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boper9

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I put a hold on all commissions for December to work on a personal art project (which actually took me into January)
But now I'm opening them back up!
Prices have gone up from 8.50 to 9.50 usd per hour for 2017. Hopefully not too much for y'all, & I need every little leg up I can get now that I'm paying 75% of my average monthly income for my health insurance bill.
My con schedule coming up is as follows, if you want to buy them at convention prices (which are per illustration vs. per hour)
Agamacon in march, FWA in april, maybe anthrocon in July, Megaplex in august, Mephtit fur meet (& maybe SPX?) in September, Furreality & maybe furpocalypse or fangcon in October, & midwest furfest in December. More may be added as certain sign ups open up.
My prices at cons will be going up by 5$ each too, but they can still be a deal.

just email me if you're interested in a commission and you'd like a quote for how long it should take (& as a result how much money to budget for it), or you've a question about how it all works (I know some of these updates are little too concise if you're not familiar with how I handle my commissions), at boper9@hotmail.com.
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Super Delayed conwrap/review time!

Megaplex was a very covertly named furry convention in Orlando FL back in August. A small set up, about as small as I remember Mephit fur meet being years ago, but many more attendees than what I’d expect from the set up/space. It covers a lot of the same attendee territory as FWA, so I expected low numbers, but from an attendee’s point of view, its a con you can take days off work for & not just go to the con, but also go to the orlando theme parks, making it a layer cake of vacations in one weekend/week.
I didn’t vacation so much as I visited with family (Dad Mark & Step Mom Karan) a little before and after the convention. I felt I owed it to them, since during the artist alley open days, I was just coming back each night to sleep for a few hours and didn’t really have much time to socially interact with them. It was an hour drive from their house to the con too, so that prevented me from even going back Saturday night.
On thursday I went and picked up my badge way early, based on when the dances were that night, so I didn’t run into anyone I was acquaintances with there (I’m still new to the furry fandom in terms of interacting, so I don’t really have many close friends yet!).
On Friday, I woke up at 5:30 am because my relative had pneumonia & wasn’t ready to admit it, so is coughing was not something I could sleep though. I drove an hour into town on the toll roads and got the artist alley line at 8:20 am. Close behind me in line was Glowsheep, who I’d seen tabling at like… all the other furcons I’ve tabled at so far, so it was fun to actually get to talk to him for a bit. Sat and waited there for about 2.5 hours until we (the first 1/3rd of the line) filtered into the very limited artist alley seats.
Pretty soon after sitting down, Tryptofemme, whom I had met before at a local Nashville Furs meet up, swung by and got my first commission of the con! Then their bud Kilo swung by too, and got a great color commission that I was able to use as a color commission example on Saturday. Sometime in the middle of working and taking orders, my bud from Anthrocon’s bug panel, Momo, swung by! We chatted a bit that day about me crashing in his room because I was worried about the hour long drive back to the coast after burning so much brain energy at the table all day. I couldn’t Friday night, because my laminator was still at the family house, but I planned on it for Saturday, since I knew the artist alley opened earlier and ran later, so if I felt that tired friday night, I knew I would have trouble Saturday. I left early Friday night, after a bit of making sure I got all but one of my Friday commissions done, and headed ‘home’.

Next day, with my packing up spare art supplies for the room, I set out at about the same time as Friday. Which had me freaked out, because if you had to be there 2 hours in advance of the alley opening on Friday, wouldn’t it be even more dangerous to arriving 1.75 hours in advance of the opening on Saturday, once people knew how hard it would be to get in? But it was fine. The dances and parties on Friday night must have been amazing, and thinking that was why I was still good to get into the alley on Saturday made me a bit sad I had to miss them. I got into the alley, and was working on my one left over commission (I feel nervous at a table if I’m not working on something. If you see me at a table & it looks like I’m cut off to the world, nah, I’m still open for business!). By my standards, people came flooding in! By around noon I had to cut off delivery-at-the-convention commissions and switch to take-home/mail-out commissions, and by about 3 or 4 my queue was almost full. Since I still had people interested in commissions, I opened up about 5 more slots for 8.50 p/h rate commissions and got a few of those lined up.

Since my queue was so full by the end of the day, I decided I wouldn’t go for the artist alley on Sunday. What’s the point of taking up a seat if you’re just going to have to tell people ‘no sorry no commissions until September’? That way some of the people who got stuck in the line Friday and Saturday could get work. It also meant I could stay in and work more steadily on the the three commissions I still had to finish before people went home on Sunday afternoon. With that extra time I’d have to work on Sunday, & the fact I could stay out later with the hotel room right there, I decided to go to the dances! I really shouldn’t have danced so energetically early on, because the best set of the night was the one at 1am, and I was already so tired out! I dunno the name for the music style, but it made the latent raver in me super pumped up.

