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straya

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Deleted out all my deviations and scraps. This site isn't what it used to be and can't be trusted anymore.

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Izumicon 2013

2 min read
...I have got to update this damn thing more often.

Okay, so...quick update.  I'm currently in full on work mode, pushing hard to get through as much art as possible before Izumicon, which starts the 1st of November this year in Oklahoma City.  As usual, I'll be in Artist Alley, selling prints, badges and doing commissions.  My fiance and I also finally got a button maker recently, so we'll have buttons to sell this year, as well!

As of right now, I'm working on three new pieces for the convention.  All of them are intended to be over-sized 11x17" prints (though I'll make them available as regular 8.5x11" prints as well).  I've got one of Spirit, Stein and Medusa from Soul Eater, a second featuring Rin and Yukio Okumura with Kuro from Blue Exorcist and, finally, an Attack on Titan illustration with the "Rogue Titan", Mikasa, Armin, Sasha, Jean and Connie.  If I have time, I might do a second Attack on Titan piece with Erwin, Hanji and Levi.  (I can't help myself, I absolutely love AoT.  It's got so many amazing characters in it.  Though if you'd like to comment here about the series, NO MANGA SPOILERS PLEASE!  Thank you!)

So yep.  I have achieved full on art mode and it feels good to be cranking hard on projects again.  I'll get things uploaded here in inks, color or both as they're completed!
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A fair amount's happened since my last journal entry.  Let's see how quickly I can sum it all up...

We finally had to put our oldest guinea pig, Sander, to sleep back in mid-May.  After he spent nine months and several vet visits battling a re-occurring lesion on his side and growing weaker the longer the fight was drawn out, I made the decision to let him go.  He was seven and a half years old.  Then, a month later, we brought two little guinea pig girls into our home to keep our remaining older pig company.  We named them Makani and Nalukea, and they are now sharing the big ten square foot C&C cage with old Chiridee.  The youngsters are energetic and shy, and do a lot of running about at the smallest of disturbances, but Chiridee tolerates them well and even shares her food without issue.

I finally had my old desktop checked after it crashed hard a few months ago and never came back up again out of BSoD territory.  I've been told the hard drive has failed and so did an attempted transfer of data onto an external drive I recently bought.  I didn't want to pay out a load of cash for data recovery, however, so I got everything back and will be looking for cheaper, better options over the next few months.  Whether or not I've just lost a good amount of my data remains to be seen.  In the meantime, I bought a new desktop to replace the old one and took things a couple steps up in terms of processing power and hard drive space.  I've also ordered an over-sized scanner/printer to round out my new set-up, since my previous scanner is so old there are no drivers out for my current operating system.  As is, I needed something that could handle 11"x17" bristol sheets, anyway.  All of this is WAY more new hardware than I ever intended to get at one time and it'll take me a some time to pay it all off, but getting art done and posted without it would have been close to impossible.  Something I can't really afford with a convention and a local art competition looming on the horizon.

My fiance is scheduled on the 16th for what we both hope and pray is his final surgery.  This will make it five surgeries in the last year and nine months.  It's been a long hard road, one I hope no one reading this EVER has to go through.  And no lie, I'm anxious about the upcoming operation.  But come what will, we'll do our best to get through it.

In the meantime, in between all that's been going on, I've managed to pick up my art tools again and do some sketching.  Unfortunately, without a working scanner I have nothing to show for it online (save for a few cell phone photographs here and there), but hopefully my new printer/scanner will be here soon and I'll finally be able to start posting art here again.  (I do have a tablet I use off and on for sketching, but on the whole I'm much more of a traditional pencil, paper and inks sort of artist.  I feel I do my best work that way.)

So...at this point it's a matter of pushing past my remaining tech issues and helping my fiance get through his last surgery in terms of hospital stay and overall recovery.  I'm a bit more hopeful than I was around the start of the year, something that I'd like as a continuing trend of improvement.  We'll see how it all goes.


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So this was originally a longer, more detailed entry, but after looking it over I felt it got a little too personal for a public post.

