Well that was a nice nap, let me take a look outsid-

OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED?!

So I recognize that there's a bit of irony when my last journal was all "I just cleared my posting backlog, I'm sure I won't let that happen again!" Cut to me being silent for two years, whoops. I'm not going to go into all the reasons why I never got around to posting, but a lot of it stemmed from me wanting to write a neat little story with each commission I got. Then I would get home, and really not want to sit down and write up more stuff after doing office paperwork all day for my job.

So my plan is now to just try to slowly post the pictures I've commissioned over time, but cut down on the descriptions/stories for each picture. It's not going to be every day, and I'm sure it'll be a bit irregular, but I do want to slowly chip away at this backlog of commissions I've gotten over the past couple years.

I'm curious if this will happen again now.... :P

Oh thank god it feels so DAMN GOOD having that done. For those that didn't know, my commission backlog, at its highest point, was at about 26 commissions. Some of these commissions were over 2 years old and never got posted.

But now that's all done! One of the big blockers for me posting was that I wanted to write up a at least a little story or something per pic, which can take a while. I got lazy for a bit, and as the commissions piled up, it kinda got easier and easier to ignore the pile since it felt like any dent I made would be tiny.

Eventually I got my act together and tried to do a few every time I sat down to post them, which eventually resulted in this surge of activity on my profile, ha!

I'm going to try and keep on top of commissions from here on out, though I'm not really that prolific a commissioner nowadays. Turns out being an adult means you have to save money for stuff like mortgages and car insurance payments and the like. Woo.

With all my commissions taken care of, things will probably quiet down here again for a while. Oh well.

I'm a friendly guy, really I am. However, anytime someone throws me a friend request or a group invite blind (that is, without talking to me at all) I'm -always- going to ignore it.

If you want to get on my friends list, say hello first! I generally use my friends list for people I talk to and/or know.

So with all this FA drama going down, I figured now would be a good time to link my Weasyl account especially now that I updated with most of the commissions I've gotten over time. It's not complete (there's no adult art on it yet), but I can do that some other time. I still plan on being on FA, as I'll probably just end up updating Weasyl and FA at the same time.

https://www.weasyl.com/profile/sparra

Well how time passes quickly sometimes. It doesn't feel much like it, but another year has passed and now I'm 25 (or a quarter century old). I've got nothing planned for today (I did take off work so YAY!) and of course it's a rather glum, stormy day out today.

What's kinda interesting I suppose is that now I'm officially older than my character Sparra (who is 24). I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not though... And I certainly wonder if I should be adjusting her age to account for mine (I probably won't though).

I've somehow managed to accumulate over 11,000 pageviews in the 4 short years I've been here on FA, I'm watching 300 people and I'm being watched by 770 people (no pressure, eh?). For someone who just commissions art from time to time, all I have to say is thanks for watching and I hope you like what I've asked other artists to draw! The would could always use a few more birds and gryphons, which was pretty much my goal when I started commissioning art oh so long ago (back then, there was no MLP spurring a spike in gryphon pics!).

So yeah, that's a thing for me. How are you all? :>

Just going to say that I'm now on Weasyl!

https://www.weasyl.com/profile/sparra

No, I'm not leaving FA, at least for now and the foreseeable future. I will be re-uploading commissions I get (what I can, I need to use the collections thing to link up all the commissions I've gotten) on there over time.

My only real complaint at the moment is that most of my commissions are in the explicit category because you can see NIPPLES! Oh dearie me, not nipples! It just annoys me that most of my stuff is going to be lumped in with porn, that's all.

Woooooooooooooo! *throws confetti*

Wow, I have 500 watchers. I remember when I had like 50 and was all "OMG WHAT DO I DO?!" and now it's ten times that!

So I'm curious, why DO you all watch me? Is there a particular reason? I'm more curious than anything else, I'm not going to do a giveaway or anything (I'm not rich enough for that sadly). I'll just keep paying people to draw for me (since I'm terrible at it) and see where that takes me! :3

Thanks again for all the watches! <3

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3649469/

So  tojo-the-thief is doing a Kickstarter project to raise funds to make an art tutorial book! I already pitched in some money, so spread the word around!

