minus a few tweaks...





And a silly little painting I did the other day while watching a couple of movies with Matt.




--
status of commissions:
still painting lay of luthien
breastfeeding, seen above, probably putting on watercolor paper today
starting character on illustration board
butterfly queen sketch in progress
tattoo commission, email phase~

Speedpaint (2nd attempt after the first try got killed by photoshop during the save :( ) 1/2 hour

a couple of reasons why i'm not feeling the LJ vibe right now:

i wondered the other day exactly WHY i lj. i suspect it's becuase in some respects, i prefer to document what went on than focus on what IS going on, or what WILL go on.
this is bullshit.

also: my health is currently shitsville.
people with depression (or other mental health issues) often have weakened immune systems. it's certainly true for me currently. and i kinda don't feel like blogging about that.

and one more extra reason for free:
i actually don't really have time for blogging like i used to. i've got all sorts of things i need to be working on.


so i guess i'm going to be quiet for a bit. and while i don't plan on posting much for a little bit, i certainly will be reading. 8-)

At Anime Weekend Atlanta 2008, I approached Schala-Kitty (zeal@schala-kitty.net, animekittysama@yahoo.com) at her table about a custom needlepoint coaster of a Pokémon. She agreed to the commission and told me I could put down $5 now and $10 when it's done. I did so happily and took her contact info.

After the con (9/28/08), I emailed her and just confirmed with her I was on her list. She replied back same day, and we went back and forth that same day about which pixel sprite I wanted the needlepoint to be based from. After we agreed, I waited patiently.

On 11/20/08, I decided to check in on the progress. Never received a reply.

On 12/7/08, I tried again, and the email bounced back. I had to do a lot of googling and figuring out to find an alternate email address that would work... finally I got her animekittysama email address and she replied back on 1/28/09 telling me she's been busy and having troubles. She offered a refund, and told me if I wanted the commission done, I could be bumped up on her list by paying the remaining $10.
I asked her how long it would take to finish if I paid the rest right then, and if she'd rather just refund me if it was going to be stressful for her.
Same day, she replied and told me she'd rather just do the commission for me and that it would take two to three weeks, so I sent the $10 and waited longer.

3/26/09, I hadn't heard from her, so I replied back asking for a status update.

4/4/09, she got back to me, saying she had been busy, but that my commission was finished. She told me it would mail the very next week, so I gave her my college address to send it to.

4/22/09, I asked if it had been sent yet, since I hadn't heard from her, nor did I get it in the mail.

5/6/09, I tried again. No reply.

5/23/09, I told her I really needed to hear from her, because I was going to graduate school the next month, and my address would no longer be valid. I asked yet again if it had been shipped yet, and was greeted with the same silence.

And today, 7/11/09, I emailed her with my new address asking her to mail it as soon as possible, or just give me a refund. It's been three months without a reply... I'm tired of not hearing from her.

I know she's probably busy, but it only takes two minutes out of your day to reply to your customers and say "Hey, I've been busy, I haven't mailed it yet". If she doesn't even have time to reply to messages, I think she would do well to just refund her customers and forget it. :/ And it rubbed me the wrong way that I had to go find her when her email address crapped out instead of the other way around.
I don't know if she's going to be at AWA again this year, but I can't say I recommend her after this. I just hope I can get SOMETHING for my money. :/

I cleaned the house like a madman earlier - did laundry, cleaned the floors upstairs, straightened the bedroom, re-excavated my studio. Badly needed. The space is much more livable, now. Worked on calendars. Worked on orders - stack of t-shirts and totes and mousepads that is defying structural stability ready to be put in packages and shipped. Printing a page of stickers now, and packing what can go out is my next step. Then, some submissions to sort, calendars to put up for pre-order, and some dinner.

Here are the calendar covers!

( behind this cut... )

Red Monkey Earrings



Topaz Octopus Earrings

I have more octopuses, but they weren't photographing very well. I will have the other colors listed soon. :)

The mint flower kitties are finally back in stock, too!


Lucky Mint Flower Kitties

Kitchen (before photo)


Living room (before photo)


We kept the previous owner's paint job. It is pretty new, and painting these areas would have been too much to take on upon moving in. Plus, I really like the colors. I managed to match the earthy color and will be removing all those nails in the walls and patching the holes eventually. Matt also wants to put the TV on the wall over the fireplace.

I still need to unpack (find) a lot of my decorative items, but everything else is pretty much in place. I love how things are coming together.

Hi everyone!

I have a brand new ORIGINAL painting (a big one - 24"x18") for you tonight! Called "A Candle in the Dark" - it is a particularly beautiful, rather gothic piece - I love her! In addition I have new T-Shirts with "A Candle in the Dark" as well as a new CILM graphics pack.

