So… It’s about time I posted this… Suffice it to say, I’ve been busy..
A lot has happened since the last time I posted a journal here..

Most importantly, back in December.. My mother passed away after a catastrophic illness..
Long story short, my life as I know it has been flipped on it’s head and I’m still picking up the pieces while still dealing with my grief…

In addition to that, I’m going through all the legal and logistical madness of dealing with my mothers estate, while also effectively scrapping my entire career (such as it’s been) and shifting to an entirely new one because what I’ve been doing simply isn’t viable with my shift in living circumstances…

This includes commissions…
New commissions are indefinitely closed…
I may explore it again in a year or so if there’s room in my life for it..
Supplementary income for extras, etc..
But maybe (probably) not…

As for existing commissions..
Some will be completed as planned as time allows, others will be refunded once my finances stabilize..
Or maybe all will be refunded… I don’t know just yet..
In the immediate future you'll likely just keep seeing random personal things I do to keep myself from going insane while all of this is going on..

Everything has changed..
What I do as an artist is shifting away from doing it for money… Toward more personal pursuits..
Moving back toward being a hobby rather than a career like it used to be..
I’m exploring 3D modelling more in my spare time.. (What little there is..)
So who knows, maybe I'll be reinventing myself in the near future, I can't honestly say right now..

Stay tuned I guess.. We’ll see where this goes…

Like the title says, I’m open for commissions.

PRICING AND OTHER DETAILS HERE ►►► http://www.tehzee.net/commissions/

Drop me a note or leave a comment here if interested. 💜

So, this is a callback to -this- journal and one or two before it... From far too long ago..
Go read that so I don't have to explain everything here again... Please...

Long story short, I am now basically open for commissions, and will also be posting some YCH stuff very soon..
Simply put my financial situation is worse than it's been in quite some time and I need the cash...
Things improved briefly in that regard after my previous journal about this through random chance, so I... pulled back a bit..
Buuut that won't be happening again this time... So.. Here we are.

In terms of commissions, if interested drop me a note or something...
My price sheets are currently out of date and not valid, so until I fix that just ask me about my current rates..

As for YCH stuff, stay tuned, I'll have something posted soon..

In general expect me to get a lot more active in the next while, I've recently developed some new techniques that have rather drastically increased the speed at which I can complete lineart... Which has always been the thing that holds me back..

Additionally, if this works out like I think it will I'll be making some Patreon related changes..
(More details about that later once I figure that out..)

It's about time.. 😛

I'm going to be completely blunt here...
AI "Art" is an abuse of the technology in every sense of the word...
And I harshly judge anyone that dares engage in it's use, in whole or in part...

It is not art.... It will never be art... It is elaborate theft aimed at making actual artists obsolete... Plain and simple..


Here's something that explains it better than I care to at the moment..
https://twitter.com/TehZee/status/1.....64774145536006

Hokay.. About time I discussed the elephant in the room...

So after working on a VERY limiting old laptop for months, I've FINALLY got what files back that I could from my dead hard drive and I'm using my desktop PC again..
Approximately 75%-ish recovery... Unfortunately MOST of the damage was localized to newer files so...
A lot of the stuff I wanted to get back was either damaged or missing entirely..

Including my more recently updated commission log.. So that.. complicates matters...
Some people can likely expect follow up messages so I can clarify details if I can't find what I need in old notes online..

At any rate, I'm planning on moving ahead with reopening commissions as outlined in my previous journal from months ago before all of this happened..
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10036212/
I just need to sort out a few things first...
One of them being some.. revisions.. to how I approach art that I haven't worked the kinks out of yet...


So.. Stay tuned, or whatever..

So... My previously announced plans for commissions, etc.. are on hold for at least a couple weeks, possibly a month or more..

A week or two ago.. Honestly I can't even remember anymore at this point..
My PC suffered a catastrophic drive failure.. The storage drive basically had a stroke and the I/O errors it started throwing totally corrupted the boot partition on the SSD containing Windows..

