specifically FtM types; there's often a significant venn diagram overlap of FBB furry characters and FtM/intersex furry characters, and I've kind of wondered how an FtM character owner feel about straight orientated people finding their characters attractive as opposed to strictly bi/gay admirers. I haven't seen too many heated discussions in this context, so I'm guessing the spectrum of thoughts mostly range from "it's understandable but keep it to yourself", to possibly still reciprocating the attraction with a bit of snark, something along the lines of "sure buddy you're "straight", just make sure you massage my rock hard pects real good while you're slamming me from the back ok? ;)". Dunno I always try to be sensitive to that sort of thing and keep it to my self if they mention being trans in the description or I see they have the mastectomy scars or something (not that it's particularly difficult for me, outside of rare heated political discussions I think I'm very formal and polite, and I can't recall ever outright saying some permutation of "I want to fuck this drawing" 🤣)

it's a uniquely furry issue for me in any-case, I've never seen that type of thing in meat space and found any conflicting thoughts like that lol.

ANYWAYS sorry about the lack of updates the previous year, I've been a bit busy and also some of the comms I was planning either got cancelled or delayed so I haven't had as much to show recently. there are also a few I need to touch up and stuff before I feel comfortable releasing. hopefully things will be different this year though 👍

full renders might be too expensive for some, and I kind of want to brush up on my fundamentals so feel free to note me or whatever if you're interested

I mean, I'm certainly not one to judge; if I had that kind of disposable income I DEFINITELY would 100% be trending on twitter also for being cringe incarnate. Also for 50k we'd better be fuckin', my self-insert/mascot better be breaking the head boards and blowing a mutagenic load all over mrs.morning star's face, that's too much money for PG-13 softcore innuendo

my main criticism is he probably should have just asked someone on here to do the animation. pretty sure it'd be at least 60% cheaper

yesterday wasn't very good but lets see if I can actually get some good work done today https://picarto.tv/xylem

this weekend in particular looking to do some "same-day" full render pinups on stream. Same day in quotes since I'd still probably want to run some rough pencil and paper by possible clients a day or so before hand to streamline the process. I feel a little more confident since the last time I tried doing something similar and want to try and step up my efforts including maybe some new blending techs or something.

full render would be something like this https://www.furaffinity.net/view/42188974/ or this https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41886500/ and cost 140 USD each

Not gonna lie, while it's banned on FA I've seen some absurdly good AI generations on DA, as well as having dabbled in it myself. While I never was able to make a steady income off of it, I did REALLY want to do so, but I'm not sure how feasible that would be in the future? I mean as much as I hate to admit it, maybe I dodged a bullet on that? I don't see anyone complaining about not having any business or losing sales in particular, but it seems like things might get really dicey as the tech and availability ramps up. BTW if you are a commissioner what keeps you coming back? personally I think I still show an interest because as of this moment an AI can't really tell a consistent story or chain a narrative together how I want. also how do you feel about using img2img to fast track to a finished and colored sketch?

As far as Patreon goes, I mean while I would love to just quit everything and do art, I lack the support network to reliably do it which has held me back for years. I dunno though, maybe I should have considered putting it up as mostly a tip jar to fund really big comms? things like  bluecarnationstudios kind of do that, how would people feel about polls and like a discord in regards to that sort of thing? maybe it's preposterous, or maybe not? the main thing that kept me from just taking the plunge is I figured have to clear at least 1k not counting commissions and it seems pretty competitive. I wanted to go all in, but at the same time it's kind of a big ask since I didn't feel I was notorious as say, blackrat (or maybe  tetanus on here I guess lol) or something and it might be asking too much for everyone to rally to me, especially since half the watchers might not even specifically like my actual art since it's heavily diluted with my commissions : P

it's a bit late to even consider it, but I wonder how many furries are willing to cut really cheap deals for affordable housing and stuff? maybe I should have reached out sooner and seen what people were willing to offer if for nothing else more flexibility in pursuing art full time.

just random thoughts. any feedback is appreciated.

