I think Raskal may not be long for this world...

Raskal was found as a 2 week old orphan kitten, he is the first kitten I ever bottle raised and he and I formed a bond more indicative to that of a person and a dog than a person and a cat. He is incredibly smart and personable and I refer to him as "my boy"
The look in his eyes, the way he greets me, the way he meows when he cannot find me, just everything about his nature makes me feel so on the same level as him, our bond goes deep. Of all the cats I have had he and Creampuff are the most bonded I have ever been.



I am 27 years old, Raskal has been in my life since I was 12
The average lifespan of a cat is 14
Raskal is 16



Up until recently he as always been this big, buff burly cat... but he has been slowly going downhill, and I know age is catching up to him.
Sitting with him just now... studying him... I just have a bad feeling.


So on top of all the things that have been helter skelter in my life... I may soon loose Raskal to time's hands.

I wanted to get the pronghorn done before I left town this weekend but thanks to three days of stress and lack of sleep that is not happening.

The body should be sewn and the head skin attached to the frame by now, I should be in the process of airbrushing and installing eyes by now... but none of the above is done.

Why?

It is amazing how demotivated work becomes when stress and sleep are an issue, and even if I can pull myself up and actually work the results are just sub-standard and I make dumb mistakes like wrong fur direction and cutting out 2 left hands.

Fursuit building is more than just a job, it is a state of mind. There are things you can "robot" through like machine sewing things that are pinned/based together... but any kind of sculpting, assembling or detail work HAS to be done when you feel up to it.

My customers have thankfully all been very understanding and I do not feel pressured by them, which I am very grateful for... but when work does not get done it is, for me, a moral and financial issue, I feel bad having people wait and my cash flow is getting very stagnant.

But my muse just up and dies under stress and I know better than to force her...

I am on our old slow ass clunker of a 2007 computer in the back room to type this
my main computer is on the fritz

It is getting old so its issues were not worrying me TOO much... sometimes it will simply freeze/ the screen will glitch and freeze upon a first start up, turn it off via button on the tower, turn it on, click run windows as normal and it works fine the rest of the day on the second start up.

today though it did the screen glitch freeze twice and then on the third time while I was online the screen went randomly black and then I got a blue screen wall of text that closed before I could even register what the first line said but I think it said shutting down to protect the computer, which it did turn off and then the tower started beeping
NEITHER of that has ever happened to me before in my 15+ years of having a computer O________o
it would not stop beeping till I unplugged it

it is still sitting, turned off, haunting me as I realise I only got about half the memory unloaded onto my new/first ever external hard drive and some important stuff is trapped on that computer...
I also wonder just how the **** I am going to afford to get a new one if this thing just died on me.

shit... just... shit...

almost 2:30 am, back from the vet after 3 hours... with no dog.

many emergencies in front of us and when they got to us bad news

they have to put the dog under to get the foxtail barb out of her mouth and then check her throat for more


they have to do the procedure and then wait 4 hours for the anesthesia to wear off... and they are busy so no telling when the procedure will even start.
and anesthesia is always risky, we even had to sign a thing about CPR/life saving procedures should something go wrong...


Kiry is my sister post traumatic stress therapy dog, she is a fully certified service dog, she stays by my sister's side almost 24/7... this is the dog she got after tragically loosing all four of her previous dogs, along with her boyfriend, to a speeding drunk almost exactly 10 months ago when she alongside them were hit while in the cross walk.


My sister is having a full blown panic attack, fearing the dog may die... it absolutely tears me apart to see her like this... I feel sick, this is just too much, to damn much.

why, why does stuff keep happening to my sister like this, why is she made to hurt so much.



