I know I just uploaded the Gabriel reference sheet, but wouldn't you know it, I thought of a way better way to do a melanistic squirrel fur pattern immediately after posting!

Later on Monday, I'll be deleting my old post and I'll be re-uploading the new version! Don't get too attached! 😅

Posted using PostyBirb

Does anyone know what happened to the artist Kaffeinated_Pup? His FurAffinity gallery and Discord have been deleted!

He was a nifty artist that helped inspired me to draw when I was getting my groove back last year, in 2022!

Any leads are appreciated!

Posted using PostyBirb

Two more ref sheets to go (for now)! Gabriel, my male squirrel, and Trevor Dawson, my male gray wolf! The plan is to finish the ref sheets by the end of November. December, I'll fix errors in my ref sheets!

Then in 2024 I'll start on Evan and Tremmie series! YAY! I AM EXCITED! I'll also do work on my 100+ expression project!

Regarding commissions, I'm not too sure when I'll open again! I really, really want to work on my personal projects for now.

If you noticed my art missing from Derpibooru and e621 lately, that is absolutely intentional. I will not have my art hosted on sites that allow nazi art. 

I also removed my stuff from Instagram because I was tired of seeing ads and suggestions more than the people I was actually following, and had to work to find the people I was following. I also really, really disliked not being able to upload art without of cropping. This is to say nothing of Meta's AI-farming, so fuck that shit, too.

Posted using PostyBirb

Thank you all so much for the wonderful birthday wishes! I had a great day yesterday! Heck, I'm having a great week! I took the week off from my Day Job for my birthday week! 😁🎈🎂

Next two ref sheets are Chris, my mouse guy, and Evan, my bunny guy! (I don't mind if they don't get as much attention as my gals; I'm doing this all for me, and I'm having a blast! 😁)

Posted using PostyBirb

It's my birthday today! It's been 47 trips around the Sun for me today! 🎈🎂🎉

I'm going to spend it working on art for myself, relaxing, and having some great food! 😁

Posted using PostyBirb

COMMISSIONS (UPDATE)

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

REFERENCE SHEETS

Presently, I have seven male characters left to do for this round! The characters are Graphite Doodles my unicorn stallion, Chris the mouse, Evan the rabbit, Kyle my red fox, Gabriel the squirrel, Trevor Dawson my wolf, and Bud Blaze, my MLP earth pony! There will be more coming at some future point; I really want to establish my characters! Having references available has been really helpful!

It takes about two weeks to finish these reference sheets. Sometimes I can finish them earlier; I’m hoping to finish these by the end of 2023!

TRADES & GIFT ART

I’m thinking about doing gift art and trades sometime in 2024! I don’t have a set date in mind; I mostly want to work on some personal projects first and then see how I feel! 

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!

I might work on this at the same time as Tremmie and Evan series!

TREMMIE & EVAN SERIES

While I’m working on 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 2024! 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 13 characters of mine that I'm never going to draw again, and I’m not going to combine them nor redesign them. I was thinking of making a ref sheet for each and selling the characters! The characters are: Callisto the skadger (skunk badger (spoken for), Sheila the Ringtail, Helen the spotted skunk, Heather the hedgevixen, Mindy the otter, 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 Natalia (striped skunk, formerly Natasha, and unrelated to Jim Hardimans’s Natasha),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.

I’m thinking I’ll do this sometime much later in 2024.

FUTURE REFERENCE SHEETS (LATE 2023)

I realized that there are also characters I wish to keep! There are 10 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, Josh, the striped skunk, and possibly bringing back Tremaine, but as a simple red fox, not a hedgefox).

This will probably be late 2024.

POSSIBLE ART PACKS:

Instead of a printed portfolio (10 images printed on cardstock with a cardstock cover), I was thinking of doing two art packs I’d sell online! Printing, shipping, and storing physical merch is a huge pain, so I figure I’d sell it online!

II am thinking of Poking At Vixens 4: Revisiting The Classics and Poking at Vixens 5: Vixens Poke Back!

FUTURE CHARACTER SERIES IDEAS!

In no particular order with no set date, yet!

How Sherri the negaskunk met Kyle the fox

Kyle being seduced by Cindy the kitsune

Evan and Bridget 

Chris and Andrea

Bridget and Andrea

Chris and Evan

A very soft, sweet, and steamy series involving Bud Blaze the stallion being very attentive to Boninie the cow gal!

Sherri introducing Kyle to Bridget and Andrea

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! 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 significantly more 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!

Posted using PostyBirb

Hey all! I'm on BlueSky now! You can find me here:
https://bsky.app/profile/arrjaysketch.bsky.social 

I also generated a whole bunch of Pillowfort invites! I'll try to keep the list current at least once a week! If one invite link doesn't work, try another!
https://pastebin.com/w4uXREyc

You can find me on Pillowfort here:
https://www.pillowfort.social/ArrJaySketch

I'm still going to post everywhere I do now! I figure some folks like their preferred media!

Posted using PostyBirb

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!

Posted using PostyBirb

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!

Posted using PostyBirb

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.

Posted using PostyBirb