Hey everybody!

Hope you're all doing well. It's been a while, huh? I haven't been the most proactive person on this site, have I? Well, that probably won't change much, but I can at least *try* to make the effort to update stuff a little more frequently. Starting with a new journal update! The first one since...2021!? Where did the time go!?

So what has happened since 2021? Where have I been? Well if you've been following me you know that I have been spending a lot more time over on Bluesky (chromakoros.bsky.social, go check it out if you haven't yet ;P) and I killed my twitter account. But that's all social media stuff. What about life? What have I been doing in the meantime? Well, honestly, it's been a lot.

I've moved twice: both places were apartments with the wife. My mom sold our old family home and moved, so we stuck around the area and got a shitty little apartment. Okay, it wasn't THAT bad, it was cheap and the neighbors were fine, but my god did it get hot in the summer. Also there was no space to do anything. Our living room was so full that we essentially had a hallway's worth of space to walk around it. Shit was nuts. We moved out of there and into a much bigger, much nicer apartment under the same landlord for slightly higher rent, and that's where we are now.

I have my own office! Since art is my full time job (I'll get to that), the wife was kind enough to let me take the second bedroom in the apartment and turn it into my own little art den, and that's been fantastic to have. As much as I love my wife, it's nice to have my own little space that I can decorate and furnish on my own, and with my model kit building hobby, I definitely needed the space to put stuff. And since I've gotten my own space to do activities like that, that hobby has exploded. I have built *SO* many models. Gundam, Megami Device, 30MS, etc. It's been a nice little way for me to burn some pocket change and spend some time away from artistic endeavors.

Art wise, I'd like to think I've been getting a little faster! And better. Those that know me personally know that I've been doing art full time since 2018, but since 2023 I've made a full transition away from 3D into illustration. 3D art, as much as I like doing it, just takes far too long for me to make anything I'm super satisfied with. Couple that with the fact I kept my prices pretty low for 3D comms, and it was a recipe for disaster both mentally and financially. I was burning myself out pretty bad. Since making the transition to 2D, things have been quite a bit more stable, though not super great.

Yeah, as it turns out, making furry illustrations for a living is not as lucrative as the community likes to present it sometimes. Making art is incredibly time consuming, and in order to compete in the bracket I'm in right now, I'm kind of making pennies for the amount of time it takes me. Not a complaint, just an observation. I'm incredibly grateful for all of those that have shown me support and commissioned me over the years! Some of those comms have come at the exact time I needed them to and helped save my family from financial hardship, but it's not like I'm really making a living off of this despite the fact I do this full time.

Yep, that's right. This is my full time job. This is what I do to try and make a living, and honestly, it's getting harder to justify that as the economy in the US continues it's downward spiral into the drain. I absolutely love what I do but I may have to start transitioning into other fields soon to help us make ends meet. I don't want to, but if that's what I need to do to help my family, it may be a reality that comes to pass. Should this happen, I'll keep everyone posted.

That all said, commissions are currently open! And I have a ko-fi page (https://ko-fi.com/chromakoros) if you wanna help support my artistic endeavors directly. Every little bit helps!