I woke up relatively early on Sunday, compared to my roommates, and quietly started to work. I worked on the commissions until I was starving (I really didn’t bring enough food for this con :T) & then they were awake enough for us to go to a local taco joint, Tijuana Flats. The food was … good? Like, it was very inauthentic if you’re going in for what I normally think of as tacos, but whatever it was instead was great too! & they had a ton of great sauces to add to the tacos so that was a flavor adventure. After taco quest, I headed back to the room and worked there alone for an hour or two, then trekked back to the con and my car with all my stuff. I raced to deliver all three commissions before people headed out, but I still missed one bc they’d been sending me email they were leaving early & it had gotten lost in among the spam. So it went in among the commissions I’d ship out later.

I headed back to the space coast to get a good sleep in a real bed (the fold out couch in the hotel room was like a metal hammock, which, I’ve slept on concrete before, so no biggie.), had lunch with family at Crackerjacks in Titusville, FL (the fish tacos with blackened grouper cheek meat = Amazing!!!), then headed back up to Augusta, GA.

The week after I steadily worked through the price-per-item take home commissions, and I finished them all late that Friday night. Saturday morning I rushed to collect any remaining pay-on-completion payments and then shipped everything out at the post office.

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Now that you’ve seen my wrap up of Fanboy Expo Knoxville, I wanted to chime in on my time at Anthrocon 2016:


Okay it's actually been a couple of weeks since the first weekend in July, when I was at anthrocon 2016, so some of my memories may be fuzzy.


Let's see: I got there extra early, on Wednesday, because I was paying for my portion of the room that day, so why not be there that early? I roomed with Sprech, Dsar, Keys, & Rek at the omni! I knew sprech from college and previous cons, but it was my first time meeting everyone else, and they were rad roommates!


On Wednesday, I unpacked, navigated parking, and walked about 3-4 miles to and back from a print shop. They were a local independent run one, but looking at their machines, they were alright for printing my 11"x17" prints I sell, and 3/4ths the price of fedex/kinkos, so the price was worth the walk! That night we ate at a nice seafood place & Sprech covered my meal that night (and many other small meals thru the weekend) in exchange for the Bhagya color commission!


On Thursday, I waited in a line to pick up my badge. There wasn't really any rush to get it, especially when the line would clear out after, but it wasn't like I had anything else to do (that didn't cost $$$). After that, I went back to the print shop to pick up my prints from the previous day, and I dropped off a couple of each of my minicomics at Slacker to sell there

www.facebook.com/Slacker-South…

But! It looks like they closed! Really recently! (2 days ago?!?). So I guess I'll hunt for another small shop to see if they'll carry my comics next time I make it all the way up there.


On Friday, I woke up at 7am to go get in line for a table space in the artist alley, since I didn't make the lottery for Friday. I still didn't make it early enough to be in the first round of fill ins, but while waiting I met Gynnyr & Ryuu in line with me, so that was definitely not time wasted. But, time was wasted once the first 9 people from the wait-list were called, and me and lafete stood around waiting for almost an hour for the next round to be called, watching the still visibly empty seats, until we had to go up and hound staff and point out said seats to them. So I lost about 2 hours worth of work time, but I don't feel like I missed too much, because Friday was slow for me anyway. After artist alley closed I went to a meet up of people who are fans of bugs & have buggy fursonas! There I met Antnommer, Hakulbee, 1coin, Momo & a bunch of other new buds, but I can't remember everyone because I was a liiittle over caffeinated. Then I went to a meet up with my roommates and made a new friend there, Zax, who shares some awesome taste in pinball tables.


On Saturday I got to the artist alley extra early, finished my left over commissions from Friday, and maxed out my commissions that I could complete at the convention! Still, I didn't get any take home, & I was still under budget for what I needed to make back before I'd covered all my costs to attend. But! money anxiety can be deferred with drinks, so I had a nice time drinking with a lovely drink&draw crew that was well-hosted by Deo, while I worked on my commissions.


Sunday was crunch day! getting everything done on time was rough, especially when everyone wanted to just hang out! But, even if I was up until like, 1am, I'm glad I took time out to chat and hang with Certo, Josh, Nith & Seth.


On the way back, I spent the 4th of July with my college buddy Kaible in Cincinnati, OH, and finally made it back to Nashville on the 5th.



So! That was Anthrocon 2016! If you can my commissions, be sure to link me to them! Sometimes I'll link them in a journal, but not many have popped up yet for this con, so I'll just probably favorite them to have them show up in my profile!


