Hey everyone, this is Quaylak! Just wanted to pop on and share some new updates before 2018 rolls around.

Words can't express the insanity we experienced this year. I know we covered some of it in the last update, but so much more has happened since then. We lost our two eldest pets (one we expected/planned, the other shockingly sudden), experienced a death in the family (my uncle), multiple illnesses, purchased a new car, I had five teeth removed in October...and those are just a few of the bigger events. I went home to Chicago for my first Thanksgiving dinner with my family in 15 years, only to come home with the flu. It's been two weeks and I'm only just now shaking it off, so I wanted to take advantage of my feeling better to do some work for the studio.

Which reminds me!

For the foreseeable future, I (quaylak) will be running the studio myself. With jakejynx working consistent 12-14 hour days and 55+ hour weeks, it's just not feasible for him to keep up with it anymore (the studio was his primary job for several years, whereas I was only responsible for head sculpts). He will continue to do fursuit work as time allows, but I'll be managing emails, keeping this account updated with finished work, and primarily using Twitter for communicating updates/progress moving forward! If you want to know what we're up to, I recommend giving us a follow: savageturtlestudios on Twitter!

As for commission updates: despite the insanity that went on this year, we were able to secure the funds for those who requested refunds, so those are currently being issued as we speak! If you requested a refund but have not received it, check your email for further instructions.

Right now, we have one full suit left that I'd like to have finished before the end of the year. Then, the only large projects remaining are two partial suits (an owl and a cat raccoon). I also have an artistic liberty otter partial we started late last year using an old base that I'd like to finish and sell, so he may make an appearance in early 2018!

Future commissions/Future of the studio: Once those last two partial commissions are completed, our commissions will be CLOSED INDEFINITELY. At the moment, we are NOT taking quote requests, as we have no intention of opening commissions for the foreseeable future. With how long our current queue has taken and with as limited as jakejynx's time is these days, we feel it is more appropriate to work on artistic liberty suits and sell them in our free time.

We love you guys and all of the people we've had both the honor and pleasure of working with the last 10 or so years, but we can't risk missing deadlines or having people wait inordinate amounts of time again due to our schedules being overloaded. Both of us work full time jobs outside of fursuit work, so trying to run a studio that takes commissions with any sort of regularity just wouldn't be responsible. At most, I could see us taking ONE suit at a time if we ever did custom work again, but for now, it'll just be artistic liberty suits once our queue is done. We hope you guys understand and of course, you'll be the first to know if that changes in any way!

Honestly, we're both really itching to experiment with new techniques again and have some creative fun with our own designs. It's been a while! So we're not "leaving the fandom" or closing shop any time soon -- more like wanting to rediscover our love for it by not having to rely on it to pay the bills. c:

I'll mainly be posting more frequent updates/happenings/progress on Twitter, but will share finished stuff here as soon as I have it! Any questions/concerns can be emailed to us any time. We appreciate you guys, as always, and hope you have a great holiday season! <3