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3649469/

Another year, another birthday! Only now I'm 24, the same age as Sparra... Wow, it feels like forever ago when I made up that character... It feels so odd to be the same age as a character I have. I bet I'll feel odder once I'm OLDER then these characters!

So yay! I have cheesecake to look forward to tonight! <3

Where did you lot come from? My page has almost 5500 views as of this writing, and I have nearly 425 watchers! I have no idea where you all came from, but thank you for watching/stalking me! It really does mean a lot to me, and I try to get back to everyone's comments as soon as I can! ...It certainly has been a long time since I've written one of these. I'm afraid I'm a rather quiet person, and don't really have much to say in these things. I'm not one to post every thought I have online, and only feel the need/want to share something every once in a while.

As for what I've been up to nowadays, I'm still working at Toyota as a delivery driver, delivering car parts to mechanical shops and whatnot. I don't know a thing about fixing cars mind you, I just give you the box you ordered. It started as a temporary summer job, but I've been working there for almost two years now... It's certainly nice to have a job I don't hate with every inch of my soul, plus the pay is pretty decent.

In more recent times, I've decided that I would try my hand at drawing, and picked up a Wacom Bamboo tablet this last New Years! No, this doesn't mean I'm confident enough to post anything I manage to scribble out online (I'm still really bad at it)... But it's sort of nice to pick up a hobby in which I have ZERO skill in, and slowly start to learn it. Maybe one day I'll be good enough to post it on here! If anything, I'll probably end up labeling it [Art Attempt] or something along those lines, as I refuse to call myself an artist.

I still have stuff planned to post as well, so expect another little burst of activity from my gallery... I notice that I tend to post stuff in groups of 2-4, then nothing for a bit, then another group. I dunno why it happens like that, but I guess I just get in the mood to get some commissions done and just up and get a bunch at once!

Well that's enough of my ramblings for now, thanks for reading! ENJOY YOUR DAY!

OR ELSE.

So I've been recently informed by  Graeth that if I resubmit the image file, I can get the image to show up at it's full GLORIOUS 1920x1080 size!

So I'm doing just that to my gallery! From "Sparra Wingshard by Solleaes" onward, I'll be resubmitting the full 1920x1080 file, instead of the smaller 1280x720.

Also, when did I get 3.6k pageviews and 268 watchers? I may have to do something when I hit the next hundred (or thousand for pageviews ;P)... More likely I'll forget though. Thanks all for the watches and views though, I do go through every comment (and try to reply to most of them) and I appreciate every silent favorite as well! <3

EDIT: Oops, meant to say "Sparra Wingshard by Solleaes" onward. >.>;

Woo!

So I'm 23 now. Looking back at the year, not much has changed really. About the only thing that I got done was that I managed to (somehow) hold onto this job I have for over a year now, which is good!

As for how I'm going to spend my birthday, I honestly won't be up to much. I'll be out and about getting a THIRD motherboard (this time from a different company) because the second one also died on me on arrival. Woo.

So yeah, nothing terribly exciting.

What the subject said! I got ambushed by CUTE SPARRA!

So here's a quick question for all of you that want to answer... What do you like about my characters??

Sparra's design is simple in that she's just rust red mixed with a dusty brown all over (which makes commissions of her vary quite a bit, which is always fun to see!), while Sarah's design is a touch more complex, but based off a house sparrow with a dash of tiger stripes thrown in for good measure. Neither one has giant assets of any sort, being fairly normal in both cases. The only thing that I can think of is that their figures fall within a reasonable range (ignoring the fact that they're both gryphons, as that blows that logic out of the water) and people are attracted to that somehow.

Am I right? What is it that you like about my characters, Sparra and Sarah?

I'm just curious, 'tis all! :>

At the request of a friend, she's launching a contest to help out an artist, as well as allowing people to get in on commissions and such!

