Comm forms are closed, and i've sent messages to those who have gotten in. If you are one of the lucky few, congratulations :)

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I think I'm gonna be scrapping the standard commission types for a while. I might've made a mistake opening both forms at the same time, and having to take in so much work within a batch, I will quickly burn myself out. I've heard from artist friends of mine who would open one batch, and then take up to a year+ to finish an entire batch. And I cannot be in that position. I think having the guilt of people waiting on me and having money on the line would just add to my stress.

As of right now, I ended up not taking a ton of the standard comms out of lack of interest (I still took some) and there were too many forms on both sides to choose from. But as for the ones with the choice of creative freedom, I can feel a huge weight off of my shoulders knowing that I'm allowed to have fun with it. My work, in terms of output, is very important to me. And as much as we can pretend that Harley can do a lot of things, I can't just take comms I wouldn't be able to put all my heart into, and charge people for it. With that said, I might be shelving the standard comm forms for a while... because the creative freedom comms is the only way I can make money and keep myself sane during these times. (I currently live alone and am juggling with a lot while also pouring in so much of my mental work into making art, I need all the shortcuts I can get)

I apologize for the inconvenience this may have affected to interested commissioners, I hope you guys understand that I am very protective of my artwork, the results and the quality I post. Art burnout or any hit to my sanity or emotion, can badly damage my work. At this stage in my life, I can't let that happen. (Or atleast, I can't let it happen with paid art.)

Think up of ideas again, will probably have them limited again, and will try to open for regular commission types (250$+) as well as creative freedom commission types (200$ max)

Will also remove the 'toony commission' type, since I'm still putting in as much mental work as my standard comms anyway

Will open the forms on monday, close forms on friday, and message everyone who got in.

Everyone stay safe and take care!

Originally, when I thought of doing this post, I wanted to save it for my birthday this year. But maybe I can cut it in half and save the rest for when my birthday eventually comes. I didn't wanna make a journal post about how it was just an announcement about it being my birthday and having comments fueled by obligations. I've started leaning into being a bit more opinionated and valuing my experiences and having it be a teaching/learning moment for others. Sometimes even just reflecting upon them and talking about them out loud, I'd still learn something new about myself. And that's just due to a mental back and forth I'd have whenever I'm about to give a long winded speech about something. (I've lived alone for a year, I've had a TON of time to do that.)

So, with all that said, maybe you're a younger person who could benefit from the teachings of a short old man, or you're an older person who'd have similar experiences from me and would like to compare/contrast for the sake of a civil discussion. Or hell, maybe even someone my age and is sitting next to me on this roller coaster.

Who knows if this is a waste of time to read or to write. If you've been in my livestreams before, you know that I just love to gab.

Also none of my online friends are available during the day, and its 3:44am on my end and I'm taking a drawing break hahaha

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1. It's not always about you.
For those times where you're stuck in an elevator and someone was 1% rude to you, or maybe a friend gave a little bit of a deadpan response to your efforts of small talk, keep in mind that you may have had a run of the mill day, but they probably have had a less than stellar day on their end. Maybe they have something on their mind. Maybe they're deep in thought and you're slightly meaningless 'hello' kinda got in the way of their thinking. And that's fine. In that scenario, neither party really did what they did out of malice. All I'm saying is, they're probably having a negative thought in mind. Maybe it was about you. Most sane people wouldn't. Learn to let go, that wasn't about you, let go of the ego for now.

2. The two kinds of apologies.
We'll mess up. Then we apologize. What happens when we do it again? We apologize some more. Until it repeats over and over again, and then an apology just slowly becomes "I'm saying sorry because I have to, because I was raised to say sorry after."

What I mean by this is, its the morally right thing to apologize. Its what our parents taught us. But sometimes the lesson isn't learned just because "we have to". Over time I've met people who's apologies mean nothing because they're not saying "I'm sorry, I won't do it again." They're saying "Please pardon me. If you accept, I have your permission to do this again later."

Over time I've been really trying to unlearn the latter (still failing maybe 2 times out of 10), and I think knowing that exists within me and I'm consciously capable of doing that has kind of put me in positions where I'm a bit more careful with my words/actions, and when I should refrain from lashing out because I don't want to abuse an apology as a "Get Out Of Guilt Free Card"

3. Don't be afraid of people having a thought about you.
Whether its negative, mockery, malice... if people thinking that you suck, you're bad at a certain thing, or you're embarassing yourself despite the fact that you're doing what you love and you're not hurting anyone... this should be plainly obvious to you: You're not the one in the wrong in that regard.

The mentally and emotionally well would not have a care in the world if you love board games, or K-Pop, or video games, or [insert cringey nerdy thing here] because they THEMSELVES have their own pleasures in life. To not yuck another man's yum SHOULD BE the norm. It's not in regards to some people, but it should be anyway. No matter what way you spin it, if another person makes fun of someone who's just having fun, they're the obvious dickhead in that situation, and you're not. So keep doing it anyway.