It took me and my fiance several days to diagnose the problem and get it working again.. In the end Windows and it's software installations were unsalvagable and I've had to reinstall everything..
But.. That's not the big problem...

The storage drive is.. severely.. damaged..
As in, I'm amazed the disk even still spins...
So at the moment my desktop PC is occupied running low level data recovery to a new drive and I'm both hoping what I get out of it isn't garbage and that the drive even keeps working until it's finished..
As I type this it's been running for about 4 days and has recovered 307GB out of approximately 1.4TB, so.. fingers crossed...

I'm seriously hoping this works, because my most recent surviving backup... Is nearly 2 years old, so... That's a lot of stuff I'm losing..
And if I can't recover my files there will be several projects I was working on that will just straight up not exist anymore..

At the moment I'm up and running on an old salavaged laptop I've managed to rework and get running at acceptable speed.
But because of hardware limitations and my desk being covered in computer parts, my ability to get any work done has taken a hit...
So, it'll be a little bit before I can do what I was originally planning..

Hokay, so... I was hoping to hold off on this for a few more months, but that is no longer an option... 🙄
I wouldn't exactly call it a financial emergency, but my income is definitely in need of some.. improvement..

So within probably the next week or two I'll be reopening for commissions.


However, to prevent previous mistakes I am imposing some very tight restrictions on myself..
● While I will open several bookable slots at a time, I will ONLY accept payment for ONE commission at a time.. No exceptions, ever..
● There will NOT be a backlog..
● Turnaround time will be as immediate as possible as the current paid commission will be given absolute priority over everything else..
(Something I made the mistake of NOT doing previously..)
● Some pricing tiers may not be available at certain times if I feel I cannot get them done quickly enough at that time..
● If I feel the desired commission is complex enough to cause a scheduling problem, I'll let the customer know and probably decline before accepting payment.


I will be updating and revising my commission pricing as well as what types of commissions are available.
And will also be adding a terms of service to better outline what people can expect.


I know a few people won't exactly be happy about this..
And frankly I don't expect them to be the ones to commission me, I screwed up and that's on me.. But I also need to move forward.
One way or another the majority of previous debts have been cleared, the handful that remain.. Well, they'll be hearing from me properly once I've stabilized my bank account enough to be able to deal with things finally.. Honestly, it's something I should've probably done months ago but various circumstances negated that as an option...

(TLDR; I need to get on with my life and this is pretty much the only way I can do that..)

Hokay... First off, for those this is relevant to.
Processing of refunds is sitting at bit over half done.

It's been slow going because covid effectively flipping the world upside down, other day to day things getting in the way.. As well as difficulty getting in touch with certain people.
I've been handling the refunds in limited batches/groups to avoid any further issues, this involves getting in touch with people and hammering out the details..
This can result in delays because:
- Some people are resistant to being refunded..
- Some can take a while to get back to me.
- Some.. have effectively dropped off the face of the internet and I have to exhaust all options to try and contact them before basically giving up...

SO, your refund IS coming, I just haven't gotten to you yet.


All that stuff aside, I... obviously.. didn't end up being as artistically active this year as I had stated I would be months ago.
Again, COVID... Suffice it to say that like I'm sure most of, if not all of you, that has made life in general significantly more complicated than it needs to be..
Needless to say that has slowed down my creative efforts on all fronts which I'm only just recently been gaining some traction on..


That said I'm gonna be doing some traditional media stuff with some sketchbooks I recently picked up... Need a simpler outlet..
Also planning on doing more art streaming in a bit. (End of the month, maybe?)

New commissions are still closed until.... whenever.. I have no fricking idea at this point.. 😑

Been a bit delayed handling things..

I've basically switched from being effectively nocturnal recently to functioning on "normal" hours..
This caused some scheduling conflicts in addition to some health issues over the past month.

