This post is screened for everyone's anonymity. To make a long story short, I will probably be cleaning out my supplies in June when I start moving house. I'm debating what to take, what to sell, and what to give away. Here are the things I have that I'm considering rehoming:

Duplicate sets of prismacolor colored pencils, both watercolor and regular. I've hoarded these for more than two years with barely any use.
I'm up to my eyeballs in prismacolor, chartpak, and copic markers. I'm still waffling on whether or not to thin this herd.
Water-mixable oils by Winsor and Newton, only a few colors opened and barely any paint used. I dearly want these to go to someone who will use them, they just don't work for me personally.
A huge bag of Sculpey III in a rainbow of colors. I love making sculpey canes and beads, but the reality is I don't do it often and I usually just end up with a giant bag of beads as nobody buys them. It's hard having multiple hobbies.
Koh-I-Noor "Rapidograph" pens. These would be "free to a good home" because I didn't pay much to start with and the two smallest pens are damaged beyond repair, leaving 5. I cleaned them thoroughly, but find they just don't work well for me. I don't know if that's because I have the wrong ink or because my sketchbook paper sucks...but I MUCH prefer microns, zigs, and staedtler pens over these. So if someone who CAN use them wants them, they're welcome to them.

What are your favorite pens or tools to ink with? Why? Do you also quest eternally for perfect, crisp blacks?

A step-by-step of art experimentation. The original sketch comes from the MOART community board, but everything else afterwards is done in PaintToolSai with a teeny bit of photoshop. None of it was planned, but I did try to use some photographic reference for the heron parts and color scheme. I like trying to design creatures and I'm trying to indulge myself more. I'm not doing art for a living nor am I training that art down a narrow path anymore, so why feel guilty doing fun things with it?

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Copied from Tumblr:

Makua and Sam are a two characters for another graphic novel project, one I will probably begin as one-shots and then settle into doing before Afterworld. The reason is that Afterworld as a project intimidates me immensely, both for the sheer amount of design that’s going to be involved(environments and beings to populate the world) and that I’m going to have to settle into a consistent drawing style. I’ve seen many comics develop entirely different styles from their beginning and I don’t want something I intend to at least publish in a limited run have such a drastic art change between the beginning and the end.


The world is yet unnamed, although I’m looking at Hawaiin and broader Polynesian things for a working title. Makua is the name of the shark man and is derived from the word Aumakua, which is a word for a deified ancestor or family god. I did not want to directly take a word which is sacred (Much as I would not name a character directly after a modern-day worshipped figure) to Hawaiians today, so I compacted the word into something that was phonetically similar but did not carry the potential for spiritual insult. Incidentally Makua also has meanings in family, parent, or leader and is often paired with another word to specify these meanings.

The girl is Sam, short for Samuel. The world is not “post apocalyptic” so much as it is “changed”. It’s set in an unspecified future on earth where many things are familiar (Such as names and technology), but their prevalence or use may be unfamiliar, such as the female lead’s name being what is today a traditionally masculine name. What is known is that the human population has been severely reduced in size from an event called “When the world was made to change”, with populations restricted to areas that are ecologically richer or where civilizations cropped up in the earliest organized agriculture communities. Technology in development or use largely revolves around that which is reusable, with concepts like television uncommon in the tropical region most of the story takes place in, replaced instead with radios and variations on the postal service.

Makua is an example of the oddities to be encountered in the story, being familiar and in part identifiable, but clearly not natural as we might know it. I haven’t decided how he speaks or communicates yet, but his life experience is somewhat like the classic Tarzan novel in that he is often king under the waves, but clumsy with “civilized” things. He’s exceptionally curious and is more familiar with the locals than the locals themselves might guess. He walks on land with an awkward, hunched gait, walking on his knuckles most of the time, though is an adept swimmer. Makua is primarily based on the Great White, but he exhibits traits of bullsharks, basking sharks, and others as well.

Sam is the only member of her family to stay in the archipelago the story takes place in once all the children were grown, her parents and siblings moving to “the mainland marsh”. She’s largely considered the local animal expert, helping with husbandry and training. She keeps an enormous Burmese Python as a regular companion in addition to saddle-trained water buffalo. The locals have a healthy respect and occasional fear of what can be found in the world, particularly given the occasional appearance of things best described as monsters, but Sam displays no such fear unless given a reason. She befriends Makua is responsible for feeding his curiosity about people and what they do, which may lead to later conflicts with locals, hence the protective roaring drawing.

