Life has been an avalanche of activity lately but I had to jump in here to say that I'll be attending Anthrocon again this year as a dealer. I'll be at table N19 which is to the far right and near the front of the aisles as you enter the dealer's hall. I have my usual stuff there and will be taking commissions on site.

I have so much more to talk about but the short and sweet news is that my freelance work that's been keeping me very busy since last September has born fruit and I am now working full-time again. I'm not yet moved back to Virginia yet but steps in that direction will commence immediately after AC ends on Monday. With luck I'll be fully situated by the end of August.

I apologize for the quiet, flakiness, potential rudeness in my communication with people over the past year. This has been a very stressful and complicated thing to work through but it's all been for a productive purpose and I expect to be calmed down in September. I've got a ton of backlog images to upload here as well as artwork I owe people (hides under the covers).

Say hello if you're in Pittsburgh this weekend!

Sorry for the lack of updates, uploads, or anything much at all. There's lots of stuff happening behind the scenes that's keeping me hopping and it's all coming to a head in about a month. I apologize for the lack of communication with people in the meantime.

I did want to make a quick update to tell folks that I'll be at Califur in Pomona, CA starting tomorrow and running through Sunday. Tracy (aka  Calicougar) will also be there so be sure to stop by and say hello! We do art stuff if you'd like to get something!

There's a promotion by Sega going on Today where you can get three games for free if you register an email address with the service. The three games are Gunstar Heroes (an amazing side scroller shoot 'em up from the 16 bit game console era, Viking: Battle for Asgard (I don't know anything about this), and Renegade Ops.... which is the real reason I'm making a journal post about this.

Renegade Ops is a deliriously fun twin-stick shooter game (which means you really need a controller to play) where you drive a car around and shoot all kinds of destructive weaponry around at the hordes of enemies spread throughout the map. The visuals are lush, the car physics are great, and the storytelling is loud and obnoxious in a cross between 1980's GIJOE and a comic book version of Rambo. Even better is the fact that you can play as a number of different character vehicles so there's a lot of variety, and then you can play the game with up to four people cooperatively.

I had a ball playing Renegade Ops and I think it'd be worth creating a bogus email account to register for this game alone. Give it a try and I'll bet you'll find it was worth your time.

http://www.makewarnotlove.com/results-final.php

Wanted to put up the usual notice about this so it's headlined in my journal. I will be attending Further Confusion in San Jose this coming weekend. Thanks to some cancellations I'll be manning table #23 with  Calicougar and I look forward to seeing new folks and visiting with old friends. In addition to doing artwork I'll also have my usual vinyl vehicle stickers, a WWII nose art pinup sticker some of you might have seen at the cons I went to last year, along with a bunch of original artwork doodles, and some new prints I made with this nice new printer I received for Christmas. In addition (and I'm going to set this aside for emphasis)...

...I'll have a booklet of original artwork done by Scotty Arsenault (www.commanderkitty.com and http://ferretface99.deviantart.com/) Scotty doesn't attend conventions so this is possibly your only opportunity to get something original from him. At the very least stop by to take a look so you can see why I think it's a big deal.

Again that's table #23... see you there!

I hope everyone has had a good Christmas. For my part I had a good time and blessedly my knee has been getting better. The results of my x-rays and MRI indicate that I have no broken bones and no tear in the meniscus, but there's still a fluid effusion going on and what's called "patella tendonosis", which is apparently something different than tendonitis? Regardless the practical nature of my injury is that I can again walk normally but certain actions like descending a stairway or walking on my hands and knees when getting into bed can produce moments of brief discomfort if not actual pain and even if I'm not actively strenuating my knee there's a constant dull ache present. The doctor says that I should get better eventually through natural healing but they're trying to get my health insurance to sign off on physical therapy appointments to work things out to full restoration. Right now my knee feels capable, but delicate, much the same as a deep bruise might not keep you from activity but you'll want to be very careful about not bumping it again.

Looking out to the future there's good and bad news for me on the convention front. I found out the other day that there had been some cancellations for the dealer's room at Further Confusion which allowed Tracy and I to be offered a table, so I will actually be attending in three weeks after all. Pretty cool. The bed news is that FC looks to be my only convention until Anthrocon rolls around in July. I was looking forward to attend Motor City Fur Con once again but when I looked up their dealer's registration for the first time I discovered that they'd opened registration several months earlier than they had previously and everything had already sold out upon my first exploration. That was mighty irritating but there's nothing I can do about it now. At least Furry Weekend Atlanta wouldn't have the same problem except that the convention date for that has been changed such that it now overlaps my daughter's Spring Break and it's highly doubtful that I'll cut short her vacation just so that I can attend FWA. That decision hasn't been set in stone but I'm not holding my breath.

