Hey all,

Well that was a hell of a lot easier than expected, I'm just slow moving...

So what happened? Well, in truth with the work I'm doing on my property to clean up more than a decade of neglect I've been insanely busy and largely unable to make any real headway on developing SFS as a business. I mean, I'm not making excuses; 11 years of accumulated dead/fallen trees, derelict buildings, severe overgrowth, and storm damage on five acres of land takes a long time to work through for just two people, so I've been busy o.o
Anyway, the reason I shut down the store for the last few months is due to the financial issues I'm trying to work through in ensuring my recurring bill load doesn't exceed 750$ (which is what I was able to get it down to before quitting my job two years ago) I found that one of the things I was losing money on hand over fist was the registered agent service I'm required by law to have in order to operate an LLC.
Over a number of calls, and a royal run-around by people who were supposed to know how to help, I was able to get the paperwork filled out and sent in to make myself the registered agent, saving around 350$ a year over the 3rd party service that I was going through. This was the last major waste that I had in terms of my monthly expenditures, so I should be in a much better situation moving forward.

In the interest of time, as I have more clean up to do today (since the weather's good) I'll keep this post short, but everything is settled, and I am open for new laser etching orders if/when they come in, and hopefully soon I'll have the time to start making/posting new stuff for y'all to see. Right now I can't guarantee that I will be able to post new stuff soon, but I definitely have a lot of chain mail jewelry made and ready to sell, and plenty of material and supplies for paintings (if I can ever get around to that.) Also, I recently hit the half way point in the manuscript for my first book, so as soon as I can afford to get the thing edited and get the art done for two versions of the book (there will be a special edition but I'm not giving away spoilers, there's still a very long way to go) I'll start plugging that here as well.

Anyway, everything's settled out now, and I should be back to business as usual,
Thanks for being patient!

Hey all,

Yep, I'm still here. Much to the chagrin of some people, I haven't died yet.

Anyway; I wanted to post a small update regarding the business. After making a number of calls and getting a bit of a runaround, because no one knew what they hell they were doing—typical government—I ended up having to contact a local small business development center to get the answers I needed.
As it stands, I won't need to shut down the LLC, all I need to do is reassign the registered agent to myself and cancel the subscription through the company that originally set up the business for me to begin with, which will save be about 500$ a year. Now I have the paperwork done for the transfer filled out, so it'll only be a matter of time before everything is squared away and I can get back to working on SFS.

That said, things are getting a bit dodgy at home. Between tenants not reporting things that needed to be reported (like residents not on the lease, or the people those illegitimate residents bring in) and the potential for starting up a local business in anticipation of my father's imminent retirement/death (he's not dying currently, but after a pretty legitimate health scare—to which the operating surgeon stated he should not have lived through as most people who suffer the issue are dead within a few hours, not living three days before even going to see a doctor—and with his age we expect either his retirement, or death, at pretty much any time) as well as the usual grounds keeping, and the potential to be doing several craft/farmer's market events, I'm relatively convinced that this year is winding up to be... exceptionally interesting.

I'm not making excuses, I should be open for business again here shortly, and I'll have at least a little time to start posting product images, as well as some clearance items; but with that I thank you for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to coming back soon!

Normally I try to keep my news as positive as possible, because I don't like to spread anything less than neutral, but there have been a few things nagging at me for... a while, and with the more recent round of expenditures, I feel it's a good time to air out some laundry.

Now to clarify, I'm not upset, I'm not going away, and I'm most certainly not going to give my naysayers the satisfaction of a poorly earned "I told you so," but SFS will be going quiet and inactive for a while; here's why:

1: The revolving cost of maintaining an LLC in the state of Kansas—the registered agent service, annual reports, and license renewals—are reaching a point in contrast to my personal income (that is what I make outside of the business to pay my bills) as to cause me a large amount of financial strain. Simply put, on the 9k$ usd per year that I make for working on my family's farm, I cannot afford to add between 300$ and 500$ every year to my current debt load.

2: No sales means no justification. Without sales of any kind coming in via in person or online, I cannot justify the costs of having the company be an LLC, especially with the consideration that 99% of my work is custom orders, and of that 95% is in either research and development or planning, or limited to a certain time of year in which I can work due to my working area not being in a temperature controlled area.

3: Complaints regarding prices. Now, for the record, no one I've worked with through this site is the reason for this bullet point. I was invited to a sale approximately a year ago, in which I displayed several of my products. Nearly every single person who asked about the products I had on display said exactly the same thing, my prices were too high. Now, to put this in context, up to that point I did not charge time/labor for my products, and told several of the people who were making the accusation that the pieces they were asking about were "at cost," meaning that the prices I was asking were for the cost of material only. So, with the insinuation that what I sell is worth less as a finished piece than the raw material in mind, moving forward as I restructure the business, my prices and my attitude about them will be changing—to everyone's detriment.


Now, with all that in mind, over the course of the coming year I'll be closing down the business to dissolve the LLC, and reinstating it through my city office as a sole proprietor (or something like that.) I'll also be focusing more of my work time (the time I spend of SFS projects) on writing, painting, and 3d printing, with writing taking the highest priority, as I currently have two books in the works, one of which is nearing the halfway point in terms of being ready to publish.
As I'm dissolving the company to reopen it as a non-LLC entity, I'll be going to an exclusively private customer base, and more production appropriate prices. This means that 1: since I don't like doing advertising, I won't be; if you want something, message me, but don't wait for me to say I'm "open" for commissions, because that won't be happening again—it simply doesn't work with my kind of products. 2: All prices, on all products moving forward are going to reflect at least a small portion of time/labor costs; since federal minimum wage where I live is 7.25$ per hour, there is a better than likely chance that prices for quite a few items will reach and breech the 100$ barrier that I wanted so very badly to avoid breeching.
Examples of this are the paintings that I'm planning to start doing being set at a firm 1$ per square inch at the lowest, and 5$ per square inch at the highest. Laser etchings will still be priced the same. Jewelry—be it wire or chainmail—will be set at 7.25$ per hour (at a minimum of 10 hours, that's 72.50$) plus tax and material. Any reading material will be priced according to the printer's suggestion per format.

Keep in mind that no one whom I've done business with here, via email, telegram, or discord has been the cause of the changes I'm implementing, they are a direct result of not having the financial where-with-all to maintain the costs of an LLC, and the in person feed back I've gotten regarding pricing. Due to these two factors alone, I see no other options. If this isn't to anyone's liking, I sincerely do not apologize.

