Here’s another bi-monthly update!

The most recent 1-hour commission experiment went poorly because I failed to notice that Furry Weekend Atlanta was going on the same weekend. Big conventions happening always means fewer people notice anything I post!

I sort of forgot that FWA is pretty huge these days! The last time I went to FWA (around 2007 or 2008, I think?) about 700 people went. I haven’t been to any furry conventions in over 13 years! It’s just crazy to me that there are multiple cons out there with 10K people in attendance! 

Shortly after accepting commissions, I had some persistent computer trouble, but it’s managed for now. I think. Apologies to those I had to refund!

I’m going to focus on personal projects for now!

So, the hope is that I’ll resume work on my model sheets very soon! I’ve been absolutely itching to work on those since earlier this year! I have nine sheets left to go for now. There are some characters I want to bring back yet; I'm giving myself a break before working on the rest!

Then, I want to work on my series with Tremmie and Evan! 

I kinda got sucked into a couple of games these past few months; I’m trying to be better about setting aside art time!

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Hey all, time for a May status update!

Thank you all for your condolences regarding my Babcia (Polish for grandmother). She was 93; she had dementia pretty badly toward the end. She'd been "gone" for a long time before she died; I'd already done a lot of grieving. Still sad, but it was expected.

Blood sugar is under control! My vision feels pretty much normal! I'm managing things well!

Best of all, I'm planning to get back into art this month!

No plans for taking commissions, though!

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Last month I was diagnosed with diabetes. The good news is that I'm managing it well! My blood sugar is much lower than it was a few weeks ago, and I'm going to keep working on myself.

A side effect of this is blurry vision; I had my eyes checked out by my eye doctor. It'll be 4~6 weeks before my vision returns to normal. My eyes are otherwise in good shape!

In other sad news, my last grandparent passed away today. It was expected, but still sad. 😢

I'm giving myself some time to grieve.

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Hey all! 

It’s been no surprise that it’s been kind of a crummy year so far for me, such as bad insomnia, getting ill and taking a while to recover from it, etc. The good news is that I learned that there’s something that’s causing ALL of it!

The really bad news is that its Diabetes Type 2. I put on a lot of weight during the pandemic, and I’ve been seriously slacking at tracking what I eat in MyFitnessPal. So, I’ve seen my doctor and will be seeing a dietitian to get this all under control.

The better news is that I’ve been wanting to make serious lifestyle changes anyway; I just wasn’t expecting to do this all so drastically and suddenly.

The slightly worse news is that I’ve been sleeping and physically feeling like crap again.

The best news is that I’m dealing with this all with a good, positive attitude! I’ve been wanting to lose weight anyway! At a rate of 1.5 pounds a week, I’m hoping to lose at least 60 pounds (27.21 kg / 4.28 stone) by the end of the year! I’d like to get down to 200. Then, since I know I am absolutely terrible at maintaining weight on my own, I’d use https://myfitnesspal.com/ to maintain. Hopefully, with enough weight loss, I can get this reversed.

What does this mean for art? Right now it’s been a bit of a struggle to concentrate. I’m focused on my health for now. I’ll give regular updates on how it’s going!

What do I need from you all? I am full up on advice; all I ask for is your continued patience, kindness, and support!

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I figure it’s about time for another general update!

HEALTH:

I’ve been suffering from pretty bad insomnia for the past month or two. Sleeping pills and melatonin weren’t helping. But, after starting up exercising again since falling off of it since 2019 and taking melatonin it’s helped me fall asleep much, much easier!

However, I think I picked up a bug (not COVID) at the gym, and I have his bad persistent cough! So I haven’t been going to the gym and I just haven’t had my art mojo lately, so that throws in some delays. No worries, I’m seeking care for it!

COMMISSIONS (UPDATE)

I presently have no idea when I’ll open for commissions at this point! I really want to tackle personal projects first.

UPLOADING GIFT ART, ART TRADES, & COMMISSIONED ART!!

I still want to upload gift art, trades, and art I’ve commissioned! I’m planning on doing that no later than the end of March!