Silly things of note:
1) Makua can read and has been able to for many years. When Sam brings him books he becomes completely beside himself with excitement. 2) Sam’s best friend (Name unknown at this point) is absolutely terrified of anything in the ocean that’s not a bony fish and also of reptiles. Sam occasionally exploits this fear to get the friend to do what’s needed. 3) Sam is terrified of being in deep water and drowning. She survived a tsunami in her childhood and the memories of deep murky water without a bottom still haunt her. 4) Makua has a fondness for bananas. 5) Makua begs Sam for a fin or gill slit piercing at one point, since he does not have ears but loves the shiny jewelry he sees her wear.

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Copied from Tumblr:

In an earlierpost I detailed an alien race I had begun designing, based on an arboreal and/or mountain climbing lifestyle. “Seti” is a tribe leader by election and is the male pictured. “Nayrah” is his wife.

Males and females are told apart physically by only a few features. Men have bright color patches along their jawline and chest/shoulder areas. Women feature color patches that run from their chest down the upper portion of their torso and occasionally on their tail bases. The second canine teeth on men are also the larger set, whereas women have equally sized teeth. Women also exhibit loose wrinkly belly skin as they reach sexual maturity and continues to develop with age.

Families are a very loose concept among this race, with men and women alike often choosing a small number of multiple partners. Members of the race consider this the intelligent thing to do, as they feel no one individual can fulfill all needs of another individual all the time. Females are oviviparous and children are highly developed from birth, resembling a five or six year old human’s physical development in spite of their small size. Their genetic memory based on familiarity ensures that basic childhood learning like language development and socialization goes by quickly.

Seti and Nayrah are unusual in that they have not taken on multiple significant others, however Seti’s leadership qualities and long-standing elected role have allowed them a social life relatively free of loving family harassment.


Physical challenges in design are being worked on over time. Many of the sounds in speech for this race come from the throat, much like birds, with the remainder of sounds being created by using the tongue to create hard sounds and clicks. Though they rarely drink, a nimble tongue capable of rolling, cupping, and a certain amount of grasping gets past the issue of not having front lips. Clothes are still being worked on also, with the idea that these people prize dexterity and would not want to be limited by their clothing. On the other hand they must still carry tools, deal with less than ideal climates, and improve their day to day functioning, so clothes are not out yet.


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So at FWA I had the pleasure of talking to AnimeCat and getting a lot of helpful links and other information regarding making and performing puppets, which has gotten me tickled at the idea of building my own. Costumes for me are always done on the cheap thanks to finances, but I imagine that puppets are small enough to be affordable to try building. My first tries were seeing if I could "puppetize" Karnak, which is either really cute or really creepy, and imagining how a blue heron puppet might work. The successful design however is my carpenter bee, who I love. <3 I haven't decided what personality I'm going to go with, but I'm made way too many jokes about him employing people as wage slaves in his honey business. I'll probably keep those jokes though, that's a little too real. :p

And on chickens, as copied from tumblr:

The third image of the chickens and Great Pyrenees dog is from an outing to some married friends of my fiance’s home, who keep the most gorgeous blonde chickens and have three big, beautiful Pyrenees dogs. Drawing from life really can’t be beat and it’s interesting trying to capture all the feather groupings on 10-20 birds as they scramble for food. There’s a million pecans from the pecan trees in the backyard seeing as the dogs always chase off the local wildlife from eating them. This means that with a heavy hammer, you can crack pecans all day and keep chickens within easy drawing distance.



On Colors!3D, as copied from tumblr:

To be plain…COLORS 3D IS AWESOME. The interface is very easy to learn and follow, miles ahead of Inchworm Animation’s. I also get the distinct feeling that one is geared towards anyone ready to learn and the other geared towards people who need a specific set of tools. I was also surprised at what I could pull off with it. The game itself also includes sample art of various styles from test artists, which show off the (optional) 3d effect and also allow you to see the full range of possibilities in terms of style and detail. Another nice thing is that it records a video of the painting steps for a given image(be it yours or someone elses). It’s fun to see how others paint! You can work on a painting anytime, it saves automatically as you back out to other menus, and two people can paint on the same canvas over a local network.
The downside is that my hand tends to get crampy when using the 3DS for art, but I also have tendonitis problems and can’t hold my hand in a firm position for long periods of time. It also sucks that you can’t draw with another person over the internet, particularly since I don’t know anyone else in real life with a 3DS.
The silly thing is only 6.99 in the Nintendo e-Shop, which I find perfectly reasonable for what it does and the amount of hours it’ll entertain me. I can paint on the DS, save it to the SD card, export it to the Colors gallery, then go online to comment on it. If only I could figure out how to upload to tumblr through the DS browser I’d be good.
If anyone is interested in exchanging friend codes for silly stuff like SwapNote, just note/email/write me. :3