I'm not particularly interested or good at writing thorough narratives and stuff, but rinji wrote one for the "masculinite meteor" sequence posted here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/53835073/ I appreciate that people get inspired by the things I post, be sure to let him know what you think about it on his page or whatever

I haven't had the best relationship with a certain artist in question after a personal disagreement a few years back (you might have heard me discuss this in private), but they were still willing to open communication lines. After some great recent discussions with them they decided to formally end that privilege. Not for the reason of hostility on my part, and they were extremely cordial and had a pretty nice & thorough final message for me so I don't take it as them hating me, but I guess it was draining for them because I suppose I was kind of leaning in the direction of being my therapist and assuming we were closer than we were. Kind of fucked me up in a weird way, even though I didn't think we would ever be working together again, I thought maybe we could be friends again? I say "again" as if it weren't always a 1 way para-social relationship, they always seemed pretty insistent to keep clients at arms length lol. ANYWAYS, It still didn't sit right with me not being able to unpack the last things they said to me, so on the off-chance they ever read this I wanted to respond even though I'm likely howling into the wind.

1)Yes I did completely misjudge both you and your friend's conviction and genuine desire to do good. That's one reason it was so hard to wrap my head around how we fractured. while I had my own convictions, I treated the affair much like a game which is why even after 6 years I couldn't understand why things wouldn't go back to normal. While I wish I had broached the topic more sensitively, I am glad I finally have a better grasp on your perspective.

2)I think what I was looking for as far as a "satisfactory resolution" was just being on talking terms with you & resolving past missteps. I realize you have your own schedule, and it's not like you come to me looking to fix things, but the last few exchanges we had were extremely positive and I enjoyed your responses as well. I appreciate you treating me as well as you did given the circumstances. while it's unfortunate I no longer have the privilege of speaking to you directly I think what we did manage to hash out was still pretty good.

3)your statement "it's not really my responsibility or even really within my power to grant you absolution, that's just something you've got to work through for yourself." is an interesting one. You were always able to read between the lines and see things I wasn't. maybe I did want that even though I didn't say it or put it into a complete thought. I mean it's not just from you, there are a lot of things in my life right now that I'd love to grant me me that, but maybe you were one of them.


I really do miss you, and while I didn't think we'd be chatting everyday or be best friends, it made me feel better as I was changing directions to engage with someone I felt so alienated from all those years ago :/

---

ANYWAYS sorry for the awkwardness to anyone else who is not the artist in question reading this. I have to be careful about what I say because of some of the site rules but I can answer some questions, and words of encouragement are welcome and all that.

particularly game-stuff like unity, game maker, or even HTML5. Just a roll-call of sorts, I have another programmer I know who might be interested in getting an extra set of hands to help on a project.

because Imagur is acting up and people asked for it I'm going to just cram the entire gallery onto one post. https://mega.nz/file/0YggxLJb#hS4EB.....kgyXXULnDlia9E these are the first edition, and go further than the original first 30 pages.

so this allowed me to get some capture fotage down to under a gigabyte . so I'll share some warframe related stuff where I am testing my builds via corpus level cap on steel path using no armor strip, only saryn's raw damage

Boltor incarnon benchmark test (solo)
https://mega.nz/file/pcAVmKxI#cfQ3m.....P5wZ8-WpNIFmFs


torid incarnon benchmark (full squad)
https://mega.nz/file/YVoxHaTJ#xB_qe.....R99vUJiBZ2PQm8
this one's interesting because of the little known fact that demolisher health scales with squad size: +50% health with a squad of two, +125% with a squad size of three, and +200% health with a squad size of four according to the wiki, and these were fully scaled up. while the beam doesn't do shit to them (great trash clear though) sticking a bunch of fart grenades to a demolyst with saryn chips them out pretty fast even with the massive amounts of armor they have. when they have a void bubble on them that seems to DRASTICALLY accelerate this process, so perhaps I can prime them with the operator amp, then unload for speedy takedowns. this might work for ANY weapon that has a non-hitscan projectile, but I suspect the continually procc-ing gas clouds get trapped in the void bubble drastically increasing the damage (and/or possibly double dipping into faction damage multipliers again when they get caught in the bubble)

sorry if you were expecting something more pertinent, though I might be able to use my experience gained here for other projects down the line I guess lol.

I stocked up pretty heavy on the mod boosters since they are so rare, and the bi-weekly vendor brought them. If anyone wants to farm arcanes or endo I definitely will be doing plenty of that just send me a note

I knew about the policy change, but I thought the black and white sketch stuff would at least not trip the filters and be spared, which seemed to be the case for awhile, but I guess they finally caught up with me lol. I won’t miss them much since I didn’t care for their user-base much anyways, they seem to be following in Tumblr’s footsteps in more ways than one to put it lightly. Are there any other image hosting sites that are dependable and don’t require a login to share images?