REFERENCE SHEETS

Regarding reference sheets, I have 1 more female character I want to do reference sheets for (Graphene Doodles, my Rule 63 gender-swapped version of my unicorn Graphite Doodles), as well as 7 male characters (Graphite Doodles my unicorn, Chris the mouse, Evan the rabbit, Kyle my red fox, Gabriel the squirrel, Trevor Dawson my wolf, and Bud Blaze, my MLP earth pony)! This means I have a total of 8 more reference sheets I want to do (for now). 

For my reference sheets I’d start with a base. I’m thinking when I do the male characters, I’ll put together some things that I’ve learned to make the reference sheets for the guys go much faster!

With my insomnia and sickness issues, I’m thinking I’ll get the reference sheets wrapped up around June~July. If things work out well I might be able to hit May, but we’ll see! I’m setting a pace that feels comfortable for me!

TRADES & GIFT ART

After my current round of reference sheets, I was thinking about opening for gift art and trades. But, I’m honestly itching to work on other personal projects! These are personal projects I’ve been thinking about for decades!

I still want to do trades and gifts at some point! My gut feeling is that I really really want to get personal projects done! Or at least started!

EXPRESSION PROJECT

Something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time is a better version of the 25 Expression Challenge. I’ve done a few challenges a long time ago, and I know I’ve done one recently-ish with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. BUT! I haven’t done one when I’ve had this much self-esteem, self-compassion, and self-efficacy! Like, I feel like I could push myself well beyond what I’ve done before! I’m making a 100 Expression Challenge! You all are in for a treat!

TREMMIE & EVAN SERIES

After (or maybe before) the 100 Expression Challenge, I want to dive into a passion project I’ve been wanting to start for 15 YEARS. I’m going to have a Tremmie and Evan sex romp series/comic! It’s going to be everything from sweet, silly, to hot and heavy and gooey! I want to give myself a fun challenge, and I think y’all would love it as much as I do!

SOFT SHADING

I’m also planning on dinking around with soft shading in 2023! I think I could make my art really pop with some quality shading and lighting!

POSSIBLY SELLING SOME OLD CHARACTERS AS ADOPTABLES

I am thinking of selling some characters as adoptables! There are 12 characters of mine that I'm never going to draw again, and I’m not going to combine them. I was thinking of making a ref sheet for each and selling the character that way! (The characters are: Callisto the skadger (skunk badger (spoken for), Sheila the Ringtail, Helen the spotted skunk, Heather the hedgevixen, Mindy the other, Shazzy the felox (feline/fox), Brook the swift fox, Yasmine the red fox, Jessica/Jessie the arctic fox, Ian the whitetail buck, Liam the jackal, Nemo the snow leopard) and Todd Vickson, the [undecided] fox. I was also thinking I’d probably due ¾ front view and ¼ back view, and 1 fully clothed view, instead of the 5 views I’m doing for my own characters.

FUTURE REFERENCE SHEETS (LATE 2023)

I realized that there are also characters I wish to keep! There are 8 characters in addition to the above that I want to do ref sheets for. Some are my wife Mistletoe's characters! She's not involved with the fandom anymore, but we fully support each other's interests! She sees how happy my characters make me and still likes furry and MLP art! (The characters are: Betsy, the arctic wolf (may change her name), Celeste the genet, Holly Graham, the red Scottish vixen, Josh the striped skunk, Marissa the mouse, Miriam the mouse (thinking of a new design!), Mistletoe the snowshoe hare, Rose Bunny the arctic hare).

PONIES

I still love My Little Pony a whole danged lot! I’m absolutely expecting to draw more ponies from here until the end of time, honestly! I’ve been into ponies (1984) way longer than furry fandom (1996); I still love both fandoms a whole lot! I want to do art ranging from general audiences to smutty! 

HUMANS

Re-uploading my old art on my Tremaine account back in 2018 made me realize how much I missed drawing humans! There are a bunch of artists whose humans really inspire me, and I absolutely want to practice drawing them! Once I feel I’ve got some decent progress made I’ll share some art!

