I'm Going To Be Working Full Time As A Freelancer! [UPDATE]

 So...yesterday at the end of the day, I put my two weeks notice into work.
Long story short, my mental health has absolutely plummeted to the point where I've been feeling very negative thoughts and feelings..I was falling into a dark place, and my friends and family (family especially, being very stubborn when it comes to wanting me to 'have a real job') all suggested I needed to stop. Throw the towel in, get out of the job, or its going to literally kill me. I had a very unprofessional supervisor who really shouldn't be in any sort of position to manage a team, thats for sure. I tried my best to work out a middle ground with him..which improved, but he quickly fell back to his ways..and worse.

SO after a lot of thought, and taking Victoria day weekend (we had Monday off so long weekend last weekend) I decided its time. Despite my current work contract ending July 12th..and taking piratically all of June off for vacation/Fur Eh...I needed to quit now. So. I brought most of the major details up with my studios manager within a resignation letter and the countdown has now officially begun. When my last day comes, I'll have a few days before my vacation free to organize, clean and pack, and then coming back from vacation, I won't have to worry about going into work for those last few days. I'll be completely free from all the negativity, and ready (and very eager) to start developing my business I've had for so long. I'm very excited to finally put the time and work into freelancing, which I've been desperately craving for a year and a half now. Commuting 3 hours to work every day for 3+ years is very draining, both physically and mentally, I really wish I could have gotten out of this sooner. But I'm happy I've gotten the courage to finally end it.

Now to answer some questions.

Will I be focusing on art within the furry fandom?
Yes.
My plan right now is to solely live off of commission work, any income I make through patreon, and conventions.

What will I have in store for the near future?
I plan to do a thorough update on my patreon. I'd love to introduce a monthly (or weekly!) comic tier. The comics being like the couple 'daily comic day' comics I've done in the past. Based on my real life events. I'd love to eventually collect them all and get them printed into a cheap zine to sell physically at conventions, but at this time I'd like to introduce this is a tier via patreon. That won't be happening until I sit down and really figure out everything though, but its something I want to do for sure. Uploads will remain consistent here, nothing hides behind a paywall for me besides WIPs of commissions, personal pieces, merch ideas, etc.
I plan on continuing with my monthly commission openings. I will likely take every order that comes in within the time the form is open, so hopefully there will no longer be rejection emails sent out unless the idea violates my terms of service! This is to make sure I'm making the correct amount of income, goal being what I make currently at my full time job or close to it at least. Doing this, I also hope to have a more accurate time frame of completion. I'd like to work in a way that I dedicate certain days to sketching, inking, colouring and shading..a step by step process to insure all commissions are done on a certain day, and therefore uploaded in a batch as well (let me know, for the uploads, if thats preferred! I do like to stagger the uploads personally, but I've seen artists upload in batches too which is neat! Depends what you guys prefer, honestly) I would also like to reintroduce my weekly streams again. I may rework the schedule, basically so I'm streaming through the week during the day hours vs weekends and evenings. More plans/ideas will be introduced, but at this time I'll be focusing on commission work and streams.

What cons do you plan on attending/dealing at?
Hopefully all of the big ones? (At least ones that have good dealers dens, and treat their artists well)
Really depends on how easy getting a proper tax licence is for the ones outside of Canada, specifically the US but I'd love to venture out to other countries too. I'd LOVE to make US cons more of a regular thing, definitely in terms of business/dealing. If anyone has any information, especially if you're Canadian and sell at international cons, please let me know any valuable information you have! Otherwise my goal will be to hit every Canadian convention I possibly can!

Are you giving up on the animation industry?
No. Absolutely not. I've always been determined to work in the industry. I've gotten so far and I still have much to explore.
I'm still actively seeking work, mainly work closer to home. There's a studio literally just down the road I've been trying to get into for years now. I'm hoping having my schedule completely free will be more appealing to them, otherwise I'd like to offer myself as a freelancer to studios within and outside of Canada. I prefer working from home when I can, especially this day and age when commuting has been extremely overpriced and tiring. So we'll see. For now, strictly furry art (:

Please feel free to ask any other questions you may have! Or share your thoughts.
I'm REALLY hoping this works out for me better in the long run. So far everyone I've talked to about this is very confident and supportive of me which means the WORLD to me. I'm a person of low self confidence, and I really struggle to get into a mindset that'll allow me to succeed. So I'm hoping this will bring me my full happiness back, and I'll be an overall better person to be around and work with.

So that's it! I probably won't have everything ready to go until I get back from Fur Eh/my vacation, but look forward to another big update from me in July (and smaller quick updates on twitter), when I'll finally get the opportunity to dedicate myself to full time work in freelancing! <3