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2042336/

Basically how it works is that no matter what, anyone who enters into the contest will win a group commission of everyone that entered into the contest, along with one of her characters (a jackal). BUT, if you win, you'll also get at LEAST one commission (or more, depending on how many enter) with her character and any other character of your choice (basically a 2 character commission). The price to enter is 9 dollars, and what you get scales as follows:

10 or less tickets 1 ink, sketch group picture.
15 Tickets 1 ink 1 sketch, sketch group picture.
25 Tickets 1 Color (flat) 1 ink 2 sketches, Sketch group picture.
50 Tickets 2 Colors 2 Inks 4 sketches, Sketch group picture.
75 Tickets 2 Colors 3 Inks 6 Sketches, Inked Group picture.
100 Tickets 3 Colors 4 inks 11 sketches, Full color shaded group picture.

As you can see, her goal is to get 100 tickets sold, all to help out an artist! The artist to be benefiting from all this, as well as drawing the commission(s) is  neltruin.

If you have spare cash, and want to get a commission, it's not that bad of a deal really...

Any questions should be directed to the journal linked at the top, not to me, by the way!

Thank you for your time!

Well, this is probably a bit overdue...

So recently I've hit some milestones, all of which are both awesome and flattering!

-I've gotten a job I LIKE, a delivery driver for a Toyota dealership delivering parts
-I've recently gotten over 100 viewers
-My page past 1337 pageviews (yes, I have a screenshot of it laying around here).

So yeah, all of these things are making me quite the happy gryph, and now that I have a solid income I'll be able to get commissions on a more consistent basis as well! ...Of course, I DID go a tad crazy over getting commissions not too long ago, so don't expect an upload every other day (or that's what it seemed like!). I may have money now, but not THAT much money! With that said though, if anyone has suggestions for artists, I'd be more then willing to consider them.

Also, I was recently nominated and voted into The Furry Pound's (a furry gaming group, focused mostly around TF2) admin group as a mod... Basically I'm the server police. It's incredibly flattering to have this happen, but I'm still the same gryphon as always, just now with INSANE POWAH! :B

But yeah. Happy times are happy. :3

Everything's up and running now, just need to update, update, update!

Fun stuff watching progress bars fill up... :P

Well, after getting some computer parts (a new motherboard and cpu) in the mail FINALLY (3-day shipping, as-if...), I take my current computer apart to upgrade it, and only now do I realize that I'm missing a cable... Yay!

But worry not, I still have access to the family laptop, and tomorrow I'll run down to the electronic store to grab the proper cable and such after work. It's not a HUGE deal, but if something ELSE were to go wrong, at least people know what's up now. :3

Things should be back to normal if I have my way tomorrow though... AND I DARN WELL WILL, THANK YOU.

Take care all!

Yeah yeah, I'm late to this one, but I'm curious to see what people will say... Stolen from  chandraken's journal.

What if?~
● I died:
● I kissed you:
● I fell:
● I lived next door to you:
● I showed up at your house unexpectedly:
● I stole something:
● I was murdered:
● I cried:
● I asked you to marry me:
● I was hospitalized:

~Would you~
● Trust me enough to sleep in the same bed as me?:
● Keep a secret if i told you one?:
● Hold my hand?:
● Study with me?:
● Cook for me?:
● Love me?:
● Date me?:
● Have sex with me?:

~More ~

● When and how did we meet?:
● Describe me in three words:
● What was your first impression of me?:
● What do you think of me now?:
● What reminds you of me?:
● Could you see us together forever?:
● Whens the last time you saw me?:
● Are you gonna re-post this to see what I say about you?:

Wow. I need to write journals more often... And I often kick myself for not doing anything about it. Basically I need to actually sit down and start writing a journal and I'll do it... Otherwise I'll forget or go do something else.

Regardless, July 8th is my birthday, and I'll be 22 this year! I'm not expecting anything from people on FA, but I figured I may as well throw it out there just so that maybe someone will say happy birthday or something and make my day. ;3

Anywho, compared to how things stand a year ago, things are picking up slowly in some areas, but are still kinda bleh in other areas. One of the most awesome things to happen actually happened a little over a week ago... I FINALLY GOT A JOB! Yep, I managed to beat 20% unemployment in my area and found a job. Basically I work for a car dealer delivering parts to mechanics in the area. Granted, I have no clue where I'm going, but that's what my GPS is for (thank god I have it!). I haven't gotten lost yet, and the pay is pretty good for a low-stress job. The only bad part is that Illinois is ALWAYS under construction, so the roads can be a pain and annoying. Granted, I don't have any times I have to meet when delivering stuff (other then "get it done") but I'm the fellow who had a lot of high-stress, time-pressured jobs in the past so I'm still like "I HAVE TO GET THERE NAOW!" and such. So yay for having an actual source of income!