Anyhow, to everyone who'll be in San Jose for the show next month I look forward to visiting again. Cheers!

In my last journal I said that I expected my schedule to break soon... and so it has but as a result of an injury that's going to keep me from attending MFF this weekend. I'm really pissed and in a lot of pain.

Last Saturday I started noticing some pain in my right knee. It was situated on the back side of my knee and registered as discomfort; I could walk normally but it was an annoyance that wouldn't go away, and mainly made it self noticed by a difficulty in flexing my knee. I could straighten my right leg though.

The pain continued unabated until Monday when I made a trip to my storage unit to get supplies and things in anticipation of driving to Chicago tomorrow. While I was standing on an old Army footlocker however I took a step backwards and fell off. My right foot landed solidly on the ground so I didn't fall to the floor, but the sudden impact either twisted my right knee or compressed it severely and the result was a sudden explosion of pain. I was able to keep standing and I noticed that the origination of the pain had suddenly shifted to right below my kneecap and I could no longer straighten my leg although I could somewhat flex it again. After the initial explosion subsided I was able to continue walking... gimpy though it might be, but after Monday morning the pain never diminished like I thought it would. I hadn't done anything to injure my knee that would provoke the pain I'd been experiencing, so surely it would subside, right? This morning I woke up in serious pain. I had tried to sleep with my right leg elevated but I just can't sleep comfortably on my back, and this morning when I got out of bed I could hardly walk at all. Any movement of my right knee was terribly pounding pain. I called the 24 hour nurse helpline and then made an appointment to see a doctor this afternoon.

Getting to the doctor wasn't too hard... -as long as I'm sitting still my knee doesn't get too angry, but the stop and go of traffic had me shifting my leg in such a way as to make me nervous about spending six hours driving to Chicago. When I got to the clinic I was hobbling everywhere and needing to take breaks because of the difficulty. When I got to see the doctor she told me I needed some X-rays, but noted that my knee was very swollen and likely had fluid buildup. She suspects I've torn my meniscus and I have a followup appointment with a sports injury doctor tomorrow who will review the X-rays and give me a deeper analysis. I've been prescribed 600mg ibuprofin tablets and now have a knee brace wrapped around my leg, and God I hope this will get better soon. Just sitting still leaving my leg unmoved can't keep the pain from vibrating.

I had planned to leave for MFF tomorrow after my daughter gets out of school, but in my current condition I don't feel safe driving for six hours, and with the amount of walking I have to do at the convention while carrying around sketchbooks and art supplies I'm going to remain in a lot of pain that would potentially just prolong this misery.

I want to apologize to the people whom I was going to visit with and deliver work to, and I'm disappointed that I'm going to miss the opportunity to draw for a bunch of new projects... I have a great time coming up with new artwork at conventions and I find that I'm the most prolific in such environments.

Tracy will still be going to the convention and will be taking my place as the person in charge of the G-rated room at Artist's Alley... I hope those of you who will be attending will stop by and say hello to her. She'll have her art supplies with her and can draw some awesome badges and sketch work.... check her gallery out at  Calicougar

To those who will be attending I hope you guys have fun and have some good stories to share.

Just a heads up for folks who are watching me: I am around. I've been getting your messages, both here and via email. I am VERY sorry for the quiet and delays... I'm madly trying to keep so many balls juggling in the air.

I WILL be attending MFF in just a little over a week. I will be located in the G-Rated room of artists alley from opening to closing. I am very much working to get people's commissions finished in time for the show. Please bear with me as my schedule is going to break soon...

...if you haven't already checked out  meireles I'd like to encourage you in that direction. Dude's done a lot of nifty artwork I've found inspirational and is now running an experiment to see if FA can't provided some needed income during tight times. Please take a look at the auction running here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/18206415/ and consider taking part if this appeals to you. I'll tell you from personal experience that it means a lot to have an audience that enjoys your work enough to pay for it...

Cheers, folks. I gotta submerge back into my work again.