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Watch out guys, I'm going to post a few of my favorite thumbnails, but under this cut is a BOMB of sketches. And I mean a bomb! Anything that I don't particularly have anything to say about is going under here which is easily 22 images. Slow connections beware! This is the same material as on Tumblr.




( Click, if you dare... )

I'm expecting the week to suck for a variety of reasons, but all I can really dwell on is how unintentionally funny this piece of art was and how it became an awesome an icon it makes.

I've known for awhile that as soon as I had a steady home with a yard, I was going to own chickens. Last weekend I spent in GA I got to visit the home of Katie and David, some friends of my fiance through the UGA graduate program.

I fell in love. I've always loved domestic birds (as opposed to exotics or parrots), but never got to own any growing up. It's possible I love too many different creatures to own one of each at any given time. But chickens? Their mannerisms, their sweetness, and their antics were wonderful. I just hope that when I get down to chicken-raising business that I have done enough research and can spend enough time to raise me some downright cuddly lap chickens. Is that too weird? Because I really do want a bird that will sit with me and let me love them, if only for a few minutes.

They also had three great pyrenese dogs, which have been on my "want" list for dogs for awhile, but they just bumped up right behind "standard poodle". I may even end up with the pyrenese first if the home arrangement is right. All these plans and thoughts are still far away (A year at least, possibly as long as three or four), but it's nice to start planning early.

1. What made you decide to go into taxidermy?

It was really sort of an accident. I already collected and cleaned my own skulls and had skinned and brain tanned hides collected from roadkill. No one I knew hunted, my parents refused to buy me specimens or enroll me in the local museum summer courses that would let me bring things home, so I just...did it on my own. My fiance's sister was still in high school and ended up talking to a guy who needed an art student to paint a bunch of frog and reptile casts for exhibits(We keep piles on hand) and happened to ask her if she knew anyone interested in skinning and taxidermy. I was about 20 then and she said, "Sure!", so my boss-to-be asked, "So who is he?" "Um, well, it's a girl..." My test was skinning a ruffed grouse and between the two of us I did my first-ever taxidermy mount (You can find it in the South Mountain NC Park exhibit in the visitor's center). He was so pleased I was hired immediately. Add almost five years, shake, and you have a budding taxidermy career.

2. What direction do you see your art going in? More bio stuff? More characters?

I...don't know. To be honest I'm a little lost right now. I want to do more biology, but I'm feeling very crushed and useless lately at everything I try. I don't have the ability to pour the hours upon hours needed for improvement into art. Add in some other experiences I've had and I feel a little bit like a dumb kid playing at bio work, rather than someone with a legitimate take. I haven't been able to make a noticeable jump in my work or really just spend any real time with it at all.

In fantasy land? I want to make the jump into bio illustration, just...take what I see in the world and draw that creature or plant doing its thing. I see so many things that are just waiting for it and yet I often don't. The other thing? I want to make that jump into narratives. I have two, potentially three complete stories to tell. I want to make full-color comics, I want to make images that are themselves narrative. I'm always waiting because I never feel like my art is "ready", but it may never be ready like I want either since A) art is practice, B) I don't practice enough, and C) I don't feel "talented", I feel like everything I learn is a skill. It may be a long time before I've drawn enough pages to have a settled look and skill level. Like Cheap Thrills.

3. Who are your oldest characters, when did you make them?

The absolute oldest character is indeed Sakara. She's had a series of incarnations since I was about four. I used to pretend to be a white tiger named "Whiptail" (EVERYBODY LOL), that persisted until around 1994 when was renamed to "Sakara" and started to develop closer to what she is now. "Malachai" was originally "Iori" and appeared in this time period, also a white tiger. Somewhere in there I realized these creatures could be bipedal and have a whole host of much more interesting stories. Around 2000-2001 Sakara and "Iori"(Malachai) got their familiar gray coats, while Malachai received a name change around three or four years ago. Sakara can literally trace her development back 20 years, Malachai's about 16.

