Artok (Hi-Res)

A painting for DraenethDragon ! Look, having spooky, dark-looking powers  is all fine and good, Artok... But it's a little intimidating when  you're just using it to stir your tea. 

A character for Draeneth. c: Apparently the first full piece of his bird, Artok? This one was  nice. Not too complicated, not too intense, just a nice, slow vibe and  rendering out a bunch of stuff. Feel like I improved in a bit in some  spots. Still slower than I'd like to be in general, but I'm working on it...!

Not much to say, so I hope you all enjoy! Thank you so much, Draeneth, for trusting me with your guy. Cheers~

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Well the end of the month has been hectic!

Haven't yet gotten to that commission sheet yet. Procrastinating and anxious about it, goes hand in hand, haven't yet attempted it. And since friends have still slowly been trickling at me, asking about work, I kept using that as an excuse to do so. I'm going to be starting on getting it rolling, though, as soon as this is posted. Get at least the samples and things that I want to use sorted.

Speaking of samples. We found a large format printer for a price that was absolutely a steal. While it needs some love and care to get it going, we got it for literally a twentieth of the price it would be normally, and it can print up to 36" x 48". So the lingering thought of "What if I sold prints again at AC/MFF/maybe other conventions in the future" is on the mind. I'll be looking into that here in May as well, since the deadline on that is end of May for Anthrocon. Being able to just... Print my own work at home, and not have to rely on a weird third-party and extra costs, shipping, etc. will be nice.

Goolashe has also been excited about it. It's been good to get him a side project or two to help him work through some of his burnout and depression since the job stuff has been occurring. He was the one who found it, as well, though we wouldn't have been able to without the support you all have also been providing. We're planning on, if prints can actually become a staple thing and we get into the groove of providing quality prints from it, giving you all in the 5+ tier an option of getting a print. Goolashe suggested at a discount, I'm more inclined for like... Every three months or something? I guess it depends on pricing. We have to figure out ink and paper costs, ultimately, before we do any of that, but it's nice to think about. wowwee self-made prints like a professional

Professional. What a dumb word. AI's been speeding up a ton here at the end of April, beginning of May. And now the writers' strike happening. Between those, the chat bots taking over tech, the bots writing dialogue for games and taking jobs, movies and streaming platforms, everything... Shit, if you really want to bring them up, the recessions and giant war the States went through for no reason... I really do feel like me doing furry art has been like me dodging bullets and navigating like a drunken fool through a laser field. I'm a little singed, a little worse for wear but... Wow. What the heck. Thanks, weird niche I grew to love and find myself in, for somehow dodging... All of this and letting me get to make cool stuff for great people.

Last thing of note is I finally took the time to clean up my Twitch overlays and sounds and everything, update a few things, and such. Gonna be trying to also spend a little bit of May... Trying to dip back into it. At least on Twitch. No schedule yet, but I'd like to at least try for one or two a week at the moment, usually afternoon or evening. Another thing I've been procrastinating on, but at least this one has something to show for it, as I think it's ready for me to finally click "Go Live" again.

Anyways. Enough rambling. Love you all. Stay safe out there. Things are rough as always but. We'll get through it, one thing at a time. That's all you can really ask for, you know. Thanks for reading, and again, all of our love for your continued support. We really appreciate it. I hope to have more to show for it soon. <3