Well, it would seem that my problem has been resolved, but not without a big problem happening in between to give a bit more illumination. Previously I'd mentioned how my computer was routinely powering off during the initial bootup, and that prior to that I'd had problems with the system randomly coming back on after being put into sleep mode. Well, despite this happening somewhat frequently and yet the system still ultimately reached full operation just a few hours after I typed up my last journal I was working away and the screen suddenly started glitching out with weird visual artifacts, followed by the whole computer hanging and ultimately crashing. Afterwards no attempts to reboot the system would ever allow it to boot up into the normal desktop environment again.

...HOWEVER I was finally able to get to the Windows bootup option screen which recognized there was a problem and asked if I wanted to try booting into Safe mode. This worked and was essentially stable enough that I was able to continue doing my freelance work, but the continuation of the visual artifacting that extended even to the BIOS screen indicated that there was definitely something amiss with my video card. I had not considered my video card to be problematic in earlier incidents because everything still worked properly, -the graphics drivers installed, could be updated, all operations that required use of the video card functioned properly and I never had any instability with the system once it was up and running no matter what I was doing. Once the visual glitches started appearing I finally had a "smoking gun".

Fortunately my video card was still under warranty and when I called technical support they listened to what I was experiencing and agreed that the video card was almost certainly in need of replacement. I have since received the replacement and installed it and yes, all is restored to proper order. I can boot up reliably, put the system properly into sleep mode, and all the visual artifacts are gone. I also have a replacement power supply unit on warranty replacement that should arrive tomorrow since the technical support people there also said that I qualified for an RMA but at this point I don't think that's going to make any big changes.

*wipes sweat from brow*

I apologize for my quiet... I've literally been pulled every which way since September for reasons which I've described in previous journals. I know people have been waiting to hear from me and it's bugging the hell out of me that my time is so short. It's because of that stress that I'm turning to this audience to try and solicit help for a problem that's getting in the way of my current freelance output, -my workstation is unreliably booting up.

Please forgive me for the long-winded nature of the post as I haven't proof-read it, I just need to put it out there to see what sort of comments I could get so that I don't lose more time as a result. Thanks in advance for any help that could be offered.

---

About three weeks ago I upgraded my OS from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Prior to this the Windows 10 analysis said that there was only one thing that was a potential compatability problem with my PC but that was related to a wifi protocol built into my motherboard which research on the ASUS forum suggested wasn't going to be an issue according to the people who had been running Win10 previews. I let my PC upgrade and it went through several reboots to fully complete the process and when it was done I went about continuing my illustration work. Then I shut the computer down and spent the next day out of town. When I attempted to turn on my computer the following Monday I was greeted with the BIOS screen showing the usual stuff, then I saw the new Microsoft Windows logo and suddenly my PC just powers off. Normally I would see the Windows logo and a little spinning series of dots rotating in a circle to indicate that the OS is loading, but no dots appeared... no error screen or warning alert either, just *poof*, -the system shut down.

I tried rebooting several times and the problem repeated exactly as above. At that point I started troubleshooting. I started by disconnecting USB peripherals and monitors in an attempt to remove potential boot up obstacles from the process. I encountered some success there, -with all the peripherals save for the mouse and keyboard removed and only one monitor I could boot up to Windows 10. Once back into the OS environment however I saw no error messages or logs to indicate that anything had interrupted the previous boot up attempts. Ordinarily if Windows fails to load the following boot up attempt will be pre-empted with a warning at the bios level telling you something happened and do you want to instead try booting Windows into "safe" mode in order to diagnose the problem. Nothing like that happened here. In fact once I was in the desktop environment everything was working just fine; all programs were working like normal, the wifi connection was established and no hardware difficulties were found.

HOWEVER, despite everything working fine when I then rebooted in order to reconnect all the various peripherals and monitors I found that the same problem occurred again: power - bios display - windows logo - power shutdown. What's more confusing though is that when I attempted to reconfigure the hardware in the same manner as it had previously booted up with a removal of all USB peripherals and only one monitor then the system failed to boot. I then tried disconnecting all the hard drives save for the boot up and I got it to boot up, but not consecutively. At this point I started panicking and called my motherboard manufacture to see what could be done.

The motherboard manufacture (ASUS) advised that I try updating all the drivers for the motherboard to Windows 10 compatability, and that was about as far as they could go. Fortunately I was able to haphazardly get the system to boot up and found that there really wasn't many drivers I needed to get, but after updating things I still wasn't getting consistent boot ups. Next I tried calling Microsoft.

