You are a lovely person. Everyone who is reading this, you are awesome.

I do. I've been on here for many years and I've had an enjoyable time overall.

However, today I found out about repeated gender insensitivity on the part of the staff here... you can read the article for details about what happened.

I know that gender issues aren't as srs bsns to some people as, say, race or sexuality issues. I'm sad to say that I receive fairly insensitive and sometimes angry notes and messages regarding my gender on a weekly basis. I have gotten used to the fact that many people are only comfortable when they're able to fit people into distinct categories. It would be nice, though, if this could change. I can understand if the dA mods mentioned just weren't very well informed, I'm sure we can all pick a topic that is very important to someone else that we can admit we know nothing about.

Instead of getting up-at-arms and vitriolic, I hope that maybe we can all take the chance to read up a little bit about gender and how important it is to some folks. Let's just get informed (here is a nice essay written by ~dmarling if you want to start somewhere), make the changes and apologies that are needed, and give others the respect we'd like given to us.

What do you think?


*edit 3* It looks like the issue is in the process of being resolved Props to dA for their sensitivity and willingness to work on the issue until a reasonable conclusion was reached! You can read the details of the solution here.

*edit 2* via +spyed DA will add an "other" sex option (okay..) and an extended gender option. Took them a while, but they might finally be on the right track.

*edit* From now on, DA only wants to know what you have in your pants. Problem solved? or just avoided?

APE is coming again! APE (Alternative Press Expo) happens once a year, and I will be at my Shingworks booth (631) with my brother ~SailorPretty and next to my publisher *Team4D and fellow comic artist *vert-is-ninja. I will have a limited number of color sketchbooks with art and comics I've never posted online. I'm also going to be selling off all my minis for $1, because I need to get them out of my closet XD Really cheap! Not to mention, there will be a limited number of the first run of Meek Chapter 2 comics, as well as posters and other things. My brother will be selling his own merch including some chinchilla related items, which I would highly recommend. Anyways, I am looking forward to seeing some of you guys there

In other news, today is my mom, birthday! Yayyyyyy
If you haven't seen her gallery yet, why not take a look? She recently acquired a new camera and has been taking some really cool photos with it. I'm sure she'd appreciate your visit!

I wish I could tell you guys about some of the other stuff I'm working on right now. I'm coloring a project for a dude right now who... well, lets just say that his game was a big part of your childhoods. His art is sooo boss, and I can't believe I get to actually contribute to it. I'll post more about that next year probably, once the work is done. I'm also inking some more edu comics by Lerner Books, the same company that I did this one for, and it is a lot of fun so far. The point is though, I've been super busy as of late. I'm trying to keep up with The Meek but obviously paid deadlines come first. That includes my commission work, I will be back on the ball on that on Monday and will post the next round here sometime next week. If you're still waiting, thank you for your continued patience and I'll be getting to you soon!

Anyways, happy friday! Meow

Previous commission rounds:


COMMISSIONS ARE CLOSED
Current commission/ status list (for those who have paid!)
46)...

Waitlist (for those I've not yet noted back!):
- ~merrill
- ~lokelani
- ~BouneLiLLy
- =iisjah
- ~PhoenixFuryBane
- *pargile
- *nicholaskole
- ~Kish-Kashi
- ~ThreeLittleSorcerers
- ~Quincy-Q
- ~elenxji
- *squidlifecrisis
- *MistyRydia
- ~VideoGameGirl
- =bergamot-dreams
- *winterqueen
- ~Angiebeast
- *madcarrot
- ~iKaet
- ~The-Alchemists-Muse
- ~dipthonggirl
- ~bigbigtruck
- *abercrunchie
- ~Katherdante
- =tkay
- ~Lizzieknight
- ~M-V-D
- =0meter
- ~Artoveli
- *ohTHATsean

Okay, for the first time in a while I'm going to open up some commissions. I'll probably take them in batches of 10, for as long as I feel like it before I get tired! PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE THING BEFORE NOTING ME It will save everyone a lot of time. Thank you!!

