A months-old tegaki with Rose I finally took two minutes to compile

I call it “why you shouldn’t be friends with me”

When I was very young, still in early elementary school probably, I was reading The Far Side, which is a fantastic comic. And I stumbled upon this one.

I paused for a long time on this page. Something about it stirred in me. It was surreal. I knew of the alien xenomorphs already, the vicious inhuman monsters. And yet here they were, having Thanksgiving Dinner. That was the joke, but it made child me realize something I had only considered before in the faint recesses of my mind.
I had always liked monstrous characters. Villains always seemed to be cooler than the heroes, at least visually. And monsters were cool. But that’s all they ever were, evil villains and mindless monsters. The story could never be about them. We had to settle in design and setting. And then I saw this.

Doors opened for me. It painted out an idea I had always fumbled with, nebulously, but could never pinpoint. And here it was: Alien family dinners.

Now cut forward to the present day and here I am drawing Kobolds having tea parties, gnolls going on adventures, beholders making fruit salads, and whatever the hell Muschio is. It influenced my entire style to come. Monsters were cool. And now they could play some part out of role, have some influence beyond just being the thing guarding some cave the hero needs to enter. Hell, even the context of the joke is familiar, and one I’ve drawn more than once thematically.

In fact, the argument could be made that The Far Side influence me in a lot of other ways too

But perhaps we should leave it at that

I live with some cats and none of them are very bright but it takes a special kind of cat to get both paws stuck like this

I had to get him out, but the whole time he had his own plan, which consisted of “walk forward”

hi

i’m sorry but someone asked for this

“You need to see a dentist”

I appreciate the insight but you have to realize it’s not like I’m not going because I’m scared of the dentist or anything

those of you who know me know my teeth have more in common with a warzone than a mouth and that I’ve got cavities and just broken-open teeth galore

So, sometimes when I’m falling asleep, I accidentally, subconsciously clench my jaw just a little bit and the pressure on my back molar causes such sudden pain that I jolt up in bed, feeling like at any second I could have just shattered my already-broken tooth completely

well, it finally happened
nothing quite like waking up to find a big shard of tooth just hanging out in the middle of your mouth

Wow.

What is there I could possibly say? I didn’t expect generosity like this. I returned home from a walk with my brother. He was feeling sick and anxious, mostly about our prospects and our place in life, and couldn’t sit still. It was as bad as I’ve ever seen it today. Stress had made him physically sick.

And I get home to find this. The amount raised was glorious, something I can’t even begin to believe, especially in the time that had elapsed. It feels surreal. Blurring vision gave way to definitive numbers.

I love you guys. I really do. I had hoped, I had, but I hadn’t expected anything like this. I told my brother. He hugged me so hard I left the ground.

I want you all to know what this has meant and will mean for us. You haven’t just helped us out financially. You haven’t just saved us.You’ve done that too, I mean. But you made my brother smile genuinely for the first time in a long time. You gave us hope.It’s not easy to come by these days. I wish I could thank you each in person, show you what this really meant for us, emotionally, psychologically. The ability to survivemeans so much to one’s mental health.

I can’t really express in simple words how significant and moving this is, and it’s only been a few hours. But thank you. Thank you, everyone.

I guess I have a lot of drawing in my future! I won’t let you down!

Also, my brother was so grateful that hedrew for you too! Check the second image for his contribution of gratitude.

COMMISSIONS BY WEAVER

That’s right, after being asked for years and years I’ve finally said what the hell and thrown my hat into the ring. I’ve avoided it for a long time — frankly, because I have trouble believing anyone thinks my work is worth real, actual money — but no longer. But with money the way it is I can’t afford to keep my reservations and I don’t want to leave people totally out in the cold so with any luck this will be a good medium.

Now I’m not just offering doodles and pictures as commissions. I’ll do small comics, back-and-forths, writings, even animated GIFs on request. In short, if the price is right, I’ll do just about anything I am capable of if you want! I use the term art-whore for a reason.