Don't know what a foxtail is? Its this fucking evil plant with burrowing barbed seeds that can kill dogs [link]



EDIT: 5:30am home with dog, going to bed now...
I never want to go through something like this again :C
stress is gonna kill me and my sister one of these days

My mother has sacrificed and done so much for us.
She raised us alone from the ages of six and nine, any single parent can vouch it is not an easy job especially after the emotional drain of a divorce.
When she went through breast cancer she still cared for our every need despite the fact she should have had someone caring for her.
She says that had we not needed her she would not have had the surgery and chemotherapy when she got cancer, and would have let nature take its course... except we needed her.
To this day we still live together and she still cares for us, without her taking care of the laundry, bills, shopping and cleaning I would have even less time to work.

She never hit us or used any kind of aggressive or physical punishment. Our mom has gone out of her way to provide for us, to be sure we are comfortable, that we have what we need, to protect us, our mom is like a lion with her cubs... to upset her concerning our well being is to walk into a lion's den.
 
Money has always been tight, spending most of our lives right on the edge of the poverty line, but she made sure we did not go without, often having herself go without so we could partake, and despite money concerns my mom at times downright spoiled us; for example we have always had tons of pets, and once came home raving about this adorable puppy at the pet store and were trying to figure out how to raise the money to buy her... next day we come home and there is a surprise in the back yard... our fluffy, and now 14 year old, chihuahua Pixie.

She gave us such freedom growing up, let us be kids, minimal responsibility, minimal rules, just enough of both to shape us into well-rounded caring people; good grades were encouraged but not pressured, extra curricular activities were sampled but never forced.

Where some people fear their mother's opinion or hide things from their mothers I never did/do with mine: for example whereas some people fear revealing to their families that they are not heterosexual mine encouraged me from my early teens to find love regardless of gender. Even the whole furry fandom thing, some people are so afraid of their parents finding out they take interest in it because of that CSI episode and stuff... pfft she just told me to be careful.

She has supported my arts and crafts all my life, she bought all the supplies I need, gave me time to create, praised and encouraged me, she even paid for conventions and events I wanted to wear my costumes to.

Without the freedom my mother gave me growing up... I would not be the happy successful business owner/fursuit maker I am today.

My mother is in the process of transferring ownership of her home over to me... and everything else she owns, the van, the car (both of which we already use freely) what is left of her savings account (may not be much considering how scary my sister's unsettled medical expenses are getting) everything in the house, everything she owns... I have seen her will, she is leaving everything she owns to me and my sister, and even before that time comes she will have given us the house she has lived in long before either of us was born... our very dear home, which we love so much, gets to belong to us forever and ever. Our home is old but big, with a half acre of land, built almost like a duplex, my sister and I can easily live here together forever, even if we both start families.
...Everything that is hers is also ours.

Our mom would give us the world if she could, and in many ways she already has.
Of the people, no of everything in this world, I love my mother and my sister more than anything. We plan to live together, to support each other, protect each other, and love each other, for however long our lives last.

That moment when you forget you left your monster makers dummy head [link] on the sewing table and then walk in there while the room is dimly lit and get startled

when you refer to parts of your house as "the sewing room" and "the fur room" you know you have a fursuit business (multiple storage areas too, i also have "the box shed")

finding fuzz in your fridge (I guess when I put the milk away I held it against my tummy and my clothes had black fur on them)

neon dust bunnies breeding under the couch

I loose my scissors all the time, usually while using them, and usually it turns out I am sitting on them as they slid under my butt-pillow

organized mess: if anyone "cleans up" I cannot find a gawd damn thing

shopping list frequently includes thread and needles

wondering what other people think your duct tape dummies are, seriously, the bent over quadsuit ones especially

your attention is immediately drawn to any mascot or costume in a show or real life, I was watching a brain teaser program about noticing your surroundings or some shit, where this guy is talking and a crowd is moving around behind him and after he asks if you saw the bear and the lion while he was talking and I am like "DUH" but then again of course I saw those costumes behind him.