Microsoft had me talking to them extensively. They advised that I check for all new drivers for everything on my system to insure Win10 compatability. Unfortunately it was taking so long for me to successfully boot back into the desktop environment that there was concern the OS install might be faulty. Microsoft had me attempt to crash the system during the boot process in order to somehow trigger safe mode activation, but it just wasn't happening. We went so far as to create a new boot up USB flash disk and changed the BIOS boot order so that we could get some kind of diagnostic process going, but this effort produced no results, -the Win10 tool couldn't fix any problems. Just as we were about to attempt a complete reinstall via the USB boot process I was able to get back into the desktop through some random alignment of the stars, and I immediately began the process of finding every last Win10 driver and update available. At THIS point I actually started getting some consecutive reboots to work and I was able to resume my normal work on the system.

Unfortunately I'm STILL not able to get my computer to start up reliably. I shut down my computer overnight and at least twice a week when I turn it on in the morning it won't come on. Usually unplugging USB peripherals will do the job, but this morning that didn't do it and that's why I'm now turning to the internet to see if someone can make a guess about what the hell is happening. I had been wondering if the problem might be related to an overtaxed power supply considering that when after a boot failed I would try again with USB peripherals removed, but the thing is that I've got a 1050 watt PSU that should be overkill for my needs, -and prior to installing Win10 I never had an issue like this before. I'm still having the occasional boot failure even after moving some of my USB peripherals to my monitor port adaptors thus shifting their power source away from my computer PSU. There's also the fact that I have NEVER gotten an error message log of any kind concerning this failure to boot and once I'm in the desktop environment everything is perfectly stable... no unexpected system crashes, no software glitches, no system temperature warnings, no hardware mysteriously becoming unavailable... nothing at all.

The only precursor to this issue that I ever noted started in August, about two months before I upgraded to Win10. In July I had taken my computer with me to New England and after I returned home I started having some problems when I closed down for the night and put the system in "sleep" mode. Sleep mode is supposed to store the active session and put the whole machine into a lower power state from which it can be awoken quickly by tapping the mouse or keyboard. Well, in August I started seeing the computer wake up on its own five or ten minutes after I put it to sleep. What's worse is that when I got up to tell the computer to go back to sleep it would do so but 50% of the time when I tried waking up the machine in the morning I would find that it failed to "sleep" and instead crashed and I was now booting it up from a blank slate. It wasn't long before I couldn't get it to go to sleep at all, -the system would attempt to go into "sleep" mode with the screens going dark but the system still chugging away like normal endlessly. Perhaps the system would eventually shut off but it actually had crashed. I ended up just shutting the whole thing down every night instead of using sleep mode since that worked properly. I had high hopes that upgrading to Win10 would fix this sleep mode problem, but no, I still have to shut down every night, and now I have the added problem of potentially finding that I can't reboot reliably in the morning.

Color me frustrated. My normal procedure now is to turn on the computer in the morning and cross my fingers that it works properly. If it doesn't then I disconnect things and reconnect until I get it working and then I cross my fingers that I don't have to reboot anymore during the day.

So... after all this, -does anyone have any ideas?

I'm really not expecting the world to cater to my schedule, but I gotta say that I'm disappointed that FWA convention weekend next year overlaps my daughter's Spring Break, and that just a scant few days later the MCFC convention goes on. With my revised work and school schedule it's going to be difficult for me to do conventions next year at all like I have in the past, and with these two events back to back it's going to make it that much harder.

It's been 18 years since I was last in college, and that was an art school.

I'm now knee-deep in an academic based graduate program reading textbooks, reviewing government standards, behavior guidelines, and being introduced to various scientific research methods in order to conduct Action Research assignments. I'm currently wading my way through a 14 page example of a "Quantitative Research" document to get a sense of the language and structure involved, and it's full of 25 cent words and dry academic discussion of concepts that are highly detached from the flesh-and-blood source material. Every third or fourth sentence is referencing some previous research paper that provides a greater background for the material and environment being explored. What's the subject matter for this research example you ask? "Does positive emotional one-on-one teacher interaction with Kindergarten and 1st Grade students who are demographically at-risk of statistically dropping out improve their chances of success relative to classroom experiences where that emotional teacher support is absent."

...let that sink in for a moment.

"Do students perform better when the teachers care about them and give meaningful support in the classroom?"

Of course this all has a point in that from studies like these Authoritative Knowledge is acquired and used to pull the weighty and expensive levers of bureaucracy for educational reform. I'm just agog that this is a genuine research document overflowing with references to similar studies to support a hypothesis so plainly obvious as to be common sense. Do veterinarians have similar studies to determine if dogs suffering from chronic physical abuse are more likely to show avoidance behavior?