My oldest unchanged character is Siri the white wolf, who's design has not changed since she was created about 14 years ago.

4. What is your most and least favorite medium to work in?

My most favorite is digital; it's very close to oil paint in behavior and I can control transparency and opaqueness. My least favorite is either acrylic or colored pencil. If I thin acrylic down enough to have a flat surface, I have to fight transparency problems. If I leave it thick, the texture it leaves behind can be a bitch. Likewise I suck at picking and blending colored pencil colors and I absolutely can't stand the look of white paper grain poking through.

5. Favorite video game?

I do not claim it is the greatest game, but I spent a hell of a lot of time playing Roller Coaster Tycoon before I got a computer that wouldn't run it. I also spend a lot of hours in Sims 2 and Age of Empires I&II. There are games I play for greatness and then there are games that are that kind of "whoops where did six hours go?" fun.

6. What is your favorite non art thing to do?

I had a hard time answering this, because I don't do a lot outside of art and school. Mostly school these days. But reading nonfiction, particularly anything to be had on evolution and the lineages of life on planet Earth. That or spending time with all my pets, but I definitely read a ton.

7. And lastly let's keep this question going, favorite movie? :P

Jurassic Park. Still. To this day. DINOSAURS. It was the first time I had a way to really imagine dinosaurs truly alive... Even though today I know the designs and movements can be off/wrong, I don't care. Seeing something really alive that before you only had the abstract idea that it lived once is a feeling I still treasure.

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This an alien design I’ve been working on since I got Mass Effect on the brain. I tend to try and construct my own inventions that can stand alone as well as work within whatever the thing is I’m interested in at the moment, since I don’t want to lose anything to the “boo fan art” problem. Plus species design is fun. The fine man you see pictured is “Seti” and I’m not wholly settled on his design yet.

The unnamed creature design evolution has origins in being climbers, hence the grasping style feet and multitude of toes. So far I’ve drawn their second arm set with only three fingers, but I may change it in the future to include a grasping digit. At one time both arm sets were of equivalent size, but selection pressure has reduced the second set. Their primary hands have a very human structure and their fine motor control is visually similar to how someone with very long salon nails might function. All digits are exceptionally powerful and can support large amounts of weight. They maintain at least three holds when climbing at all times and often many more; between the limbs and prehensile tail they have seven available appendages. The tail itself is muscular, flexible, prehensile, and heavily built. Four thick ligaments run in either side of the vertebrae within the tail and are powered by muscles within the back. These ligaments pull the tail stiff and up off the ground when running or help direct the tail as a balance measure during a jump.

They are poor runners thanks to their arboreal or mountain roaming design and match moderately athletic humans at best. On the reverse they are extremely fast and agile in close quarters thanks to their great jumping ability and precise vision. Swimming also comes naturally to them, their large feet and flexible spines adapting well to water. Hearing is equivalent to a human’s and their sense of smell is somewhat elevated. Sight is unique in that their four eyes allow binocular vision in an astoundingly wide angle, they also can see slightly into the UV spectrum in addition to typical color.

Males at this time in their design exhibit a longer second set of canines than female, I’m still trying to think of other traits that don’t automatically put females in the “smaller, slender, more feminine” category.

Their most unique trait is a sort of genetic or collective memory, I’m still contemplating the effects of both. I imagine that things they encounter will have a certain instinctive familiarity, much like how because one has driven a car then one has some idea of how to drive most any car/bus/truck/etc. They may instinctively know whether or not to trust a species their kind has met before, even if the individual creature has not. Solutions derived from their collective memory are more difficult, as it takes a sizeable portion of the population making the same conclusion or attempting the same solution in order for the idea to cement.

Has anybody else noticed how incredibly saturated the anthro fandom seems to be in terms of merchandise? I'm trying to think of something to draw/paint to sell off for Kelly and Jantzen given the huge curve ball life sent their way. But the more I look, the sadder I become. I have very...VERY little original art from other people. Why? Because it's expensive. But it SHOULD be expensive! I should be paying an artist -at least- the cost of materials and $20 an hour of work. Given even minimum hours for a project, that's still $100-$500 for an original. And that's how it SHOULD be! I literally do not have the ability to let go of something I've painted or worked hard on for chump change. I sure as hell don't do it for taxidermy. The only potential idea I've had is to draw some highly stylized popular animal portraits in stark black brush inks, something with a lot of gesture drawing or that resembles a stark vector type image. That way I can complete pieces in 1-3 hours. I'm also trying to find other venues I might be able to sell my work through...maybe animal lovers or wildlife people. Furries do NOT have an understanding of the worth of the creative things they buy! I'll never own folders and folders of work. But I will have a few framed, gorgeous pieces that I'll enjoy for the rest of my life.

