A Micron Pen and a Steady Hand

Well, this is a rarity! But indeed, it's happening. I've finally finished the last of my old commissions (that I'm aware of), and I've gotten a few requests done, so today, for the first time in about 3 years or so, I'm officially opening myself up for commissions. I'm opening 3 slots today, for anything from sketches to full inks and colors. I'm also opening 3 slots for icons and avatars.

General Rules and Prices:

• Sketchy Thing: $30. Example.
• Inked Thing: $60. Example.
• Inked Thing with Flat Shading/Flat Color: $70. Example.
• Inked Thing with Flat Shading and Color: $80. Example.
• Fully Colored and Shaded Thing: $90. Example.
• Icons/Avatars: $10.

Acceptable Subject Matter: I can do anything from clean to kinky stuff. Just look at my gallery. I just won't do any of the hardcore squick stuff like scat, mutilation, cub porn, etc.
I may have to charge extra for characters with enough extra body parts to make most of another person (somebody else's rule, I thought I'd use it here).
Payment: Sketches: I prefer to be paid up front. Everything else: half up front, half before I start inking.
Don't be obnoxious or I will keel you for serious.
Reference images are <3.
More in-depth and scary version at zencavern.com/commissions. It would be a good idea to read this, because it covers very important material like copyrights and business etiquette.

Slots for Standard Commissions:

1. CLAIMED by strredwolf
2. CLAIMED by grunge_collie
3. UNCLAIMED

Slots for Icon Commissions:

1. UNCLAIMED
2. UNCLAIMED
3. UNCLAIMED

Send me a private note or an e-mail if you want to GET YOUR THING.
PayPal: kobifox at zencavern dawt kawm
Anything else: Ask me. You know where.

ALL RIGHT LET'S DO THE THING WITH THE OTHER THING!
(This is the part where I go, "oh god, what have I done?!")

I never thought I'd live to see the day! Okay, that's a lie.

Furry x 60, Round 2
organized by Kurrel the Raven.

60 songs, 60 seconds each, from furries all over the Internet, representing a wide variety of genres, including pop, rap, avant-garde, techno, novelty, and orchestral music.

And don't forget, I'm in there, with my song, "Ubuwimi", along with music by several other very talented furry musicians.

You pay no shipping fees! No sales tax! No blunt force head trauma! What a deal! Operators are standing by the Kwik Trip station, breaking all the loitering laws!

Something a little different: Scenery! This is the front desk at Carl's shop.

I have to wonder, if only one head sees something, do the other heads still know about it? Questions like that keep me up all night. That and the Banana Boat Song.

Al and Beelzebub take a trip to the water park, and Al tries to encourage Beelz to loosen up a bit. Also, because nature abhors a vacuum, here's Brian in a fedora and a random chicken.

Remember my parody song, Jeremy the Ninja? If you don't, click the link and familiarize yourself. Anyway, today is the day it makes its glorious appearance as part of the FuMP Sideshow.

A little explanation: The FuMP (short for The Funny Music Project) is a site where some of the biggest (not just in fame :)) artists in underground novelty music release new and previously unreleased stuff to the public under Creative Commons licensing. The main project is an invite-only affair, but they also feature a side project where anyone can submit music. And there you have it.

Oh, and I might as well include some new art while I'm at it:

You may already know that I've been thinking about reopening commissions in the near future. Right now it's all a matter of ironing out the terms and conditions. As any reputable artists knows, it's absolutely crucial to have a clear set of standards for themselves and their clients to abide by. The last time I had commissions open, my standards were a bit…lacking. I basically just had "this much for a sketch, this much for inks, this much for colors" and nothing else. It was a very naive and ill-informed system.

One of the reasons I've kept commissions closed for so long is because I didn't want to leave something out of the Terms and Conditions and end up getting burned later. I also don't want commissioners saying "Well, if I'd known you were going to do that…" I wanted to make sure that the next time around, I did it right.