Quick tangent: The amount of hate I've had in the years I've been in this fandom just because my music preferences aren't EDM or Metal is insane. I've never had a passing thought about EDM or Metal music, but damn-- everytime I meet someone who's personal tastes are so anti-mainstream or incredibly alternative (Almost to the point where it feels like a parody), I already know I'm never talking to you about the music I myself like, just out of the sheer trauma of getting hit with an insult right out the gate. Everytime someone would actually make the decision of saying "Pop is horrible music, and hip hop is garbage"--(Like, THEY THOUGHT ABOUT SAYING THAT TO YOU, how do you justify thinking you're right in doing that?) I get immedietely reminded of why I don't want to talk about music to people.

Anyway, yeah. The art you fap to is from a guy who is blasting Britney, Mariah, Rihanna, Beyonce, Grande, and Gaga all day. If that's a big problem, do get over yourself hahahaha. Maybe you have an opinion about a cheap pop song that's just trying to be inspirational to sell records, but... that kind of music aided me in improving my art on an annual basis AND shaped me into this take-no-nonsense attitude, so joke's on you lol.
Shoutout to the ones who choose to be polite and just say nothing. <3

4. Don't feel too bad about making typos or grammatical errors all the time.
I'll keep this brief-- there are people in this world who only know English all their life, and yet a big majority of them can't read/write/speak it correctly 100% of the time. If they get a pass, so should you, me, and the rest of the bilingual foreigners reading this. You're doing great, I understand you fine.

This got weird, moving along--!

5. I've repeated this many times in the past, but still bear repeating-- have an amazing relationship with yourself.
And because I've stated this so many times in the past, I'll cut it down to the major point I have: Even if you're single or partnered, you always go to bed with the same person you wake up to in the morning: yourself. You are with yourself from the moment you wake up to the last second you're awake. You know what makes you tick, what makes you operate the best, what your flaws are, what you're not into, what keeps you motivated, happy, energized. What depresses you, what halts you, what ruins your day. Get to know yourself some more. Be critically honest about your setbacks and learn, but be celebratory with your accomplishments and learn to accept them.

I'll keep it to five for now, if this is worth doing I might drop another five on my birthday, but maybe I'll keep it strictly to one area only. I debated on whether or not I wanted to make this about *just* art, so maybe I'll do that for the next one.

Have a great day, and stay safe. I'm gonna listen to Doechii's song Catfish one more time.

--

LATE FOLLOW UP:
6. Learn to distinguish who you are and what you think of yourself, versus what other people think of you.
There have been times where I was being talked about in a negative light. For instance, I had a longtime fur friend visit me last year and he told me that a group of friends he knew of spoke about me in a way where they thought I was arrogant and stand off-ish? It genuinely didn't bother me because I know I can be that, but I know that doesn't define me.

So many different factors come into play: Did they think I was arrogant because they had a pre-conceived notion of me that I was kind of a dick, based on the arrogant character I play off on twitter about how I'm the "best foot fetishist" ever? Did they think I was standoffish because they sent me several messages that obviously looked like they were incapable of starting a conversation? (I'm looking at you, people who sends notes with a fucking 'hi') Maybe I was in a bad mood? Maybe the tone of the interaction looked like they were leading up to asking something out of me. (let's not pretend that doesn't happen)

All I'm saying is, I know who I am. I can't be modest, but I can be humbled. I know how to play nice, but I can be the bully if pushed. I can be very intimidating, but I've been told that I was hospitable when they first talk to me in Discord calls.
Another way to look at it, is if a person has never personally interacted with me before, then they'll never know what I'm actually like. So why should their opinion based on a first impression matter to me? It doesn't haha.

If you think I'm a jerk based on what other people told you, and you use that as an excuse to not talk to me... you're missing out an awesome person that could've been a loyal friend. But I guess you'll never know if you don't confirm for yourself. That's your loss, not mine. :)

WELP that's enough of that.
Deleting all my products on there now, might repost them again on itch.io should the need for them is asked for!

I've talked about this on Bluesky recently-- quick plug https://bsky.app/profile/harleypossum.bsky.social but, I've talked about the idea of opening up a different kind of commission type entirely.

I looked at my gallery and this past year, and a big majority of it has been mostly commissions. To be honest, not a fan of that! Don't get me wrong, I'm still doing comms and picking the ones I'd like to do, comms that I can confidently look at the form and not only say "I can make that happen" but "I can and will make that look good". I feel like its worked out so far, some of my most inspired pieces have been commissions where the commissioner gave me a little bit of free reign to do whatever I want, because I know what is, air quotes, "Great art within Harley's skillset"

But as much as I like having a little bit of free reign, I think I'd want more. After all, the end goal of an artist shouldn't be to get paid for other people's ideas, it should be to fund your own ideas. I used to be on that path, but then Gumroad shot themselves in the foot and made it so that NSFW works are no longer allowed on their platform, so I've reverted back to doing commissions as my income.