I jumped once at a furniture store sign, split second stupid me just saw fur and wondered if it was a fur fabric shop derp herp derp

any new fabric store you find you HAVE to check for fur

you look at fur pillows and stuffed animals often wondering "why the fluck can I not find this fur in yardage to buy"

weird conversations in your house
"I lost my head again"
"lets see how many bodies we can fit in this bag" (packing for a con)
"has anyone seen my feet"

The Fluttershy inspired semi-real pony Quadsuit I am working on

SO MUCH MORE TROUBLE THAN SHE IS WORTH

I'd like to consider myself skilled at making fursuits after being in business making them for 5 years... but my muse just hates this suit for some reason, it just did not come out right at all, I have not fallen on my face this hard making a suit in years... and even though it looks a bit better on my smaller niece it is still not right, which is so upsetting, very rare fur I cannot get again thus no chance at a remake, this was something important for my sister and even if it debuts it will not be her suit as planned.

Gawd at this rate she is just gonna go into a place I shall dub "the corner of shame" and there she shall live .__.
I could try to sell her but I do not want to sell something I consider sub-par, not only is she not looking right but I cut some corners quality wise that I would never do with a suit for sale.

I have not given up yet but so far I feel this project has been nothing but stress and a waste of resources.

Just a wee bit frustrated tonight as I tried to tweak her again...

at least I had a good day concerning commission work, the suit I need to mail by Monday is 95% done now... but f*** I just had to finish off the day by trying to tweak this pony quad and put myself into a mental hole again

F*** this pony quadsuit





EDIT

ya know what

she is going into storage for now

I am gonna quit trying to get her done for Fanime and just let it sit

maybe a few months from now, maybe a year from now, whatever road block is in my head will get out of the way and I can make this work.

For now I am so done stressing over her, I need to focus on other things

I just FELL SO BAD I HYPED HER ALREADY FOR YOU GUYS and now you won't see her for a long time, if at all....

We just had the head and front legs done when we did the video and had no idea how funked up the rest would turn out :<

(lol it is after 12am so it is "today" but AFTER I go to bed and wake up lol)

Gonna drive up and sample a new furry con today


Back in 2008 I sampled FURther CONfusion, a 5 day event. My first visit was just a sample, just a day trip, 2 hour drive there, 8 hours there, 2 hour drive home...
Stayed over night every year since then.


Lets hope this con is fun and successful and thus becomes a permanent part of the list of events I attend.

It may not do well and dry up and die, like some first time events I have attended. But then again look at how far Sac-Anime has come in its 10ish years: I still remember attending what I believe was its first event, held at freaken Sunrise Mall, just a handful of nerds dorking around a mall including me as Ryo-Oki... now it has the Downtown Sacramento Convention Center hosted by an adjacent fancy smancy hotel just a stone's throw away from the capital of California.

I feel the need to address this since I know for a fact folks unwatched me 2 years ago when I went through a bout of posting massive Zelda stuffs:

I am still making fursuits, I have a personal project and 3 different customer orders all in the works at the same time. I have a customer suit to debut soon and a small personal project to debut at Fanime.

After a day of fursuit work I allow myself a few hours of down time before bed, normally it is TV or game time but lately it has been creating Zelda stuffs - so what I have been posting is not taking time from fursuit work. Drawings get done a hell of a lot faster than fursuits, hence why there have been so many drawings lately.

If you watch me for fursuits then stick around, more are on the way, I am still working, I am just letting my other creative juices flow in my free time vs being a zombie watching TV.


I have a suit to debut by the end of the day, those that are rolling eyes at all my Zelda fanworks will be happy to see a fursuit in their inbox.

$56.68 - 1.5 Yards fake fur
$5.05 - tax
$10.44 - shipping

$73.17 Order Total


Shit man, and this fur is just for the lower arms and digigrade legs of the next suit I am working on... and this may not even be enough fur for the job.
$73.17 does not even buy enough fur for this entire project, let a lone the cost of the foam, stuffing, thread, eyeblanks (I buy the super nice acrylic ones... the super nice expensive acrylic ones) clay, glue, zipper, etc (and this one has airbrushing, horns, hooves and a mane of hair too)

And then there are start up costs like a glue gun, storage racks, air brush unit and a sewing machine (namely the machine/airbrush, either way good ones will be $500+)

Fursuits are not cheap nor easy to produce... and they take lots of time and skill, and really the biggest thing you pay for when purchasing a good fursuit is time and skill.

