A Few Words on the Current Situation at Fox Saliant Studios

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone’s had a good spoopy season so far!  For me things have been fairly hectic and as much as I’d like to get into the spirit of things, this month has just been a big pile of stress and strain on my physical, mental and emotional well-being.  Some of it is self-inflicted surely, but a lot of it has just been a coalescence of a few years of frustration and a need to move on.

This year marks the 10th Anniversary of Fox Saliant Studios.  I had wanted to celebrate but I simply haven’t had the time or energy to do so due to being swamped with schoolwork (from a depressingly small collection of classes) and commission work.

While I’m concerned as always about my commissions, I’ve been wanting to work more on personal projects (such as Various Happenings) and I’ve been frustrated at more or less every turn.  Not only that, things like my Patreon rewards and stuff I want to do like Pin-Up packs and such have been shelved repeatedly, much to my irritation, due to time constraints.

I don’t want to disappoint anyone, but it’s inevitable and these repeated piling of work on myself without the time or energy to get it done has left me very stressed and strained in all directions.

I’ve been violently ill since Saturday, unable to go to school and I’ve made the decision that due to the amount of time it would take me to get through the required classes (two years at the VERY least, while only being able to take maybe one or two classes a semester due to scheduling, possibly extending that further,) the future debt as well as the detriment to my general schedule and time simply isn’t worth the trouble.  I’m a freelance artist, and as nice as the paper would be to have, it doesn’t affect what I do at this point in time.

So beginning at the end of this semester, I am going to be taking a break from my schooling for an indefinite period of time.  It may be a single semester, or I might never go back, but I’m tired.  I’m tired of the waiting, the run around, the taking classes to fill time, the further borrowing of money.  I’m just... tired. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel for me, it’s just further pushing back of something that should be done by now so I’ve had enough.

So what does that mean for you?  

Well, it means a couple of things.

First, I’m going to have more time to focus on everything.  Starting January 1st of next year, I’m going to be working 40 hours a week minimum on art.  Actual scheduled, butt in chair time to work on commissions, comics, and personal projects.  Scheduled time to learn new skills, to draw things for myself as well as getting all of my obligations done. 

This is about twice what I’m able to do now, so I hope that it will be reflected in a marked jump in productivity.

This also means that hopefully VH will update on the regular and I’ll actually be able to build a buffer!  Won’t that be fantastic?

Next, starting this week I’m not going to be doing Sketch on the Spot until I’ve worked through my commission queue, or I feel reasonably comfortable in how much work I have left to do.  I want to finish ALL my current commissions by Jan. 1st, but failing that, I want to at least put a major dent in what I’ve got.

If you want colors for past Sketch on the Spots, however (I know I owe a couple people from last week), please message me and I’ll do those for you.

Now this also means I will not be taking any more commissions, period, until the 1st of the year unless I get through a significant chunk of what I have to do.

Now, what IS it I have to do?

Well, here’s what’s on the list:

• Complete Halloween ‘16 pictures by 10/31 (0/11)
• Color last week’s SotS pictures (0/5)
• Finish Fernin’s ZT comic (Currently on 5/8) [#161]
• Promote and take orders for, then complete Monny’s YCH masquerade pic [#165]
• Complete Mister X’s dragon studies [#168]
• Complete Obsidian’s Samus study [#169]
• Determine, price and complete Shaze x Yuki comic (already agreed upon)
• Determine, price, take orders for, and complete Carmine’s YCH pic (already agreed upon)

This doesn’t include the Marcy & Bubble Nurse packs, nor does it include my Patreon rewards, which I will get to as soon as all my paid work has been paired down a bit.

As you can see, it’s a chunk and having to take large amounts of time out to go and work on things that don’t really help me with my craft is both frustrating and counter productive.

So that’s the situation.  Hopefully I will be able to complete everything by the first of the year, or at least soon there after once my schedule changes.

Right now, however, I just want to get this all cleaned up and stop being completely overwhelmed and sick.  The truth is that I’ve simply taken on too much and while I need to continue producing to keep buying food and make the rent, I also need to get all of this stuff out of the way.

I thank you all for understanding and if anything changes, I’ll be sure to let you know.

~Sali

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