The short version is that there's been a lot of not-so-good things going on offline since my fiance's emergency surgery this last December.  I was diagnosed with a tendon related issue called de Quervain's tenosynovitis, which required two rounds of steroids, a shot to the tendon, a brace with metal splints and about six weeks worth of physical therapy to get over.  My desktop computer also suddenly BSoD'd into non-functionality, thus putting the final nail in the coffin on ReGenRex.  I was already struggling with the site before that happened due to previous RL issues, but that incident really finished it off for good.  My car recently took more hail damage (for the second time in a bit less than a year) and on Wednesday we're going to have to take one of our pets into the vet to be put to sleep.  He's been battling issues since last fall on and off, and recently those issues have really struck with a vengeance, leading our vet to believe cancer may be the problem.  Unfortunately, the little guy is so old at this point that his chances of surviving surgery and having a quality life after are not good.  It really is kind of a crushing blow after everything our family has been through since 2011 in terms of medical ordeals.

Life has basically been such that I haven't had the energy and the inspiration for art, not since November.  So aside from a couple of basic doodles that happened once or twice, I haven't really picked up any drawing tools in almost six months.  I also more or less cut myself off from a lot of my normal online haunts and it's only recently that I've stared coming back to check them with frequency, DA included.  Normally I try not to let RL issues get to me so much that my art and hobbies end up suffering, but I think at this point I'm just completely worn out after everything that's gone on.  What fight I have left has been reserved for just trying to get by, basically, especially given my night shift job is still demanding 10-11 hours a day, 5 days a week from me.

I do want to get things back to the way they were before and I am making the attempt to get my life in that direction, but it may take a bit of time.  There are still complications on the road ahead that need to be dealt with.  In the long run, though, hopefully I'll have some degree of normalcy back so I'll feel like I'm living again, not just existing.
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...but the last month or so has been absolutely insane.  Halloween wasn't too bad, but I had an artist alley table at Izumicon 2012 over November 9-11 and that required my undivided attention for a while in terms of prep.  I cranked out a few new art pieces and, in the end, my hard work paid off.  Izumi 2012 was our best year at that convention ever in terms of sales!  

Following that, of course, was Thanksgiving.  My job continued to hammer me with overtime throughout the month, requiring me to be at work 10-11 hours a day on average, then my fiance went in for planned surgery on the 26th.  It was supposed to be the third and final surgery to finish off what was started with an emergency surgery that occurred last September.  Unfortunately...that didn't turn out to be the case.

This last Thursday, I was called home from work and ended up taking my guy down to the local ER.  Something had gone wrong post-final surgery, bad enough that he was admitted almost immediately for yet another emergency surgery.  This is his fourth in less than a year and a half, and I'd be lying if I said this wasn't incredibly hard on him in all regards.  It's been difficult for me on an emotional level; I've been incredibly stressed these last couple of weeks and it all really seemed to hit a high point early Friday morning when he was wheeled out of surgery admitting and into the operating room once more.  He's still in the hospital as I write this, trying to recover enough so he can come home again.

One of the things I really let lapse over the last month or so was ReGenRex...  I'm really trying to get back on it now, though, since all this insanity with my fiance's surgeries has reminded me of one of the personal reasons I wanted to get involved with it in the first place.  I had family, friends and faith to help get me through the rough time that was my fiance's first surgery last September, something that was a real shock and reduced me to tears several times in the following few days.  One of the things that really helped distract me and keep me sane during those difficult times, though, was re-watching episodes of Generator Rex and working on GR fandom related projects.  It cemented my love and loyalty in regards to GR, so when the show went off the air before season 3 even finished, I wanted to do something to help get it back.  With everything that's going on now, I knew I had to pick up the pace again, at least a little while longer.

I'm also going to try and get some art pieces posted here soon, though exactly when I'm not sure.  We'll see how things go.  Right now I'm playing it by ear and just doing what I can.
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Featured

Izumicon 2013 by straya, journal

Clawing my way back out of a rut... by straya, journal

The last five months... by straya, journal

Apologies for the lack of updates... by straya, journal

Commission pimpage! by straya, journal