I found this on a friend’s blog, and thought it was really cool to watch (and well-made!). Simply put, it’s a futuristic/sci-fi retelling of David and Goliath. Well-worth watching!

A larger version is available on the film’s main page.

This post was spawned by a discussion with a friend earlier this evening.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my principal reasons for going to furry cons is to go shopping, and buy art. In recent years, this has exclusively included commissions, I don’t really collect prints anymore unless they’re big enough to frame and hang on the wall (hint hint, for all you artists out there, consider trying large-format prints).

Now, in the past, I’ve pretty much only purchased art at conventions, because I felt I didn’t have the money at any other time of the year. At MFF this year, that wasn’t the case, but I still haven’t really gotten any commissioned art outside the con (though, stuff I commissioned at MFF is still trickling in). This isn’t because of a lack of artists I know of online, but rather because I really prefer to see the artist in person, chat a bit, and so forth, before having a business transaction with them.

See, the thing I’ve noticed at big furry cons is that, for the most part, the majority of the artists have about the same skill level. There are those who are notably above-average, talent-wise, but for everyone else (particularly those who are in the Artist Alley at Anthrocon), no one is “bad”. And, with the exception of a very few (like dhstein, who has a large banner behind her table), most artists at cons don’t have much to set themselves apart from the rest.

This creates a situation where one can easily spend an entire con just browsing artist tables, carefully evaluating each artist for commission potential (something I did once), or spend ridiculous amounts of money getting small commissions from every artist that strikes their fancy (see Orion, the guy with the jacket o’ conbadges). Personally, I prefer to only get commissions that help establish my character somehow, rather than getting a million generic poses (or a million random, unrelated outfits/scenes), and now that my characters’ appearances have been well-established, those commission ideas require a lot of thought to write down. And, when I do come up with them, I don’t want to give them to artists who are likely to screw them up.

So, I’ve begun to evaluate potential artists to commission based on their professionalism. I look at their style and such too, of course, but what catches my eye is how they conduct business at the con. I have no problem spending lots of money on art, but I want to know that I’m actually going to get something for my money, in a reasonable amount of time (ie, if someone says it’ll be done by the end of the con, I get a little concerned when it’s not done 6 months later). I understand that creativity can’t be rushed, and I never pressure someone to do art for me. But, at the same time, the moment that money is exchanged, this becomes a business transaction, and there are certain things ways to conduct business.

One thing that, to me, indicates an artist’s professionalism and confidence is their pricing. Furry art is already ridiculously underpriced, so when I see someone charging $5-10 for a sketch, I don’t think “wow, that’s a bargain”, I think “they must be new”. Everyone has to start somewhere, but when I look for an artist to commission, I want the best quality I can find (ie, the best return on my investment), and I want a safe investment, someone who’s not going to take my money and disappear. So, when I see an artist’s rates starting at $30-40 for full-page work, I see an artist who’s confident in their abilities, and who’s probably a safe investment. I also don’t understand how some furs can consider anyone charging less than triple-digit prices “overpriced”.

I also rarely buy art from an artist without a recommendation from someone who’s commissioned them. Out of all the art I’ve bought over the years, the times I’ve had trouble with communication or slow delivery (defined as more than six months for work that was promised to be done during or shortly after the con) have been the times that I commissioned someone I had never heard of. On the other hand, I’ve never not-received art I paid for, in over five years of convention-going, nor have I ever been disappointed with a paid commission (except for once, but that was a fluke), so I guess I’m doing something right.

And, since I don’t get a lot of art (relative to some), I try to get art from a wide variety of artists. I get a lot of first commissions from various artists, but not many seconds. If I go to an artist for a second piece, it means I loved the first one, and loved dealing with them; and typically, the second commission from an artist is a more meaningful one than the first, one that I’m more worried about someone doing wrong. If I go to someone for three or more pictures, they’re one of my favourite artists, and I trust them with very personal, meaningful commissions (like this one). I also try to avoid badges, because I already have more than I can wear at any one time, and I really like the ones I have.

Anyway, just some thoughts regarding my approach to getting furry art. Most of this doesn’t apply to online commissions, a concept I’m still getting used to; as a rule, I never buy art online unless I know the artist very well, or I have an excellent recommendation from a friend regarding their methods of conducting business (a simple “hey, so-and-so is a good artist” doesn’t cut it for me, lots of people are good artists, I want someone who’s also not going to rip me off), regardless of their pricing or how long they’ve been doing this. Unlike at a con, it’s easier to look at an artist’s prior work and such online, so the $5/sketch artists are easier to notice, but I still won’t spend a single dollar on art outside of a con unless I’ve known the artist for awhile, or someone I trust recommended them to me.