I’m actually rather impressed, I was a bit skeptical about how good it would be given marvel’s track record as of late, but man they did a fantastic job. Rocket’s backstory was also unexpectedly well done and compelling. The villain was kind of mustache twirlingly evil, but that’s a good thing, not every antagonist needs layers, sometimes just being a sociopath with a god complex makes for great cinema.

9.9/out of 10 had to deduct a fraction of a point for the mutant experiments not being buff enough 🤣

uhhhhh I think stheno's gonna pass on kidnapping that one....congrats she's all yours turtles

I actually got a funny result or 2 from it I wanted to share and it looks like I can’t post that wholesale the way I want ( you can see a few at https://mobile.twitter.com/sthenobeast though) can someone tell me if it’s only aimed at people slapping them up with no transformative interaction (I define “transformative” as something being it’s just off to the side to show your reference for the actual picture you drew, or redrawing large parts of it to make it actually good ) or if we’re going full Luddite/don’t ask, don’t tell on it?

I kind of just recorded these to send to a friend making fun of a uniquely bad berserker in KF2 (here's a PSA for you out there who have ever played it, a 'zerk afraid of big zeds is about as useful as a prostitute afraid of penises, just saying >:/ ) but meh, I will go ahead and put these up

https://mega.nz/file/9JYSxJqI#Lswf2.....AZVkic9cgk3hvY

https://mega.nz/file/FQxkzJ5L#9JnNs.....1rbp25pAlfuG9g

BTW if anyone has any codec/compression suggestions that make these files more manageable with negligible losses I'd like to give them a try and/or you can send me a copy for me to check out.

I'm aiming to start by 5pm eastern time, and I want to try cell shaded single character pinup for 50$ with the most basic of BG's (if your character is particularly complex we can negotiate something).

I kind of feel a bit slow, so I figure maybe with some added pressure/incentive I'll push myself little bit more. as far as restrictions, if your idea is "marketable" or something I'm already into/have done before I'm WAY more likely to accept it. payment method is paypal and I don't accept steam games or trades as payment. I won't ask for payment until I get the roughs/first pass done.

you may note me with a brief description with a reference for the pose and the character you want done. There are 2 criteria determining whether I'd take on your idea, 1 of course how much I like it, and the second being whether you can show up live to help direct me since that's half the point lol. depending on how the most basic of commissions go after a few times, I may feel confident enough to move on to more complex themes or allowing sequences or something. I got kind of overwhelmed and burned out with doing them a few years back, but I'm hoping my greater amount of experience now will allow me to deliver what people want in a timely fashion.

feel free to ask any questions below and I will do my best to answer them in a timely manner.

I had a nice time working with them before and it only takes a minute so why not? https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46617646/

I occasionally get a wave of unfaves that I am occasionally able to trace back to the users (it's normally impossible but sometimes I have FA on my smartphone open so I can see what got changed around). it's usually not a sudden change of tastes or I've offended them, but they intentionally blow up their account. same thing with watches. I always wonder why it happens so fast with seemingly relatively new accounts lol, it seems like such an overreaction too, only thing I could think of guess it could be someone living with a nosy person who discovers their browser history and they feel they have to blow up the whole thing to remove all traces.

But yeah on the plus side if it happens to you, it's probably this and not something you specifically did to annoy a potential fan.

While I've only done one commission recently (not posted yet, but now's a good time to mention I am looking to take care of at people who were queued up for years waiting for my availability first hence why slots are not publicly open) I was hoping to kick things into high gear at some point in the future. Unfortunately it's been brought to my attention that paypal seems off the table if you're working a dayjob and/or have an IBR in regards to student loans due to how recent legislation (a somewhat brazen violation of the 4th amendment I might add) under the questionable pretext of going after the rich will pretty much immediately send all of your paypal transactions directly to the IRS and net you a 1099; I mean that was ALWAYS the case, but now the threshold is at 0.6K instead of the previous 20K benchmark which is a serious problem for artists at the lower end of things.

Anyways, it might become more common for artists to start using western union instead, I think that may be the only way I accept payments if I do start doing commissions on the regular. You may want to look into getting an account there even though it is less convenient than paypal.

someone suggested I try to find more people willing to do Steel path disruption level cap runs. It's not that I can't do it solo, but it does save an hour or 2 if more people are picking up keys.

