As folks may know, my day job is a success coach. I work with people in lots of different walks of life, but my native tribe is, was, and ever shall be creative types! :) To that end, I'm opening three slots for artists or writers to get 90 days of coaching at no cost.

YOU GET: 1-hour weekly sessions via phone or internet hangout where we look at where you are in your creative pursuits, what obstacles you are facing and how to overcome them, and the possibilities that will open up for you to get you where you want to be.

WHAT I ASK IN RETURN: Feedback! I want to be the awesomest, most kickass coach ever– which means I need to learn what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and how I can do it better. :)

NOTE: This service is coaching– i.e., helping you reach your goals; not art tutor, editor, or similar services. Adults only, please. :)

Comment here or send me an e-mail via john [at] bringingtheawesome [dot] com if you'd like to set up an intro call to talk about nabbing a spot! :)

-The Gneech

Hello, all you awesome furries, and thanks for watching! It’s been kind of a nutso month for me… I started a part-time job, moved (AGAIN) for what I hope will be the last time for a while, got about halfway through NaNoWriMo before I had to punt, and of course got Issue Six and the first trade collection done in time for Midwest Furfest. So, yeah, just a little busy there. ^.^’

December is hopefully going to be less frantic, but there will still be some big stuff going on. I’ll be starting work on issue seven, hopefully to begin posting late in the month or in January. I will also keep working on Child of the Tower (and posting it to the writing WIP tier for my Patreon subscribers). Finally, I am looking at creating another Patreon tier for art going in a completely new direction than I have done before, but I don’t want to say too much about that until I’ve got all the kinks worked out.

So tl;dr version, thanks for a great November, and watch for more great stuff coming in December! Thanks, everyone. You rock!

-The Gneech

Commission Queue as of December 7, 2017! wrote:* LKCMSL NaNo cover. Paid: Yes; Due: ASAP
* Redliox/Blue Shenanigans, again! Paid: No; Due: Dec/Jan
* Joey Gatorman SJ AU. Paid: Yes; Due: TBD
* COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN!

Thanks for the help, all! The image was by  demicoeur and can be found here:

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/14264748/

I believe this is current. Please let me know if I've missed something!

* Ace 8th Doctor
* Dipper/Maxgoof
* Rufo/Parker silliness
* Tiffany as Wonder Woman

-The Gneech

I think this is my current queue. If you commissioned me for something and it's not listed here, please let me know because I had a bunch thrown at me at AnthroCon while I was operating about about 40% normal capacity and I have no idea if anything got lost in the shuffle.

* Graveyard Greg broke my brain (still not paid? check)
* Ace 8th Doctor
* Fluttershy v. Monkey
* Dipper/Maxgoof

Can that really be all there is? O.o I must have actually gotten some work done without realizing it. >.>

-The Gneech

Ugh! Summer kicked my butt this year. -.- I am just now finally starting to dig out from under it all!

First off, welcome aboard to all the new watchers! I'm usually a lot more active than I have been for the past couple of weeks. ;) You should start seeing some cool stuff pop up here shortly.

Second off, holy cats have I got a ton of commissions and stuff. O.o I love being busy, but daaaang. I am now officially Falling Behind, which is not a comfortable place for me. Anyone and everyone who's got a commish in the works, I have not disappeared, I am on the case. :) I'll post a status update including the compiled list of commissions and such as part of my digging out process.

Third off... uh... well that's all there was, actually. So carry on as you were! See you soon. :)

-The Gneech

For my own reference...

Commissions
*Friday PotG paid: yes; due: asap
*SnickerDoodle PotG paid: yes; due: asap
*Oshi PotG paid: yes; due: asap
*BlackTigr Ref Sheet paid: yes; due: "when ready"
*Graveyard Greg IBMB paid: no; due: June 30
*Alexa Timey-Wimey Badge paid: yes; due: AnthroCon

Other Art
*BtA Twitch Banner due: May 17
*BtA YouTube Banner due: "when ready"
*BtA Patreon Banner due: "when ready"
*Timey-Wimey Badge Template due: May 26
*Timey-Wimey Badge Flyer due: May 26
*Gneech/BtA Business Card due: May 31
*SJ Business Card due: May 31

I think that's everything. I sure hope so. O.o

-The Gneech

Where are you staying?
At my house.

What day are you getting there?
Friday

Departure?
Sunday night

Transportation?
car

Who will you be rooming with?
Mrs. Gneech

Who will you hang out with during the convention?
Whomever I can find, plus the people next to me in the AA

How many furry conventions have you attended?
One two five lots

Will you be suiting?
Nope. MIIIIIGHT bring Ghostbusters uniform Sunday, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Which suits?
See above.