I hope this post doesn’t sound too elitist or anything. I love art, and I’m not biased against beginning artists or anything. This post’s content only applies to my thought process when considering furry commissions.

For anyone who didn’t notice, I kinda disappeared this weekend

I really wanted to spend some time with symelion, so I headed up to his place on Friday. I had a full two days of overtime saved up, and we had nothing to do at work on Friday anyway. Didn’t do much when I got there, though, it was a little late.

Saturday was really fun! We went out to an Indian restaurant for lunch, first time I’d been to one of those in over a year, and then went to a Best Buy (a rare treat for me, since the closest one is over an hour away). We picked up a gift card for our boss, since he’s so incredibly awesome, then met up with kelbypup, makuus, swiftfoxfire, and vu1pes for a lovely Italian dinner. It was really nice to spend time with some different people, too - no offense to anyone in the NoVA/MD area, but after years of seeing so many announcements for lame furmeets on the area mailing lists, and going to the awesome ones in Pittsburgh, I kinda forgot that NoVA was an awesome travel destination as well. Needless to say, I won’t make that mistake anymore, especially if I keep up my increased pace of road trips.

Oh, and I think I was the only one at dinner who didn’t have an iPhone/smartphone to play with ;-). At one point, something in the conversation prompted everyone to want to look something up, and on that cue, half the table whipped out iPhones to look up the topic at hand. My $20 dumb-phone and I were amused

Anyway, after dinner, we played Rock Band. I’ve never played it before, nor have I played anything similar like Guitar Hero (my opportunities to play console games are very limited). But, this was the most fun I’ve ever had playing a video game! See, for most of my life, I’ve had idle fantasies/daydreams about being a rock singer. And, while I lack the skills to be a pro, I have spent most of my time on road trips practicing my singing for the last 8 years (as well as occasional “jams” in the house). So, for the songs that I actually knew, I got really good scores with the vocal part, even surprising myself a few times :-P. I gave the other parts a try, and enjoyed the drum set (an instrument I’d like to learn to play someday, though if this game was any indication, I may lack the coordination for it). The guitars were a little weird, but still fun. Overall, a really fun experience

Sunday was fairly low-key, with the best pizza for dinner that I’ve ever had (even better than Sarpino’s at MFF that was oh-so-yummy). Jerry’s Subs & Pizza in College Park is incredible, I highly recommend it!

Monday was a work day, and it was really nice to be in the same room as Syme while we working. Especially since we were working on the same project, a huge bugfix list. We made a significant dent in the list, got dinner, and tried to come back and work awhile longer. An hour into the last part of our shift, and we both said “screw this” and got out Rock Band again. I tried to really challenge myself on the vocals this time, and still did pretty darn good, even on songs I didn’t know. Apparently, my years of singing in the church choir, coupled with my complete inability to read music (ironic, since I was in marching band for seven years), really improved my ability to follow along on-the-fly with a vocal part. There was a song I beat on Expert that I’d never heard before

And, today (Tuesday), I came home. Wee!

As I socialize online, I encounter a lot of artists, whose abilities range from “Good start” to “Why aren’t galleries hosting expos for you?”. And, I see these artists receive a lot of questions. One question that seems to be asked with surprising frequency is “Wow, nice picture, how long did that take you?”.

Perhaps it’s just me, and the fact that I don’t even care how long it takes me to create something, much less someone else, but I just don’t understand why people ask this. I mean, why does it matter? Who cares how long it took?

To go even further, this question seems (to me) to vaguely imply that time spent is the sole deciding factor between the scribbles of a kindergartener and the Mona Lisa.

Am I the only one who sees things this way?

Yay, my first not-Anthrocon furry con since Megaplex ‘06! I had a really good time, and while I didn’t meet as many new people as I hoped to, I did make some new friends

Special thanks to greenreaper for giving me a place to stay!

Highlights
-Ram’s, the restaurant across the street from the hotel. It was heavenly, I wish I could’ve put it on a truck and brought it home with me
-The programming at the con. This was the first time I’ve been to a furry con that had panels I was actually interested in attending, it was nice.
-Kage’s media-relations panel, very well-presented. If he does it again, I highly recommend it to everyone.
-Convoying with LilPup & crew, something I haven’t had the opportunity to do in a long time.
-Having LilPup’s vehicle along for the whole trip, including my detour to Michigan, when they could have just gone straight to Chicago. It made an otherwise-miserable road trip much better. Thanks guys!
-Impromptu Marci badge
-Lots of new art!