TBH I never heard of it until last week, but the more I see of it the more I like it. I think nintendo has long been coasting off it's success as far back as melee in it's unique niche for far too long, and a similar game that doesn't seem to handicap it's matchmaking, competitive scene (or hell even youtube scene since nintendo is infamous for DMCA), or have a completely diluted theme because of a roster bloated with 3rd party characters that don't fit is primed to just eat nintendo's lunch with a vengence and I kind of hope it does. won't know until I try it but the movement and control look legit.

the new crucible replacement (warhammer seen in the background of the main game) is pretty great, it fixes A LOT of the problems I had with the chainsaw and is gratifying to use, you could go through the whole DLC without using the chainsaw, or being able to save it for a heavy demon like in doom 2016 (sadly since it only holds 3 pips you can't just instantly delete a hell baron or tyrant or something).

the new monsters are pretty cool, the cursed crawler is the only one I kind of have reservations about. I only got scratched once, but the mechanics around the curse are really weird, especially since it seems to change their susceptibility to damage? there aren't that many of them, I only counted like 3, but the best way I found is to listen for their unique sound and watch for their green teleport and keep the chaingun sheild up.

It definitely feels easier than "ancient gods part 1", And on top of that I noticed in the update they toned down the bloodmakyr enemy. kind of a shame, it REALLY forced me to "git gud" with my precision bolt shots.


The final boss is relatively fair, but he's not like the other bosses, you are definitely fighting on his terms. if your quick switching/combos are not on point and you start to get impatient you might be in trouble.

the story gets even weirder somehow, but whatever it's doom, just get it out the way so I can go back to blowing stuff up lol.

Edit:
I do have one spoilerific criticism though
I was waiting for the dark lord to get out of that mech/hyper armor and REALLY start kicking my ass senator Armstrong style; sadly he’s just a marauder on steroids and died in that same power armor. Hayden was much more of a pain in my ass lol

After clearing all campaigns on nightmare I understand way more of the mechanics, and I have to give more credit to the underlying systems. the minigun shield in particular is incredibly useful (you can safety blood punch with it launch equipment and the dash attack does possibly unintended amounts of damage), and the rocket launcher ( particularly lock-on rockets) were buffed ENORMOUSLY from the earlier counterpart. The possession buffed super mobs were seemingly incredibly unfair on my first play-through, but with more knowledge of their weaknesses and certain combos they can be dispatched in short order.


I still think the atmosphere took a large hit in the main game, the slayer "removing" the lenses in 2016 still makes me smile, but some of eternal's cut-scenes and stuff makes me cringe a little. I kind of understand the story a bit better now, and see they kind of wanted to pay homage to "evil dead 3" in a weird way as in a modern warrior/survivor being brought into the past. Also they tried to make it more clear in the DLC, but it was kind of hard to understand the makyrs/"angels" motivation even after reading the lore; after some dev commentary it's more obvious they need argent energy since it stops them from getting like, cthulu cancer; this effectively makes them immortal which is essential because they've lost the ability to increase their numbers due to the loss of their leader.
I mean it wouldn't be fair to say the story "sucks", but it does seem like they missed a big opportunity to make an ACTUAL good story; most people thought the doom-slayer was "the betrayer" mentioned in the 2016 lore which would have given the icon of sin fight more significance since it would have been his son (and even more of a motivation to be pissed at the "maykrs"). They could have done something poignant where he hesitates before plunging the crucible in, and possibly for a second before the deed is done the icon shows a small semblance of the humanity he's lost, it kind of gives me some feelings just thinking about it. but no it's just a boss fight and another demon to steamroll.

I still have SOME reservations about the ammo/chainsaw relationship; it still feels like a reload button which was against the design philosophy of the game, and I did REALLY feel that drop off from 60 max shells to 24. but since way more of the weapons are useful in eternal, I had less problems with it this time around. I understand the ammo runes in the original were incredibly overpowered, but they kind of overcompensated I think.

overall I think if you kind of look it at the game for what it turned out to be and try to really understand the mechanics it's just as good as the original on a technical/game-play level and arguably better in some ways. I can totally understand some people not liking it due to how these changes are not seamless from 2016 the same way 2016 almost seamlessly went modern. if you just wanted to continue how you've been playing doom in 2016 or old-school it does "fail" at that admittedly.

so to kind of revisit my score I will give it a 10/10 for an FPS, but only an 8.5/10 for a sequel to the reboot if that makes any sense.