With that said, I'll try to keep everyone in the loop as to what I put up for sale, and what I plan to offer, as well as prices and links for ordering. The dissolving and reformation of the company will be done within a few weeks, but in that time I won't be doing any business as I won't legally be able to. After that everything changes.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Okay, going to keep this short and sweet because I have to get to bed soon, but...

The SycoFox Store Is Now Up And Running!

It took way too long for this to happen, but it's finally functional enough to bring it on line. Now. I don't have a lot there (in fact I only have one product at the moment, but we'll get there in a minute) so don't expect this great big massive thing, but I have everything ready to go so that I can bring the site up to speed while taking orders from it.

Over the next few months I plan to bring the chainmail page up to speed and begin developing product pages for each of the pieces I offer, but for now, if you visit you'll see that the laser etching page, as well as the store and members pages are up and functional. Which brings me to the real reason for the title of this journal.

Just before FA went down, I got in contact with  feve about doing a print of her "stay feral" shirt design as a thank you for sending me the shirt. After a bit of going around regarding the process of making the piece, I asked if she would be interested in letting me make prints of her design to sell. Quite surprisingly, she agreed with the condition that I pay her royalties for each sale (fine by me, I'm a man of my word, it'll happen.)
Now after that, I set to work on the site to bring it up to speed, and just as FA went down I was able to wrap things up. The final step was completed last night, and I'm now able to both accept and receive payments on my website. (<That's a big deal because up to now I couldn't withdraw payments made to me through the site, hence why I've been reluctant bring the site on line and announce that it was ready to be utilized.

Anyway, With Feve's blessing I now have her "Stay Feral" design, as well as an alternate design, in three sizes each, available for purchase on the site, so if you'd like to get you hands on one, head on over to www.sycofox.com and pick one up!

So in a stroke of insanely good luck, I didn't blow up my machine!

For the last few weeks I've been working to get several pieces of equipment working properly. Starting with the tablet that I bought in order to get back into drawing after an almost 15 year hiatus, I needed to replace the 3-in-1 cable as the HDMI portion of the cable was faulty from the factory. That was the easiest fix of the batch by far, and I have two sets (as the manufacturer sent me an extra set) of an alternate connection cable in case the 3-in-1 doesn't work for some reason, so that should keep me going for a while on that front.

Moving on to my Creality Ender-5 Plus, the original board that came with the machine developed a critical failure around the same time as the Sonic Pad tablet I bought for the machine overheated and cracked, rendering it unusable. Buying replacements for both proved to be a complete waste of time as a firmware update—which contained a known fault and a proprietary lock out code—rendered the replacement parts useless.
After a go 'round with customer service about how to "fix" the issues I was having, I bought yet another control board and installed it. Everything seemed to be going fine, and the machine seemed to be working correctly until I went to run a print and the extruder stopped working and got clogged so bad that I needed a blow torch to clear it. Several troubleshooting sessions, one minor upgrade, and a new feed tube—as the original was destroyed by one of the three clogs that occurred—later, and I decided to try one last thing; adjusting the power output on the control board itself.

Now, I need to emphasize this... I am in no way shape or form so tech savvy as to be even remotely qualified to do what I did, so I was fully expecting to end this machine's working life with a massive puff of rancid smelling smoke.

The reason I had this expectation is this: the adjustments required me to use a multimeter, and a very small screwdriver, while the machine was running I was fully expecting things to go horribly wrong as in order to adjust the power levels of each driver I needed to turn the dial of a potentiometer that is around 1/16 to 3/32 of an inch across (in other words, small enough to need a magnifying glass to see it) so slightly that—with my eyes being what they are, especially in the summer when my allergies and general fatigue from living in in the Midwest, in a house that does not have working A/C—it was impossible to see that the dial had even moved.
However, it worked gangbusters and for the first time since the end of April, I was able to run a print from start to finish, with no adhesion issues, no extrusion failures, and no random travel alarms.

Now, I think I still have some tweaks left to do to the machine, but as of right now, all of my machines (the laser etcher just needs to be set back up, and likely updated) are operational, and as far as I am concerned, ready for service. So, tentatively and with the understanding that my equipment might fail again at any moment, I can honestly say that SFS is back open and—on a limited basis—ready to start taking commissions again.

I apologize for having to close everything down in the time it took to fix these problems, but I needed to focus my full attention on them and could not handle the idea of committing to a deadline until they were fixed. As far as that goes I will say this, until it gets too cold for me to reliably run my printer, I'll be turning out parts for a project I'm working on, and will (assuming everything continues work correctly) be posting teaser images, and—if time allows—setting up a youtube channel, and posting links to videos detailing the parts.

I'm glad to be running again, and look forward to any business I might get.

Hey all,

While I'm reasonably sure there's few if any that still read my posts, I do feel I need to give you an update. As of today (05-31-2024) all commissions will officially be closed indefinitely until such a time as I can get my equipment restored to working order. Allow me to explain.

Around September of last year my snapmaker—which is a 3-in-1 cnc milling/carving, laser etching/cutting, and FDM 3d printing machine—developed a crippling fault in the form of a warped bed. Now this doesn't effect the quality of any laser etchings that I might do, but it rendered the machine useless for 3d printing and likely cnc milling and carving, So I bought an Ender 5 Plus from Creality, which turned out to be a God send in terms of printing ability.
Never before had I been able to print such intricate structures, and until the start of this month, I believed I would finally be able to get a handle on a few projects I've been working on to showcase my abilities. That's when the control board, and the UI tablet I bought with the machine melted.
The control board failed in a way that I'm unable to ascertain the nature of, however replacing it solved the machine side issue—we'll get back to this in a moment. I found that the tablet, when it over heated, had cracked the screen and rendered the entire right edge unresponsive. It was replaced, and everything worked fine until the control board (which I had yet to replace at this point) failed.
Now, on replacing the tablet I updated the firmware, believing that would solve the issue with the control board as well, it did not. 180$ and a week of waiting later, new board. Everything worked! Plugged the tablet in, flashed over the firmware, everything still worked, discovered that one of the issues I was having with the machine was a lockout loaded into it by the tablet (no big deal, machine still works) but... I also discovered that my tablet will not load programs from a usb drive. Fan-fucking-tastic! Turns out, this is a known issue by creality that has yet to be remedied with another firmware update, and given that they only seen to update their software about every 4 to 6 months, it will likely be next year before I can update it and see if the issue is solved.

Because of this I've decided to temporarily—albeit indefinitely—close all commissions for laser etchings and 3d prints until such a time as I can get both machines back up and running again, and all chainmail commissions will be on a FCFS basis with very limited availability.