Low-Lights
-Having to stand in the bitter cold with no jacket for a half-hour thanks to the fire alarm. I literally couldn’t feel the skin on my arms by the time we went back inside.
-2 and Kage’s show getting cancelled on Friday night.
-No quick restaurants within walking distance of the hotel. This was a major problem, because getting a meal always took at least an hour at any time of the day. And yes, I know there’s a nice consuite at MFF (much better than anything similar at AC), but their timing with food other than chips was so unpredictable that I kinda gave up on it for real meals. The one time that I actually tried to rely on it, I ended up having a bowl of chili dip for lunch out of desperation.
-The trip to Chicago. What should’ve been 8 hours ended up being 16, thanks to a blizzard along the way.

After-Con Gathering
I really didn’t want to go home right away after the con, so I stayed in Pittsburgh an extra day and went to the furmeet Firefox and Dobie organized, to see the movie Bolt. If you haven’t seen the movie, go see it! Highly recommended! The opening scene will make anyone who thinks puppies are cute go “Awwwww!”, too

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Art post coming soon!

Yay, MFF was cool! The trip had some downsides, but it was a good con.

I’m back in Pittsburgh now, going to the movie meet later. Working my tail off, too, I have a project that needs to be finished Monday.

A more in-depth con post will come later, as well as art posts once I get home (I got some awesome art this time, including an impromptu new Marci badge with a scene/theme that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before).

This piece was a bit of a surprise. For MFF, foxchild is debuting a new conbadge medium, and used my character as a test piece: Framed-canvas painted conbadges! Basically, they’re like real full-size canvas paintings, but tiny, a really neat idea! It’s a really awesome picture, too, I love it! (It looks even more awesome IRL)

He’ll have three of them to show off for MFF; one for himself, one for Icefox, and one for me. He won’t have an art table there, but he’ll be around, so look for him

So, anyway, here’s the picture:

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This sentence is mostly for my own reference: I have three more out-of-con commissions on the way (Huskie, Reaux, Rei), one leftover from AC (Kyote), and a couple that I plan to get at MFF.

So, tonight, at about 1:45, I was doing something on my computer, and glanced at the cable box to check the time. I thought “Wow, it’s almost 2, I should finish some cleaning”. I went into my bedroom (where there are no auto-updating clocks), and resumed working on the cleaning project I had started earlier.

I came back out to the living room afterwards, and glanced at the cable box again (where I usually look for the time): 1:05. WTF? I guess I read the time wrong before.

Later, I went to the kitchen, and glanced at the clock on the microwave while getting some water: 3:30. WTF?

Thanks for the moments of confusion, Daylight Saving Time.

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In other news, it just occurred to me that Halloween marked my 5th year as a furry. Five years ago today, I was obsessively researching everything I could find about the fandom, and trying to come up with a fursona for myself, after finding out what furry “really” was in responses to the CSI episode (I was trying to find a video of it, and found LJ entries instead, yay for accidents!)

I had originally planned to write a big retrospective post, to be posted on Halloween, but I haven’t really had the time. No one cares anyway

Squee! WPAFW was such an awesome trip, and if you didn’t go, you SUCK! Just kidding, of course, but it was far better than Anthrocon.

Good Stuff
- New art from MehndiX.
- Comfortable weather (instead of the ridiculous heat we had last year).
- Getting to know symelion better, he contains large amounts of awesome
- Less-structured format made the event feel more “cozy” than last year.
- The website/email hosting package I donated on behalf of Lupinia brought in at least $10 for the charity auction.
- Fun in the parking lot at Steak & Shake (”Car!”).
- Watching turn a bowl on his lathe. I’ve always been fascinated by lathe-work, and watching it in person is quite fun.
- The biggest good-thing of all, getting to see all of my friends again, even the ones who were busy running the event were able to chat a little.

Bad Stuff
- Random creepy dude who harassed hotel staff, smoked in the shelter at the park, and just generally didn’t know when to shut up. I had to forcibly shut my hotel room door in his face at one point while trying to get settled in the room one evening.
- Someone left a web browser window minimized on the public computer in the lobby with Yiffstar loaded. I don’t think anyone saw (I closed the browser without restoring it when I saw it), but damn, what’s wrong with people?
- Didn’t get a chance to see the kangaroos at the zoo, but there’s always next time.

And, a big thank-you to everyone involved in running WPAFW. This is a truly spectacular event, and it remains my favourite furry gathering. Well done

FA is down. They have no idea why.

I lol’d.

Then I got frustrated, because I read through my LJ friends page. People are starting to use FA again, and FA still sucks ass despite having obscenely overbuilt new hardware. So, $16k later, the site’s uptime has seen only marginal, if any, improvement.

Lame. Not surprising, but lame.