Meant to have this uploaded along with the previous blog but what can I say, I've been busy

I decided that the subtitles break up these posts really nicely so I will be continuing to use them. Honestly I'm not sure what took me so long! I have acorns for brains

Starting off ... bad. I was planning on returning to Anthrocon this year but unfortunately due to my surgery I just won't be able to go. I was really holding out hope that something would turn around, but unfortunately it's become clear that I won't be ready in time to go. I'm trying to stay positive and I'm gonna use the "extra" time to wrap up some projects but honestly it really sucks

Every post I say that I meant to upload more blogs and that I got busy with school. Then school starts again and the cycle continues. I have a very hard time balancing both the things I wanna get done in my life and my online presence, and I own that. However it's a terrible habit to make promises you can't keep, so I will swallow the urge to say that this time's gonna be different.

Previously I've been a full time student which along with work and then art is very time consuming. However this upcoming fall and spring I will be transitioning to a part time student. This is in the hopes of focusing on more larger projects but of course we'll see. ATM I'm on track to graduate with my bachelor's in the spring - I am interested in persuing my masters but I'm not sure if I'm gonna go straight into it or not. Part of me regretted not taking time between my associates and bachelors to just do and pursue other things without the pressure of school, but on the other hand I'd hate to stop my momentum and then never go back to school

I don't necessarily think there's a "right" answer but I'm gonna be mulling this over for awhile. Advice appreciated

Well ... I'm currently unemployed. Not the most ideal timing (it never is) but I'm managing. While I am looking for a job, I'm also considering my other options (namely trying to sell originals or commissions). I'll talk more about this later. For now just know that I am searching, I might get one, it might really suck, and that will probably mean other projects will taka a back seat again. If you really hate the sound of that I have a Ko-Fi that you could take a peek at, or I'd be very open minded to hearing suggestions especially of things you wanna see

Very excitingly I may be moving soon! Things are certainly looking good so far. It would be a rent controlled apartment (hallelujah) in a real nice building. I would have more space for projects, more privacy, and the transit options nearby are very convenient. I tour the place this Tuesday so I should have a good idea of whats to come soon, fingers crossed!

You might be thinking to yourself "but DauphinDuEgg, didn't you just say you don't have a job??" and yeah. Like I said before, the timing isn't exactly great. I have savings though which will hopefully be enough for me to figure something out. This is especially why the next bit is so important

Okay. Art stuff. Whew

I try really, really hard to keep these projects afloat on my own but the plain truth is art is just expensive. The point isn't to monotize my art, but I'm very quickly approaching a place where I have to monotize something or I'm not gonna be able to make new works at all

For almost a year now I've been saying I want to have some sort of online shop and the unfortunate reality is this project was a much larger undertaking than I initially anticipated. To be honest, I'm just not keen on being a business. What was a fun way to sell small batch items to fund larger ideas became a huge chore designed for someone who's full time job is selling merch online. I really don't even wanna sell "merch" in the sense of DTF t-shirts - just some handmade items that are easier to make multiples of

I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. I think, for now at least, I need to switch gears to something more my speed

To start, I'm gonna revamp my gallery section. It's pretty sad right now and I want it to be more impressive, like a real gallery site. This shouldn't be too difficult, but may take a while since I'm still recovering from surgery and right now sitting at my desk is pretty uncomfortable.

Once the gallery section is beautiful I'll finally upload the REAL commission page for this site, which has been sitting as an unfinished file for quite some time ... I'll have the capacity to take on some interesting projects so I think it's time I seriously put commissions back on the table and not just offer sketches etc

Now of course I need to find the people that are interested in getting comms from me and I think the answer may be to consider streaming. I'm already doing the artwork, why not let people watch me go crazy? People love watching streams and it's not like I lose anything if no one watches since I was gonna do the art anyway. This is what I think will be a more successful version of my idea to post videos - which turned out to be way too time consuming to edit and I never really finished many.

I still really wanna table to get my art physically out there but I think I was maybe rushing into things, I need a reliable way to transfer the artwork to and from and that requires steady income which means I need to have something making me some kind of money before tabling is, well, back on the table. I will be applying more often to have pieces shown in art shows though, which I think is a fair middle ground.

It's a little irritating to write a lengthy post about things I'm wishing for but haven't come to fruition, so I'll end on some things I did since the last big update. I had a series of art featured in a gallery in NYC which was really nice. I also curated a show in January. I got the opportunity to judge the scholastic national art competition, which was amazing. I learned how to screen print and dare I say I got pretty good at it. Aaand I made a squirrel tail to go with my fursuit head ... well almost. It's nearly done but at the finish line I had to shelf it and haven't been able to finish it yet. SOON! Sometimes I get lost in my yearning sauce, so it's nice to look back and just be like "See man? You're accomplishing stuff all the time. You got this!" YKWIM?

Here's some older pieces I'm especially proud of from the past few months