I had planned to open two more product commission slots—paintings and drawings—within the next few months to a year, however two things are preventing me from doing so. The first is largely my fault as I am being paid to help my family take care of our properties and simply lack a significant amount of time to devote to learning. The second is that a tablet that I bought quite literally 11 days ago so that I could get back into drawing after 15-ish years turned out to have a faulty component and I'm currently waiting on replacement parts to arrive so that I may complete the troubleshooting process.

At this point, I literally only have 1 thing left in my arsenal of products that I can offer, and that's the chainmail. My writing isn't ready to be released, and likely won't be within the year, so there's a better than good chance that SFS will go dormant, and—like me in real life—simply vanish into obscurity... at least for a while.

I'm not going down without a fight, but right now, I'm the only one fighting, so don't be too surprised if this is the last update for a very long while.

Hey all,

This is going to be a comparatively short journal, but I want to chime in and let folks know what's going on with SFS and in my personal life, which has proven to be far more hectic than anticipated.

First off, with the mental adjustment period over the holiday season from my quitting my job back in October finally coming to a close (despite the persistent night mares) I was given the rather unexpected task of driving to Minneapolis (about 13 hours away) to take care of things if my father—who was rushed into emergency surgery for a blood clot just before valentines day—ended up not surviving the event. Now, it was a close call; had he tried to drive home (as he'd driven to Minneapolis for work) he would have died, had he gone back to the hotel to rest, he would have died, so no one was expecting him to survive (not even the doctors) long enough for the surgery, but survive he did, and much to the relief of everyone involved.

A week later I was hit with a severe sinus infection, and spent a week in bed, but before I got sick I attended a local event where I was able sell some of the jewelry and take commissions (should anyone have actually wanted to buy anything, but I'll get to that in a moment.) While there was a lot of interest in both the jewelry and the laser etchings that I brought to the event, I made zero sales. Now, that was no surprise—I'd expected nothing more than that anyway—but I was surprised to arrive at the realization that the vast majority of potential customers (both in and out of the fandom) tend to believe that the value of my saleable products are lower than the raw material from which they're made. So... as a result, I did a bit of math and came to the exact worth of all of my products and it breaks down as follows:

For Jewelry
Material Cost Plus 20% of shipping to get the material
Federal Minimum Wage
Tax
Shipping

For Laser Etchings and Paintings
Material Cost Plus 20% of shipping to get the material
1 to 5$ per Square inch
Tax
Shipping

Now, due to certain limitations and set backs regarding my 3d printing, I'm no longer offering these services for the foreseeable future, so the pricing model for these services is no longer relevant, but I digress...

At present I am no longer willing to negotiate on price through online sales or in person sales due to my experiences at the event in February, however in person sales will always see a steep discount so when I begin traveling I strongly encourage everyone who doesn't want to pay full price for my products to seek me out at the events I'll advertise here and on my website. (Please note I'm not planning to travel for a while, so I will occasionally advertise sales both here and on my website.)
So with that in mind, understand that the prices of my products are going to—in nearly every case—be at least slightly higher than what they have been before, so I'll give you an example with a new product that I'll be introducing in the coming weeks.

In this example we're going to use a 12x12 oil landscape painting for ease of math, but understand that ALL paintings and laser etchings will now follow this formula.
Now, if the canvas and paint supplies costs 20$ (for the painting not as a whole) your material cost is 20$
Add in any value between 1 and 5 dollars usd per square inch (the range in which I'll be basing my prices and sales) for this example we'll use the highest rate of 5$ per square inch, which comes to 720$ usd. Adding tax to the price per square inch at 8% gives the total of 777.60 plus the material cost gives a complete total of 797.60
From there add in shipping, which I calculate on a sale by sale basis and you'll have your total price.

Now if almost 800 for a 12x12 painting sounds like too much, keep in mind, that 5$ per square inch is the most anyone will ever pay. I plan to do two regular sales points, 50% and 75% off of this so, for the 50% sales, that same painting will cost 408.80 (tax and material included) and the 75% sale price will be 214.40 (tax and material included.)
These are the prices that will be listed on my website. They are full price. I will not negotiate this; however, because I know not everyone can afford this, you do have the chance to get not only a lower price, but also a lower sale price. Above I mentioned the potential for my per square inch charge to be as low as 1$ meaning that the same 12x12 will be 144$ before tax and material cost, at 50% off that price point, you could pay 97.76 (after tax and material costs) and 75% off would be 58.88 (after tax and material cost.)
So a painting that costs almost 800$ being sold at an in person sale, or under some stacked promotion for less than 60$—I think—is something that most people can still afford, so yes, my prices are going up, but you still have a chance to get my products for much less than the sticker price.

As far as the jewelry goes, current federal minimum wage is 7.25 and the average work time is 10 hours, so all sticker prices on my website and here will be 78.30 plus the varying cost of material (material plus 20% of shipping cost) and shipping. This price point will still have the same 50 and 75 percent discounts, so a typical piece will run 114.30 after material and tax; with a 50% discount that piece would be 75.15 after tax and material, and with a 75% discount would be 55.58 after tax and material.

Now, if those numbers seem a bit off, keep in mind, the ONLY part of the price I'm discounting is the hourly rate and the price per square inch as those two factors are the only taxable factors and therefore the only factors I have control over. So At the end of all this, I ask you—not for your opinion on my prices—but whether or not any of what you've just read makes anything I sell worth less than the cost of material as was implied to be the case in February.

Anyway I still have a bit of work to do before I can begin bringing the jewelry and paintings online but as it stands, I have a standardized set of prices now, and unfortunately—as I'd genuinely wanted to make my work something than anyone could afford—I can no longer negotiate those numbers outside of discount and promotional sales.

Hey all,
Just wanted to give everyone a quick heads up on the state of things as we move into the new year. In short, it's going slower than I'd like, but things should begin to pick up as the year goes on.

It's been a general rule that I shut production down after Halloween to clear my schedule for the holidays (which for me are usually hectic in that everyone is running around like lunatics, and I'm just trying to either avoid going to prison for giving someone their Darwin award, or trying to keep up with my responsibilities around the house) but now that the holidays are over, and I've had a cup or two of coffee, SFS is back open, and ready for commissions.

As such I have a wonderful announcement to make! I am now taking commissions for not only the laser etchings, but also for completely customizable chainmail jewelry! I have at present a total of 21 different kits (23 counting duplicates) from Weave Got Maille to serve as samples once I get around to posting pictures of them.
All are fully customizable in terms of colors and placement (i.e. bracelets can be made as necklaces, and ear rings and pendants as keychains etc.) They are sized to fit the individual (and if bought for a child can be altered to fit as they grow up) and in the case of necklaces can be made as long or short as you want.

