TL;DR depression and a sudden and unexpected move across the country sapped my desire to do anything creative for a very long time.

You can find me here now: lokiofsassgaard

I'm trying to get back into everything again. It's a slow process.

I've not actually gone by Zeddish in some time, but I've kept the name here for... IDK. Sentimental reasons, I suppose.


I may still monitor this account for a bit, but I've officially registered a new account.

• Where are you staying?
The Marriott (I believe. Someone else booked the room, but I'm pretty positive this is where we're staying).

• What day are you getting there?
Friday, the 4th.

• Who will you be with?
and Amethyst (whose FA name I'm not sure of).

• Do you do free art?
Probably not.

• Do you do trades?
I may do. We'll see on the day.

• Do you do commissions?
Oh, yes. I don't have a dealer's room table, but I'll be there all three days.

• What is your gender?
Female

• How old are you?
24

• Can I talk to you?
Of course!

• Can I touch you?
I'd really rather you didn't. I don't really like random contact. D:

• Can I hang out with you?
Sure. Just know that I may not be very open/talkative. Or I might. I don't know. I have weird mood swings.

• How can I find you?
Look for Arthur Dent. Don't know who that is?

Look for someone in their pyjamas.

As promised to Chapdav, I would like to retract Star_Sage's name from this whole mess. I've managed to get in some civil contact, and it seems as though Chapdav was letting StarSage take the fall by not telling me who sent the emails.

At this point, I've no idea who sent the emails.

So, I'm curious. I've seen a few other folks post similar journals, so I want in on this.

What impression, if any, do you get from my artwork? Is it difference between my commissioned stuff and my personal pieces?


Be honest, here. I want to know.

Why Windows 7 insists on being a severe pain in my arse?


Here's the deal: I decided to try to get some work done and took the laptop back to the bedroom. I get everything set up, the tablet plugged in, and...

Nothing.

We had a mild hardware issue the other day, and I figure it might have done something to the drivers, so I reinstall them.

Still nothing.

I restart. I try all four USB ports. I try with the tablet both unplugged and plugged in at start up.

STILL NOTHING.


Then, out of nothing but sheer frustration and desperation, I switch over to the husband's profile.

And it works.


AGKLAFKJASDFJKASFDKLJASF WTF?

Both profiles are administrator profiles. I've used the tablet on my profile just the other week when I was over at 's place for an art jam. WHY THE HELL IS IT DOING THIS!?


And before you tell me that it makes no sense, trust me. I know. The whole of my professional background is in IT and tech support. I know what the fuck I'm doing.


I'm sorry, but all you Vista haters: when compared against 7, Vista is the superior OS. I've had nary a problem in the three years I've run Vista.

https://youtu.be/jc6aufHz-i0

https://youtu.be/lk5_OSsawz4


I was going to draw something for today, but just couldn't really come up with anything good.

I FINALLY got the debit card application process to go through, and I just got the email telling me I'm approved.

With any luck, I'll have it before I go to my mum's.


If the universe REALLY likes me, I'll have it before Califur.

Old, but I'm watching David Attenborough talk about spiders, and it made me think of this little gem.

https://youtu.be/sHzdsFiBbFc

The Wiki article got fixed. Click on the cap:

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/8894.....pediathefr.png

She's gonna call me tomorrow so we can find a good flight time, and she's buying my ticket for me. The plan is at least a fortnight, but hopefully a little longer up at my mum's. The conversation went something like this:


Me: So... I'm thinking of going up there next month to see you all again.
Mum: You need a ticket, then?
Me: Please?
Mum: Okay. So what's happening next month?
Me: A convention, but that's in California, and I'm going with some mates.
Mum: When are you coming up then?
Me: On the tenth.
Mum: What's that?
Me: Middle of the week. Flights are usually cheaper.
Mum: Oh. What's this convention for then? Your Furbys*?
Me: Yep. People go and dress up like dogs and buy art from other people. Lots of fun.
Mum: Sounds like it.**

After that, we started talking about more serious stuff, which would be boring to read.