The real irony in all this is that my graduate course is completely online which means I never meet the instructor and so far I've had next to no lesson-based interaction with her at all. I've just been told to read and review different material sources and write up assignments based on it. Hopefully that will be changing as the semester continues, but sheesh...

Earlier this year I was talking with a friend about various things along with a sense of aimless despair as time had been dragging along with no measurable progress in my career, and in the course of conversation it was suggested that I make an appointment to attend a local blood drive as it would be a way for me to overcome some of the depression by unquestionably making positive contribution to the world around me, and also to address head on a longstanding fear I've had of needles. The needles were the big thing that's kept me from donating blood previously as I've always thought of the process in positive, noble terms having seen my own family do it for years and years.

So I went through with it at the beginning of March and it was... not too bad. I was feeling very anxious up to the point that the initial stick occurred but afterwards I just tried not to think about it and eventually got used to the sensation. The process lasted... ten minutes(?) and in that time I actually was a little bored because I had anticipated sitting upright and browsing my laptop or just snoozing altogether. It was not to be though as sleeping is discouraged because the nurses need to see your reacting if there's any problems that crop up, and lying down didn't give me a good position to use my laptop. So I just listened to my headphone music and waited until the process was done. I then got up, availed myself of the snacks and beverages on hand and went about my way. It was pretty easy overall and I walked out patting myself on the back for having faced my fear and for doing something I'd always thought made a difference in a real way.

For curiosity's sake, I'm A+ but when talking with another friend she mentioned she was O+ and described the Red Cross as a friendly vampire that was ALWAYS looking for her to make a visit.

Anyhow, last month I got a call from the Red Cross asking me to make another appointment at the Sept. 10th blood drive where I'd previously visited. I actually had debated whether I would do this again because while I felt good about it previously I still felt apprehensive about needles and figured if they hadn't called I wouldn't go seeking the opportunity. But they called, and I didn't flinch. I made the appointment and showed up.

There wasn't anything different yesterday than before, -I made sure to each lunch in advance, I was familiar with the questionnaire they offered and I'd read the safety literature previously so I figured I was ready. This time I'd brought a book with me to read and asked if I could be positioned in a reclined / upright position so that I could read while my right arm was at rest. They agreed and then *ouch* the process started. I put on my headphones and started listening to the music and sent out a quick text on my phone before leaning back and slowly flexing the rubber ball they'd put in my right hand to keep the blood pressure going. I heard one of the nurses comment that my blood flow was slow but good and then I just tuned out. And by "tuned out" I mean my body literally started tuning out. As I sat there I started feeling a little bit of discomfort in my stomach which I idly wondered if it was nausea, but it wasn't very pronounced so I shifted my attention back to the music. I had been looking at my phone wondering what the response to my text would be and then let the phone down and just looked straight ahead. A little time passed and the stomach sensation increased making me wonder what was up, and then seemingly rather quickly I started feeling a bit of numbness creeping up my torso. I remember vocalizing "I'm feeling a little weird" but I don't think any intelligible sound came out and the next thing I noticed was out of the corner of my eye one of the nurses saying my name over and over in a noise that seemed muffled beyond what the headphones and music would have caused. Then they started putting cold wet washcloths on my forehead and neck, and lowered my bed to flat and I suddenly felt that my whole body had started sweating at once. One nurse brought a can of apple juice over with a straw and placed it by my head and asked me to start drinking. I pulled one of my earphones out so I could listen to the conversation around me and apparently I'd passed out completely, -my blood pressure had dropped, my face had gone pale, and I hadn't been out long.

I sat on the bed just drinking and feeling wonderful relief from the cold washcloths. Inside my head I was feeling nervousness about what I'd done wrong. Did I not eat enough? Was there something wrong with me? With my blood? Did I fail somehow? What had happened this time that didn't happen previously? After two cans of apple juice and some time had passed I was feeling more myself and able to sit up again to take the offered snacks. I was still feeling tired, but the nurse said I was looking a whole lot better and that what had happened wasn't an unusual thing and that it really wasn't something that was provoked by anything in particular (though I personally wonder if my body was using more blood than normal to digest the recently eaten sandwich). The nurse said that passing out happens when your blood pressure drops and it can randomly happen during donations but it's only if you pass out three or four donations in a row that they suggest you might not want to keep it up anymore.