Who do I address you as?
Gneech

How old are you?
47

What is your gender?
Boy

How tall are you?
6' 2"

Are you taken? Are you looking for a 'mate'?
Married

Can I talk to you?
Please!

Can I touch you?
I like hugs but ask first. ^.^

How can I find you?
I'll probably be in the Artist Alley 95% of the time.

Can I visit your room?
n/a

Can I buy you drinks?
From Starbucks? *sparkly eyes*

Are you nice?
I try to be!

Do you have an artist table?
In the Alley, eeyup.

Will you be going to parties?
Only on the inside.

Will you be performing?
Not if my AA neighbors are lucky!

Do you do drugs/drink/smoke?
Nope/not much/nope.

If I see you, how should I get your attention?
"Hey, Gneech!"

What/where will you be eating?
Food/somewhere

Can I come with you for food/fun/etc.?
Maybe?

Can I draw in your sketchbook?
Please!

Can I take your picture?
Ask first. :)

What's your goal(s) for the con this year?
Do all the bizness! I'll have Laurie's "<3 > H8" pins and SJ books at the table as well as doing all the arts.

-The Gneech

One of the kindest people I ever met, with a wit that was quick but never cruel. Very grateful for the chance to have known him.

Hey, artists who stream real media work! How do you do it? Bluetooth webcam on a tripod? Some other method? I'm trying to figure out some kind of setup.

Thanks!

-The Gneech

So, folks out there who like and/or follow art streams: what art streams do you like, and why? Who gives good stream? I'm looking to start doing this myself and want some examples of people doing it right.

Thanks for your input!

-The Gneech

Hello, hello, new watchers! :D I'm gonna guess the current flux are folks who I met at Midwest Furfest. Thanks for the follow! I'll be posting more stuff within a few days, as I've got commissions to grind out right and left.

In the meantime, don't forget to check out Suburban Jungle! Issue five is up and running, here: http://roughhouse.suburbanjungle.com/

Thanks again, see you soon!

-The Gneech

Nice to see you, hope you like what you see! :)

It'll probably be a quiet month for postings yet, as I'm finishing issue four of SJ for AnthroCon. You can read it at http://roughhouse.suburbanjungle.com or you can wait for July, when I'll start posting it here.

Once the actual drawing part of SJ is done, I hope to do some more art-for-fun, so that might start showing up in the meantime. We'll see!

-The Gneech

You won't believe what the other 3/4 are!

(SPOILER: Okay, you might believe it.)

http://gneech.com/talk/three-lions-and-an-otter/

-The Gneech

Apparently my recent admission of partial ottertude made such an impression on :userindagare: that he decided I needed drawing in otter form! Thus:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/18964978/

Thanks, dude! :D Gotta admit, I have no idea what the omega necklace is about, but on the other hand, tuna salmon sammich? I'M IN! :d

-The Gneech

So, this is something I've been quietly contemplating for years now. And I think it's pretty clear with the release of Rough Housing that it's just going to become more visible as time goes on. Today, I posted to Twitter:

"I have a confession to make. I’ve tried to hide it long enough. The truth is, I’m 1/4 otter on my mother’s side.

I shall now honor my ancestors by consuming some delicious tuna."

Mind you, it was just a silly tweet. However, my followers all seemed to agree!

@ CityFlyer502: "That otter please them. :D"

@ GalloViking: "Have you hidden otter things from us?"

I followed up with:

"Kidding aside, in the world of furry phenotypes, I’ve wondered for a while if otter isn’t in there somewhere.

If lion is my 'ferocious/spiritual' side, otter would be my silly bounce when I’m at my best. Plus the whole swimming, fish-eating thing. :d

Also, no cracks about sea lions please. I am definitely not one of those. ;P"

This led to responses such as:

@ inkblitzer: "Oh, I'm pretty sure they are."

@ Pyropone: "Sure they are! Otters can be adorable!"

@ CoaldustPony: "But otter is your silly side! So at least 256% otter."

So, I kinda feel like the guy who comes out to his parents only to have them say "We've known since you were six, dude." XD

@ DatBirdBrain asked, "Liotters can be friends with zebras since they eat mostly fish then, right?" To which I responded "I never met a zebra I didn't like! ...But I've only ever met, like, two."

That said, I'm not going to start calling myself a liotter. Firstly, because I am and pretty much always have been a lion, just a lion who is part otter. And secondly because "liotter" looks like "loiterer" every time I see it, and I'm definitely not one of those!

