For those seeking commissions! Update is here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9540159

Do you ever find yourself having an argument in your head... and wondering just who it is you're arguing with?

Since AnthroCon is going to be all-online this year, I'm curious if folks have anything they'd like from me in terms of "Con Specials." I'll be opening commission slots, of course, but the usual draw of "get physical art from the person" is harder to pull off when it involves shipping media.

The con is having a "virtual dealer room" event, but I don't really have the bandwidth for creating a lot of one-use ad banners—I'd rather spend that time actually doing commissions for people. But I'd also love to hear what else folks would like to see!

Starting to build out my streaming/YT presence a bit, so I'll be posting more of these. Meanwhile, enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCxNBISs7jA

Just a quickie heads up for all you lovely people who may follow me here but not elsewhere:

1) I'm still alive!

2) I'm moving (again, ugh!), but while that is super-stressy in the short term, it's good in the long term, because...

3) I'll be going back to art/writing full time for at least the beginning of 2021! The first items on my agenda will be to finish off my outstanding commissions (some of which were due in October, yikes) and to get Reclamation Project up and running again.

4) Sorry, there is no news about Rough Housing. Believe me, when there is, I will tell you.

I'm not going to take on any new commissions before January and possibly February, I don't know yet, but right now my focus is on making good on all my current commitments before taking on any new ones. But a side effect of all that is you should start seeing some art here again.

So, yeah, it's been the bumpiest year of a bumpy several. But I'm looking for great things in the days ahead!

-The Gneech

 R3K has won the hijinks raffle! Congrats! :D

-TG

Work has been sitting on my head and crushing it, which has suppressed pretty much every single thing I've wanted to accomplish this month.

And it won't even pay the rent. So I'm knocking myself out AND going broke. Yay?

Anyway, that raffle winner that was supposed to be announced last week, will be announced tomorrow. Giving you an extra chance to get in tonight if you want in!

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37567551/

We'll make good things happen, dammit!

I've never really had a formal will/won't draw list; for the most part I figured that people coming to me for art were familiar with Suburban Jungle and wanted something in the same mold. But as time has moved on and the practice of setting clear boundaries has evolved (for the better, IMO), I've started to get people asking for one. So... here it is! (Subject to change as time goes on, but what isn't?)

PLEASE DON'T ASK ME TO DRAW...
* Extreme violence. Action scenes and/or martial arts boppage is fine, and cartoonishly being squashed flat or turned into a living accordion are okay.
* Nonconsent, incest, underage. 'nuff said.
* Paw/foot fetish or tickling. I don't have any particular objection to it, it's just never been my thing... but for whatever reason I get a LOT of requests for it and I'd rather not at this point.
* Hyper anything, vein-bulging anything, super-exaggerated body dimensions.

PLEASE DO ASK ME TO DRAW...
* Zany hijinks
* Character portraits
* D&D/Pathfinder/FFXIV/RPG-based art
* Ponies, She-Ra characters, retro kitsch, fan art
* Turnarounds and expression sheets
* Wholesome queerness
* Wholesome straightness
* Cute guys, cute gals, cute nonbinary pals
* Silly fanservice

CHECK FIRST
* Explicit nudity (meaning, "visible naughty bits")
* Explicit sexual activity

I think that covers most of it? If there's more I'll edit the list. :)

For details: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37044771/

Following up on Monday’s post, I’ve been taking stock of where I am in my art and writing career, and it’s clear that I need to attend to some things. Not the least of which is re-building my audience! I have a small-but-tight core of people who have been following my work forever through thick and thin (❤️ Jungloids!) and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. That doesn’t alter the fact that in terms of treating my work as a proper business, there are times when I need to look at it as a numbers game. Even with the crazy high ratio of followers-to-financial supporters that I have, the actual number of followers is tiny.

So, for an example, another artist I follow on Twitter posted a rough little sketch of a character they were noodling around with. It was a cute little drawing, nothing that exciting, but it still got something like 800 likes. I looked at that and blinked for several seconds—I get excited when a post of any kind, much less a doodle, gets over 20 likes. So I looked at their follower count, and discovered it was something like 12,000—compared to mine, which is currently hovering around 1,600.

Well, I mean, no friggin’ wonder.

Before people hop in with “Followers aren’t everything!” I want to make it clear that I don’t attach a personal meaning to have a low follower count on Twitter (or any other platform for that matter), I’m diagnosing a business problem here. :) Even if every one of those Twitter followers was converted to a $1 Patreon subscriber for instance (which isn’t going to happen, but bear with me), that still wouldn’t be enough for me to put food on the table.