LEARNING NEW STUFF

And, of course, I’m hoping to keep learning new things all the time! Goodness knows I’ve already learned so much since I started back on this path in May! Self-esteem, self-compassion, and self-efficacy have helped me a great deal in learning to take constructive criticism better, as well as learning to self-criticize with the aim of improving my art! I feel like as long as I make “having fun” a priority, everything else is so much easier!

DISCORD SERVER (MAYBE, EVENTUALLY, BUT NOT RIGHT NOW)

Definitely not at this time, but it’s something I’ll consider for the future! I’d like to be more active art-wise and grow my community a bit before I go that route!

STREAMING!

I am also planning on streaming eventually. My real concern is being able to split my attention between drawing and a chat! I think I’ll start after I’m done with my initial round of character reference sheets!

I do want to watch more streams, too, but I still have the same problem! I pretty much ignore the stream to focus on my own art. I feel like this is a thing I’ll need to jump into and play by ear, so to say!

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Hey all, I wanted to give you an update!

The art has slowed down a bit because I've been battling insomnia. So the the thing that works for me is working out! I fell off working out back in 2019, and I'm just now starting out again. Working out has had the exact effect I've hoped for—it really knocks me out! 

The problem is that I haven't figured out a good balance just yet. As I work out more and my sleep schedule stabilizes, I'm expecting to be able to finish my art faster!

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There were a few things I forgot to mention in my last journal about future plans. I also wanted to give some updates!

COMMISSIONS (UPDATE)

If money is tight, I’ll probably be opening for commissions at least once every other month in 2023, if not more. We’ll see! There are a lot of personal projects I want to work on, and I prefer to keep personal projects a priority if I can! I’ll post journals with as much lead time as I can regarding when I’m expecting commissions to open! Presently, I’m looking at how my paychecks and taxes look this year.

UPLOADING GIFT ART, ART TRADES, & COMMISSIONED ART!!

When I upload gift art and art trades, I’ll be sure to title and tag them properly, and on the sites that support folders, I put them in their own folder! I am honestly super danged thrilled that others are having fun with my characters! I’m super excited to share what’s been done so far! 

I did briefly think about making another account, but nah! That’s too much work to maintain!

REFERENCE SHEETS

Regarding reference sheets, I have 3 female characters I want to do reference sheets for (Aura my puma / cougar / mountain lion, Diana my maned wolf, and Graphene Doodles, my Rule 63 gender-swapped version of my unicorn Graphite Doodles), as well as 7 male characters (Graphite Doodles my unicorn, Chris the mouse, Evan the rabbit, Kyle my red fox, Gabriel the squirrel, Trevor Dawson my wolf, and Bud Blaze, my MLP earth pony)! This means I have a total of more reference sheets I want to do (for now). I imagine this will take me well into 2023, given that it takes about two weeks per reference sheet. I’m hoping for May at the latest.

TRADES & GIFT ART

After my current round of reference sheets, I’ll open for some trades and gift art! I’m thinking I’ll spend at most a month on trades. I’m absolutely giddy, honestly! I’ve wanted to do trades for decades; I’ve had a lot of various internal and external struggles I’ve fought with and overcome over the years!

EXPRESSION PROJECT

Something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time is a better version of the 25 Expression Challenge. I’ve done a few challenges long ago, and I know I’ve done one recently-ish with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. BUT! I haven’t done one when I’ve had this much self-esteem, self-compassion, and self-efficacy! I feel like I could push myself well beyond what I’ve done before! I’m making a 100 Expression Challenge! You all are in for a treat!

TREMMIE & EVAN SERIES

After the 100 Expression Challenge, I want to dive into a passion project I’ve been wanting to start for 15 YEARS. I’m going to have a Tremmie and Evan sex romp series/comic! It’s going to be everything from sweet, silly, to hot and heavy and gooey! I want to give myself a fun challenge, and I think y’all would love it as much as I do!