At present everything is in the latter stages of planning, so prices for the kits aren't set in stone as of yet, but I am open to custom orders as well. Like the laser etchings, custom chainmail orders will be a process consisting of design specs and sizing. Basically anything worn on the hands, ankles, ears, head, or around the neck is fair game, and I have more than two dozen different weaves, and colors, and countless sizes of rings (as well as dragon/mermaid scales) available to me to make your piece one of a kind.

Keep in mind that product sample pictures are coming, I just need to get a bit of time between cleaning up the property and working on other (still secret) 3d Design/Printing prototypes that—if they work as intended—will be used as promotional products while I work on researching what I need to do (licensing and permits) to sell them.

Anyway if anyone is interested in getting a commission, be sure to drop me a line in the DMs here, or email me at cashcroft.freelance[at]gmail.com I also have some other chainmail trinkets in the R&D stage and will roll them out as the year progresses.

Happy New Year everyone, and thanks for sticking around! Big things are happening this year, so stay tuned!

As of 4:30pm this last Wednesday, I put myself on someone's shit list in a big way.

Truthfully this whole ordeal started when my father started getting serious about getting a new vehicle to replace one that the frame is rotting out from under. After about three months of searching—and being something of a middleman for several weeks via facebook marketplace—a vehicle was found.
MY mother and I drove out to where the owner lived (about an hour away) and took it for a test drive, and gave it the once over. Everything about the vehicle met our collective requirements, however while on the test drive, the transmission took a shit. Well, it didn't seem too bad, and the guy selling it knew immediately what had happened, and—being a mechanic—how to fix it, so we said we'd buy it if he could get it fixed.

Now, as a professional courtesy, I kept my boss in the loop on the situation, as much as I needed to for my part. This meant giving him the forewarning that I would likely need to leave midweek the following week (which didn't happen by the way) to pick the "new" vehicle up. To which he responded, "well you always have the weekends," meaning that I wasn't going to be able to take the day off if I needed to.
Okay, fair enough. It's the employer's right to deny leave without adequate lead time, I was fine with that. What I was not fine with, was the implication.

In not so many words—and no uncertain terms—my boss had just implied that he had the right to control my time. Again, fair; while one is at work or scheduled to work, they should, and they should devote that time to their respective duties, baring any unforeseen circumstances.
What struck me with this dismissal of my professional courtesy, and the implication that he made, was that because my schedule was built around my job, and my immediate family (mother, father, brother) have to plan their schedules around mine so that I can help them (as I'm the only person in my family that does jack shit (with mom as the sole exception) for anyone but themselves) with their dealings—in this case, it was helping my mother find and purchase a vehicle that met the family's needs—he (my boss) also controlled their time, and the time of the guy selling the vehicle by extension as well.

Well, in full disclosure, I had been toying with the idea of trying to go part time at my job until SFS picked up, which would keep me from being completely reliant on my father, who has more than once expressed his extreme displeasure at my being anything more than a cum stained Kleenex 34 years ago (I'm 33 btw) and by extension wouldn't be a burden on my family, which I now am, despite working to earn my keep. But that didn't happen.
When my boss decided to claim lordship over my time, and the time of no less than four other people who he had nothing to do with, part time went out the window, and the clock started ticking. That was three weeks ago; the start of October.

Now, I've voiced my displeasure a great number of times at the conditions that I was working, to those in the know. Now for those who aren't, you soon will be. From low pay (less than half of a competitive wage within the industry) and dealing with a dog that had aggression issues so severe that FedEx sued my boss after one of their drivers was bitten, to blatant and severe OSHA, and EPA violations I had been fed up with my boss for a while when all this went down.
When I started planning on quitting at the end of this year, back in the trouble was only really getting started; back then it was just the dog, and the pay that bothered me. The other stuff was... is... bad, but not intolerable. However, between July, and October we had three things happen. 1: the shop lost an employee (that was a good thing because production in the shop sped up after he left) 2: the overall cleanliness of the shop (which at best could make a tornado stricken trailer park look like a five star resort in Miami) degraded to the point of having to actively avoid stepping in dog shit while working. And 3: the machines I was working on (CNC mills and lathes) began to fail repeatedly in ways that made them increasingly dangerous to operate.
Combine all of that with my boss's refusal to properly repair, or maintain those very same machines—doing little more than cobbling them together, or putting in temporary measures (such as a hardware store tarp (if you think I'm joking or exaggerating, I'll post a screencap of a video I took of one of the machines to prove my point)) to regain functionality, with no intention of actually repairing them, and you have a recipe for this last Tuesday...

The day started off spectacularly! *cough* sarcasm *cough* The first thing my boss did for the day was to reprimand me for not drilling and reaming an order of parts that I was running off a CNC lathe, while the lathe was running (common practice to save time since it needed to be done on a separate machine anyway.)
Now, this is a conversation we have on a very regular basis; any time I needed to have a second machine set up to do part of a job, but didn't know how to set it up, he would have to set it up; but he would only set it up the next day, or about half way through the order, which ever came first, then proceed to reprimand me for not doing what I needed the other machine set up to do. (Is it really the employee's job to tell, remind, or ask the employer to do theirs?)
Anyway, Immediately after this played out, I ran out of material to run the parts—another of my boss's ineptitudes... not being willing to order the material until the day it's needed because he can't budget well enough to afford it and keep the lights on in the same week, but I digress...
After informing him that I was out of material, which I hadn't known (thinking that I still had a few parts worth in the machine when I left Monday) I was further reprimanded, as he walked out the door to take his grandson to school (that's a long convoluted story in and of itself, which I won't get into here, but the reason his mother isn't in the picture is because she died a year or so ago.)
Now, within about ten minutes of him leaving to take his grandson to school, I hear the only other running (for the day) machine fail. Knowing it'll be down for the next hour, I pay no mind to the 2ic (the only other employee in the shop besides me) starting up the one—yeah, that's one... as in singular, less than two, no others in any way, shape, or form, ONE—fully functional machine in the entire shop (which is only so because it's using parts from another machine...) to set it up for another op on a run of parts I did the day before.

In total it took my about half an hour (boss still isn't back, he's usually gone for 1.5 to 2 hours in the morning) to get caught up on the parts I was reprimanded over earlier. Guess it was such a massive problem after all, huh? So now I have nothing to do, and have to pile in right along side the 2ic on the machine he just started up to help him (so that if the walks back in, it at least looks like I'm doing something.) So now there's two people, on one... as in singular, less than two, no others in any way, shape, or form, ONE machine. OUT OF NINE!!! that were running when I started this job eight years ago!