As far as my career goes, I'm still making progress with my degree, although I took the summer off to find a job (which I managed to do, yay!) so that I'll work full-time until college starts up. I also decided to change my career into aviation. I've always loved flying planes and such in flight simulators, and I like flying and I'm not afraid of heights. It'll be a fun career I'm sure, and will get me out and about for sure! Ideally I'll eventually have a license to fly both planes and helicopters. But that's still a ways down the road, I need to get a degree then start in flight school. Luckily for me, I live nearby a decent sized airport, and am about an hour drive from an international airport (O'Hare Airport to be precise) so learning to fly won't be a problem.

Naturally, not everything is sunshine and rainbows in life, I'm afraid. On the bright side, I fell in love with a wonderful lady... Only to have things go down in flames. I'm still recovering from it a bit, although having a broken heart is different then I thought it'd be... I thought it'd be painful, but it's not... It's more like having an emptiness inside you. But as they say, it's better to love and loose it then to not have loved at all. I admit, finding that special someone is taking a backseat, considering I need money to get anywhere, both education-wise and paying bills and such.

Also, I was called for jury duty, and selected to be in court as a jury member. I admit, it's a very interesting process, and certainly not boring! The only unnerving part was being surrounded by about 300 or so sheriffs that go about their business in the courthouse. I like the police and all that (the cops I've met so far are really nice, as long as you treat them with respect), it's just that having the eyes of the law watching you makes me a tad nervous, even though I know I haven't done anything wrong. The result of said case? The guy went to jail for at LEAST 25 years, odds are it's more like 30-40 years.

Another brush with the law I had was getting into a minor fender-bender accident (bumped a car in a parking lot) WHILE ON THE JOB, WITH THE COMPANY CAR. Needless to say, I overreacted to things, as I was sure my job, which I just got, was going poof. However, the other driver was driving on a suspended license AND without insurance so everything's fine! Plus I kept my job, and my boss said not to worry... Apparently another driver accidentally destroyed the rear of a van (one of those "I have candy" vans) and still kept his job. Of course, I accidentally reported it to the wrong police department, but now everything's straightened out. Yay! Needless to say, unexpected adventures aren't fun for me... Very stressful, and I go from panicking to being EXTREMELY ticked off at myself. I'm the type of person of when things go wrong, I'm very hard on myself, especially if I caused the problem to begin with (I backed into the other car in this case).

As far as emotional stability goes, I'm pretty much over depression by now. True, I have some days where I feel down, but so does everyone. However, it makes me extremely sensitive to when other people are all "I'm depressed" only to have me ask about it only to see that it's not real depression (keep in mind I was clinically diagnosed with depression, complete with suicidal thoughts). It annoys me when people are all "I'm depressed because NO ONE LOVES ME AND I MISSED A PARTY" or something petty like that. It's a great way to get me mad at them, I admit. The only other quicker way to make me mad is to mistreat females (Yes, I'm a feminist).

On a happier note, I really like "Go West" by Pet Shop Boys (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G75.....eature=related) and I can't help but listen to it over and over! It's so catchy, and I love the song in general. Yes, politically I'm left-winged and believe Communism is a great idea on paper... But it's a shame it doesn't work in reality. Hopefully mankind will find something that'll work perfectly, but until then, capitalism will have to do for now.

Oh, and speaking of Captialism, the BP Oil Spill... It's depressing. We have the technology to drill miles below the ocean, but when things go wrong we can't fix it. The whole thing makes me angry at BP, and want to /facepalm the entire industry. The government isn't helping much either, since it seems that the Republicans only want to do nothing, while Obama is stuck in a system where half the people in it are fighting the other half, and nothing gets done. On top of that, I'm hearing that republican governors in the states affected by the oil spill washing up on their shores are only deploying a fraction of the national guard they have available to them. They're using like 600 out of 3,000 troops or so. They say that red tape is blocking them from deploying more, the national guard are saying nothing's stopping them (they are basically our militia after all, with a fancier name). It's a funny world we live in...