* My mum knows what furries are, to a point. That is, she knows that I draw and sell furry porn, and she's seen some of it, and generally thinks that it's kind of ridiculous. But she also knows that I can't find work that I'm capable of surviving, and supports the "any income is better than no income" stance.

** She was, of course, being utterly sarcastic, since she thinks this whole thing is strange.

I need to get out of the house, I think. I'm going mad.

So I'm going to see if my mum will buy me a ticket to fly home for a few weeks after Califur. Yeah, summers back home are horrible and humid and disgusting, but, yeah. I wanna go home for a little bit.

- Do laundry
- Go shopping
- Do a bit of house cleaning
- Figure out lunch
- Arts

ALSO, I've decided to do that Iron Artist thing. $7 gets you a coloured sketch.

Details Here

I've gotten through enough of my sketches that I feel comfortable trying to do this.

100 slots, 20 at a time. Claim one in the comments.

Claims will be taken first come, first serve.


So, what exactly am I doing for this? Coloured Sketches, either digital or traditional. You can choose, or I can choose for you.

EXAMPLE.

Slots are $7 each. You can claim as many as you want, but keep in mind that if you grab more than 2-3, you're likely to not get them all at once.

Typically, I do these things in the order that I get them, unless you grab a lot. Then, I'll likely go out of order just a little bit to keep myself fresh.

COMMENT HERE TO CLAIM YOUR SLOT. You can include your refs, but keep in mind that if there are a lot of people ahead of you, there's a very good chance that you may have to wait until the next round.

1. ZiggyDarkglow
2. ZiggyDarkglow
3. ZiggyDarkglow
4. ZiggyDarkglow
5. ZiggyDarkglow
6. mystkatodark
7. Kwikdog
8. Kwikdog
9. Kwikdog
10. Kwikdog
11. tabernak
12. tabernak
13. PirateSid
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

For the most part, anyway. If there's one thing I'd fix, it would be the antiquated layout. It's not 2004 any more, and these tables are kind of old.

Of course, as most of you probably know, the layout IS going to change, and the mock-ups look fucking awesome. No, it does not look like dA. No, it does not look like SoFurry. If anything, it looks like the Dark Side of ArtSpots. Very professional, very streamlined, and the art is positioned above the profile information, which I really like.

Old mock-up is old, but still awesome.

When it comes down to it, though, FA is pretty fucking slick even with these tables nested in tables. (Most) Other sites just don't compare.


SoFurry is tossed around quite a bit, but it's terrible. I dare you to try to post a journal for the first time over there. It will take you five minutes to figure out how. And once you do, your spellcheck won't work, so your journal will be horribly misspelt because you ragetyped once you finally figured out how to do it.

Art submission is even worse. At best, it's an exercise in extreme patience. There are three pages of information that you need to fill out, but you can accidentally forget about them and submit a very explicit picture as clean.

And forget you will, because the tag system is a fucking joke. It rejects tags that aren't already in the system (for example, try to upload a picture of a Wallaroo. It will reject your tag), and it requires a bunch of other tags that are redundant.

And don't even get me started on that disgusting "cum counter" feature it has. WTF!?

SoFurry final marks: F


Okay, so you go over to Y!Gallery, assuming they still even allow furs.

And that's their first problem. Their rules change once a month. Literally. The staff can't seem to agree on what should or shouldn't be allowed, so the only solution seems to be a bi-polar rule structure.

Hell, they recently changed their rules on literature thumbnails. If you uploaded one of your own, then your literature was in violation on the TOS. What the shit?

And not only do their rules change every time you sneeze, but there are a million of them. Yes, it's a privately-owned server and all that, but good god. If you're going to have that many rules about what you're going to allow on your server, you might as well just make accounts invite-only.

If you think I'm joking, go look at their TOS. The subsections have subsections. It looks like a bill someone's trying to pass in the Senate.

Their upload process is just as confusing, if not worse, than SoFurry's, too. You've got about seven pages of tags that you have to add -- everything from age of the character to what you used to sketch the drawing.