Fursuits take hundreds of dollars in material and hundreds of hours in time to build, and behind each well built suit is a person who went through years of practice to perfect their natural talent in creating them.
Considering all this it is easy to see why in some cases heads alone can go for $1000 from reputable skilled makers.

Fanime hotel room wait list I was not holding my breath with you but in the end you came through for me

our room problem is solved

well I am a huge derp
seems that so called Hilton room I have for Thurs-Mon is a Double Tree Hilton room... as in 4 miles away .__. uh yeah crap in my panic I guess I failed to see that, I also DO NOT recall the name Hilton ever being anything but in the name of the plain old Hilton at the other end of the con center, I swear before it was JUST Double Tree...

SO I did get one king room for the Marriott upgraded to Thurs-Mon and thought I was squared away, that I would cancel the remaining Fri-Sun room and would just have the other half of our group in the Hilton a 5 min walk away... now they are a shuttle bus away CRAAAAAAAAP

Does anyone have a room with arrival Thursday or Friday with departure Monday that they plan to cancel? This can be for any of the 4 hotels right by the con center, the Hilton, the one across the road from the Hilton, the Marriott or the one across the corner from the Marriott. If yes please let me know... Heck we MIGHT even settle for the Fairmont...

The last day to cancel is the 26th so time is utterly too short.



PS this room stress is maddening, considering the tragedy of last year we really were looking forward to this con more than ever, and despite my preparations to be sure this did not happen it happened anyway. This room stress is so not what we needed...

ya might want to attend this [link]

well I have a lot to do, and I feel a bit odd taking folks even if they know the wait would be so long...
but I need some cash flow this year so...

considering I pick and choose what designs to do, overlooking common species choices and simple things thus leaving so many folks in the dust....

So I had an idea, hows about I hold an auction for an anything you want commission slot, any design unless it is copyrighted or considered adults only.

So if you want a fox or a husky or something I otherwise am likely to overlook this would be your chance.

The winning bid would determine what you can get from my usual prices, as in if you win at $900 you are getting a head and maybe paws or a tail not a fullsuit. You can buy into more than your winning bid to get exactly what you want.

I am hoping to do this soon considering it is tax return season and people (who are not self employed, I owed money) tend to have some extra cash this time of year.

the starting bid would be $600 and this is also the down payment (the rest would need to be payed in full within 6 months)

I think I will actually use ebay for this, keep it official and open to visitors of my site, here and FA vs a journal comment auction (I feel like some folks don't like those because unlike ebay you are not anonymous)


what do you guys think of this idea?

Today I learned that long-set plans for the weekend may be up in smoke. Our plans already had an inkling of "is it really worth doing" ya know that little element of annoyance/inconvenience that almost makes you want to just skip it even though it otherwise would be fun.... and well now even more fun has been sucked out of our plans making things downright inconvenient so we may end up abandoning our attempt to even have fun...
which sucks

also my day started off bad by me being plagued with an upset stomach 3 hours before I normally get up, l ended up just getting out of bed since sleeping is not an option when you are that uncomfortable... and so thanks to my gut I am pretty shitfaced tired today meaning work is gonna be hard.... if work even happens at all....

oh and yesterday was tax day, I am out $650 now.... yay, just what I need when money is already feeling so tight/scary
And yesterday was wasted work wise with the tax appointment and shopping done for supplies and life-needs afterwards, leaving me getting home rather late and then I had to make dinner...



So..
uh


POOPIE DAY IS POOPIE


Edit: just needed to vent and get that out of my head, namely on the weekend thing since I am kinda pissed :/
I know way worse could be wrong with my life (trust me, I know that far, FAR too well considering the tragedy last year...)