I seem to recall somebody once made a bunch of days of the week that were much better than normal weekdays, worth celebrating just BECAUSE. Like Sexy Tuesday. There were others(Was Ice Cream Friday one?), but I don't really remember them. Anybody remember who the awesome person was that made up those days?

But let me tell you. I could use a Sexy Tuesday. The good news? Today and tomorrow...minus a little math homework...ARE ONLY FOR ART. FINALLY.

If you made it this far...I applaud you. There's a LOT of pictures. I'm going to be nice and hold off costume photos until tomorrow. I need to work on Ixataca anyway.
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I'm only going to post a few icons here of what I've done/worked on, but there's a HUGE cascade of work below the cut. It's only my sketchbook though, the costume photos will have to come tomorrow. I'll probably upload the best or my favorite pages to tumblr, but the only places to find all the pages will be here and Nabyn. I'm also going to fix the white space problem so many pages seem have with MOAR art.

Also kiddies: don't wait two months to scan a large sketchbook where every page must be digitally stitched together. If you have any questions about a particular image, just ask. Sorry they aren't conveniently numbered or have some other method of easy ID. x_x;






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Does anyone else have problems with eating certain kinds of food and being completely useless afterwards due to sleepiness/grogginess/basically functioning like cold molasses? I'm finding anything that's a significant portion carbs like macaroni, pasta roni, spaghetti, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chocolate candies, peanut butter candies, dinner rolls, burgers, etc just completely screws me over for the next two to four hours. There's a whole middle of the day that's just missing. If I'm Doing an Energetic Thing, like hiking around a mountaintop for my Forest Ecology class it's not a problem, but if I'm just pleasantly walking about or sitting working I can hardly function.

Meat, green beans, mushrooms, and salad help keep me awake, but I'm still trying to find a way to eat these things in non-boring ways and healthy amounts. For all that meat gives me the energy to go, I don't think starting every single morning with beef jerky is a good idea for my arteries. Since I don't see myself doing physically rigorous activities for two hours a day or more right now as part of my every-day routine, I think I need to find a way to knock down bread and sugar things or I'm going to sleep my life away. I already knocked out sodas in favor of mostly water and skim milk, now if only I could teach myself to love veggies like carrots, broccoli, and all those other good orange/green stuffs...

Today: Scan the sketchbook. Seriously. If you don't do it me, bad luck and misfortune will haunt your pathetic soul for all eternity. Or at least into next Wednesday.

Is anyone interested in my narrative or world building projects?

Yup, I did what I said I would. We have Skulldog's Mawi(Which is an oddly pleasing name to say out loud) and Enaxn's Proca and Switchback. I often hate how much is lost when I shrink my icons, I'm not sure if I'm still working too big at 600x600 or if I need to go much larger, then scale down. That or I don't have a good concept of what line weight I need to use big so it shows up right when small. x_x; These are still waiting on approval, so they may yet change or be replaced entirely.

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Today I am going to go home after chemlab and draw. I haven't sat at the computer and enjoyed making art(Whoever it may be for) in close to a week. This semester of college seems to be set up to happen in waves and I'm finally coming down off the peak of the wave towards the trough. My world will resume it's "normalness" on Thursday, but I intend to enjoy my Tuesday afternoon. I only have one math work sheet due tomorrow thank god.

As an example, I've written around 23 pages this week in lab reports(Which isn't bad, it'll get longer as Forest Ecology gains momentum), around 20 pages of notes in the last total week, and I've read something like 200 pages of material. I feel very guilty for not anticipating the workload, but I've gotten through it.

I'll probably stream today to keep me on art-task and get those last icons done, then switch to DragonFire's commission. Thursday and Friday I intend to photograph Karnak's repaint and the progress on Ixataca, as well as the hilarity of my trashed studio space. I'm also going to take one of those afternoons to scan the sketchbook I've neglected since December(I know I know, I keep saying that), and then finish a couple of tiny personal projects(Comics, badge, etc).