I must grow my audience in order to succeed.

So my priority for a while is going to be doing that—but the truth is I have no idea how. O.o

I’m open to suggestions, and I’d love any help I can get. I’ve started posting art to Instagram to expand my horizons, and I am making it a priority to post at least twice a week there and other places, even if it’s just a little sketch-a-day piece. I also started up a fanart sketch request Ko-Fi, although I haven’t had any takers there yet.

So I’m curious! If you follow my work and don’t mind telling me, why do you? What attracted you and made you want to stick around? Do you have suggestions on how I can grow my audience? How do you

Stuff happened. It knocked me off my groove, and I have remained in a state of being off my groove for several years now. And like somebody dangling off a rope trying desperately to scramble back up, I’ve been twisting in the wind, trying one thing after another to get something—anything—to work. It’s kept my head above water… mostly… but it has not led to success. And it has definitely not led to satisfaction.

But a few days ago, I happened on a tweet, nearly swamped in all the World Being So Much With Us right now, but that jumped out at me like an electric spark.

If it’s your calling, it will keep calling you.

I have ADHD. I can hyperfocus for bursts, but repeated, sustained effort is often difficult for me to maintain. But in all the noise, chaos, new shiny things to chase, and so on, there are two things that keep calling me: art and writing, writing and art. They wax and wane seasonally—I’m usually way more into art in the warm months and way more into writing when it’s colder—but they’re both always there.

And my groove, the happiest and most successful times in my life, also coincided with the times that I was most in touch with those. Suburban Jungle is still my high mark of both sustained personal satisfaction and success in terms of reaching an audience. The one thing it never provided, was a livable income, and that in turn led to me believing that making a living with my writing and art was not possible, and so I’ve spent the past several years trying with little success trying to find a way to make a livable income doing anything else, and being miserable while I was doing it.

Well, I hereby surrender that fight.

I am an artist and writer. That’s the alpha and omega, the sum total of who and what I am, and from here forward anything I do is going to be in service of that. There are people who make their living this way. I know some of them. It can be done. And if it can be done, I can do it, I just need to figure out how.

I need to figure out workflow. I need to figure out finding gigs and building (or re-building) an audience. I need to refocus on honing my craft, which stagnated somewhere.

But mostly I need to remember my mission, every day.

I make my living as an artist/illustrator and a writer, creating fun and engaging work that brings people joy and makes them feel seen and connected. That’s what keeps calling me, and I’m going to answer, again and again.

http://www.johnrrobey.com/reclamation-project-year-two/

Fire up your word processors! Send me your Gonzo Hopepunk '80s Saturday Morning Awesomest!

Got a Catradora fic? File the serial numbers off and fit it into the world of Ambara Down. You know you want to!

Looking for daily sketch prompts, and delicious coffee. ;D Would you like a sketch?

https://ko-fi.com/the_gneech

-TG

(Originally posted at gneech.com... http://gneech.com/talk/everything-i-wanted-a-spoileriffic-discussion-of-she-ra/ )

The show that asked, “What if Star Wars was incredibly gay?” and then answers, “IT WOULD BE AWESOME AS FUCK!”

There’s so much for me to say about She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, I don’t even know where to begin. I already knew, when I was defending Catra as A Cinnamon Roll Who Wants to Kill You that this was a show I was going to be very heavily invested in. Catra literally feels to me like Noelle Stevenson plucked her right out of my brain and put her on the screen—to the point that I wrote to Ms. Stevenson directly and leveraged all of my comics/animation contacts into trying to find a way to get onto the writing team… without success, alas.

Catra would look at Leona Lioness or Tanya Regellan and say “Oh, you too?” She is also directly the inspiration for Shade-Of-the-Candle, whose own transition from snarling murdercat to laughing bandit has parallels to the arc Catra actually follows. As Emmet Asher-Perrin so aptly put it, “Catra was an instant favorite on the show among its fans. But there was something about it that nagged at me, something more specifically related to her type, and what that type said about me, and what it meant that I kept returning to it.”

And I’m not gonna lie, I was scared for Catra. With every season ending with her in a worse place than the last one, and knowing in very personal detail exactly the self-destructive cycles she was going through, I was terrified she was going to go down with the ship. Redemptive Suicide is such a terrible trope, but such a common one in fantasy and SF, that I was at least 65% convinced that was going to be her fate.

(Mere words cannot express how happy I am to read that Shadow Weaver’s final fate was intentionally written as an “Up yours!” at that specific trope.)

I stopped watching the show halfway through season four, because Double Trouble pushed too many of my buttons—I didn’t have it in me to watch these characters I was so fond of just unravel and tear each other apart, and after the end of season three I couldn’t bring myself to watch Catra do any more horrible things without some kind of light at the end of the tunnel. So I suspended my Netflix account and waited. There was no way I wouldn’t watch season five when it came out—but I couldn’t finish until I could actually finish, if that makes any sense.

So… where do I stand, now that the show’s over? Like the title says, it gave me everything I wanted. Catra to have a true redemption. A true, explicit and undeniable romantic relationship between Catra and Adora. Adventure, excitement, and really wild things. Strong characters, deep and compelling villains, beautiful animation. The first ever canonically and unambiguously queer protagonist in mainstream western animation. On some level, I must face that I resent that I couldn’t be part of it. When I knew getting involved in the show wasn’t going to happen, I created The Reclamation Project to redirect that energy, so good has still came of it, but for me She-Ra will never not be “one that got away.” It’s a historic, once-in-a-lifetime event, a revolution that I was only able to watch and not participate in. And there’s nothing I can do about that except get over it.

On the other hand, the sheer joy that S5 has filled me with blots out those dark thoughts. Scorpia going from doormat to utter badass. Entrapta—who I’ve historically been very down on—not just coming to grips with the difference between “people” and “things,” but also giving Catra one of the most understatedly but purely kind moments in Problem Cat’s whole life.

Wrong Hordak. Just freakin’ Wrong Hordak. He’s another character who feels like he was ripped out of my brain.

Catra’s sheer desperation for Adora in the final two episodes—and that Catra’s (requited!) love for Adora literally saved the universe.

I could do this all day. I’ll stop. If you’ve seen the show you know all these things.

What does it mean to me? I don’t know. I know that Suburban Jungle has touched lives—but not on the scale or sheer power that this show has. Is there still something useful for me to do? If so, what? And how do I do it? What can I bring to the table in a world that already has this in it?

I’ll find something.

Well it's absolutely the right call, but crapola. -.-

<3

So I doubt any of it comes as a surprise to anyone, but since culturally we seem to be going all-in on pride month this year, lemme go for full disclosure: I am pansexual and genderqueer, defaulting to "bi" and "he/him" when I want to keep things simple. :)

Keep flyin' them flags, freaks. :)

...I have no idea of it's working or not. XD But the tip jar is officially open!

Granted, putting up some new stuff would probably help me generate a few tips, eh? Working on it! I'll get back to you soon. :)

(Reblogged from http://gneech.com/talk/on-connection/ )

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” –Carl W. Buehner

Ever since writing my 2018 report the other day and putting thought into 2019, I’ve become increasingly aware of a theme woven into the music of my life and now coming to the forefront: I must develop my ability to create connection, both on a personal and professional basis, and within my writing.

Because when I look at what isn’t working in my life right now, I see two sides of the same coin: needing to learn how to network in order to build my coaching practice on the one side, and being told repeatedly, “Your writing is crisp, clean, and professional, but the book just didn’t grab me…” on the other. Both of these things are about creating an emotional connection with people, whether directly or indirectly.

I’ve always been vaguely aware of this in terms of watching the audience for Suburban Jungle (and my place within the furry fandom generally)– it’s just like my friendships have been over the course of my life. SJ has a smallish knot of devoted fans, some of whom are intensely devoted to it. (NeverNever was like this too, only moreso.) As long as I can remember, I’ve had a few very close friends, and often been very challenged around getting outside of that group.

Those tight friendships (and very devoted fans) mean the world to me and I don’t want to downplay them. But it is increasingly clear to me as time goes on that I need to widen my circle. A small number of tight friends can make a handful of referrals in my client hunt, but their potential is quickly tapped out on that front. A very devoted fan might buy all of my books and support the highest tiers of my Patreon, but they are only one fan and cannot subsidize my life (nor would I want them to).

And besides the straightforward inability of the math to get me what I need, these small circles also don’t give me what I want. I want to help people with my coaching. I want people’s days to be better because I was in them. I want to have crowds at my table, and people writing fanfics or doing in-depth analysis of my work on Tumblr. As nice as it might be to be recognized as a genius posthumously? I want my work to be loved now.

When my Aunt Iris died, half of Fairfax and Loudoun counties came to her funeral, and everyone– everyone– had something to say about the way she’d connected to them. By comparison, when my father died a year later, his funeral was attended by maybe twenty people, including his three children, their spouses and children, and some of my friends.

That stuck with me.

I loved my dad. Everyone there did. But there is no denying that his life was, in its way, small and limited. I don’t want mine to be.