(see why I so heavily emphasized "one?" all of them have completely failed in some way or another in that time...)

Well, when my boss finally got back (around nine-ish in the morning, after leaving at seven) I was running again, because I and the other guy had to unload 300 pounds of material off the truck by hand (again... boss's job as he won't train anyone on the forklift.) I went until noon, when I normally break for 30 minutes (out of a ten hour day... remember OSHA? It used to be 15 minutes... remember the pay issue? Yeah...) When I came back, I found that my machine had gone down while I was on the other side of the shop. Why? The air compressor that my boss cobbled back together after it burst a line into the tank (which tore a lot of shit up) failed... again.
So I told my boss, just as he was sitting down to his lunch, oh well...
Anyway, he comes storming out goes grabs a pipe wrench, beats on the compressor a bit after shutting it off, digs out another air line, splices it into a machine that hasn't run for 4 years because the spindle is rusted solid so that my machine can run. He then proceeds to (and I'm sure he didn't know that I saw this) threaten to throw the wrench (probably at me) as he storms off throwing a hissy fit about how he can't even eat his lunch in peace.

I was done. I finished out the day and went home.

I would have handed my boss my time card then, but as I told him, it would have caused more trouble than it was worth to hand him my time card while he was enjoying a conversation with the 2ic when I clocked out Tuesday. So I came back Wednesday. I spoke to no one unless spoken to, did my work, took my break, and when I clocked out, I handed my boss the time card and told him I wasn't putting up with this shit anymore, and that I wouldn't be coming back, to which he simply replied, "okay."

Now I still have to go back to get my last check, but as of 4:30pm CST Wednesday afternoon, I am now a full time employee to my mother, helping her maintain the farm I live on (it's her property, I just live on it) and get it ready to be an income generating entity.

Now for the good part.
This means that I am now also dedicating a metric fuck-ton of time to SFS! I have a lot of stuff on the way, and in the works. I probably won't be taking many commissions this year for work, however, for those interested parties who've watched this page and keep up with the goings on here, (or are simply spying on me for people I no longer wish to associate with) that's not a bad thing, as I am currently making sample pieces of a new line of products that I'm going to start rolling out, probably after Christmas, and I'm also going to be opening up a patreon page for folks who want some stupid good discounts!
My commission info here is going to be changing to reflect the products and services I offer, and the website will FINALLY begetting updated (after 2 years...) I'll be restructuring my gallery as well, and if there's enough interest in certain things that I'm going to be offering (like my published work) I'll be cross posting that here as well!

Guys the end of this year is a major turning point, and I hope you all get to come along for the ride! I'm truly excited to finally have the time I need to get this ball rolling, and with my plans for this business outside FA (i.e. in the world at large) it's honestly starting to look like SycoFox Studios will be what I've been trying to make it since day one!
Thank you all, and I genuinely hope you'll join me in this new chapter of my life!

Good luck to you all, and God bless!
Casey.

Hey all,

This is actually going to be fairly quick this time, because I'm fighting the urge to fall asleep at my computer XD

Anyway, here we go: I have managed to secure 98% of the funds to pay off my debts through stringent saving practices throughout the last year, so I've begun the process of paying things off, and am back on track to getting out of my day job by the end of the year at the latest. So I can honestly say that everyone reading this can expect a repetitive, and very generic "YCH" post here by that time, as well as a series of updates to pricing and payment policies (HINT: Listed prices for laser etchings are going away since the supplier's prices are constantly changing and I don't do markups for material) as well as a detailed list of the services I can now provide.

Here's the short list: Laser Etchings, 3d Printing, 3D CAD (blender) Design (sorry no character designs yet), Lichtenburg Etching, and various hand woven items (and yeah, I mean that, I actually have access to a couple of looms), Photograph prints (laser etched and photo paper), paperback and hard cover books (I started my creative venture as a writer 20 years ago and will finally have time to make something of it), and photobooks

Most of the work that I'll be doing once I do quit my job will be listed on the SFS website, and once I get it updated and fleshed out I'll be posting a link here on FA. I'll be implementing all of my intended offerings slowly as I'm able to build up an inventory to sell locally, but be aware that I'll begin accepting orders for more than just the laser etchings immediately after the journal goes up announcing that I have quit my job. About the only think I will never accept commissions for is writing. I learned a long time ago that the only writing I can do for monetary gain is what I do for my stories.

Anyway, this was supposed to be short, but at least it was quick...
Hope you all have a wonderful time, and I'll be sure to update soon!

Hey all,

Still not dead yet, though work is actively trying to kill me. (I'll be fine just working in what has very quickly become a fema, osha, hazmat, violation poster child) I just wanted to drop in and address the announcement in my previous journal that I would likely be able to quit my job within the next six months to a year, some time between october '23 and march '24.

Well I have two things to say on this; 1st is that, unfortunately it's starting to look as though that's going to—as is usually the case it seems—get pushed back to next year. This infuriates me to quite a degree because I need to focus my time and energy into both this business, and the maintenance and upkeep of the family farm. I still plan to post updates as I can regarding the 3d printing projects I'm working on, and to take laser etching commissions as I can, but due to the severe lack of time available to me (for which my job is solely responsible) these will continue to be sparce at best. I do have one more post to make for a print I did for  sigil-prince but I haven't had even enough time to post that since the print was completed. (I haven't forgotten it Sig, I'm just so strapped for time even doing laundry is getting difficult.)

Second is that with as infuriating as the situation has become, I've begun dumping as much of my regular paycheck into an investment account as I possibly can, with the intention of using the gains to pay my bills after the new year. Granted I've been building finds in this manner since the start of the year, I've been getting help with my bills as a means of reducing the overall load as much as possible in order to better convince a certain party (i.e. my father) that adequate maintenance on the farm won't cost as much as they expect. At present I expect to have more than enough to suffice by the end of the year, however if my father can't be convinced that it's feasible, next year will be a very short stint of dumping cash into bills, followed by further investing and a down payment on either a class a or c camper that I can convert into a mobile office.

Tl:dr I'm pissed. I'm putting too much time and effort into a job that I hate, and my father seems to think that not only am I not competent enough to make my business a success as I haven't got the time to work on his parts (which are one of my "big money" orders), he says that if I quit said job to get the time I need to maintain the property, and focus on my business (and his order) I'll be out on my ass, because he doesn't want to pay for my time or work on the farm. This is why I'm considering the mobile office, and I've already told my mother—who's paying for my bills at the moment as a feasibility experiment—that if this happens, shit will hit the fan in a big way because by the end of next year I'll have more passive income than I need for all this to happen with or without my father's approval.