How much:
$15 or $20 USD, PayPal only

What you get:
A sketch! It's a choice between either a detaily sketch bust ($15) or some kind of fun emotive full body sketch ($20)

Style:
B/w sketch style, just like the recent Meek ones to the left side of my front page (except... less stupid, haha)

Format:
100% Digital, I'ma email a high-resolution image to you when it's done

How to get one:
1) Note me with your reference image/ character specifics (like an expression or pose, if you had something in mind)
2) I note you back with my PayPal address. If I don't note you back right away, don't worry! That means there are a few people ahead of you. Your turn will likely come up in a day or two.
4) $$... Make sure to include your DA name with the Paypal payment so I know who you are!!
3) I will be sending out notes in batches, and doing the commissions in order of first-paid/ first-served (according to Paypal) to encourage a quick turnaround time. I will remove unpaid commissions from the line after 3 days.
4) I will send you your sketch via email in a day or two (maybe less if I am super inspired)

Can I get more than one commission/ what about more than 1 character/ can they interact:
Yes/ It will cost $15 per character but yeah go for it/ sure

Can I get it inked/ colored/ with a bg:
No/ no/ y- wait, no

What is allowed:
Most things, if its super creepy you can try me but I may say no

What is not allowed:
1) Copyrighted characters that aren't copyrighted to you (ie. from TV shows or whatever) (unless you own the show) (in which case you are awesome)
2) Anything having to do with designing something for you from scratch... you need to give me complete refs!

What you can do with it:
Ink on it, color on it, stick needles in it, print it out, flush it down the toilet, whatever you want

Will you upload it to your da/ Can I upload it to mine?
Yes, I will be putting them up in batches of 15. If you're not okay with this, just make sure to let me know! And yes, feel free to upload your commission to your account, just remember to credit me

Why:
For great victory

Anything other questions:
Leave a comment!

Previous commission rounds:


Current commission/ status list (for those who have paid!)
31) ~MrFroggy9 [Done]
32) ~Raptorbane [Done]
33) ~Raptorbane [Done]
34) ~Raptorbane [Done]
35) ~Raptorbane [Done]
36) ~superspacebunny [Done]
37) ~kreugan [Done]
38) B (damn your sneakiness)
39) ~the-Mad-Hatress[Done]
40) =zaaly
41) *painted-bees
42) ~TehTaree
43) ~TehTaree
44) ~Nhaar
45) ~Lineith

Waitlist (for those I've not yet noted back!):
- ~merrill
- ~lokelani
- ~BouneLiLLy
- =iisjah
- ~PhoenixFuryBane
- *pargile
- *nicholaskole
- ~Kish-Kashi
- ~ThreeLittleSorcerers
- ~Quincy-Q
- ~elenxji
- *squidlifecrisis
- *MistyRydia
- ~VideoGameGirl
- =bergamot-dreams
- *winterqueen
- ~Angiebeast
- *madcarrot
- ~iKaet
- ~The-Alchemists-Muse
- ~dipthonggirl
- ~bigbigtruck
- *abercrunchie
- ~Katherdante
- =tkay
- ~Lizzieknight
- ~M-V-D
- =0meter
- ~Artoveli
- *ohTHATsean

One year closer to my death! I'm 26 today D:

Thanks to my mom, for taking 22 hours to give birth to me (Labor Day) (get it), I'm sure I have been an adequate return on your investment as I eat all your food and waste all my time. If you approve of my existence you can go leave a llama on her page, I'm sure she would appreciate that. Or you can look through her gallery, she has been working hard on learning floral photography and I think she is doing an excellent job so far

Thanks too to all of you for your love! I just realized I have like 100 messages saying "Happy Birthday" and even some dA cake XD XD You guys are the best and I don't deserve it but I'll take it anyways. Here is some visual love that I have received for some reason??? So awesome


There will be an update on the Meek site soon as well (in about an hour) so I will get back to finishing that up.

And if you live in the CA Bay Area, today is a Spare the Air day so for the love of god take some public transportation before you kill us all with your emissions.

<3 <3 <3
Alexds1

A: ????????????????? No clue

But here are some things I DO know (best segue ever):

I am in the midst of signing and sketching preorder comics. Thanks so much to everyone who got one, now my publisher won't beat me with a length of rope soaked in seawater for being a massive failure. Even if you didn't get a preorder, you can still buy the first chapter right here.

The interesting part of all of this preorder love and madness is that I have to sign/ sketch about 500 comics, hahaha... hah actually in my brain it looks more like:

so I'm going to go as fast as I can while doing a very good job on each sketch. Thank you all so much for your patience, I'm just going to ask you to hold on a little while longer (I'll definitely be done before the end of the month) so I can make sure that everyone gets a quality sketch!

Next, the Broken Spell card thinger is finally available, you can buy a pack here. There are some incredible artists in the pack, you probably already know all of them so I don't have to point them out. For some reason I was asked to do a card, this is the one that I did:


Last, SDCC was a freaking blast, thanks so much to *Team4D for letting me be there and to everyone who stopped by to say hi. I got to meet so many artists that I've been stalking online for years, and reconnect with friends that I basically only see at conventions. Here are some of the amazing people that I got to drool on (the ones on dA, at least):

's hair, and even and

It was like being on the internet... IN REAL LIFE D: I'm sure I'm missing some names but that's what I can remember for now.

ANYWAYS yeah so now I'm focusing on being productive (maybe even answering my notes??) and trying to find some damn money and put it in my pocketttttttttt

*edit* I wonder how many people are going to just answer the title question and not actually read the journal

First of all, today is my youngest brother's birthday (he is ). He is the one who owns the chinchilla... yes, that is the reason why there are so many chinchillas in my stuff, you can blame him. Anyways, please leave him a happy birthday wish if you want! Or a llama if you want to be extra nice (though god knows he doesn't deserve it). Happy B-day Dustin!



If you are going to SDCC this year, be sure to stop by the 4DE booth! Some cool people and myself will be there. From the *Team4D announcement:

"This coming week is San Diego Comic Con! 4th Dimension Entertainment will be there, so if you are, we would love to see you stop by the booth. Tracy Butler/*tracyjb (Lackadaisy), Der-shing Helmer/`alexds1 (The Meek), and Tessa Stone/*vert-is-ninja (Hanna is Not a Boy's Name) will all be on hand doing signings daily, from Thursday through Sunday, and an awesome time will be had by all!

We will be in the IP Pavilion at space #2203.

The signing schedule is as follows:

11 AM - 1 PM - Tracy Butler
1 PM - 3 PM - Der-shing Helmer
3 PM - 5 PM - Tessa Stone

Sketch cards will be available and the artists will be doing sketches for $5.00!

Hope to see you there!"

Pretty cool, huh! I have never been to SDCC before... actually it's been 5 years since I've left my living space for more than a night in a row and I'm kind of scared out of my wits, ahaha. However, I am definitely looking forward to meeting all of the people that I know from dA that I would not get to see otherwise (you know who you are)!

Anyways I have a ton of work I still need to take care of before I leave tomorrow, so I'd better get to that. Meow

I was watching that parasite show yesterday on Animal Planet (during dinner, what a bad idea) and this guy inhaled a dust-borne amoeba that DESTROYED HIS BRAIN [WHAAAT] it was called Balamuthia and now that word is etched forever upon my soul.


In other news, concluded its awesome Dagre month! You can see the beautiful entries at the journal on the home page The randomly picked winner of Dagre month won a feature in my journal such as this one... Oh wait, actually it is this one. The winner is ~Kwillow!!

~Kwillow, also known as Katie, has been a deviant for 3 years. Judging from her gallery, she enjoys things like crazy monster animals, dudes and memes... sounds almost like me D: Haha, here is a small selection of art from her gallery.


Ooh, and aka Zhao Club also finished the Zhao's Secret contest Those entries are also worth a visit.

And I was tagged by ~thePHATninjaPENGUIN and evidently if I don't do it, I will make her look stupid. Obviously that would not be a nice thing to do.

Post 9 facts about your character (Rana)

1) She was born on the 8th day of the 8th month, hence her name (it is Pasori for "eight")
2) Her favorite subject to learn is history
3) Her body-type is considered thin by Pasori standards but is a bit on the heavy side by Santri standards
4) She hates the sound of people cracking their knuckles (Suda does it all the time to annoy her)
5) She isn't allowed to date
6) She often writes angry letters to people, then tears them up
7) Her favorite weapon is the bow
8) Her favorite song is the annoying yet popular song "Too young" ("Don't tell me I'm too young/ to love you/ Don't tell me I'm too young/ to cryyyy")
9) She really really dislikes the fact that she looks like her dad

No tags, but if you want to write 9 things about your character I will not stop you!

Okay, so I have not taken even a tiny break since I got out of school(s) because... I've been working on this!!! The revamped Chapter 1 comic! Here are the gritty details:

- 50+ luscious pages of stuff
- entirely redrawn/ repainted cover (the other one had... issues)
- 45 fully re-edited pages with color adjustments, detail additions and fixes of small things that were really bugging me
- inclusion of new story elements like DATES hey wow continuity
- ALL NEW non-online bonus comic that gives you more things to ponder about the Meek world
- production arts

I won't be putting any of these edits online because, frankly, I am sick of formatting and reuploading all that stuff every time I make edits. This comic will have the most up-to-date art, ever.

As for the preorders, there are two different, wonderful kinds that you can get!

- the brilliant and fabulous Signed Comic

- the rare and coveted Signed and Sketched Comic

After the preorder stage is done, 4DE will only be selling the not-written-in comics on the site. So now is your chance to get your money's worth XD

Since I'm nearly done with Chapter 2, hopefully the physical comic/ extras for that will not be long in coming And there are some other cool things in the works that I'll be announcing soon... Thank you all so much for your support and readership!!!

Final list of kiriban/journal winners:

1)=dragonack27 [portrait]
2)~Not-Quite-Normal [comics]
3)~elviella []
4)~Bashtal [bust sketch]
5)~Elemental-Magus [chibi]

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to play and say meow

Shingworks! Comics?! 4DE!

At least, if you hated the one from yesterday XD This one is a little more laid back, and will go until noon PST (about 2 hours from now). There is more than once chance to win because I never do this and its fun. Oh, also you might have to do some research to play this game...

The Number:

1) The first three digits are 100
2) the next pair of digits is a two-digit prime number
3) the fifth digit is a multiple of 7
4) the last two digits are the most recent number of pages I'm up to in Chapter 2 of The Meek, divided by 4 and plus six.

The kiriban will stop once we hit past the last number that follows these rules.

The Prize: Your choice of one of the following

1) a color chibi
2) a b/w bust sketch
3) three signed minicomics mailed from me to you

The Rules:

1) be the first to note me with a screencap for the right number and you will win
2) you can ask questions here to clarify what I'm talking about, but I won't directly give you an answer
3) you cannot win more than once!

The Winners

1) 1004716: nobody!
2) 1006716: ~Not-Quite-Normal
3) 1009716: nobody XD

I won't respond to notes until it is over, but I will be posting the winners periodically so you know who got what. Go for it!!

meow!

Shingworks! Comics?! 4DE!

Good lord, I went away for a second and when I came back it was already 100pvs past the million D: For the record, I thought it would take a few days to get to the number, not a few minutes. Today's lucky winner was =dragonack27 with the first noted screencap!

Because I am fabulous and because I feel pretty bad that probably everyone who wasn't online for the last 40 mins did not get a chance to participate, I'll do another small one tomorrow. TOMORROW AT 10AM PACIFIC STANDARD TIME okay so if you want to play there will still be a chance! and with some real advance notice.

Thank you again for sharing that crazy number with me XD

I just noticed I'm nearly at a million pvs. That is pretty awesome. It also means...

KIRIBAN TIEM!!!!!!!

Man I haven't even done a kiriban in like... 500,000pvs worth of time. Lame! So I'll put some effort into this one instead of just doing a sketch or something... So to win the kiriban:

1) Hang around at the right time and click refresh a lot
2) If you see the magic number, 1,000,000, take a screencap
3) Be the extremely very first person to note me a picture of the screencap
4) I will arts for you

Specifically, I'll do one of my awesome portrait-commission type portraits for you, minus the part where you give me your $$$. This is extra special because I'm not going to be offering commissions this summer like I'd expected (too busy with comics) so this is your chance to get some free arts if you're willing to madly slam F5 for a couple of minutes.

Also look at this:


Okay, go!

1. Fanime
If you know anything about me, this will sound very strange. But I will in fact be attending and tabling at Fanimecon this weekend, courtesy of my friends at , and doing varied Things. I don't know what Things. It is a mystery. If you are going, please come by and say hi, I will be somewhere in the Artists Alley, selling god knows what.

2.
My mom, *theresahelmer is on dA. I'm sure she'd appreciate it if you dropped by and said hi or sent a llama her way!

3. Comiccsssss
Today was the last day of school at the high school I've been teaching at. My first teaching year is over! It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Tomorrow is the last day for teachers, and then summer break for me. That means I have a lot more time to work on The Meek. My insane goal is to finish Chapter 3 before the end of the year (totally insane). This may or may not be possible, but I'll give it the old college try.

4. Meow

Guess who has a publisher! It's me! My webcomic The Meek is going to be printed FO REALZ and I'm super excited about it. The publisher is *Team4D aka 4th Dimension Entertainment, who also does *tracyjb's amazing Lackadaisy comics. Like Lackadaisy, my comic will remain free online, but the printed version will be at least 76% more special and fantastic.

This also means that I am not going to be selling my own merch anymore! Instead, you'll have to check back at 4DE to see what new things will be in development, and there will be some... The extra cool part is that I won't have to worry about buying and producing and shipping and will instead be able to focus on making the best comic I can and drawing lots of chinchillas.

Anyways, 4DE is on DA, you should stop by! Give them a watch if you want to keep abreast (ha) of new info, or just give them a llama to get a llama if you are still into llamas (and honestly who isn't).

Almost done: you can support 4DE's comics even more by picking up a copy of Lackadaisy Cats if you don't already have one. Lackadaisy was actually listed in the Diamond Previews, which is pretty great. If you want one (you do), go see your local comic store and tell them Lackadaisy is on page 288 of the Diamond catalogue and you want a copy god damn it. Maybe by this time next year I'll have something in a catalogue too... >_>

IRL, my school year is nearly done, both as a new teacher and as an old-ass student, haha. I'm so tired and anxious to be free. The nice thing about teaching is that you're still able to look forwards to summers off. I hope I can get some new art done and finish that hair tutorial I'm working on.

BTW, I made my header (a plant cell) in Google Sketchup > Thanks for your advice in the last journal!

Okay, got to prepare for tomorrow's classes. zzzzz

When dA gets totally schizophrenic and nobody can do anything about it. This is still better than the great mudkip foofaraw of aught eight. Anyways, I will celebrate in the only way I know how:

With a stupid comic. (and some other stupid stuff).

I've been SUPERR busy lately with school and... other school. LAME. But on the plus side I am getting near the end. On Friday I have to turn in the giant thing that decides if I will be a teacher or not. And the day after that is my day to go to...

WONDERCON! Yay! Are you going? I am going. In fact I am going to be at *Team4D's table (booth 814). If you are going to Wondercon you might be headed there as well to see *tracyjb. I don't know what happened but somehow I managed to weasel into cooltown. I'll have some of the stuff that's for sale on the site at the con, and of course I will have lots of love for you (that is free).

Oh, and please feel free to pile on the llamas (see upper corner of main page). Mine seems to have gained a cape. Maybe if I get more it will acquire a monocle.

What else... I guess not much. I have my spring break from HS classes coming up, so I will have time to draw things. Exciting! Thanks for all hanging around here like I'm ever going to upload anything other than giant panels.

Seriously? Thank you SO. MUCH. For all of your advice and inputs. I'm not replying right away since I'm trying to fix up my comp, but I am overwhelmed by your generosity of sharing your expertise with me. I've found a few things that I can do thanks to your suggestions to try to get everything back into working order.

I'm too macho to cry but my eyes are on the verge of sweating if you know what I mean. Again, THANK YOU!!!

Some updates:
I'm running my comp to backup my files and its not shutting down, so I'm now thinking that running photoshop is part of the problem. Then I realized that I have 9.84gb free out of my 74.5gb drive, which probably means that working on my giant files in my giant program is hurting my comp. I'm going to backup and actually move some of the files off so I can free up more space and see if that does anything!

*hearts and flowers*

My computer is shutting off by itself, first time it did it I was like oookay and then the second time it shut off about 10 minutes after I'd restarted. What is going on?? What do I do??? DX I have a lot of work to get through this weekend and now I am scared that I won't be able to do it. Any ideas would help immensely.

*edit* if it is a power supply issue, which I think it might be since I turn my comp on and off every day and have been since 2005, does anyone have any recommendations for fixing and replacing it? What info do I need to buy another one? And how the fuck do I install it?

More infos:
- Probably not heat related
- Comp is 5 years old desktop that I clean regularly and don't mess with (ie have not replaced anything in it)
- Comp is not connected to the internet and I don't internet stuff on it, so does not have any viruses.
- I was only running CS2 on it, same as I do every day without issues
- I am stupid about computers hellp

Time to get that sad post off my page... thanks very much for your kind words, everyone I can't tell you how much it meant to me!

One quick piece of propaganda news, I made a group for the comic!


Big icon... hells yeah. I'm going to start uploading comic pages there from now on, I think. If you'd like to become a member and submit any fanart that you've made to the group, please feel free!