So thanks to no fault of my own I got screwed out of what I needed for Fanime housing

(I was there 20 minutes before the site launched along with the housing, refreshing like mad to be sure I nailed rooms as soon as they opened, knowing what I need sells out in mere minutes, the site opens but the link to housing takes me to last year's closed page... okay, a glitch, I keep refreshing waiting for them to fix it, I get worried, I check their facebook and I see nothing... I keep refreshing, I panic a bit, I remember they have a twitter, EGADS A WORKING LINK! 16 minutes after opening and what I need is SOLD OUT!)

I needed 2 rooms in the Marriott, 2 beds each room (a double and a king being acceptable) check in Thursday, check out Monday

I got 2 rooms in the Marriott... check in Friday and check out Sunday
...crap, on the year where Fanime matters to us more than ever I get to have this happen.


I am here really really hoping someone out there has a room they plan to drop before the deadline of April 26 (after of which you get charged 1 nights stay)

At the very least I would need one Marriott room from Friday to Monday
best case scenario I would get exactly what I needed, that being 2 rooms with 2 beds each in the Marriott from Thursday to Monday.

If anyone has any room in the Marriott, be it king or double, Friday-Monday or Thursday-Monday, which they plan to drop, please let me know. Instead of dropping the room you can transfer it to me, it is really easy (I did so for a friend last year)

I have three muses within my head, art, writing and costume.

When my muses get fired up I like have to listen, my head almost hurts if I ignore the urge to create under the guise of whichever muse is awake, I get so distracted from all tasks when I ignore my muse that I get frustrated and angry, and once I finally listen to my muse I become fully absorbed by what she wants me to do.
Luckily the muse who leads my fursuit work is very dominant, meaning I get plenty of customer work done...

but now my writing muse is kicking the back of my brain and I am loosing the battle of ignoring her X_X

my brain is on fire with fanfic stuffs X_X jeebus make it stop, this muse has been dead for so long and then somehow she got some caffeine!

So
It is 1 am and thundering outside

After the incident this summer my sister and I were both shell shocked, loud noises bothered us both A LOT we related it to the sound of the car smashing through the stop sign on the other side of the four way intersection seconds before everything we knew changed forever.

Point is not long after my sister came home from the hospital we had a thunder storm... the noise rattled me and it upset my sister so bad I had to crawl into her recovery bed and hold her, each rumble made her squeal and then hold me tighter as she would cry into my shoulder... it broke my heart really.

Before the incident we both loved thunder, especially me, the louder it boomed the more exciting and wondrous it was.
But that thunderstorm last summer was nothing but terror on our post traumatic stress.


I am happy to say I can enjoy the wonder of nature known as thunder again... I sit here as the storm grows closer before BOOM RUMBLE CRASH it is right over our house cracking the sky and producing a sound I cannot believe can come from the clouds as it shakes the windows.

But I still cannot say the same for my sister, as I sit here on my computer a new email rolls in, a text from her phone as she lays in her bedroom.
"fracking thunder GO AWAY"

Well at least I can love thunder again.

I lack the time to make a few normal clothes type cosplays I need in the nearish future... and to be honest lack the skill to make normal clothes type cosplays (I can turn my sister into an Arcaine but making her a dress is like uh no)

I need the following

Last Unicorn:
Molly Grue's whole outfit, with or without a cloak
schmendrick's whole outfit, with or without a cloak
needed in a month
can be inspired by vs copies of the film since our unicorn is not exact to the film
can also be simplified due to time restraints, modifying existing items would be okay too (like finding a skirt for Molly)

Ouron Host Club:
Renge's dress (the one available online is just so ehhh looking)
Nekozawa's black cloak
needed in 2 months
EDIT: found the dress, it has been a few weeks since I searched for Renge cosplays for purchase online and to my shock a new one is up, one with a better bow and a much better yellow fabric choice (the first used a shiny fabric with a hint of green, ick)

it would be great to have someone do all 4 but I am more than willing to split this up between 2-4 people as well.

If you think you can help me please show me examples of your work and what cost you are thinking.

[link]