Another ten minutes passed and I was feeling back to normal if maybe a little tired and I left to drive back home. Overall it was weird, but not scary. The needle stick still bugs me, but I can endure. The passing out was curious, but not something that will keep me from going back. In fact I'm now curious to find out if this will happen again... not that I want it to.

It's been a busy time for me and I thought I'd write a little about it so that anyone curious about me or feared that I was trying to keep away could learn a bit.

Last time I wrote here I was attending Anthrocon having just come from a month's stay in Los Angeles. Immediately after AC I had driven up to New England to spend a few weeks visiting with friends and to spend a concentrated amount of time learning how to use the Toon Boom Harmony animation software. My goal was to become familiar enough with Harmony that I could take a roughed out animation sequence and turn it into a fully rendered finished product in a much more efficient manner than my previous workflow in Adobe Flash would allow. I've been using Flash since version 4.0 and while I really like the product and its capabilities drawing has never been one of its strong suits. In contrast however Harmony is everything an artist making animation could want and more. However the REASON I wanted to get up and running in Harmony is because it looks like I've finally got a real full-time job opportunity again. Without going into the long and tortured backstory I'll just say that my previous job of creating art assets for slot machines is resurrecting like a phoenix from the ashes, and while I'm not working *yet* the groundwork is being laid for this to happen sooner than later. I'm READY. I've been crossing my fingers for a long time that I'd be able to find full-time employment that would take advantage of my knowledge and experience with slots but I hadn't expected THIS to happen. At this point in time I don't know how this is going to affect my schedule for the future, but that's only part of what's going with my future activities...

...the OTHER big thing that's happening in my life is that after a long, dry, and depressing period of little hope for future job prospects I decided to explore some alternative career choices, and that ultimately lead me to enroll at a nearby college where I'll be working to earn my Masters Degree in Education. This will also provide me with a license and certification to teach in Kentucky public schools, but should also allow me to gain certification in any other state in the country with only a minor additional work. I'm pretty excited about this because I've always had an interest in teaching and have enjoyed the opportunities to do so in the past. My area of specialty will be in art (to the surprise of no one) but the specifics of what I'll ultimately do will evolve and crystalize over time as my initial exposure to classroom environments has shown me that there's a lot more potential in art curriculum than I had realized.

These two things are pretty awesome but their time investment is making me a little nervous. The graduate program is designed to accommodate candidates who are working full time, and the program is largely online based to facilitate that goal, but it's still college work at a graduate level so I'm feeling a little anxious about doing both this and the tasks at the new / old slots job. The graduate program is ideally completed in 18 months, but has provisions to be stretched out as long as 5 years if necessary but I really don't want to drag it out if I can help it. For now I'm feeling good about my ability to do both simultaneously while keeping to my other obligations at home, but any well wishes people want to send would be appreciated.

For now I'm finding the learning to be rather time consuming but not yet particularly challenging as the subject matter is largely about initial introductions to what teachers are expected to do. Before long there will be classroom visits and participation, action research projects, and observational studies. It's going to get interesting fast.

Anyhow, I'm pleased on many levels about how things are going and I wanted to share.

...I just tried to eat my kneaded eraser. I'm going on 6 hours sleep for the past two days.... hepl...

Califur ended up being a pretty pleasant experience for a show that I had only minimal time to prepare for. As I mentioned in my previous journal I had knowledge *of* the convention but had no plans to attend for the simple fact that I don't live close enough to LA to make the con profitable. At least usually. I made my trip to LA this month without any research into any potential selling opportunities and yet Califur shows up as something I was able to do at the last minute. Many, MANY thanks to Glen Wooten for his ready assistance in telling me what I needed to know about the availability of space in artists' alley and the temporary seller's permit. It all went down easily and pleasantly and despite the fact that all of my typical convention items were left back home in Kentucky I was able to cover my costs through some original art comissions onsite. Unfortunately the things I left behind would have been very useful: badge holders for badges (of which I'd just purchased a new box), my metal ruler / straightedge for cutting badges out, my business cards (again printed fresh this year), my booklet of example art so folks unfamiliar with my work could see, and finally my folder of original art which usually finds some buyers. All in all I did well enough to be very happy with the results, but for me the pleasure was in getting to visit with folks I don't normally see in the four main conventions I've been attended back east. Time was when Further Confusion was my main show and I would always see friends again in San Diego for Comic Con, and it's felt a little like home being able to travel around LA to do another sales event.