"A Candle in the Dark" is the title of the new original painting - a GORGEOUS gothling fairy - bat wings and black boots - her eyes brimming with tears. Her blonde hair drips down over her shoulders as she holds a vigil over the pile of skulls she is seated on. The lighting in this piece is striking - emanating from the candle she cradles in the dark. This really is a stunning piece - it truly can be the focus of any room. It is painted in acrylics on a deep cradled masonite panel - READY TO HANG (no frame needed) and measures in quite large at 24"x18". She is up on eBay starting at just one penny with no reserve for a 10-Day auction ending the evening of 10-day Tuesday July 21st 5:00 PM Central Time. You can see her below:



"A Candle in the Dark" ORIGINAL PAINTING

To see any OTHER available originals, just visit my Original Paintings section of my store here.

Jasmine's ONLY Available Original Paintings

And for those of you who would rather WEAR the art than hang it on the wall - you are in luck! I have gone ahead and created T-Shirts of "A Candle in the Dark" available for purchase at Zazzle. Click below to see the new "A Candle in the Dark" shirts (remember you can change the style, size, male/female/kids, etc. of all of my shirts to customize it just for you) :

"A Candle in the Dark" T-Shirt

To see my other new T-shirts (I have added several this afternoon!), visit below:

All Jasmine's New Shirts

Now, GREAT news for those of you folks who are online image/graphics hobbyists - makers of tubes, signature tags, websets, members of the groups for PSP and other image/graphics groups. I have a brand NEW graphics package up at CILM! The new package (package "FF") features some of my best & most popular paintings, including some Pink Lightning, Sienna Dragonling, Bats in the Belfry, Danse Macabre Tribal Fusion & more! There are also the options up at CILM to buy a "Combo Pack" where you can get of my previous packages at a discounted sale price, as well as "Custom Packs" where you can piece together your OWN package, from the different images.



Click HERE to see the fabulous new "Package FF"

and click here to see the new "Combo Pack" options

and click here to see ALL of the dozens of packs available

If you're not familiar with online graphics as a hobby - you might want to look into it. It's a FUN way to spend time doing something creative, without the whole "having to paint something yourself" part, hehe. You get to create your own designs and graphics on the computer using my paintings, officially and with my blessing. For ANY questions regarding usage of my images as tubes or tags, this is handled by CILM (not by me myself) - you can contact them here: customerhelp@creativeimagelicensing.com or call them: Customer Service Number Call (toll-free in the USA): 1-877-264-2456

I hope that you have fun with my artwork - enjoy!

Until next time...

-Jasmine


create custom t-shirts at Zazzle

continuing on...







...

rest of the commissions
started painting lay of luthien 2nd one
have a pose for the character art
considering things for butterfly queen
and might have a flower painting...

Awhile back, I researched MS and found a great book about diets designed to help improve symptoms. I ordered the book and gave it to Glenn a couple of months ago. He has been using the diet for three weeks now.

The difference is huge.

He doesn't hobble anymore, or look drunk (heh). He says he can move easier and feels better. We're really excited to see what a couple more months will do.

This is awesome. We took a walk for lunch and he is doing great.

Edit: the book is MS Recovery Diet.

It is like they exploded everywhere. I want them.

My mom and stepdad sent us this amazing anniversary card in the mail!
Even Wesley was excited when he saw it, exclaiming, "It's the Beatles!! Awesome!!"

I was going to post it yesterday, but ran out of time. We went out to eat and took Wesley to the drive in, where they were playing Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Land of the Lost. The movies weren't so great (I actually liked Ice Age more than Land of the Lost and I did not think that would happen!) but it was still lots of fun! A drive in is more of an experience than just the movies themselves.


Then we had a crazy storm this morning.


It was a complete downpour and crazy lightning and thunder right on top of us.


At one point, I was standing right next to a window when I heard this
strange cracking noise and looked out the window just in time to see a huge
branch fall from a tree and onto the roof of the house next door!
(If you look you can see where the branch broke.) It startled me and then
immediately the door right next to me slammed shut and I screamed! Ha!
Brock and Wesley went for a walk afterward and discovered that only a few
small branches actually landed on the roof and the huge parts just
missed it and landed in between the two houses. Whew!


And now, of course, it's a beautiful, bright, blue sky out there!

The cats are settled in. It didn't take very long.

Well, in honor of Deathly Hallows coming out in paperback and the Half-Prince Movie, Tosh has duded herself up as Tosh Potter.  I used the boy wizard costume, because it had the cool lightning scar.  I just added a wig since Tosh is a girl.

Tosh Potter - Defender against Death Eater Super Pets

(c) http://rockyou.com/

I will start off by saying that, since my English grammar is not the best, I had my friend (who is fluent in English) edit this entry for grammar, spelling, and structure, so that it is easier for everyone to read. None of the notes/comments/journals quoted in this entry are edited, and that is why the English in those is not as good.

