Sydney devMEET
It's been a few days since I got back from the Sydney devMEET, but I have only just now had enough free time to journal about it!
So, before I even got there I had an experience in itself - I caught the train on my own for the first time (yay, I'm a big boy now ) and when I got to the Opera house, I saw the forming group of deviants among a swarm of tourists and school kids visiting. I stood around like mr blend-in at first, but it was amazing to know that there were a couple of others that recognised me right away! or at least close enough, I got a "hey, your'e pirateboy aren't you?" comment it's amazing how often people mistake my name for that, so I told them not to feel bad, I knew what they meant

Later the group, led by +spyed, $Heidi and +ekud went to the nearby botonical gardens where they gave demonstrations of promising upcoming features for this site to certain groups at a time, as for the rest - it was a day of mixing in the park and there were certainly some interesting people and conversations, as well as sharing of work. Needless to say - I got a big head from seeing people's reactions when they passed around my portfolio, I get that daily here and I love it, but it's even more special to see it on a real face

I headed home after the main event, but apparently they gave a demonstration for the Wacom Intuous 4 later on. I wish I could have seen and tried that, but I ain't catching the train alone after dark, not with my still-weak life skills at the moment. Oh well, I saw what really matters and even shook hands with +spyed himself, few can say they've done that
Anyway, there's more I could add, but a picture is worth a thousand comments, so I'll let these photo's and collections do the talking...Oh, and I know I couldn't be further from pritee in these shots, I was goofing off a lot, I get that way around people

And these links are collections, I'm in each a couple of times lol [link] [link]

Anyway, I think deviantART is headed for Indonesia next, oh, and did you know that Sydney is on the top 15 cities with the most deviants? and that London apparently has more deviants than any other city on Earth? ahhh the things you learn

Other stuff
Nothing grand, I've been a bit slack in posting new art (compared to my usual rate) since for the first time ever - I'm jugging a few commissions at once and all my art-time has been spent on those. I'm wanting to make my first entry to the "kick your own @ss" contest but it's taking forever (oh why did I choose a full-body drawing of an old original character? ) But I am on the verge of posting my first tutorial! Yep, it's done, I'll be posting it in a day or two

Some real life family issues though have resulted in me constantly hopping between my Nan's house and my normal one, needless to say - this is stressful and having to set up and pack up my "work station" - by which I mean, the laptop on the TV tray so I can be sure to complete those below minimum-wage commissions wherever I go is really a kick in the balls right now. I'm starting to feel like I'm going nowhere and I'll be practically giving my art away at 2 dollars an hour forever So yeah, motivation to do even my personal works is hard to find now, people only wnat you if you can draw everything as good as anything else and do it FAST...lord forbid my characters aren't as good as my landscapes, or that I can't produce a breathtaking scene in a few hours I'm just plain not good or fast enough to work for the industry, guess that was a much-needed reality check since I was getting too confident with myself once again, and any artist who likes their work is obviously overlooking something

Phew, that was an episode
sit booboo, sit!...good dog!

*Note to Self* don't forget these contests:
Vue Environment Competition: [link] Done!
Big Emote contest: [link] Ends 5th August
Summer-themed contest: [link] Ends 10th August
Fantasy world contest: [link] Ends 15th October

Clubs/Groups: