Hope everyone's had a good Christmas so far!

Mine started out glum with work, but today I was pleasantly surprised to find that my family had pooled money for a group gift of CS6 Photoshop :D! After last year I had kind of given up on accepting or expecting anything even though I normally bust my butt making gifts for just family alone XP

This year my gifts were bath salts in custom-labeled bottles and several candle tarts (wickless candles that you treat like oils to be used in a burner/candle warmer) and a print of Winter's Greeting that I intended to send out last year (whups!)

I did also get a spritzer bottle from my aunt with a custom blend of nutmeg and lemongrass for my neck muscle issues - as my neck hyperextends in the upper vertebrae to create a rather broken-neck effect when I tilt my head in any direction and feels like it's actually disjointed from the rest of my spinal column and pops REALLY loudly. Needless to say this leads to mornings where I have really nasty knots in the upper shoulders through to the top of the head in the morning.

From my northern grandparents I received a very nice vest which I'm currently enjoying ^_^

So all in all not a lot this year, but I really don't mind, dunno what my Maine folks are sending as I've yet to receive their package. The only problem I'm experiencing so far is with CS6.... Apparently I need 10.6 at least for OS X to be able to use it, and Mavericks won't upgrade unless I have 10.6.8, aaaaand I only have 10.5.8 XP So yeah, that was the reason behind my earlier journal.

Plans for 2014

This year has been really sub-par in art production with being sick and trying to pay off expenses, which as a gift from my folks I am now no longer having to pay off computer and medical, to whom I am very appreciative of doing so! So... This next year I'm going to be doing a few things differently..

I know I have the Callairah account on my DA set as my commission account, but posted a commission on the TSD account. I will be returning to submitting commissions to that account and keeping TSD as a personal art account.

Commissions will be closed for the 'fiscal' year unless an emergency comes up and I cannot get funds otherwise. Does this mean that I'm cancelling off all commissions or agreed upon works? Assuredly not, this just means that from this point I will have to turn down any further requests for commissions until I am confident in myself and my skills to reopen.

Why close commissions? Mainly so I can comfortably sit down and focus on my current list, which is missing a couple people as I realized o_o; Need to adjust that... But, really I need to really get serious in improving my turnaround rate and getting a feel for my skill level and where I should be pricing my commissions.. Especially considering that the current prices are really from last year >_>;

There are also many projects I want to do or at least begin that I have not allowed myself to do so beyond the occasional piece between commissions. HOWEVER, this means still that commissions are main priority, so I intend to finish them within the next month or two provided I don't get deathly sick like last year... I told my co-worker who had bronchitis around me at the time to stay well clear this year if he contracts it...

As far as projects for those who would be curious I can give a brief summary of what I do plan on attempting -

Profile - Just like this year the profile update only partially happened, but I intend to do it all the way this round, I'm just debating between Radioactive Snakedream or a different name >_>

Characters/Species - This one would probably take a bit to complete, but I want to bring all of my characters up to speed in ref sheets, and maybe finally settle on a design for Taeso herself since she's been practically absent for the better part of three years XP There are a number of species with partial or completed information behind them and a number of sketches already started as a kind of 'preview' I'll post in a chart once I get them all sketched out.

Stories - All in comic form, I have about 5-6 different stories, with at least one to be posted on a separate account for specific reasons (only one account has a couple of things on it, good luck finding it as it's not what one would expect me to draw!) All stories are still in progression save for one and maybe another, but I'd like to get to a point where I can start working on the comic versions. However, I am writing these scripts like a story, so anyone doing a third-party reading would be able to follow the scene and plot fairly easily.

-Dragon Book- Something I've been poking at since waaaay back in 7th grade almost 11 years ago (holy friak that's a long time!) but I am at a point I want to do something different with it. Current thoughts have the book be a series following an explorer discovering modern species of dragons throughout the world and documenting it in her book (the one that is the actual book) as she goes along. Or, it could be an alien adventurer discovering a new world and such, it's all kind of flitting around and not quite settling down from the original concept of how-to-draw, which every artist has pretty much done at this point XP

Sequential/Traditional art- I still intend to tackle that project this year with some twist. I had the thought of practicing in daily speed paints of landscapes since I do need work on those, however they won't be started until after my commissions are completed..

Sculptures - I'm attempting something interesting with this field to try and get back into sculpting and making money with them, but I won't reveal what it is until I get a good batch made for posting. This does not mean I'll be taking sculpture commissions as I'm not comfortably proficient with my skills in it in the time being.

Does this mean that there won't be anything for sale from you this year? Not necessarily. I do plan on making earrings, bath salts, and candles to sell on etsy and here. I just need to find a new supplier for the bottles and redesign the logo from the one I put in for the christmas gifts I sent out.

But that's the plan so far, finish commissions, close them down until I can refigure them and draw up a new commission sheet, work on personal art to clear up a lot of my personal projects so they won't keep harassing me, and do some dabbling ;3

I think that should be all of the updates/announcements..