-The Gneech *bounce!*

If you were to describe my work (particularly art, but any of it) in a word or a sentence, what would you say? Working on my Patreon page, and I want to buff up my description a bit. :)

-The Gneech

I want January to be the month that I finally empty my commission queue. As of right now, I have three still pending that I know of:

[*] KarmaKat Watering Hole 4/4
[*] Redliox Gift Commish
[*] InkBlitzer Fursona

Once those are done I'm going to re-evaluate my commission pricing structure and content guidelines. One of the reasons these particular commissions have lingered so long is honestly I'm a bit weary of the "Overheard at the Watering Hole" pics and they seem to be most of what I've been getting lately. So I definitely need to put a moratorium on those.

If you have a commish I've agreed to that's not on this list, please poke me, as my memory is terrible and I don't always take the best notes, either. >.> That's another reason I don't like to take payment until after the pic is done. I don't want people to give me money for things that then don't appear!

-The Gneech

The cover for issue four of Rough Housing went up today ( http://roughhouse.suburbanjungle.com/comic/issue-four-final-cover/ ), and I’m quite pleased with it, but I also noticed something about it on reflection.

For a comic ostensibly set on the beach as an excuse for me to draw beefcake/cheesecake, there has been precious little cake in it. With the possible exception of Langley in her “Hello Kitty” underwear, this is probably the most fanservicey image from the comic so far.

I also noticed for the first time just how bashful Charity is. I mean yeah, in the original issue 1 cover (which looks so sparse now compared to the final version with Langley, Roxie, and Parker in it) she’s wearing a shirt over her swimsuit, but that was intended as something of a tease. In the issue four cover, she is explicitly hiding behind Langley so as to not be seen in her bikini.

Honestly… I was not expecting this of Charity. I mean, she was never intended to be an exhibitionist, but my original conception of her was that she was very much a chip off the ol’ block of her mother Comfort, who was anything ( http://suburbanjungleclassic.com/?p=2349 ) but shy ( http://suburbanjungleclassic.com/?p=1224 )! Charity was supposed to be bouncy, exuberant, and fun-loving… but as the story evolved she has ended up serious-minded, high-strung, suffering from a deep-seated need to live up to… something, and even a bit prudish.

This is the kind of thing I mean when I say that strong characters often go off in their own directions. Being in the role of “boss who has to whip the hotel into shape” almost requires Charity to be a more serious-minded character, because if she was just another party girl she’d get lost in the mix. Certainly I can’t see Comfort coming in and kicking Langley out of the manager’s bedroom; but Comfort also wouldn’t take on a managerial role, on the grounds of “What fun is that?”

As for my unexpected recent reluctance to draw fanservice… I have no idea what that’s about. I used to love to draw beefcake and cheesecake both, and I was always rather proud of drawing what I considered to be “empowering fanservice,” which showed happy and confident subjects who were in the picture because they wanted to show off. Now I’m just not comfortable with it, and I can’t figure out why. Maybe it’s that with the proliferation of porn to the near-exclusion of other things, the idea of fanservicey art just sorta seems like a quaint relic of time gone by? Who’s gonna care about characters posing in swimsuits when there’s “YCH orgy” pictures all over the place? Or maybe it’s my own attitudes towards sex and sexuality being out of synch with the world around me that’s making me want to just avoid the topic all together?

I dunno. Obviously I have my own issues to deal with, just as much as Charity has hers.

-The Gneech

Vince had this up, and then Maus had it up, so now I have it up, because of reasons!

Name: John "The Gneech" Robey
Location: Northern Virginia
Age: 46
Height: 6'2"
Zodiac sign: Libra
Any pets?: Three rescue cats, named Buddha, Dasher, and InkyGirl
Fun fact: One of my ancestors was the real-life Ichabod Crane.

IDENTITY, SEXUALITY & PERSONALITY

--Gender identity: "Male lesbian," which is a problematic and loaded term, I know, but really does mean something. (Use "androgyne" if you prefer.) [1]
--Sexual orientation: Pan, but heterosexually married

ROUTINE

--"Early Bird" or "Night Owl": Night Owl, except when I'm not
--Bath or shower: I prefer baths, but it's very hard for me to find tubs I can fit in.
--First thought in the morning: HUUUUNGRY
--Last thought before falling asleep at night: Thank you for my day.

SCHOOL/WORK

--Do you work or are you a student: Work. Writer/cartoonist, supplemented with barista.
--What do you do well: Write, be silly.
--Where do you see yourself in 5 years: Writing, drawing, pretty much like now, but hopefully on the west coast.

HABITS (DO YOU...?)

--Drink: Occasionally. Bailey's or a grasshopper are my drinks of choice.
--Smoke: Ew, no.
--Do drugs: Prescriptions, anyhow.
--Exercise: Schedule permitting, yes. I lost 30 pounds last year, and want to keep them gone!
--Have a go-to comfort food: Café mocha or NY-style pizza
--Have a nervous habit: Occasionally I pluck at my eyebrows or beard.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE...?