I've made arrangements to try and be at Megaplex's artist alley all three days, so come check me out there! I'll be making posts soon about the convention-specific badge type I'll be making there, and any pre-convention commission deals, so keep an eye out for that.

Also, I will be in the dealer's den at Mephit Fur Meet the following month, so if you can't make it to megaplex, you can still catch me there!
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Hey! Just wanted to check & let everyone know I'm still producing art! Just a lot of it has been for my webcomic (currently on hiatus), for freelance book projects, or to sell physical copies of at conventions (I sit on that stuff for a while, to give people a reason to buy it!). I've also been getting a few furry commissions at furcons I've attended, which you can check out on my fur affinity:
www.furaffinity.net/user/boper…
I plan to start uploading at least low res or preview versions of some of the convention content soon, & I'll make a post soon about how to commission me.
(I'm mainly a per-hour rate now, but some things are hard to give quotes on, so I like to give all the other rules out first. so we can skip straight to the description of the art to produced)
Thanks for sticking around, and for all the new people here who may have picked up my business card or found me through google searches :)


Also I wanted to do a wrap up for y’all of my time at Fanboy Expo Knoxville, a convention I tabled at back at the end of June. I went with my friends from my time at the movie theater, MIchael and Carlos, who now make custom buttons! Hit me up if you want to get in contact with them! NExt con I heard they plan to attend is either Akai or next year’s MTAC, both in Nashville (check back later, I may edit this or add a comment to clarify).

I shared a half of one of their tables. To the left were some fun ladies selling some neato Nerd Spa products, and to the right were a great fandom related graphic design table, but I don’t remember their company name :(. Still, they were super fun to talk to fanfiction about & had good taste in ships.

I generated a Steven Universe print for the convention, and while I wish it had sold more, it was my best seller, so I’m still proud. I also generated some spiderman stickers, but they weren’t as popular. In fact, I think I only traded them to another artist. It was oldschool villains too, and icons of them, so you had to be pretty familiar with Spiderman’s rogues gallery to even notice it. But from what I heard around me, it really wasn’t much of a comic con? More like visual sci-fi & fantasy. But more on that later.

This was my first time staying in the con hotel for any con, & despite my cool roommates, it was sorta a downgrade from staying at a con further out. More money for a room with no fridge or microwave? It was the same staying at a convention-center adjacent hotel at my next con. I think I’ll stick to lodging a little further out.

The people who came up to my table were nice, but very few people did! I think the convention organizers set up foot-traffic-flow to benefit the dealers’ tables over the artist alley (it was all in the same big room), to encourage people to pay the higher price for a dealer table. But it was that con’s first time in the larger convention center venue, and I don’t think they realized how effective that customer-cut-off would be for the people in artist alley. There was a lot of uncomfortable eye contact between the people on my row (because there were very few customers in between us), and a lot of ‘so? Uh, how are you doing?’ with one of the parties having to be the first to admit we all were not making our costs back, and by the end of it very few of the artist I talked to had even made a profit, or even avoided a significant loss.

In terms of going there, the focus seems to be more on TV/wrestling/live action media guests. My advice to anyone tabling would be to look into what celebrities are coming ahead of time, and prioritize merotch that people can get signed by the celebrities.

And don’t worry about commissions. Had multiple people ask me what commissions even were. The audience there is just not familiar with paying for on the spot drawings or getting custom art.


My opinion on this con:

Probably not going back, unless I can attend/table/produce prints & content/stay at a hotel for less than 125$ next time, because that’s all I can really look forward to making the whole weekend.

Beyond no money, it was a nice experience, because of the people I got to spend time with.
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To the TF2RP

1 min read
I was saving you guys for the summer, but without thinking about it I lined up enough work for this summer that I'll need to cut down on a few diversions. The RP is the main one, along with any other fanart or non-portfolio art, so I can have a fresh hand for my paying jobs. I realize that the RP moves on without me (and boy does that tug at my heart strings ;_; ) but I hope If I fall into a bunch of spare time when my work is done, I might be able to jump back into things? I just can't officially quit you guys! C:>
If a 'in-canon' excuse for Adela's absence is needed: She was visiting home for a bit and then got in some trouble with the law, so she's in jail! It seems like she'd thrive in such an environment.
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Featured

Commissions open for 2017 by boper9, journal

Megaplex 2016 wrap up by boper9, journal

Anthrocon 2016 Wrap Up by boper9, journal

Checking back in and Fanboy Knoxville review post by boper9, journal

To the TF2RP by boper9, journal