So what sort of things do I need to consider? There are the obvious things like how much to charge, what I will and won't draw, but what about the less obvious things? The things most novice artists don't think about until after they've taken a commission. And how do you take on those issues? How do you decide how much a piece is worth? What is your typical payment schedule? How do you deal with difficult commissioners? Where is a good place to go to get these questions answered?

Even though I'm asking this mostly for myself, I also hope maybe this way I can help other artists who are starting out in the business to have all their bases covered.

Thanks!

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

Words from akelavincent:

original–Really? Me? Aww, you flatter me! I've always been a weird person. I blame my brain. I also blame Monty Python, Mel Brooks, Weird Al Yankovic, Jimi Hendrix, Albert Einstein, etc. for daring to try things that only they took seriously. I could try to be the next Hendrix or Sinatra or Zappa, but nobody I've seen who's tried to be the next something or other has really fulfilled that ambition. If, say, I tried to be the next Jimi Hendrix, I couldn't do it. Even if I could, even if I could perfectly imitate all the mannerisms and the writing style, what would it matter? There's already been a Hendrix; the world isn't going to accept another one. None of the legends we look up to today became legends by trying to be the next something. I think the greatest homage we can pay to them is to be ourselves. Also, having a unique style makes your work hard to plagiarize, and you're less likely to accidentally steal someone else's work (it happens!).

Cerberus–This might be a bit too weird a topic for some people. I have this strange fascination with multiplicity. Characters with greater than the usual number of limbs, heads, even entire bodies. I picture a character like Cerberus, who as we all know has three heads attached to one body, each head with its own senses, its own thoughts, its own memories, and yet all combined into a single identity, a single consciousness, and I wonder how that could possibly work. It's a bit more than I can wrap my head around. But it sort of ties into my belief in the collective subconscious, that there are thoughts, ideas, and experiences that no one person or group can lay claim to, that people share without even realizing it. The other thing–which I think is obvious–is that dogs already make for great entertainment, so a three-headed dog? That's a goldmine.

multi-talented–You know me. I have to be good at everything. I just hate the idea of being tied down to a single occupation when there's so much other stuff I want to do and do well. That, and I'm a stubborn megalomaniac who absolutely must do everything himself, his way. If I'm gonna be making an album, I have to write all the music, sing all the vocals, play all the instruments, do all the post-production work, and draw the cover art. The way I see it, there are few skills not worth learning, and in this economy, you have to diversify. Okay, maybe that sounds a bit too dour. Anyway, most of my talents are in the arts, and I just sort of bunch everything up into a single artistic discipline. Later it becomes a philosophy, and eventually a business. I like to refer to it using a phrase from the Hitchhiker's Guide: "The Whole Sort Of General Mish Mash". Does that sound egotistical or what?

humor–I'd say there are only two ways to really make it in the furry fandom: be funny or draw porn. Okay, you can also do hyperrealistic clean stuff like Dark Natasha and Goldenwolf, but that's a rare skill that takes decades of intense training to master, and I'm too damn lazy to bother. So I became a joker. Have been for years. It's funny, this is something I never thought I'd be known for, but it's something I just can't stay away from. Now, I don't think I'm not a good satirist, and I don't believe I can save the world with a joke, but if I can give a little bit of amusement to the people who actually do the world-saving, I'll be happy. Humor is about having an open mind to the unexpected and the unknown, and it's about getting through times when the only alternative is dying of worry and misery. To laugh is to hope. My style is usually to deliver lines with a smug bastard grin. People also tell me I'm good at irony. In fact, I'm so good at irony, I don't even know what irony is.

wordsmith–This word usually makes people think of poetry or novel-writing. Well, I've never written a novel, and it's been a long time since I've actually written a "poem", but I have written song lyrics, and a couple of fake radio commercials. I love writing lyrics as much as I love writing music. I love using unusual rhyming words, rhyme schemes, triple rhymes, alliteration, metaphor and metonymy, just plain weird word combinations, and a bunch of other devices I can't really describe. My influences are about as eclectic as you can get, from Shel Silverstein to Stephen Sondheim to Eminem. That's not a typo. Of all the lyrics I've written, I think the lyrics of Stunt Gospel are some of my best. Tongue-in-cheek, somewhat ambiguous, just the way I like it.

