Just a note to tell that I won't be at Eurofurence, having just lost my job and being in the process of moving. I was hoping to meet a few people there but that'll have to be next year...

Thought I'd point out this entry by  chrisgoodwin because it is very good advice.

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/634571/

In the last months I've been doing a "full immersion" kind of study of coloring (and other things) because I really suck at it and I do too many things at random. That in turn led to discovering other things I want to improve, and some very interesting sites listed below. While ConceptArt is good for reading critique and theory there is not much information there on how to actually *do* stuff, as the users are mostly art students who are already learning the skills in their schools. These blogs and sites are interesting because they are not just showcases of the author's work, they are strongly geared towards teaching practical things.

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/ - Daily blog about the technique of cartooning and comics. The author has some odd opinions sometimes, but he knows very well what he is writing about and he explains things very clearly. The blog is a gold mine of information on composition, character design and many other topics.

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/ - Blog of the author of the Dinotopia books. This one is about realistic drawing/painting techniques. Less dense than the John K blog but teaches a lot about composition, use of light, coloring and painting tools. Also many interesting posts with analisys of paintings of the past and explainations of the underlying techniques.

http://www.huevaluechroma.com/ - Introduction to color theory and different ways of describing color properties. I found it illuminating because the explaination is very logical, and it also explains some basic things about photorealism and accurate color mixing.

http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/ - Tons of information about art paints and color theory. This site looks scary because the amount of information it gives is overwhelming, and not all of it is useful, but I suggest reading at least the "palette" and "technique" parts, especially the sub-sections "a basic palette", "palette paintings" and "learning color through paints". It explains criteria for choosing the paints to buy, color mixing, exercises to learn to control the paint, etc. Most important it explains clearly why it is useful to choose a limited palette and stick mostly with it, something I never quite understood from other tutorials. The site is about watercolors but many concepts apply to acrylic and oils too.

http://www.posemaniacs.com/ - Thousands of human poses free to use for reference, requires Flash but the models can even be rotated! Be sure to check the training tools, like the one for speed sketching: http://www.posemaniacs.com/?pagename=thirtysecond

A big hug and thank you to the people I met there, that was quite an experience and I'm looking forward to attend more cons! I had no idea of what to expect from them but it's great fun. ^_^
Unfortunately I didn't manage to meet many people as my trip was really rushed and poorly organized. -_- Next year I'll make sure to plan a long time ahead and to find a place at the main hotel - and I'll make pictures for the art show as well.

Seeing the art show from real was very useful as some pictures looked quite different from the scans. I expected many of the pictures to be A3 or bigger (most of my pictures are A3) and it was quite surprising to find that many popular pieces are A4 or even smaller. I'm impressed by the extremely tiny details in the works of Blotch, Dark Natasha, Bloodhound Omega, Nimrais and others, some looked like they were done with a lens. I need to learn how to use the smaller brushes. ^_^

I will be to Eurofurence this year, I'll be there on friday afternoon
and saturday (I'll be staying in another hotel). I won't have art in the
exhibition because I wasn't sure to get vacations until it was a bit too
late for that, this time I just want to have fun and see how conventions
and convention sales/exhibitions work since this will be my first one. I
have been to many comics conventions but I suspect furry ones are quite
different.

Opening commissions again now, 2 slots:
http://www.snowcovered.it/gallery_p.....mmissions.html

I want to say am sorry for the silly behavior I have kept about commissions during 2007 and the long time it took me to complete them, and I am sorry for talking about them as if they were something annoying. It is great that people are actually willing to show my art in their homes and this is a good moment to do art for them. Now I'm settled better and much more at ease with regular work. I'm still working with rather long hours, which is why I have been so unresponsive last year, but I've shrugged off the boredom which was kind of settling in with drawing and since I started painting I'm having a lot of fun again with art. There are many things I want to improve in my art right now, and there are so many things to learn and experiment about painting that I'm not running out of things to try anytime soon.

Thinking back about it, what happened to me when I started working last year is scary. I had never done any real work before ending studies and for a few months I went through a very strong rejection for it, in spite of the work being rather cutting edge and interesting (I'm developing video editing/processing software for the movie industry), and probably one of the best works that a new CS graduate could get in my country at the moment, with the economical and political situation being utter crap. I was on the brink of leaving it for no reason at all other than twisted brain fapping - and appearently, judging from what I read on the net in journals etc., I would have been in good company doing so. I wonder where this problem came from...

Looks like the size of my pictures has been increasing steadily with time. When I began drawing I was afraid to use any sheet larger than A5 (15x21 cm, 5x8 in) because it looked too intimidating to fill larger sheets, then for about 5 years I used almost exclusively A4, then mostly A3 for a few years... now the size is increasing faster. The biggest painting I did so far is "Meal with friends" at 40x60 cm, but most of the paintings I have in the work right now are 50x70 cm (19x27 in) or larger, and there's even an idea I really like which, if ever painted, MUST be done 1x1.5 metres or larger in order to make sense. The size of paper for watercolors etc. is increasing too.

I don't care/want to draw a line between "clean" pictures and erotica because it wouldn't be possible for me: there is nudity in 80-90% of my ideas including the ones which qualify as fully "clean". Besides, I am still convinced that anthro erotica can and will be appreciated outside of the fandom too if done properly. So I'll likely end up doing large erotic paintings too.

Long story short I was wondering:
- Do you have any furry erotic art in a public part of your house, e.g. living room?
- How much large it is?
- How much explicit it is?
- Would you hang a large and well crafted furry painting which is definitely erotic, in a visible place? Think of something like Kacey's http://www.furaffinity.net/view/846671/ or Dark Natasha'shttp://www.furaffinity.net/view/796683/ but scaled up to 50x70 cm or larger.

If you have erotica in visible paces feel free to post links to the pictures to give an idea of how much explicit they are, I'd really like to get a small overview of what is considered more or less acceptable. Negative answers won't affect my decision to do large erotic paintings, I am going to do them anyway, but I'd like to know what it is that furry art lovers actually show in their homes, as opposed to what the artists think it is right to draw.

In the furry fandom today there seem to be many people who are trying to become professional visual artists, either by studying at some art college, trying to get into the animation/comics industry, or trying to get freelance work. That's the impression I get from the popular blogs and forums, though probably only a few artists are actually trying to make it their main work.

I was wondering though how many furry fans/artists currently at university are taking veterinary medicine, biology, or other nature science degrees (or already have one). I only know of two or three. I hope that some artists are currently taking them because if all are busy drawing we might eventually run out of the "less visual" ideas.

I haven't been taking commissions since a few years but now I feel it's the time again...
http://www.snowcovered.it/gallery_p.....mmissions.html

Sorry for the previous post, it was a silly rant. I'm just pissed off because yet again a lot of time is wasted on drama.
I wonder if there will ever be a furry archive where people can live and let live in a civil way...