One thing that I realized belatedly would be a problem was the travel distance to the convention. I'm staying with family in Santa Monica and the drive to Irvine amounted to about 100 miles round trip every day. Considering that my usual convention schedule has me doing commission homework until 3am every day that means I end up with about 4 hours of sleep every night. I ended up being fine and awake by Sunday during the daily drive but if the convention had lasted a day or two longer I don't think I would have made it.

Of course since I didn't register in advance for this show I ended up getting to stand in line to do so onsite. That took two hours to accomplish which left me exceedingly bored but at least not put out. It seems that onsite registration lines are ALWAYS forbiddingly long and there's just no escaping it even though I think that should be an integral part of the convention planning. It just reinforces the importance of registering in advance since that makes things SO much easier.

As always the primary enjoyment of the convention was getting to visit with people both old and new, and although it puts a serious dent in my productivity efficiency I don't think I'd willingly subject myself to the experience so eagerly if I didn't get a charge out of the social communication. To that end I want to say thank you to the various folks I sat with in the surrounding tables, in particular to Roz and Meg for the steady company, and it was great to see other folks like CEagle, Arsemouse, NeoCanis, Ajin, Freckle, Redwulf, Rubbertex, and more besides. Cheers to you all!

Now that that's out of the way I'm gearing myself up for Anthrocon next month which is typically the biggest event of the year in terms of sales, and I've got some art projects I need to complete before then including some which been waiting and absurdly long amount of time to execute. To those who have been waiting, -I'm expecting to deliver for this show!

To give folks a heads up though, -one of the things I had to show off at Califur are a collection of little art cards I've been making in my downtime at conventions based off of the characters in the movie Animalympics. I did a couple of these that sold at FWA 2014 (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13040047/) and the response was strong enough that I've been doing progressively more and more of them. Oddly enough while they attracted commentary at Califur nobody actually bought any so I thought I'd let people know in advance that I'll have these at my table at AC, and if you have a particular favorite character then let me know in the comments below and I'll see about adding them to the list. So far I've just been focusing on the athletes but I'll probably have some commentators done up as well.

Take it easy, folks!

So this is unexpected, but since I just arrived in Los Angeles for the month of June I'm actually going to be in a position to attend Califur. I'm told I could get an artist's alley table for Saturday and Sunday and maybe I can sell some things. Trouble is that I didn't know about this opportunity so I didn't bring along my usual items to sell or attract attention, ie: my car stickers, my original artwork pile, or my folders which show people walking by what my artwork is like if they'd never seen it before. Whoops! So the question running through my mind right now is "will it be worth it to attend?" and to answer that I thought I'd ask those out there reading this journal how many of you might be going to this convention? I guess if sales are lousy on Saturday I can just not head back on Sunday but I always like to be optimistic. What do you guys think?

...I still want to say that's a "Bacon Lettuce & Fried Chicken" sandwich, but no, it's Biggest Little Fur Con, and if you happen to be attending that convention in Reno, NV this weekend then you gotta stop by table 10 in the Marketplace to see my wife  Calicougar who will be there selling art and commissions. Have fun!

Ooh... on a follow up note from the previous video, -here's a similar themed short film that while not comedy laden at least is also in love with the 80's. :D Bonus fun is it adds a punchline to a throwaway statement in the GTA 5. Awesome!

https://youtu.be/fGemjDuXH78

...and for those of you out there who are playing GTA 5 on PC now... I need to find some decent folks to play the Online version with.

https://youtu.be/ZTidn2dBYbY

...needs more chrome.

So I'm here at FWA, and for the first time ever I've been asked to draw Rocket Raccoon. Now I have drawn him twice! And you know what? He's really a whole lot of fun to draw! This probably won't be the last time you'll see me draw him...

I wish there was a little more breathing space between MCFC and FWA... or at least that they were scheduled such that my daughter's Spring Break didn't occur inbetween them. After returning from Michigan and MCFC I immediately left again to take my daughter on vacation, and now that I'm back from that four days later I'm off to Atlanta for FWA. It makes for busy and exciting times and I'm surely not complaining, but I'm in a bit of rush right now making last minute packing adjustments.

I'll be manning an Artist's Alley table this weekend so look for me there! Hope to see you all and have a great time!

So MCFC 2015 is now over and I'm back home for a few hours getting ready to take my daughter out to Myrtle Beach, SC for her Spring Break. No rest for the weary! Rather than trying to make the five and a half hour drive back home from Michigan last night after the dealer's room closed I opted to spend an extra night and drive home today. This also gave me the opportunity to finish up another art delivery in the morning, which was nice.