SOFT SHADING

I’m also planning on dinking around with soft shading in 2023! I think I could make my art really pop with some quality shading and lighting!

POSSIBLY SELLING SOME OLD CHARACTERS AS ADOPTABLES

I am thinking of selling some characters as adoptables! There are 11 characters of mine that I'm never going to draw again, and I’m not going to combine them. I was thinking of making a ref sheet for each and selling the character that way! (The characters are: Callisto the skadger (skunk badger (spoken for), Sheila the Ringtail, Helen the spotted skunk, Heather the hedgevixen, Mindy the other, Shazzy the felox (feline/fox), Brook the swift fox, Yasmine the red fox, Jessica/Jessie the arctic fox, Ian the whitetail buck, Liam the jackal, and Nemo the snow leopard). I was also thinking I’d probably due ¾ front view and ¼ back view, and 1 fully clothed view, instead of the 5 views I’m doing for my own characters.

FUTURE REFERENCE SHEETS (MID-LATE 2023)

I realized that there are also characters I wish to keep! There are 8 characters in addition to the above that I want to do ref sheets for. Some are my wife Mistletoe's characters! She's not involved with the fandom anymore, but we fully support each other's interests! She sees how happy my characters make me and still likes furry and MLP art! (The characters are: Betsy, the arctic wolf (may change her name), Celeste the genet, Holly Graham, the red Scottish vixen, Josh the striped skunk, Marissa the mouse, Miriam the mouse (thinking of a new design!), Mistletoe the snowshoe hare, Rose Bunny the arctic hare).

PONIES

I still love My Little Pony a whole danged lot! I’m absolutely expecting to draw more ponies from here until the end of time, honestly! I’ve been into ponies (1984) way longer than furry fandom (1996); I still love both fandoms a whole lot! I want to do art ranging from general audiences to smutty! 

HUMANS

Re-uploading my old art on my Tremaine account back in 2018 made me realize how much I missed drawing humans! There are many artists whose humans inspire me, and I want to practice drawing them! Once I feel I’ve got some decent progress made I’ll share some art!

LEARNING NEW STUFF

And, of course, I’m hoping to keep learning new things all the time! Goodness knows I’ve already learned so much since I started back on this path in May! Self-esteem, self-compassion, and self-efficacy have helped me a great deal in learning to take constructive criticism better, as well as learning to self-criticize with the aim of improving my art! I feel like as long as I make “having fun” a priority, everything else is so much easier!

DISCORD SERVER (MAYBE, EVENTUALLY, BUT NOT RIGHT NOW)

I’m second-guessing whether I want to make a Discord server. I’m still trying to figure out how to balance my time. I’m of the mind to put this project on the back shelf for now; maybe when I’ve grown my following for a few years I’ll come back to it. Like, right now, I’ll get the very occasional ping in Discord, but it’s mostly quiet. If it makes more sense to be able to communicate with a lot of folks at once sometime in the future I’ll probably look into it more.

STREAMING!

I am also planning on streaming eventually. My real concern is being able to split my attention between drawing and a chat! I think I’ll start after I’m done with my initial round of character reference sheets!

I do want to watch more streams, too, but I still have the same problem! I pretty much ignore the stream to focus on my own art. I feel like this is a thing I’ll need to jump into and play by ear, so to say!

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I’ve been reflecting on this year. I am beyond happy with myself for deciding to pick up art again and give it another go! I have immense and unending gratitude for all the support and encouragement I’ve been shown! 

I’ve been really excited about my art journey, and I’m honestly having a ton of fun! I’m really glad you all are having fun, too! It means so much to me to make something meaningful for myself and have you all love it just as much as I do!

Back in 2006 (or even as early as 2004) I had an idea of making proper references for all my characters. However, due to various circumstances that never came to pass! Here, now, today, though, I’m up for that challenge. It’s absolutely incredible that I’ve made reference sheets for 12 characters so far! And, I’ve done a turnaround! And, I’m super proud of turning all my commissions out really fast! I’m really, really proud of my accomplishments this year!

FUTURE PLANS!

