Howdy folks!

Haven't made a journal in a while but figured I should remedy this. So far 2017 has been rather interesting to say the least... plenty of political turmoil since Jan. 20. (And that's about as much as I feel like expressing about it :P) Ralkor & i made a decision to cut down on some of the convention goings this year so we didn't make FC or TFF this year.. we did attend Anthro New England, as it is local to us. But sadly schedules aren't meshing up to make BLFC.

In lieu of convention going in April we visited Japan for roughly 10 days... and it was quite the amazing trip... the sakura blossoms were a little late in blooming and we still managed to see many of the gardens and countryside covered in the white/soft pink ephemeral flowers. We spent 6 days in Tokyo, visiting many of the major inner districts... staying in Shinjuku, but seeing Shibuya, Akihabara, etc. We did manage to see the Tokyo Tower as well as the Skytree Building & did plenty of walking seeing temples such as the Meji, Sensoji, & Nezu. Breaking up the trip we spent one evening at a ryokan onsen, in the Hakone region. The Gora Hana Ougi was simply an amazing experience... They had you leave your shoes with them when you arrived & provided attire for your experience, a traditional yukata & sleep ware. In every room there was a nice balcony with a wonderful view of the countryside with a private bath on the terrace. There were also public baths separated for both men & women which we did indulge in as well, but having the private one to ourselves was really nice. At one point we had a little spider visit us; Ralkor was able to peacefully remove the guy into the wild. They served wonderful food, much of it locally grown in the area with an amazing multi course dinner... the following morning the breakfast was also similarly amazing. The rest of the time was spent split between our days spent in Kyoto, since everything closed at around 5/6pm & our evenings in Osaka since there was still quite the night life and wonderful food opportunities to be had. We indulged in a pachinko/slots parlor just for the experience as well. Kyoto is breathtakingly beautiful we saw the Fushumi Inari (Fox/Torii Gates) Temple, Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavillion), Ginkaku-ji, Kiyomizu-Dera, as well as the shogunate castle Nijo-jo Castle. We would certainly love to go back again.

Since getting back I've been getting back into the habit of streaming art more regularly... I have been finding that has helped keep me motivated to work on commission work as well as fun doing warmup sketches & offering 1-hr warmup sketches to folks interested before getting onto commission work.

I'll be dealing at Anthrocon 2017 here in July and can't wait to see folks there!