Anyway, all this is to say once again that I'm not in control of my life as I'm more or less having a gun held to my head and being forced to do what lesser minds have decided is my only purpose—prioritizing their wants over my needs. I thank you all for your extreme patience and I sincerely hope that things work out because you guys (really all my customers) deserve nothing but the best of what my business has to offer, and I would greatly like to give that.

I'll post another update when I have a clearer picture.

Hey all,

Just wanted to pop in here and let everyone know that I'm still alive and well (even though I'm fairly certain there are some people out there that would like the opposite to be true... glad to be a disappointment) and that I actually have some awesome news to share!

With all things work related in my life taking up an ungodly amount of my time, and leaving me with far less time than I actually need to fulfill my responsibilities at home, and to SFS finally bringing me to the breaking point after being basically gifted two or more potential sales of a single product that until this journal is posted I'll have not gone public on, I've started taking the necessary steps toward being able to quit working at my day job within the next six to twelve months.

That's big news... but not as big as the announcement that I'm about to make!

After spending the last several months learning and honing my abilities in the 3d printing, and 3d design aspects of my business, I'm now confident enough to begin offering these services to the general public. (But this won't happen right away, like I said, I'm still a minimum of six months from being financially able to quit my day job and there's still a ton of work left to do to get ready for that.)

However...

The reason I'm making this announcement now is because of those sales I mentioned earlier. I asked a friend of mine, who owns a small shop in Washington state if he'd be interested in selling a kit I'm putting together. He asked me what the kit was, and within five minutes of my telling him, and giving him an estimated price, he sold two, netting me a potential 3,000$ usd!

Now, I don't have much faith (in anything anymore) that this will pan out, but it puts me under the gun to really show what my business is capable of doing, so as of the time I quit my day job, I'll be making a series of posts to advertise and showcase the 3d printing aspect of SycoFox Studios. Then from there I'll be opening for commissions in both FDM (PLA and ABS) as well as resin models.

There's a whole lot more that I'd like to say, but at present most of what I'm actively able to do is still in limbo while the powers that be determine whether it's financially feasible to fund this endeavor while the business finally gets the attention it deserves.

I look forward to making some updates soon, but in the case no one hears from me for another year, that's where we stand, and we are finally making progress!

I hope you all have the best of luck with your own endeavors this year, and with that, I'll see you on the other side!

Hey all,

Been about a minute since my last update, but I have awesome news!

Over this weekend I was able to find time to get the sycofox website up and running (though it's still under construction) as well as some nature pictures at a local park that I've been able to post for sale on picfair. You can find links to them on the sycofox website www.sycofox.com by going to my gallery and clicking on the images cycling through the roll under Landscapes.

Right now prices are set at 20$ per print, though if I don't gain any traffic, I will lower them, as it's better to start high and lower, rather than low ball and raise prices. Either way, if you would like any of the pictures I'm posting for say, you can order prints of them through picfair, or directly contact me if you'd like to have one of them made into a laser etching.

As time goes on I plan to make and sell etchings of my pictures both here and on the website, but for right now I'll keep then to strictly print on demand. The prices for etchings of my own pictures are based on standard pricing, plus the price of the picture. My contact info is on the website, but as always you can message me here on FA.

I look forward to hearing from you, and am glad you guys have stuck around long enough to see this happen!
Thank you all so much!
Casey.

P.S. On a side note, I'm going to leave this age reserved specifically for the wood etchings, that way I'm not uploading the pictures to the internet in three different places. I will however be posting the etching of the pictures here and listing them for sale, so keep an eye out when I start printing them!

Hey all, I just wanted to take a moment to throw out a short update and let you know how things are going.

So the job in Washington has more or less fallen through; the guy is still interested in hiring me, and the friend I have up there is still willing to rent a house out to ne, but finances have taken a turn, and I had to pull the plug in favor of being a bit more prepared for any troubles that may come up over the course of the year.

That said, I did order some camera equipment, and plan to do a fair amount of traveling throughout the year, and will be posting a number of the pictures I take on this page and on picfair ( https://sycofoxstudios.picfair.com ) for sale. As of right now I haven't settled on a price point for anything, but I feel 20 per print would be a good starting point which would allow me to either go up or down depending on how many sales I get.

Now, you guys are the first people to know about this so be sure to keep an eye out for more pictures to start popping up here, and more information on prices and prints. I plan to offer standard printed pictures, prints on canvas, and laser etchings depending on the subject matter of the image itself. These will be up for sale indefinitely as I can make as many or as few as I need, and they will be priced separately from the print work I've posted thus far due to the fact that in order for me to produce these pieces I will actually need to go out and get the pictures first.

Of course with doing this, there's a pretty good chance I may start showing up at conventions and taking pictures simply for practice and for fun, if anyone sees me, or finds themselves in one of my pictures feel free to let me know and I'll be glad to send you a print free of charge as pictures I take at conventions--unless specifically requested by the subject (i.e. a paid photo shoot)--will never be sold.

Anyway for now that's all I've got, I'll be working out prices as the year goes on, but in closing I'm ultimately glad to say that I won't have to shut down commissions as I thought I would, and will in fact be able to ding you much more in the coming months!

Be sure to stay tuned, and look forward to more updates as time goes on!

Cheers,
Casey.

As we all spiral invariably toward the new year, I want to take a moment to thank you all again for following me here! Without your support I wouldn't have had the drive to take the steps I have that have given me the confidence to make this announcement, so here goes.

SycoFox Studios is now a full-fledged LLC! Now the reason behind this was a desire to make a viable income so for myself so I didn't have to have a regular "day job" anymore, and I went about this by opting into an event to start up an online marketing business, however said online marketing was not my goal; my goal was to learn a skillset that would help further my own endeavours. And help it has! While I can't say that I've seen any financial gains, I have managed to secure an official licensed LLC for SFS, which means that now, if this does take off well enough, alongside my writing ventures, I will be able to leave the 9 to 5 and dedicate more time toward doing what I enjoy!

That's for you guys, you all helped me make that leap by showing me that I could actually provide some value to the world; thank you.