COMMISSIONS

If money is tight, I’ll probably be opening for commissions at least once every other month in 2023, if not more. We’ll see! There are a LOT of personal projects I want to work on. I’ll post journals with as much lead time as I can regarding when I’m expecting commissions to open!

REFERENCE SHEETS

For character reference sheets, I have 3 female characters I want to do reference sheets for, and 7 male characters! This means I have a total of more reference sheets I want to do (for now). This will take me some time into 2023 before I’m done. After these are done, I’ll move onto other projects!

TRADES & GIFT ART

After my current round of reference sheets, I’ll open for some trades and gift art! I’m thinking I’ll spend at most a month on trades. I’m absolutely giddy, honestly! I’ve been wanting to do trades for DECADES, buuut I’ve been a bit of a Disaster Human!

EXPRESSION PROJECT

Something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time is a better version of the 25 Expression Challenge. I’ve done it before a LONG time ago, and I know I’ve done one recently-ish with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. BUT! I haven’t done one when I’ve had this much self-esteem, self-compassion, and self-efficacy! Like, I feel like I could push myself well beyond what I’ve done before! I’m making a 100 Expression Challenge! You all are in for a A TREAT!

TREMMIE & EVAN SERIES

After the 100 Expression Challenge, I want to do dive into a passion project I’ve been wanting to start in for 15 YEARS. I’m going to have a Tremmie and Evan sex romp series/comic! It’s going to be everything from sweet, silly, to hot and heavy and gooey! I want to give myself a fun challenge, and I think y’all would love it as much as I do!

SOFT SHADING

I’m also planning on dinking around with soft shading in 2023! I think I could make my art really pop with some quality shading and lighting!

POSSIBLY SELLING SOME OLD CHARACTERS AS ADOPTABLES

I am thinking of selling some characters as adoptables! There are 11 characters of mine that I'm never going to draw again, and I’m not going to combine them. I was thinking of making a ref sheet for each and selling the character that way! (The characters are: Callisto the skadger (skunk badger (spoken for), Sheila the Ringtail, Helen the spotted skunk, Heather the hedgevixen, Mindy the other, Shazzy the felox (feline/fox), Brook the swift fox, Yasmine the red fox, Jessica/Jessie the arctic fox, Ian the whitetail buck, Liam the jackal, and Nemo the snow leopard).

FUTURE REFERENCE SHEETS (MID-LATE 2023)

I realized that there are also characters I wish to keep! There are 8 characters in add to the above I want to do ref sheets for. Some are my wife Mistletoe's characters! She's not involved in the fandom anymore, but we fully support each other's interests! She sees how happy my characters make me, and she still likes furry and MLP art! (The characters are: Betsy, the arctic wolf (may change her name), Celeste the genet, Holly Graham, the red Scottish vixen, Josh the striped skunk, Marissa the mouse, Miriam the mouse (thinking of a new design!), Mistletoe the snowshoe hare, Rose Bunny (Arctic Hare)).

LEARNING NEW STUFF

And, of course, I’m hoping to keep learning new things all the time! Goodness knows I’ve already learned so much since I started back on this path in May!

DISCORD SERVER (MAYBE, EVENTUALLY)

At some point I’m going to finish up my Discord server! I’m envisioning a laid-back space to share art, cool stuff, and chat a bit!

STREAMING!

I am also planning on streaming eventually. My real concern is being able to split my attention between drawing and a chat. 

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TWITTER AND DEVIANTART:

Wow, what a week. Twitter is a dumpster fire, and I’ve had it with DeviantArt. Let’s be fair; I’ve never liked DeviantArt; I’m just especially tired of their bullshit lately. I am not a fan of AI “art”, and NOT a fan of their policy to opt-in all their artists to AI “art” by default. They can fuck right the hell off.

So, yeah, I’m leaving Twitter (been thinking about it for years) and I already nuked my DA gallery.