I am Wolfie83 on DeviantART, and I commissioned DerSheltie on DeviantART because I admired his wonderful artwork and envied his talent. I am from Sweden and DerSheltie is from Japan. We communicated in English because that is our common language, though neither of us are perfect at it, as you can see in the correspondences.

On 28 May 2009, I started talking to him about a possible commission through comments on his DA profile. He had no price sheet, terms of service, or any information about commissions at all in any of his journal entries (I think I was one of the first people to ever commission him). Here is a screenshot of all the comments (I have put arrows next to everywhere that we discussed pricing):

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii183/wolfie83/convo-1.jpg

So then, a little while passed, and I got a note from him with a pre-sketch, asking if I was still interested. Here is the conversation:

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii183/wolfie83/notes1.jpg

From this conversation and the previous one, I thought he had accepted my offer of $20 - $30. So, on 27 June 2009, he posted the finished commission to DA. I loved the picture, even though he had left off my character’s signature eye-scars, and got the eye color wrong, but I asked if he could change it, and he said that he could, and apologized for getting that wrong (that part of the conversation was in the comments on the DA picture, which are now hidden). In the meantime (before he made any changes), I sent a payment of $25, which was in the price range that I thought we had agreed on earlier.

Here is the conversation from the completion of the commission (before revisions) to the payment:

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii183/wolfie83/notes3.jpg

DerSheltie also did the corrections I requested, though I was not able to open the download page. I asked him if he could email the file to me, but since the problems started right after this, he did not email the file to me or help me access it. Here is the conversation about the revision file:

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii183/wolfie83/notes2.jpg

The following link is a continuation of the note conversation above (I’ve quoted the last thing that was said), which started after I had sent the payment. This is where the problems started:

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii183/wolfie83/notes4-1.jpg
http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii183/wolfie83/notes5.jpg

So, I sent the payment, and DerSheltie refused it.

I’m not that good at English, so I thought maybe I said something wrong or missed something. I made a journal on DeviantART (seen here: http://wolfie83.deviantart.com/journal/25644045/ ) and showed our conversation in the notes, to ask if I did something wrong. I removed derSheltie’s name from all the notes. However, he commented on my journal in such a way that everyone knew who it was that I was talking about.

Later on, in different arguments with different people (all of which can be seen in my DA journal), he told someone else (he never told ME this, but told someone ELSE afterwards) the following:

If she paid $30, I would bear.
$40, I would compromise.
$50, I would be satisfied.
Actually I have requested jobs several times. The price that the opponent suggests were sometime over $100 per one work.
For example, I received $500 when I accepted this three logos.

Link to full comment: http://comments.deviantart.com/5/25644045/1114081914 So apparently, he deliberately made artwork that he thought was worth about double the amount that I offered him and that, I believed, he had approved.

In that comment, he also says:

Surely several points of that trouble caused by my ambiguous way of saying. I should think there are people who can't understand others' delicate expressions.

So he knew he was being ambiguous, but got angry when I didn’t pick up on his ambiguity, even when neither of us are native to English and really, neither of us are all that great at English either.

According to some of the comments on the deviation itself, he says he expected me to pay more because he assumed I was not a student and had a job, because of my age. Here is the string of comments:

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii183/wolfie83/comments.jpg

He changed the image to be his own character (that doesn’t bother me), but what does bother me is what he wrote in the description (as of 8 July 2009), which can be seen here:

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii183/wolfie83/description.jpg

Here is the link to the picture on DeviantART: http://dersheltie.deviantart.com/art/Indomitable-Wolf-127404330

I don’t think I can do anything to change this person’s mind. But I think I am right (please correct me if I am not) in warning others not to trust this artist with commissions. He doesn’t say his expectations, speaks ambiguously, and treats his clients with disrespect for not playing his guessing games.

Edit: refund received

In December I commissioned a number of sketches from Hobojobo over on FA http://www.furaffinity.net/user/hobojobo and everything seemed straightforward and cool. Well they vanished from FA and haven't been active for around four months now, and I haven't been able to contact them directly to find out what's up with the commissions. Secondly, at the time they didn't have a Paypal account, and so they had me pay them via their roommate's paypal account (tooiebird over on FA). I've been able to get in touch with tooiebird who I actually paid, and through them supposedly the sketches are finished, but nothing more heard for a month now, and never anything directly from the actual artist.

Anyone know Hobojobo directly and/or have any clue if they're still around, otherwise occupied by life, or has any problem with commissions? I'd be happy with either a refund or the artwork at this point, doesn't much matter to me (though seven months in, Paypal isn't going to be helpful on the matter).