My next announcement is this: within the next two to three months, I will be gearing up to move about 1700 miles across country to begin a new life in Washington state, so around about the middle of January I'll be making an announcement--provided all goes well--that for a short time next year, commissions will be closed while I move. This closure will be from the time of the announcement until approximately the end of april as to allow me the time I need to pack, travel, and unpack. I may reopen sooner, but it will greatly depend on the timing and the circumstances surrounding the move itself. At present I'm still trying to secure the job that will afford me an income up there, but as soon as it goes through, I'll be on my way.

This job will not only be better paying, but will also allow me more time to focus on expanding the company, and the move will allow me more freedom to make this happen as well, so I look forward to seeing what the new year brings, and with any luck I'll be able to do more for you guys as a result!

Cheers, and thanks again!
Casey

Hey all,
Just wanted to make a post here to let everyone know that I'm still alive. I have posts from  luthiennightwolf that I need to get put up here, however to kinda give y'all an idea of the amount of free time I have, I'm reasonably sure that I won't be able to post them until the last week of the year when I have a full ten days off work to get caught up on everything going on at the moment.

As for the productions possibilities, my machine is a combination laser etcher/cutter, cnc mill, and 3d printer. So, as I've closed commissions for the year I reconfigured my machine to do 3d printing as there are some things that I've been needing to get done, and I've been needing to learn blender so it was pretty much the perfect time to experiment with the machine.
I'm still trying to get everything in blender figured out, and to learn the machine's limitations, but with any luck, by the start of the year I may be willing to offer custom 3d prints for those who can supply the stl files for their projects.
The machine is a filament printer so extremely small details (i.e. rivets on a model locomotive) aren't possible, however the level of the resolution I have gotten thus far has proven to me--in my experience with these things--remarkably high with the right settings. If you're interested in having your projects printed, send me a message and we'll see what can be done!
As always I won't be charging an arm and leg for this, having done the math, 1 or 2 dollars usd per hour would cover the running and material cost, and shipping would be based on geographic location.

Anyway, I appreciate your patience and look forward to opening up commissions the 1st of January!

Cheers,
Casey

Hey all,

First off I want to say thank you to everyone who's watching this page. I'm not going to lie, I didn't expect to reach 25 watchers by uploading so infrequently, yet here you are! Honestly, just knowing that many of you will see each new post I make reenforces my hope that this takes off. I'd like to be doing this and my writing full time, and each one of you has brought me that much closer to that goal, so thank you!

Second, I know I'm uploading a bit slower than I should, given that I have four more posts to make before my back log runs dry, but with this weekend being freed up over an impromptu shopping trip between my mother and her sister, I should be able to post at least two of the remaining four images.

I am still open for commissions for the next couple of days, but after Halloween I'll be shutting down until after the first of January to focus on getting the house ready for the holidays--which is actually why I've been working on the back porch for a month, but I digress...

After Halloween I will still accept orders, but they will be slated for 2022 as I cannot guarantee shipping times, or prices during the holiday season. Now, what I will say is that all orders I accept over the next two months are guaranteed slots in the upcoming brackets.

All my openings are FCFS (first come first serve) in that the longer you wait, the longer you'll have to wait before I start your order. I greatly hope to have my schedule filled next year, and I hope that you'll all enjoy my postings both here and on my writing page  jessie-wolfe where I plan to begin uploading both artwork and excerpts from the upcoming series of short stories that will kick off my largest writing project to date as soon as I have the first story ready to go.

Be sure to check it out, and again, thank you all for your support! I really can't do this without you!

Cheers,
Casey.

Hey all,
So I know that I've been a bit inactive on here for about a minute, but I do want to let you know that I'm still here and still trying to get this going. My pathetic excuse for not uploading the last five prints I've shipped out is that I've been once again wrangled into helping my mother clean the back porch at the farm she inherited from her father when he died. Well that turned into a full on remodeling job and yours truly was the source of the work, despite other people having full capability and enough time to help out.
Anyway, now that my portion of the work is done, I should be able to get pictures of the prints uploaded so you can see that I'm not just pissing around and pretending that I have orders that I'm filling.

On that note, I'm actually completely caught up on my work here, and have no new orders, so, if you're looking for something to get your S/O for Christmas or a late in the year anniversary, I have an open schedule and am willing to take on one or two new orders at a time until the end of October when I will shut down the shop for the holiday season.

As I'll be shutting down at the end of the month, I want to wish you all a happy holiday season and a happy new year!




Please note: I will take orders after the 1st of November, but they will be slotted for January and on.

Hey all,
As I'm coming to the end of my workload on both free and commissioned work, I want to take the time to reach out to you. I know there aren't many folks who will see this, but each one of you is immensely important to the growth of this business.
I'm working on my last order of 4 FFA (free for advertising) prints and I need to keep posting in order to draw in more clientele. So, if you or anyone you know would be interested in ordering one or more prints, please don't hesitate to get in touch!

I have a couple of options available to you right now that I'd be glad to talk with you on regarding your work.

The first is the regular commissioned work.

There's nothing special here, and no bait and switch tactics. I'll work with you and keep you posted every step of the way as I do with all of my customers, because I believe that you deserve honesty and transparency from the work that I'm doing.

I have a new option that I'm considering offering on a regular basis. For a bit more than regular price on an order, I am willing to paint certain pieces (examples of which--at the time of this posting--you'll see here shortly) They're done with a very limited palette of colors that are alcohol based and cannot easily be mixed so I would need to discuss at length the pros and cons of this option before proceeding.
For now the color option is limited to special orders and requests only, but if I get enough demand for it, I will offer it on a more regular basis.

My second option is for those who would like, but cannot afford the work that I do.

As I'm in need of advertising--and the only way that I can advertise is to keep posting on a semi regular basis--I am willing to offer free work (I'll even pay for shipping) in exchange for your permission to post an image of the finished piece in my gallery. All of the images that you see in my gallery (except one which the artist agreed to let me keep due to quality issues) are of prints that have been sent to the artist or commissioner. A great many of them were in fact, free work.

Most people will say that if it's free it's not the best it could be, but I treat all of the work that I do with the most respect, care, and pride that I can manage. When looking through my gallery, ask yourself what quality you can expect, if you can't tell the difference between my paid work and what I'm doing for free, without reading the description.

My day job is manufacturing aeronautics, marine grade parts to exacting specifications, and I bring that level of dedication and attention to detail to the work that I do for you. But I digress.

If you, or someone you know would like to have a piece of their art, whether they drew it themselves or commissioned it, put into a medium that can be proudly displayed in any home, I strongly encourage you to get in touch! I'm always willing to consider either option I mentioned above, and will work with you to ensure you get the best quality I can provide.