--Physical quality (in yourself): Eyes
--In Others: It varies widely.
--Mental/emotional quality (in yourself): Wit.
--Food: Chocolate and NY-style pizza are tied for the top spot.
--Drink: Mochas or mint mochas.
--Animal: Like, just one? Cats, I suppose, but I mean the whole felidae group.
--Artist/Band/Group: Probably the Jazz Butcher Conspiracy
--Author/Poet: P.G. Wodehouse, with Douglas Adams a close contender
--TV Show: Star Trek (The Original Series)
--Actor/Actress: Hugh Jackman

[1] Some info here. http://the-gneech.tumblr.com/search/male+lesbian

...That didn't sound right. ¬.¬

Anyway! I'll be at Midwest Furfest starting tomorrow! My plan is to get into the Artist Alley whenever I can, where I'll be doing badges and sketches and have a smattering of books and buttons (mainly what I can carry with me to and from every day, up to what they'll allow).

Come see me! Get some art! We'll chat, we'll schmooze, I'll have my people call your people. It's all good.

-The Gneech

First of all, hello and welcome to everyone coming to see me after picking up my card at Furthe'More! I hope you'll find lots of stuff here you like. ^.^ Posts have been a little sporadic since March, due to the whole selling-my-house-and-moving thing, but that's all cleared up now and the production machine is moving again. ;) As I owe some of you commissions, and others of you may simply be curious as to what I've got in the pipeline, this is one of my periodic "state of the Gneech" posts to let you know what's going on.

My first priority is to get Issue Three of Suburban Jungle: Rough Housing finished as quickly as possible, in the hopes that I can have it on hand for AnthroCon, which is only a month away! (Eep!) Everything else I've got going on is officially on hold until I get that squared away. If I'm lucky, that will be done by the end of next week... if I'm unlucky, it will take pretty much the rest of June and no issue three at the con, which will make me go all sadface.

Once issue three is done, either way, I will be emptying out my digital commission queue. This is what I have listed in my notes, so if I'm missing something of yours, please remind me!

*KarmaKat's Watering Hole series (4 of 4)
*Conqure commission
*Miertam Twilight/Fluttershy monster studies commission
*MaxGoof commission

Assuming the SJ work gets done on time, these should be finished by the end of June and/or AC. Finally, once those are done, I'm going to turn all of my attention to Dungeons and Denizens and get that finished off while I work on the script for the fourth issue of SJ. That will probably take most of July and/or August.

So, that's my summer spoken for. ;) If you want to squeeze a commission in there, they are technically still open, but your best bet to get art from me in the near future is to get me to do it for you at AnthroCon. As you may have read in my LiveJournal, badges and sketchbooks at Furthe'More were almost nonexistent for whatever reason, which is not a happy way to spend a convention for an artist! Especially when most of the other dealers were booked solid. Don't you love me any more? *sniffle* Aw well, hopefully AnthroCon will be better!

Anyway! Time for me to get to work. Catcha later!

-The Gneech

{rant}
Look, seventy billion renditions of the exact same thing over and over and over.

Is there any originality, humor, or spark left in this fandom?
{/rant}

-TG

I must admit that I've never really paid a lot of attention to the Ursa Major Awards, for two reasons. First, I tend to be more of a producer than a consumer, and as such awards just don't show up on my radar that much. Second, in my capacity as a producer, I rarely had anything that I thought really merited recognition on a "literary award" kind of scale, except possibly No Predation Allowed, and I completely missed the window on that one due to dealing with personal crises at the time.

However, that has changed. This year, No Predation Allowed: Ten Years of The Suburban Jungle is eligible for nomination due to its new edition from FurPlanet. In short, I've got a second shot at it, and as this is currently my magnum opus, I have to admit that it would be really nice to see it get at least a nomination nod.

So this is a call to my fans! Please nominate and vote for at least one of my books, here: http://www.ursamajorawards.org/nominations.htm I actually have five that are eligible: all three volumes of No Predation Allowed and issues one and two of Rough Housing. I won't be so greedy as to ask you to use all five nomination slots on my work... but I will be just greedy enough to point out the lovely symmetry of it.

Seriously tho. :) I've been told that Suburban Jungle was an important work in the furry world, and I'd certainly like to think it made its mark. If you could help make this happen, I'd be grateful. Thanks!

-The Gneech

I will be at Further Confusion! However, it will be as an attendee, rather than a working con, because the tables closed five minutes before they opened and thus I didn't get one. :P If there's any kind of artist alley I might do that one of the days, but for the most part I'll probably be lurking around Graveyard Greg's and/or FurPlanet's table and just wandering around aimlessly and wishing I was one of the cool kids.

Hope to see you there!

-The Gneech