intelligent than furries because he had bought so much (Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, and so on)–

whilst all the furries had ever done was muck about in the timeline having a good time. But conversely, the furries had always believed that they were far more intelligent than Elon – for precisely the same reasons.

Curiously enough, the furries had long known of the impending destruction of the birdsite and had made many attempts to alert Twitterkind to the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to look cute in costumes or improve things somewhat.

So they eventually gave up and left Twitter by their own means.

The last ever genuine Twitter message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to canonize an ill-researched journalist's typo as the mascot for an alternate site, but in fact the message was this:

SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE TWEETS

So long and thanks for all the tweets,
So sad that it should come to this
We tried to warn you all but oh dear,

You may not share our interests
Or disdain for police arrests,
Despite the viral numbers that
Flowed around you

So long, so long and thanks
For all the tweets!

This site's about to be destroyed
There's no point getting all annoyed
Lie back and let the techbros all try to ape you!

Though we never watched Twitter Fleets,
We thought that most of you were sweet-
Especially Jorts the Cat and Bodega kittens!

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long and THANKS
For all the tweets!

If I had just one last treat
I would send a goodbye tweet-
If you all have liked our song,
Follow us on Mastodon!

Come one and all
Furs, profesh'nals,
Side by side let's
Leave this cesspool!

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long and THANKS!
For all the tweets!

🎵 But I didn't get the deputy. 🎵

:p

idk, sickpost, little loopy between doses of tylenol for fever, seems to be a fairly mild case otherwise, don't mind me.

I got to create animated intros for both the opening and closing ceremonies for Blue Ridge Furfare this year!


OPENING CEREMONIES

CLOSING CEREMONIES

Aster is voiced by  chezne
Petal is voiced by  bluecanary
Written and directed by  thelunarvix
Opening Ceremonies segues from the video "Warning Call" by  ibolt07

Shot 24 is done!

You can see the current reel in its entirety on my Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/citra.....scene-53582990

First art stream of the new year!
Gonna maybe work on some 3D print designing, and do some drawing, who knows. I just wanna make stuff. Come hang!
https://picarto.tv/snapai

I'm Snapai on VRChat (upgraded my Steam-linked account to a full VRC account), and I need friends! It's lonely and weird and this small child is asking me if I want to get punched in the face D:

(also id kinda like to make my own avatars and i don't have enough time chatting with friends to qualify to upload stuff yet >.>)

So, been thinking about how I feel stressed pretty often.

And I realize, that I don't have work/life balance. What I have is work/work balance.
Thought I might write a little journal here, in case any of you all are in the same pickle.

I went to college for animation, that is supposed to be my career, worked at a game studio for 3 years, and a TV animation studio for 1 year, did freelance work for half a year.

Both studios closed, and the freelance gig was just one gig, because I didn't have enough experience to qualify for more.
So, I'm still working on art and animation, and developing things with friends, while I work in IT to pay the bills.

I know other animators, more successful animators, who nevertheless got totally burned out on the animation mill side of the industry, where they just chew through people for a decade then replace them with the next round of students. And who are also working day jobs now because they just can't anymore.

Also friends who never made it into the industry at all, but still want to work on cartoons.

And what a lot of us have in common is: we come home from work, and we sit down, and do what our career is supposed to be.
I limit the number of hours a day I work on or think about IT, and then I come home and try to plan or draw or animate stuff or at least talk about it on Telegram.
(when I'm not totally burned out and just zoning out to Netflix or some videogame).

Now, I have no intent on scaling back the art I do, this isn't about "maybe I should take a break", because it's MY ART, it's something I value a lot. (Plus I rarely get around to having time to make something finished)

But I think about other people who are:
* doing what they set out to do
* doing whatever becuase they never set out to do anything in particular
* doing something else, that they find acceptable as a career instead

All those people? Those are the happy families, the well adjusted people who have work-life balance! There's no dashed or unfulfilled dreams they're chasing, at least in what they have to do every day to pay the bills!
Those are the people that, when they're done with work, they can go out to a game, or a social event, meet people, have fun, build a real life. Because when the workday is over, there's no big "oh you should be working on building your real life now" - it's just literally time off, for living.

That's why all my spare time DOES get devoted to trying to figure out a way to make art pay. Because if I could make it to a point where I had a consistent income paid from my art, then maybe when I get off work, or am no longer in "freelance hours" if it turns out to be a freelance gig, I could just....ya know. Have fun with other people.

At any rate, I'm working on trying to develop two TV shows with friends, in the hopes that I can get there someday.
And I hope, if you're in the same situation, it serves as a wakeup call - we're not balancing work and life. Just work, and more (largely unpaid) work.

---

Speaking of unpaid, if you like, you can always throw $$$ at my Patreon or Ko-fi or follow and subscribe to me on Twitch - or follow my Telegram channel for updates. Still trying to develop this stuff, but the more support I get, the more time I can devote to actually making the art you all follow me for.

There's over 2000 of you following me, in theory.

Any of you know any talented spine/neck surgeons that could help  [koh]?