Overall MCFC was fun and I'm very glad to have made it. Financially I did alright, -neither gangbusters nor disappointing, and I accomplished my goal of keeping busy for most of the convention and have some art results that I'm pretty happy with. I had brought with me some new stickers that I'd had printed out which were about 3x3 inches in size and featured two variations of a WWII nose art pinup character that got some nice feedback from people although the sales reaction wasn't quite as strong as I'd hoped for. These are a bit of a test for me to see whether people would be interested in buying more but I think despite the sales response I'm going to press forward and continue making some more designs in this theme and will hopefully have them ready for Anthrocon in July. I also had brought a folder of Scotty Arsenault's original art and got some nice comments about how folks were glad to hear that his work is still out there and CommanderKitty.com is still being updated. I'll be bringing his art with me to Furry Weekend Atlanta in two weeks so be on the look out for it there! Print sales were non-existant... I wonder how many people out there still buy that stuff at all? Happily my vehicle stickers still have an audience... that fox sticker I did ages ago continues to make people happy, -now I just need to come up with some other design that is equally attractive. The three non-fox designs (weasel, cougar, and rabbit) continue to attract attention but not sales.

As for people I met, I had dinner with Lunden and Cmdr. Kitsune and I ended up eating The Lobster That Ate Chicago.... and it was HEAVENLY. Oh my god it was awesome. I also got to ride in Cmdr. Kitsune's deathtrap, which I hear has yet to claim his life, but perhaps it's having it's innards removed as we speak, so maybe it won't turn into Christine. Met up for dinner on Saturday with Thabo and Titash, and for the first time I regretted not getting further in my efforts to learn the French language since it would have made communicating with Titash better. I'm very jealous of folks who are bi-lingual, and happily we were able to talk for awhile, -he also drew an awesome inked picture for my sketchbook. Thabo also shared his thoughts about the experience of seeing the USA through the eyes of a European. Good conversation. Other folks I met and visited with: Tom, Stick, Shamus (sorry about your glasses!), McClaw, Andy, Donny (wish I could have visited more!), and Mary. I know there were plenty of other people who stopped by my table and I apologize if I've forgotten individuals as the days tend to blur by.

I did a bunch of art which I'll be posting eventually. I actually brought my scanner with me since I was driving and had a dealer's table with power, so that was awesome. Maybe I'll have time to edit post the pictures this week even while I'm out of town?

Urgh... I was going to write out some other thoughts about the convention but it started looking a little sour and I don't want to cloud my otherwise enjoyable experience with a couple problems. I'll see if there's a feedback form for the convention so that hopefully those issues can be considered for improvement next year.

To everyone who attended and made my experience better, -thank you so much! I look forward to doing this again next year!

Getting really close to the wire now, -MCFC is next weekend and I'll be making the drive up on Thursday. I attended last year and the year before that when it was called Furry Connection North and it's a good crowd of people and a nice experience overall. I'm keen to meet and visit with folks again so if you're in attendance head over to the Dealers Room and look me up! As a special bonus I've got some original artwork I'll have available from Scotty Arsenault of https://www.commanderkitty.com fame. Yes, SCOTTY! I've been bugging him to try and attend a convention for the longest of time and he's relented and given these originals so that I can add them to my personal collection offer them for sale to you lucky people... so yeah, that's something really cool!

Check it out and say "Hi!" Next up after MCFC for me is Furry Weekend Atlanta the weekend of April 11th.

So, after a bit of confusion it looks like I will in fact be manning a Dealers table at MCFC in Detroit again this year. Apparently there was some sort of problem copy and pasting the information from the official dealers spreadsheet to the Facebook posting that resulted in my name (and some others) not being listed on the formal approval. Good to know that's been corrected. What this means is that for the third year in a row I'll again be selling original art and doing commissions along with bringing random other items of interest for folks to browse through. I don't know at the moment if there's an art show at the convention but I need to think about trying to put some items up for art show display / auction this year to see what sort of response I get. I've also started getting the first test prints of some stickers that I've put together and am pleased with the initial result. I definitely think that a larger size than 3x3 is necessary to best appreciate the design, but I am at least pleased with the quality and I expect that I should be able to sell the test prints for sure. It'll be interesting to hear the responses from people who see them for the first time.

Motor City Fur Con will be held March 27th through the 29th in Novi, Michigan. Who will be attending?