Simply put, I do my best to go above and beyond, because if I'm not happy with my work, I know you won't be either.

So, as always, thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope to hear from you soon!
Casey.

So, a bit of good news. Apparently the issues with the machine's calibration have been resolved. I plan to run a test print this weekend to check that are systems are go, but right now I do feel confident in saying that I am again open for commissions should anyone like to sign up!

Thanks for your patients.

While I don't anticipate any real delays, the company that developed the software my machine uses put out an update in the last few days that--while essential to the processes that control the machine--ended up jacking up the calibration settings on the machine to the point that at present it can only be manually controlled.
I do admit that this has left the machine temporarily inoperable, however, I and my affiliate are working to get the machine recalibrated as quickly as possible. At present I cannot take any more commissions until this issue is fixed, I can however place inquiries on a waiting list and once the machine is running again I will follow up with those on the list to begin the commission process for those still interested.

I do sincerely apologize for this, and for those whose orders are still active (freebie exchanges included) I will do my utmost to ensure the problem is resolved, post haste. If all else fails however, I was able to justify the cost of a new machine, so I can get it set up and operational by the end of next week, should the current machine remain down for service.

Thank you for your patience, and again, I do greatly apologize for the inconvenience.

I know it doesn't seem like much, but ten watchers does me a lot to me. Sadly I missed that milestone be a couple, but I'm no less grateful! Thanks to all of you; I do very greatly appreciate this!

As things begin to get moving on this page I want to reiterate that my doing this is not to line my pockets, it's to give back to this community. By and Large the furry community helped me through some very dark times in my past, and those directly responsible for the help are some of my closest friends now, 12 years after I tried to end my life.

I want so badly to give back to this community in a meaningful way, and though I'm a writer by hobby, what I'm doing here is something tangible that I can give you for everything you as a community have done.

It may be just twelve people that see this right now, but my gratitude would be no less than if it were 12,000. Every single watch means so much to me. Thank you!


P.S. As a reminder, prices and sizes are actively in the process of being changed to reflect that I am buying directly from a supplier and not my local hobby store. The Commission info will be altered accordingly as I have time to do so, and I'll be more than happy to forward a link for you to choose the size you would like.

There've been a few changes going on behind the scenes here at SFS that I think need to be addressed. Nothing bad, in fact it may end up being rather beneficial to you as potential customers; and I think you should be aware.

1st: Due to a very sudden and devastating setback in my personal life, as well as professional writing pursuits, I was forced to buy a new computer. The hard drive on the one that I have been using for the last three years failed completely as I was using it. I'll need to send it off to be disassembled if I want to recover anything from it, and that's just not feasible at this time.

2nd: Because I had to buy a new computer, I bit the bullet and ordered a machine of the same brand and model as what I have been using at Memories-4-Ever. Over the next few weeks/months, I'll be setting up an office at my house to accommodate the business, making it easier for me to run the prints during the week. This little luxury won't be up and running for some time, so any orders I get will still take 2 to 3 weeks to complete as I can only do one to to two prints per day max per order. When the office is set up that time will be reduced significantly, though run time will be the same. (one print per day is better than 2 per week)

3rd: Due to repeated difficulties in regards to quality of the products available to me at my local stores, I'm going to be ordering directly from one of their suppliers, Walnut Hollow. This will allow more for more predictable quality, and more regularly available size options. While this will effect pricing a bit in the long run, much of any additional cost will be offset by sales of printed photos that (once I begin taking my own) will be sold here.

4th: A joint venture with  sunspot is going to be picking up steam once the office is set up, as he's put in a standing order for "whatever I have" in the way of sizes for prints he plans to sell. This is the reason I plan to begin selling my own photo prints here as well as sending them to him for sales, as even with a standing order such as this, it would be illegal for me to sell his pictures.


In all there are a few things in the works that will bring more into the business for you to take advantage of. Better quality, better selection, preprinted products; eventually 3d printing and c.n.c. carvings may become available for order as well. SFS is still working on bringing yet more options to the table for laser etching, in the form of canvas and slate, but for the time being progress will be a bit slow on that front as I'm still getting the whole endeavor organized.

For now that's the latest I have,
Until next time, cheers!
Casey.

So having run my T&C journal post past a couple of people that I trust to know what they're talking about, it was brought to my attention that the madness behind the method to my commission list and work order under Section 8 could use some clarification.

Because I didn't want to muddy up the waters—so to speak—in the T&C post, here's how I structure my list so that it's as fair as possible to those with larger, or more complex orders, since it's implied that running faster prints and less complex orders first may lead to larger orders never being completed.

Frist off, I run in blocks of five slots per month. These are my priority for the month, they will be the first that get done, period. As I currently—at the time of posting this—still hold a full time job, and am at the mercy of S.F.S.'s affiliate company Memories-4-Ever for the use of their machine, this is the maximum number of slots I can reasonably allot to a given month (including February.)

Now, if it turns out that I finish the month's prioritized block, I'll begin work on the next block after notifying the position holders that their block is up.

If I end up finishing all 12 blocks for the year, before year's end, I'll open up a new set of blocks for the months remaining, and proceed as normal. Please note however, that if I feel I cannot easily manage extra commission blocks within the remaining months they would otherwise be available, I will only open for one block at a time until the end of the year.

Concerning the Holiday Season
In the United States the time between Halloween and New Years Day is an extremely busy time for everyone, myself included, so if I have blocks to be completed in that time, they will be finished as normal, but please have your holiday commissions planned out ahead of time as—even if I clear my list—I will only accept commissions and fill blocks for October, November, and December before October. After that I will only open one block at a time if I feel I can complete the work.

If for any reason I'm delayed—i.e. the machine goes down, I'm sick, an order takes longer than expected, etc.—all blocks after the current one will be pushed back by one month to allow me to get back on schedule. They'll remain in the same order, and you will be notified when your block is up as normal even if it is still delayed.

Finally, under no circumstances—not even for friends—will I reshuffle blocks to suit a customer who wants their work done before their block is up, as doing so would be unfair to those who reserved a slot in a block slated for earlier in the year. If you need something by a specific date, make sure to contact me at least three months before that date; if my queue is full for the time you need, I will consider work-ins between blocks only if I have the time.

Doing it this way keeps my schedule manageable. It also gives you a reasonable timeline as to when you can expect your order to be started, and it keeps me honest about the time between accepting your commission and its completion.

If you want to know before I send you a message that your commission block is up, keep an eye on this journal post, because I'll be updating it every time I finish one.


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3:
4:
5:
October:
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
November:
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
December:
1:
2:
3:
4:
5: