So, over the weekend I have finally officially lost my job permanently. Some might have heard I had to "quit" for a short time to take care of a family emergency. Well it had been worked out with my employers that I could come back when I was prepared, but when I finally try to come back as all savings were exhausted, they had replaced my position and won't hire me anymore. Really, its been a problem I began to expect since COVID began, so I'm not so much shocked but at the same time I'm not prepared for this change in income. For my family, I have been the primary income for a long time and all other income is in the form of Social Security of family members. It will be just enough to cover our rent for the future but not enough for extra expenses like utilities and groceries. I know this is going to make things very hard for me for a while.

But maybe for my audience here there is some upside to it. Anyone who has commissioned me knows I can take a very long time to get a work done and I don't reply very fast, sometimes months could go by before I have any progress to show. That's because of my job was to be "on call" 24/7 even the weekends, and I could not anticipate when my days would be more free or less free. So drawing was something I have little time for, between my family and my work. But now, I have no such distractions. And more than before I need to make the money from this career until I can find a new job. I want to try to begin working on artworks every single day like a full time job, and with that I hope I can begin producing artwork much faster. We will have to see if its possible, but I need to be hopeful.

Due to this I also will need to increase my prices again, might be even quite drastically. I have looked more and more at other artist prices and see them charge much more than me for the same styles of work (Fullbodies, shaded, colored, and such) I always thought "Well they are more popular and more consistent so that's why" but I can't use that excuse to keep my prices low any more. I will say I am very willing to work on finding affordable options, but mainly I will need to increase everything to be sustainable as income for the future.

I still have commissions yet to be finished. I plan to try to finish them all within the Spring and Summer season. That way, I will be prepared to take new works on in the Fall around September. I don't know if I can make it, but I will try. I've been very blessed so far with a gracious and patient customer base and I don't know how much I could thank everyone who has supported me so far. I hope that I can make this work out, because I really need to. And I would love to be a better artist for everyone who has been kind to me and enjoys what I make. Thank you all.