So what am I going to do about it? I think I was starting to come to awareness of this gap when I came up with my writing goals for 2019, because I listed my goal as “Create self-satisfaction, expression, and meaningful impact in others’ lives by means of becoming a successful and widely-read author/artist.” I added as one of my goals to change my relationship to, say, my Patreon, by focusing not on the dollar amount it brings in, but by the number of subscribers who sign up and the amount of comments that are left.

Similarly, I tweeted last night, “I’ve got ~1500 followers on Twitter and ~450 on Tumblr, and I would like to double those numbers by the end of January. But I’m looking for, y’know, real people who will like my work, not bots. Any suggestions on what I should do, real people?” And that’s an important distinction! I don’t want fluffed up “metrics” that don’t mean anything, I’m not some dot-com-era middle manager looking for clicks.

How will I do this? By finding ways to make my writing grab people. By making more genuine connections with the people I meet. By being with people, instead of either up on a stage or hiding at the back of the room.

If this past year was finally learning how to be friends with myself? This coming year is going to be learning how to be friends with the world.

Where I've been, where I am, where I'm going!

http://gneech.com/talk/gneechs-2018-report/

My life coaching biz, Suburban Jungle, upcoming writing projects, and Nii-chan. What more could you want? ;)

FIRST THING! I passed my coach training exams! Which means I will graduate from Accomplishment Coaching and be something like 2/3 of the way towards getting my ACC certification with the International Coach Federation. Aww yeah!

SECOND THING! I have taken on the goal of joining the writing team on the new She-Ra series! This is something I want in the craziest way, but as of right now I have no idea how I will get there. But I know that lots of you folks are in or adjacent to the animation industry, so I'm hoping maybe you know someone at Dreamworks– or know somebody who knows someone at Dreamworks– and can get me a referral!

2019 IS GONNA BE HUGE, ALL YOU CRAZY FURRIES! *flails*

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but in the interest of thoroughness: I won't be able to make MFF this year after all, because it falls on the same weekend as the final exam for my coach training program and I really need to focus on that. I'm bummed that I'm gonna miss everybody, but it's in service of my new vocation as a success and creativity coach, and I gotta tell you, that's one of the only things in the world that would be worth it. XD

Speaking of the coaching! If you've been interested in the idea but are hesitant to go for the full program, I'm developing a Creativity Group Program that will be at a lower rate than the one-on-one services I've got right now, because you'll basically be "sharing" my coaching time with the other members of the group. I'll be putting together the details of that over the course of November, so watch this space. If you'd like to sign up for direct notices and updates, you can comment here or use the form on http://bringingtheawesome.com to get onto the mailing list.

So, yeah, I'm sad that I won't be at MFF, but I'm super-excited to be nearing graduation and getting more products rolled out. I'm looking forward to great things!

Okay, so it turns out that raffles are officially not allowed as Patreon rewards, so my idea of a raffle is out.

So instead, I've decided to invite my subscribers to come up with and vote on a piece of bonus art, here

https://www.patreon.com/posts/19239757

Later this week (probably Weds or Thurs) I'll bring all the suggestions together into a poll the idea that gets the most votes will be the winner. Think of it as a crowdsourced commission. ;)

(Note: This is in addition to the monthly SJ Boogie and other images.)

Ground Rules
1) It has to be something I'm willing to draw, so all the usual caveats of no gore, cruelty, disempowerment, that kind of jazz apply. Things I'm not willing to draw, simply won't go onto the poll.
2) It can involve the SJ cast, OCs, pop culture characters, whatever. It could be another Ponies vs. Daleks piece if that's what would float your boat.
3) Maximum three characters, pls.
4) It can be a NSFW piece (rule 1 still applies), but that would only be available to $5+ subscribers. If a SFW version is feasible, that will be available to everyone.

So! Whattya want to see? :) Here are some potential ideas I've had, which will also be on the poll:

*Finished version of Slippery When Wet ( http://roughhouse.suburbanjungle.com/comic/slippery-when-wet/ ).
*Langley: Bikini-top snatcher! And a very irritated Charity.
*Ponies vs. Daleks: Princess Luna
*Ponies vs. Daleks: Princess Cadance

Head on over and post your ideas! https://www.patreon.com/posts/19239757 (Only ideas from subscribers will go into the poll, thanks! ^.^')

-The Gneech

EDIT: Whoops!

Turns out Patreon doesn't like raffles! In order to comply with varied regional gambling laws, they don't want you even going there, so I won't. I'll come up with something else, instead, ASAP. Thanks for the heads-up,  sergeant!

-The Gneech

Poll for Patreon subscribers here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/18779478

Must be a subscriber to vote. Thanks!

-The Gneech