Y!gallery final marks: F


Then you've got the more professional sites, like deviantART. Say what you will about it, but I really like it over there.

They have a very clean layout (which, granted, it does still have a few bugs that need to be worked out) and once you take five minutes to realise that the top navigation bar is actually a bunch of drop-down menus, it's actually pretty easy to navigate. They've put the art in centre focus which sort of helps it get away from the social networking aspect on that front.

But if you want social networking, they have that as well. The forums and chatrooms are all still there, full of idiot teenagers who don't want to talk about anything aside from how much they hate everything, but that's all over the interweb these days.

However, if you're trying to make even a part-time job out of your art, dA is not the place to go. There are literally millions of people doing exactly the same thing as you, and unless you're willing to break copyright laws and draw fanart for money, you won't sell anything. Try to sell porn on dA, and you'll just get yourself banned (which, frankly, is likely the reason so many people here seem to hate it; because there's no porn allowed over there).

deviantART final marks: B


Get furry-specific again, and you get to ArtSpots. It has a very slick layout; very professional, and with a very specific target demographic. It even has a built-in commission feature, which is nice if you remember to use it.

Uploading is simple. Everything is all on one page and you don't need to click a million buttons to submit your artwork. Just fill out a few boxes, and it's done.

Back to commissions, though, the overall quality of the artwork is generally pretty awesome, because once upon a time, ArtSpots was quality controlled. It's opened up fairly recently to allow anyone to register. But because of the overall quality of the art, you've really got to make sure that yours stands out to be able to sell anything over there. Another drawback is because of the quality of a lot of the artists, you're not very likely to sell to anyone ON ArtSpots, either. Like deviantART, I've not managed to make any money from commissions through ArtSpots.

Also like deviantART, they don't allow porn, so the userbase is still fairly small compared to FA.

But if it's just UI and quality furry art you're looking for, then it's definitely worth at least occasional browsing.

ArtSpots final marks: B-


Now, my main problem with SoFurry, Y!Gallery, and ArtSpots isn't even one of UI (okay, it sort of is in some areas), but rather one of community. Specifically, there is none. SoFurry's just full of a bunch of people who want nothing but to wank to the artwork, and that's generally not someone you want to talk to.

Y!Gallery's just so goddamn stiff and rigid that it really kills any sort of community there might have been. Also, it seems to be full of teenaged girls, and that also doesn't seem to be someone you really want to talk to.

ArtSpots... well, I'm not sure why there's no sense of community over there. Maybe because it's just so small, and the people that are there only show up for a few minutes every month to upload their art. I may be wrong, but somehow, I don't think so.


I do hang out on dA a lot. I've had the same account for six years, and have made loads of friends over there. The fact that I can't upload porn doesn't bother me, because I'm over there mostly for my friends anyway.


FA does seem to have that slight edge, though. It has the community that I love in an art-come-social networking site (face it. It's social networking, whether you want it to be or not), it's a good size without being enormous, the rules are pretty lax without being an utter free-for-all, and there's porn for the perverts.

Now, if the rest of you punks could stop complaining about trivial shit like a stylesheet change that's due to come out in August, and actually let the site evolve a little bit, it would be great.

I was out at Target today, looking for a new pair of slippers for my Arthur Dent costume and some sewing supplies. I did not find the slippers, but I did find a sewing machine and kit for $20. What was going to be a very long fix with my dressing gown will now just take about an hour. Hurray!


Art

If you've been expecting stuff in the post, it went out today. If you think you're expecting stuff in the post, double check with me to make sure I didn't manage to overlook you.

Also, I will very likely not be streaming tonight. If I do, it will be late. Very late. Past midnight late. I'm taking a personal day to go out to the pub with the lads.

And sketches that you all have been very patiently waiting on will be finished by Monday if it kills me.

I get a lot of the same questions, especially when I'm streaming. So, here are a few answers for y'all.


What tablet do you use?

I use a Wacom Sapphire. It's sort of a cheapy Grapphire, but it gets the job done, and I love it to pieces.