So, here's where the point of this journal is coming in: How would people feel if they just gave me their character, and they pay me to draw whatever I want with them?

Now, I understand that's a bit of a hard sell. Tons of things to weigh in here.

Cons:
- You don't get to make the call of what I'll draw
- You're paying me to do something I want rather than what you want
- That is of course money you're just blindly giving me in the hopes that you'll get something good out of it.

The pros:
- Not to come of arrogant, but >>HarleyJoe<< himself will draw your character, as well as their feet.
- I'll do what I want, but I love a bit of cohesion and world building, so you're not totally out of the equation, I'll still draw your character within the confines of what you had designed for them.
- What better way to further cement yourself as a foot dom, than have Harley footsub for you? :P

Here's what I'm thinking:
- You show me your character, you tell me what they're like: Hobbies, personality, job, etc etc
- Tell me what you're into. Domination. Musk. Bondage. Gentle teasing, etc etc. Be honest with yourself, it is still a commission you're getting for yourself, and you dont wanna pay for something that's something you don't want to have.
- If I like the design, I'll cook up something in my head of how I see them working in a foot fetish situation
- I let you in on my ideas, applying what I know of your OC, how would Harley interact with them, the dialogue, the context, etc etc
- YOU STILL HAVE INPUT. You let me know if that idea isn't something you're comfortable with.
- Once that's done... you allow me to go crazy with it.
- Full shading, with background, I want to make a full picture, and not just characters floating into the white void. I want to make art that I can proudly show in my gallery.

Price wise, I still don't know what I want to do for it... but I'm open to suggestions on what people think is a good base price! Obviously I think it should be cheaper than what I offer as my regular commission price. What do you guys think of it so far?

Commissioners have been contacted for this batch! Thanks to everyone who showed interest!

I spent this new year's day alone....

... oh my god, even with all the fireworks, my day and my life had been otherwise quiet and peaceful. MAN its awesome being away from family.

Moving out was really scary. But it didn't take long until things felt super easy...

Thanks @/you for funding my foot fetish artist dreams hahaha

Will be opening for January commissions on Christmas day. Will close a week after, then will get work started on January 5 :)

what the fuck @ ParuItagaki

EDIT:
No spoilers, i didnt read the manga and i have no intention to yet. we get it, you read lol

ONE MORE EDIT:
i was mostly reacting to the cliffhanger. felt like it was a failure on my part that i didnt state that earlier

gonna quickly cover it:

X dead, deleted my tweets, but won't delete my account, will keep it to contact people for now.

Bsky link: https://bsky.app/profile/harleypossum.bsky.social

Now, my two downsides for Bsky (as of now) is that there aren't any longform video uploads yet, nor are there GIFs I believe. I think I still have to post them as videos.

The other downside is I can visibly see that image uploads on BSky aren't high def yet. So that leads to my question: Where can I post them? And I'm talking about an eaaaasy post. Legitimately just a drag and drop situation, and easily accessible.

Thoughts?

Will be keeping the comm forms open until the next Monday!

Forms: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1b3.....Eaq9s6lF0/edit

Prices: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/56724826/

Also! Here's my Bluesky link:
https://bsky.app/profile/harleypossum.bsky.social

Opening commission forms. Will close in a week and will message those who got in after. :)


Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1b3.....mv8EEaq9s6lF0/


Prices: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/56724826/

I should add a note with my TOS about this, but in case it hasn't come up yet: YES you are allowed to repost your commission you got from me in your online galleries while crediting me (or don't, my watermark is already there lol), unless you asked for it to be anonymous

I'm doing a comm that includes Jarjar Binks

and if I pull this off and make it look awesome, you guys owe me a car

Thank you to everyone who showed interest! I have messaged the ones who got in and am excited to work on those pieces. For those who didn't get in, my apologies since I'm trying to lessen the work load to reduce stress. Thank you again!!

here are my prices! https://www.furaffinity.net/view/56724826/

link for commission form entry (Google Forms): https://rb.gy/5w5v8m

* I will keep this open for a week then I'll message those who get in. Gimme some juicy ideas!!

in the meantime, i'm gonna rest and goof off, stay tuned!

Do you guys use Payoneer?

Prices: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GOEGdwc.....amp;name=large
Toony comm prices: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GOEGfCR.....amp;name=large
Background details: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GOEGeq6.....amp;name=large

commission form sign up: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1b3.....rmv8EEaq9s6lF0

Sorry i couldn't get back to all of them or else I'll be here for a while @_@;; But thank you, everyone! <3

Ask me questions, or send me an anonymous horny thought :D

https://retrospring.net/@HarleyJoe