aM Laboratory's Tone Matrix

This was featured as Fur Affinity's Link of the Day yesterday. It's a combination of a 16-step sequencer with an animated water effect and a simple sine wave synthesizer, built on the pentatonic scale. You have to see it. It's a simple, addictive toy. The best thing is, you can copy and paste patterns into it. These are some that I've made:

8226,260,16448,1032,2048,4628,1026,35072,65928,328 00,1028,33056,8258,4096,65570,34834

1284,2184,17408,544,10256,1056,4744,2064,1536,1670 8,2064,1056,66628,2056,33792,162

590,656,478,0,414,586,388,0,448,512,960,0,896,18496,21696,9216

66832,3076,8256,66592,1288,2112,66576,39428,64,66592,1032,2624,66580,1088,66178,3104

18464,128,37888,65600,16400,512,37888,65544,18436,128,37888,65538,16388,512,37888,65552

76634,0,224,8688,25352,33284,33284,33284,33284,49668,24840,16368,8160,0,76634,0

40448,132,264,73728,0,22928,0,1024,64,9602,0,520,32,6784,256,8704

You know that "Chicks Dig Guys with Muzzles" t-shirt I have for sale over at RedBubble? Well, I bought one. And I have proof!

I love the quality of this shirt. This isn't some cheap iron-on; this is high-quality printing. And don't forget, this particular design comes in black-and-white and color.

I'm thinking I might also get "You Say Werewolf Like It's a Bad Thing". And so should you. And while you're at it, perhaps some other shirts from my collection.

A reworking of this design. I changed "Lycanthropy" to "Werewolf", because though "lycanthropy" sounds cool, I don't think very many people know what it means. "Werewolf" has much broader appeal.

This is a more than suitable torso accoutrement, whether you’re secretly lupine and loving it, or just a socially-conscious human-type who’s looking out for your shapeshifting friends.

Buy it at RedBubble now!

Brand spankin' new design! And just in time for…whatever it is you're doing.

"Chicks Dig Guys With Muzzles" in Color
"Chicks Dig Guys With Muzzles" in Black and White

I may have mentioned that I was thinking about opening up an account at RedBubble to sell t-shirts and things…

And then I looked at it again, to see if I still liked it…

I DID.

The shirts currently on sale:
• Zen Foxes
• Chameleon Circle
• Canis Lupus
• Sprinkles the Epileptic Shar-Pei for President!

There will be more in the future, so keep your eyes open.

Also, if there are any other t-shirt colors you prefer, let me know.

I've done the unthinkable, the unconscionable, the indigestible.

I got an account at fuckin' twitter.

One of the reasons I've been posting so little on LJ is that I have fleeting thoughts now and then, but I can never remember enough of them to necessitate a whole LJ post. I think Twitter might be just the thing to fill that niche.

Somewhere my inner curmudgeon is throwing a shrieking tantrum.

Today, another thing that took way too long is finally done.

This is for _wastrel. Thank you for your patience.

Every year, the U.S. government hands out billions of dollars in grants, loans, and other social service expenditures. Some of these are well-known, such as Medicare, Social Security, College Pell Grants, and the War That Just Will Not Fucking End No Matter Who Is In Charge Of It. But there are other, more obscure benefits that very few people are aware they may be eligible for. Here's a sample:

Did you recently lose an eye in a bocce ball accident in a National Park? You may be entitled to disability payments, contingent upon retrieval of said ball and number of points accumulated.

Do you own a two-headed Shiba Inu named Douglas Hathaway? You may be able to claim an Exotic (No, Really) Pet Exemption on your federal taxes.

Do you have a Vietnamese friend from high school who can play the Portuguese national anthem on a theremin while dangling from a Fremont's Poplar Tree? You may be eligible for a Friends of Obscenely Talented Minorities Grant (must have known friend for 25 years or 8 episodes of Good Times, whichever makes less sense).

Are you a suspension bridge? You may already be scheduled to receive stimulus payments that your state Governor is just sitting on.

Between June and March of 2005, did any of your chromosomes reside in a Federal Bedazzlement Area?

Do you spend more than 3/5 of your income on staple guns?

Are you a single mother with a birth mark in the shape of New Guinea? You may be eligible for a child college credit.

Do you have an ingrown toenail and are currently married to a bottle of Barq's root beer?

Within the last five years, have you been sexually assaulted by a cement mixer?

Are you from the moon? You may be entitled to a grant under the Lunar American Settlement Act of 1918.

Are you a disabled WWI veteran who can play the Maple Leaf Rag on the banjo with your tongue? You may be entitled to an interest-free loan under the Wow That's Cool act of 1920.

Is your small business a store that exclusively sells small statues of cats? You may be entitled to a loan under the Small Statues of Cats act of 1954.

Are you a gay muslim one-legged circus clown? You may me eligible for as much money as you want under the Oh My God Somebody Actually Claimed This Act.

Are you a figment of someone's imagination buying your first home? If so, let's pretend we gave you a million dollars toward it.

Conceived by threetails and me, inspired by this.

Pinnochio: Posessed puppet torments poor Italian wood carver.

The Jungle Book: Boy raised by wolves and educated by a bear assaults an endangered Bengal tiger.

A Christmas Carol: Successful financier suffers mental breakdown after night terror.

Cinderella: Servant girl convinces rich friend to help her defraud royalty.

A Tale of Two Cities: Man avoids execution by using a stunt double.

Yellow Submarine: British Sailors invade small country, overthrow government, and destroy native culture.

The Lion King: Clueless heir lets former henchmen kill his uncle, giving him plausible deniability.

Mary Poppins: Wealthy couple leaves their children in the care of a suspicious drifter.

Alice in Wonderland: Young girl experiments with psychoactive substances with no lasting consequences.

Plan 9 from Outer Space: A well-intended gift by random strangers goes over poorly.

I've been looking at this site for a while, and Threetails suggested I go ahead and get an account. Turns out there had already been a "Kobi LaCroix" artist page created, so I went ahead and claimed that.

SO YES.

There are a lot of things that I am just impossibly naive about. Things that everybody should know from birth, like writing out a check, driving a car, meeting up with friends, telling a joke, etc.

My slogan submissions on Threadless have all tanked. Either this is not my kind of crowd, or I just suck at making slogans. I've been noticing that my more recent submissions have started well in the voting and then suddenly tanked. I think it's possible that when I started out, I put up so many absolute stinkers that this ruined my reputation. Four or five votes in, my stuff is rated highly, then people see my name attached to it, and the approval ratings plummet. So yeah, my work with Threadless is over.

Apparently I'm nowhere near as funny or clever as I think I am. My comedic timing is off, my ideas are painfully awkward, laborious, and cliche, I take too long to make a point, and it's not even a good one. People know this and have been too polite to tell me, and I've been too solipsistic too figure it out on my own. I bore and infuriate people with theoretical knowledge I just pulled out of my ass and won't ever use. I infuriate people by grandstanding as an expert on things I've never done. I never do this in my journals, because at least then I keep in mind that actions outweigh words, and it annoys people to hear about ambitions they know you'll never follow and hypotheses they know you'll never test. I don't do this in my journals, but I do it everywhere else. I do it in conversation, I do it in the comments of my submissions, I do it in passive-agressive comments left here and there on the net. It's bold-faced hypocricy on my part, and I'm sorry. I should remember that just because it isn't in some official database of things I've said doesn't mean I didn't say it, and it doesn't mean it doesn't affect people when I say it.

I'm going to shut up now.