What art program do you use?

I use Paint Tool SAI exclusively, though I currently have two different versions; 1.0.1 on my desktop, and 1.1.0 on my laptop.

How do you get your lines so straight?

SAI has a tool called Smoothing (or Stabiliser, on newer versions). The higher up you turn it, the slower the cursor goes. It takes longer to ink a piece this way, but the result is worth it, in my opinion.

What brand of markers do you use?

I use Prismacolor markers and pencils. Occasionally, I'll post something in crayon, in which case it's Crayola.

How do you stream your desktop?

I have something called SuperWebcam (don't ask where I got it; I've had it forever). It basically tricks whatever website you're using into thinking that the webcam is plugged in.

When do you stream?

I try to do it every night when my husband isn't home. Since he's home Wednesdays and Thursdays, it's not very practical to try to run a webcast when I'm being distracted all night.

Why do you stream at night? Why can't you stream during the day when more people are awake?

Plain and simple, because I'm asleep.

Why don't you talk during your streams?

Because I don't like the lag that happens. Also, it's like rubbing your stomach and patting your head, for me. I can't seem to talk and draw at the same time. So I might as well just type.

Why are you in the room twice?

I haven't got Dual Display set up. Instead, I broadcast from my desktop and chat from my laptop. I find it horribly annoying when I'm watching someone draw and they spend half of it switching back and forth to the chatroom, so I try not to do it to my viewers.

Do you take commissions?

Yes! Send me a note!

Do you take trades?

Sometimes. It comes and goes.

... if I did that Iron Artist thing?

I wouldn't start until I have my current batch of sketches done, but if I did it, who would actually buy slots?

I intentionally make myself easy to find. That's why nearly all of my accounts follow the same pattern for the name. It's just easier that way.


I do not mind if you IM me. That's why I make those things public. It's nice to meet new people.


HOWEVER: I do not accept random add requests. PERIOD. They are all automatically denied, so please stop sending them.

Also, the proper way to get to know me is not by talking about your fetishes or asking what my fetishes are. As soon as you do that, it's clear to me that you've no interest in conversation, and I'll just ignore you.

I also do not wish to role play. I will not get murry purry with you. I will ignore you if you do that.

Also, please don't IM me and expect me to have a topic of discussion. Most often, when I'm online, I'm working on this list of commissions. It's a big list right now, and I'm trying to get through them as quickly as possible without rushing (I like having a big list, though. It keeps me busy, even when I haven't got anything new coming in).



So, to sum up: My IM info is public, and I like proper conversation. It doesn't have to be deeply intellectual, but substance beyond "hey, s'up?" is all I'm asking.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3705092/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3804555/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3852086

Those things there? Still $10!

BUT, because I'm feeling generous, you can get two characters (like in this one) for $15.

My paypal is notusingtheZword[at]gmail.com


Send me a note or comment here with your refs if you want one.

Every time this thing is updated, I take a good long while to go through it with a fine-tooth comb. 99% of the time, none of the changes apply to me, but sometimes a very small little change can affect everyone.

Like this animal paint-over meme. I'm seriously laughing at the amount of complaint journals I've seen today about people's submissions being deleted.

For those who don't yet know: PUT IT IN YOUR SCRAPS. Seriously, that'll save it from deletion.

I meant to post some commissions today.

Instead, I posted slug porn.



WTF is wrong with me?

So, the microwave that we just bought in January? It doesn't work. At all.


Fantastic. :C

I haven't been doing a whole lot with my markers lately, and I sort of want to.

So, here's a bit of a sale: For $15, you get something LIKE THIS (only without all the red lines and crap. I coloured over some old inks. Bad example, but I'll upload a better one soon).

One character, full-page drawing. If you're going to Califur, you can pick it up there, or I can post it to you, via USPS. Shipping will be calculated, and you will be responsible for the shipping.

I can also do ACEOs for $7. Same deal on shipping/pick up.

Well, sort of. Now I get to try to reapply for that damn debit card.

At least I have my account back.