If you’re on Twitter and would like to follow me elsewhere, I’ve added a number of sites where I will be posting to my carrd: https://arrjaysketch.carrd.co/



MASTODON:

I am on Mastodon! The neat thing about Mastodon is that you don’t have to be on the same server (or instance) as someone else. The most important thing when signing up for an instance is checking if it’s blocked by other instances! You can find out what instances are limited or blocked by going to the “About” page. For instance, the list of suspended instances is pretty common among a lot of Mastodon instances: https://mastodon.art/about/more

I have accounts on these instances:

General Chit-chat:
@ArrJaySketch@mastodon.social https://mastodon.social/@ArrJaySketch

SFW Art:
@ArrJaySketch@mastodon.art https://mastodon.art/@ArrJaySketch

NSFW Art:
@ArtJayAfterDork@yiff.life https://yiff.life/@ArtJayAfterDork

MLP Stuff:
@ArrJaySKetch@equestria.social https://equestria.social/@ArrJaySketch



TELEGRAM CHANNELS:

 I have telegram channels now!

SFW: https://t.me/+46nZiNVvG343NGIx

NSFW: https://t.me/+fq-v8DEIsMM3MmMx



DISCORD SERVER (Maaaaybe???)

A long time ago, some of you may remember that I used to run a mailing list! I sort of miss that interaction with folks. If I had a Discord server, how many of y’all would be interested?

Even if there’s not much interest now, it’s definitely something I’m considering for the future!

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Hey all!

If it’s been a couple of weeks since posting art or a journal, I’m at least going to try to post regular journals!

CURRENT STATUS, COMMISSIONS:

A while back, I said I was thinking about opening for commissions in early November. Early November has indeed arrived, and there are a number of things that have taken precedence. Long story short, I am NOT going to be taking commissions right now, and I am not sure when I will open them again. I am considering early December, but most likely I will open again in January.

Overall, I am doing well! My time is presently occupied with things other than art.

LEAVING TWITTER:

In case you missed it, I will be leaving Twitter by the end of the year. It has honestly been a long time coming. At its best it was moderately entertaining; at its worst, it's deeply traumatizing and feels awful. I have already been considering leaving for years at this point. The deciding factor is that when I avoid current popular social media entirely, I feel enormously better! Like, not just a little bit, but extremely, significantly better! Current events gave me the very gentle nudge I needed to make a final decision.

I am not pushing anyone else to stay or to leave. What you do with your time online is up to you; you know what is working for you, and you absolutely know what is not. For instance, I am a hobby artist who does not rely on Twitter to pull in income.

If/when Twitter implodes and something else takes its place, would I join? There’s a lot of “it depends” in that answer. We’ll see!

ALTERNATE PLACES TO FIND ME (AND ALTERNATE SITE ADVICE):

As always, you can find me here: https://arrjaysketch.carrd.co/ I post at LOTS of places!

While slowly going through folks I am following on Twitter and downloading art with tools like Bulk Image Downloader (https://bulkimagedownloader.com/download), I am seeing a surprising amount of artists who do not have accounts anywhere else! Or, if they do, they’re not easy to find!

It is always a safe bet that any given site will eventually be unavailable (hours, days, weeks) at a time. Sites that were previously a safe bet can and have had dramatic shifts in policy where previously acceptable content is now nuked on site (Tumblr, SheezyArt). Sites go down (Ponibooru, Yerf, the first version of FurAffinity, FurryArtPile, Furry Orlando Archive, Playmouse, PureYiff, Yiffy International, etc.)

ALWAYS have a backup! Have several, especially if you rely on your art as your income source. Advertise it well! Have a backup plan to seamlessly transition to your back plan site. Or backup-backup plan.

Once you have a few galleries set up (and some regular at least a minimum number of manual uploads) you can use the amazing and FREE tool PostyBirb to post to multiple websites at once! https://www.postybirb.com/ 

Once you have multiple websites, it’s honestly a pain to make multiple links on all your other sites. You can use FREE websites to make link compilations, such as https://carrd.co/, https://linktr.ee/, and https://www.wix.com/! Make a free website with all your links, and now you only have ONE link to update all your art gallery sites with!

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