Then FA's downtime didn't exactly help matters.

Getting back into the swing of things now.

Right then.. So you're going to be seeing me post a bunch of new stuff.

Some of it are random warm ups I did to get back into art a while ago, and then just sort of forgot about... Then recently finished.

The rest will be brand new..

As some people are aware, I was gearing up to go through my backlog by.. well.. right around now actually.
But because of a recent incident completely changing my plans (See Here), that energy and effort will be redirected to personal projects for the next while with only a few exceptions..

Not happy about that? Take it up with the guy who decided harassing me was a good idea, resulting in my present outlook of "screw this" and "I'm DONE".. Again, see the linked journal above.

That aside.. I hope you enjoy the new stuff.. It's been a while since I was really active..

(EDIT: original journal below after this addition..)

So bannings are still occurring, I'm going to go on the record and say, I am not directly involved...
However there are people watching my back and keeping an eye on things while relaying necessary information to FA staff..

What do I have to say? Maybe quit trying to start trouble and break FA rules... Maybe leave me alone..
I'm sure the moderators are getting just as sick of hearing about this crap as I am..

---

(Settle in.. this might take a moment..)

OKAY... SO..

Things were calming down after October's... incident.. (Still dealing with the side effects..)
And then something else decided to blow up in my face that has effectively forced me to take some drastic action.. Because.. Screw this, I'm tired of feeling restricted and having every move scrutinized..

Extremely condensed and sanitized version, either a former commissioner or their friend(s).. I'm not clear on which, and frankly at this point I don't really care because either they did it themself or were aware of it happening.. Decided to start harassing me publicly over my owed work backlog..
This started at the end of October-ish while I wasn't exactly feeling too great, so I.. did nothing about it, I was too pre-occupied with how I was feeling otherwise to take action... Someone who cares about me (who will remain unspecified for their own protection), DID take action... Literally all they did was report the callout posts, which are against the site rules, to FA staff... Who did the rest.
Some bannings/suspensions happened.. Now the commissioner in question is blaming me for the fallout, despite the fact that A: I literally did nothing.. And B: they/their friends were the ones that decided to pick a fight, breaking site rules in the first place.. Anyone could have reported them for it if they decided to get involved, so... yeah..

That's the simple version, no I won't go into more detail..

Long story short, I will be refunding them for an agreed upon amount before the end of January..


Which brings me to the next point.

Pretty much my entire backlog (save for a few exceptions) is getting refunded like I had originally planned when I first had the money to do so.. How you ask?

The above incident has made me realize something.. It doesn't matter what backlog work I complete or in what order, it's just going to piss off someone else who is also waiting.. That's been a large part of what has held things back, the queue itself is a minefield... So I'M DONE.. I can't please everyone, and I'm sick of being watched like a hawk every time I so much as twitch on FA and in some cases on social media..
So.. Mass backlog refunds are back on the table, after which I'll be focusing on finishing some other work and generally just doing my own thing for a while before I even consider taking on new commissions.. (Assuming I ever do..)

To fascilitate this, I've.. called in a couple of rather big favors.. Long story short, I'm taking out a loan from a particular family member which will then be used to pay for refunds.. Because it's one hell of a lot easier to pay off one person I trust, rather than attempting to make a whole bunch of people happy who are already probably pretty sick of me.. And I don't blame them, I suck.. This entire situation resulted from my own gross incompetence and poor judgement..


So to condense, I'm going into debt with one person to pay out debts with numerous people..
A sort of debt consolidation if you will..

Now, I don't have the money yet, and I won't in sufficient amount until some time in January..
But once I do, I will be going through my list and working out who gets what..
Everyone gets what they deserve, and I get my freedom to do what I want back, sound fair?
I hope so, because that's how it has to go down..

It appears a couple of people are attempting to stir up drama..

I intend to resolve this nonsense privately, so all I'm going to say is..
If you run across something... Take it with a grain of salt..

That is all..