See this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/Koh_Biet/status.....63274154516480
(Long story short: he's had severe unceasing pain due to damaged C6/C7 vertebrae for 10 YEARS now, and doctors have given up on finding a way to help him)

He practically needs a realworld House M.D. here...

I'll be in the Artist's Alley at Anthrocon this year - all 3 days, if demand allows! Stop by and snag some on-the-spot sketches, drawings, or quicky watercolor work~!

Also, if you want to commission a less-than-half-page laminated badge from me ahead of time for $30, I can have them for pickup at the con now that I know I can make it easy to find me.

Hope to see you there!

gimme shinies

(or not, we're all poor)

I'm so excited, we're throwing a furry con in Asheville, and I helped!

Here's the launch trailer made by QuartzHusky

( blueridgefurfare.com )

Western North Carolina Furry Events is thrilled to announce to the first ever furry convention of the weird and whimsical Asheville, North Carolina.



Blue Ridge Furfare is "Prom Weekend" themed and proudly presents Guest of Honors: GANYiAO (Falvie) and dedpassm.
Pounce into a weekend of dance competitions, live art demonstrations, fursuit photography, and chill Asheville vibes.
Expect a few unique features like a Tea Social, Artist Olympics, and Talent Show.
What other interesting features are cooking up in the mountains? Find out March 2020!

Blue Ridge Furfare #BRFF
March 12-15, 2020
DoubleTree Biltmore
115 Hendersonville Road
Asheville NC 28803

Early Bird Registration is now live, alongside other exciting tier levels.

Applications are also open for Dealers Den, DJs, Panels, and more. Explore the official website for more information.


LINKS:
Website - Telegram Group - Telegram Announcement Channel - Twitter - Facebook - Instagram - Discord

I found this tonight:
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/hum.....1d20c4ec5c4ef7

Takes a while to load, but then you can spin them around in your browser and see how they're structured.

This is way better than most pelvic drawings which manage to eliminate most depth.
Those two bottom loops of bones (the ischium)? Those are the bony angle you actually sit on when you're in a chair - most of them is buried way between your leg and pelvic region. In fact, the way they angle forward in that render presents a flat angle to sit on.

The holes in them are where the circulatory system for your legs mostly goes through.

The bone arch at the front? That's just above the genitals, and where the bottom abdominals hook into- I think it marks roughly where the fat fold above the pubic area is.

Anyways, thought you all might find that useful.

This is just a thought I had tonight after waking up in the middle of the night, so not necessarily something I'm going to do.

But like....a lot of us get to a certain level of skill that we're happy with, and then we draw the same thing because that's what people like, and I find myself wishing that I could develop new styles and techniques and learning the way that current students do.

But at the same time, with a little perspective, the time people spend in college to learn things, or whenever they decide to work on art, seems really short.
The time spent developing styles that stick with us forever.

So I think maybe what locks in those stuck styles is the insistence on drawing well in a way that's proven appealing because "I finally got it!" or whatever. It's far easier to experiment when you're not happy with any of the results.

So why not draw crap for a year? If you've already done the decade long slog of moving from poor art to art you're happy with, is it really that long to take one year and do "experimental art" - just mess things up, break down how you do your art, make awful decisions for design and technique, and in the process expand the range you're comfortable with and find better maxima than the one you initially stuck with?

Reminds me of art school's admonition not to work on developing your own style (though they forget that it's OK to copy someone else's as an experiment). Style is just the set of habits that automatically make art work for you. Copying someone else's habits may well break you out of your own. But at the same time, I wonder if setting a goal somewhere other than "good" can do the same, but into uncharted territory?

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I've gotten faster at character models now, so I'm dropping the price.

It's now $100 for a basic character with simple textures.

Pose is still a relaxed T-pose (look at any of the unrigged characters in my gallery for examples). That way if you ever want it rigged for animation or animated, it doesn't have to be rebuilt.

I just got four new watches in the past half a day, and as far as I know nothing significant has happened.

Did I get listed or mentioned somewhere or something, that I should know about?

-that means it's time to wonder if I can throw a fursuit together in an hour, then forget about the whole holiday for a year, again.

This is ridiculous.


....I wanna do ads like this thing! XD

Finishing that Rita Roo animation was really rewarding.
But there's a problem now.

I don't care about my IT classes.
I don't care about my temp job.

I will keep going to them, because I have to for now, and I'll keep doing the work.

But do you understand? That is not what I want to do.
I want to, every day, go to the computer, and build animation.
Sketch characters, model characters, rig characters, sketch backgrounds, build backgrounds, sketch animation, do animation.

This is my thing. It's the thing I do. It takes a lot of time, and because I'm not earning an income from it right now, I don't have a lot of time to do it in.

But what I really need to do is keep doing it. Ideally, with friends- whether that's colleagues or a support crew.

I have a Patreon, but I can't earn enough on it to make it worth it right now because I can't devote much time to it.

I don't know how to make the income to spend the time to make the income I need to be able to spend the time I need on the thing I need to do.

Ya know?

Anyways. Anyone want to replace my job and my schooling with decent pay or long-term-commission so I can keep making cool stuff?
Because this is all...ALL I really wanna do.