The problem is that I can’t really use professional, commercial artists as comparison here. I can’t see my work stacking up to theirs. So existing price scales don’t seem appropriate, especially given the nature of my work. As a result I’m debating pricing at the moment. I really don’t want to make assumptions of what my work is worth and I wouldn’t want to insult someone by presuming.

My current plan is a wild one: you commission me, I fulfill it, and then when I present it to you, you pay what youthink it’s worth. Essentially, however much you want to pay, that’s the price.

Maybe this is a bad idea. Probably!
It’s entirely possible to totally scam me by making a commission, getting it delivered, and then paying me nothing. That’s something you could do. I hope you don’t, and I really wouldn’t enjoy it, but it’s not like I haven’t considered that some people might do that. All I can do really is ask that you please don’t.
However I do, resultantly reserve the right to make exceptions for big projects, like animations or extended comics. Those I might not want to spend a few days on only to find the recipient wanted them for free.
I also reserve final judgment on turning down any projects that are outside the scope or range of what I am really capable of. This is a “just in case” catch-all.
Any payments would be through PayPal since it’s sort of my only option right now.

I’m just trying this out at the moment. So I’m only taking a limited run of 10 commissions to start.
Thank you for bearing with me. I guess we’ll see how this goes!

Just send me a message here on Tumblr, or alternately as a private message on my FA, and we’ll go from there.

Commissions are temporarily closed now. Thank you for your interest. If this goes well there will be more openings to come.

So as you may have gathered, it’s not easy to get a job in this town. Without a job, we’ll be out of here right quick. But I haven’t given up hope. Things are tough but there must be something out there. I’m trying to expand my search range but with no car that means mostly looking to the internet. There must be places to make money on the internet - and currently I’m sending applications in to the one profession I told myself I’d never get back into: tech support. When even the local McDonald’s isn’t hiring, you get pretty desperate. Along with a couple data entry sites, I’m pushing forward with them.

Again I come to you, my fans, for help. Now this time I’m not asking for money or support or handouts of any kind. But if anyone out there knows of any work from home sites, online support centers, or anything like that, I would be grateful if you could maybe help point me towards some that I could send more applications to.

I’m not asking for anything for free and I’m not asking for money. I’m just looking for gainful employment to stay afloat. If you know of any places that might help, I thank you in advance.

Addendum
Looked into it. Amazon’s Mechanical TURK is neat, but you can’t really live on it even with the small cost of living I’ve got. We’re talking 15 cents for a task that takes a few minutes, which comes out to around $3 an hour if you’re lucky. There are surveys that take 30 minutes and pay $0.20. It’s a fun idea but sadly doesn’t look like anything more than a bit of pocket change even for as frugal a life as I try to lead.

My brother and I moved to this town because we were assured there would be jobs everywhere — just reach out and take one. There were certain things, like farmhand work and retail at K-Mart, that were “always available, if you were willing to do it”. Fallback opportunities in case other stuff fell through.

They hired someone else at K-Mart and apparently the farms are full up until Fall.
So to take my mind off it here’s a fun little comic about an earlier excursion to the job outreach center when we swung by the state offices and tried to get aid.

oh and for those asking, we’re not on unemployment because neither of us have been employed recently enough to qualify for it, if we qualify for general aid it won’t be enough to survive on, but with any luck we’ll be on food stamps soon

I know the stigma but shut up food stamps are awesome we could eat better than we have in months

It’s good news.

I said I’d post when I had good news, and now I do.

Here’s the short of it: We have found a new place to live, and thanks to all of you, we have the means to get there and make our first payment, so we can start living there. We’ll be moving over state lines and taking a long overnight trip in a U-Haul but after weeks, we finally have, definitively, a place to go, and the money to get there. And it’s all thanks to the selfless generosity of people like you. I can’t possibly express the kind of gratitude those actions deserve. But in the coming weeks and months, I will try.

If you’re interested in more, here’s a more in-depth rundown of what’s happened after the break.

Read More

Status Update.

For anyone who’s worried, here’s my situation:
The person who is responsible for evicting me is thankfully busy with his own shit right now, so though giving me some kind of intentional consideration was never the goal, I’ve managed to work out a little wiggle room. Therefore though the month is over I am still not homeless yet. I have a bit more time still.

I was hoping I’d be able to update with good news, but that’s not possible yet. My brother and I have set three dates so far that we’ve intended to move out by, and missed every one. Moving to a new state means we’re not able to actually be there in person for the applications we’re making, and have to rely on others. Much of our time over the last ten days has been spent alternating between scrambling to get information through the necessary channels despite a lack of tools to do so, and then waiting helplessly for a response. The first place we were looking into never gave us a concrete answer and just never called us back, and stopped picking up the phone, which seems like a pretty rude way of saying we didn’t get it. We waited anxiously for over a week until we finally just gave up. Meanwhile, other applications fell through, new opportunities required things we didn’t have, and after sounding incredibly optimistic about our chances, our most recent and most promising chance just called me back yesterday to say the answer was “no”.

We’ve got more applications hopefully going in today, but not being there myself I can’t know. I just have to keep calling and pressuring and hoping that this can get done by the parties involved.

I haven’t slept restfully in almost a month. At this point I feel pretty sure I’ll be able to work something out, and won’t end up homeless. But I just want it done. I just want all this to be over. The waiting and the not knowing is killing me. That feeling of helplessness, relying on others, not being able to be there myself.

For those worried about me, I hope to have good news soon. I really do. But I’ve gone to sleep for over ten days straight so far telling myself “with any luck, I’ll know by tomorrow”.
Hopefully this time it’s true.

I know some people are concerned about me and want an update, so I promise, as soon as I know something for sure, I’ll let you all know. I just don’t want to make an announcement before things are set in stone and come back the next day to say “oh nevermind, that fell through” because if I had that would have happened a couple times already

What I can say is I’m not dead yet and unless things go really badly from here on out it looks like I probably won’t end up homeless
Further bulletins as events warrant

Evicted.

Long story short: I’m being kicked out of my apartment. I have nowhere to go. My brother, who lives here as well, is in the same boat. He and I are now trying to find some way to not be homeless by this time next month. We may be moving across the country as a result.

I’ve been in some dire straits before, but never faced with the immediate threat of homelessness.

So it’s with hat in hand I come to my fans today.

Normally I do not feel right just asking for donations. In the past I have opened up donations only for brief periods, and only under the stipulation that I would be offering drawings in exchange, so it would feel less like a charity, and more a series of commissions in which donators could name their own price. Now, however, I do not have that luxury. Trying to find a home and a source of employment several states over is my priority.
It is important to stress that this time around, I cannot promise art in return on a per-donation basis. Once I’m gone, I don’t even know how long it will be before I am back again.
But I want to be able to do something for those who have stood by me, my fans and supporters. I can’t treat this plea for help as a pseudo-commission run this time. All I can say is I will try to make this up to you.

I know I am asking for a lot. But I am desperate now, and I’m reaching out.

If you have enjoyed RubyQuest, NanQuest, DiveQuest, EFG, Player 1, Boxdog, even my stupid little scribbles in the margins or the ponies that populate these pages, you owe me nothing. These works have been made for your entertainment, and mine. Nothing more. I did not create them for you in the expectation that I would get something back, or the delusion that I deserved anything for them. But if these things have pleased you, and you want to do something to help me, I need all the help I can get. Even if you can’t spare any money, please help me get the word out there.
If you think it is worth doing, if you decide to help, please send your PAYPAL donations to:
ACTarbiter@gmail.com

Anything helps.
As for you reading this - whether or not you decide to donate, I want to thank you for your support over the years. I cannot forget the help of those who have stood by me or simply enjoyed the strange and crude art I create, for it is you who have made my work and at some points even my continued existence possible. You have my appreciation and gratitude, even if money never comes into it.
So, thank you.