The best part is that our founding fathers were AGAINST any sort of party system, and stated that a 2-party system is an EXTREMELY BAD IDEA (George Washington was quoted stating something akin to that).

But yeah, here's hoping for a brighter, happier future, both for me and for the awesome people I know! :3

is a friend indeed, so they say.

Straight to the point,  Zenirix has fallen on some hard times, but is an AWESOME artist, and is opening commissions! She's darn fast, and has a really great style... Plus, she's doing this for only 10 dollars! If I had the cash, I'd so take her up on this, but alas... I don't, so I do the next best thing and help spread the word.

Here's the journal to contact her in: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1356833/

So I managed to get into the Starcraft II Beta. Yes, I know some of you are going to be all OMG NO WAI, and will ask how I did it. Most of it is pretty much luck I suppose. But what do I think of SC2 (without saying anything specific about it)?

Overall, I'm rather disappointed with it.

If you like Starcraft, you'll like Starcraft II. It's pretty much the same thing, really. Update the graphics, throw in some new units, take out some old units, suck out most of the Terran unit personalities with rather drab stereotypes, and you have SC2. Some of you may think it's a good thing, and will enjoy the game regardless. For me though, it's not good enough. SC2 is a very "safe" game... That is, they did nothing new or innovative at all with the game, which is pretty much what Blizzard does. They take ideas and polish it up so that it's so shiny and well executed, the product can't help but sell.

Will I be buying SC2 when it comes out? No. Will I pirate it, if only for the single player? Yes, as I'm curious to see how the story's going to unfold, and Terran is my favorite SC race, so naturally I should play their campaign. :P

But whatever happened to innovation in the RTS genre? I mean, Company of Heroes had a really nice resource and cover system, where you HAVE to be aggressive to take (and keep) territory, and there were no worker units (the Engineers/Pioneers were still capable in a fight, and had flamethrowers you could give them), so there were no real defenseless units. Supreme Commander 1 had it's unforgiving supply-and-demand economy system, as well as a huge scale.

SC was excellent back when it was released (and still is today), but SC2 is just more of the same... I'm just sick of RTS that all play nearly the same (looking at C&C after red alert 2 here!), where you're forced to babysit worker units that can't defend themselves at all, yet somehow they're on the battlefield. But again, games like DoW2 I didn't like because they took the whole basebuilding aspect out of the game, and just made it where you micromanage units all the time.

I don't know if this will make anyone take a second look at SC2 and think if they REALLY want to get it or not, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there on this disappointment of a game.

 CarrotWolf tagged me...

Let's get to know you better. Simply fill out this simple meme and then tag... guess how many friends. (FIVE, in case if you're a little sluggish XD)

Name five items within arms reach:
1: Water Bottle
2: Slinky
3: "Compass" CD case
4: Flashlight
5: Beanie Baby Owl

Name your top five favorite songs, in no particular order:
1: Damaged - Assemblage 23
2: Magical Dreamers ~ The Wind, the Stars, and the Sea - Chrono Cross OST
3: Ringworm - Tartanic
4: Disappoint - Assemblage 23
5: Corneria Theme - Starfox (SNES)

Name five languages that you would learn if you could:
1: Russian
2: German
3: Japanese
4: Italian
5: French

Name five politicians, not including Presidents, Prime Ministers, etc:And not if you like them or not... if you want
Can't think of any... >.>

Name five things you want to do before you die:
1: Find that special someone
2: Program a hit video game :3
3: Feel like every day only makes me happier
4: Go out into space
5: Get married

Name five friends to be tagged:
NEVAR! I AM THE SLAYER OF MEMES! :B

...is a friend indeed.

Or at least I think that's how the saying goes. Regardless, a good friend of mine needs some help raising money...

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/983586/

She's trying to raise money to move her dog to another state with her. Her prices are REALLY nice for the quality of art that you get. If you can spare $10-$20, please check her out.
If not, maybe spread the word?

Does anyone else have it for the PC? I'm installing it right now and would like to see who I can play it with (I've owned it for a while but have no one to really play it with). So if you own it for the PC, add me on steam as Neolink2010 (my username is Sparra, the account is old...).