#justzonthings

Hello, everyone. I know I'm not as active here as I used to be, but that's all about to change. I have the biggest news of my life. I'm leaving the United States and moving to Germany at the end of March!

I'm actually an artist on the side; my primary employment is software development. I was accepted into a master's program for Games Engineering, and now I'm about to make a massive career change into game development.

That being said: MY COMMISSIONS ARE OFFICIALLY OPEN. You may view my portfolio on my carrd, check my prices, and view my terms and conditions.

Ko-Fi ordering is discontinued, as it doesn't allow me to preview orders before charging customers. You may email or message me on any social media, and I will send you a PayPal invoice. View more details here:

In addition: Did you know I have a Discord server? You are welcome to join, as long as you are 18+. While my art is all SFW, some of my artist affiliates are NSFW. Also, we cuss.

There is an anti-bot mechanism in place, so please make sure you read the rules and follow the instructions for entry into the rest of the server!

Guess who got ✨con crud✨

I won't go into details, as my friend asked me not to share them. We had someone kicked out for VERY inappropriate behavior towards me and my friend. Very glad the con staff took my report seriously. Always remember to travel in packs, and if you see something, say something.

Why the fuck do people insist on touching cosplayers? I saw someone touch the butt of a sexy sonic the hedgehog cosplayer right in front of me. Disgusting behavior. idgaf what the cosplay is; keep your hands to yourself.

I am applying for masters programs in the EU for games engineering.

Speaking of games, I have a minigame almost ready to deploy. I plan to release it on Itch.io as a freebie, then eventually a Steam freebie.

Been working on my sprite skills. I've made some sprite artwork for dragcave; we'll see if it's chosen for use.

Work has been a mess; I am two weeks from deploying my first mobile app. My coworker and primary partner on this project has been MIA due to life stuff, so a lot of work is falling on my shoulders.

Meta introduced a new "AI Studio" feature and simultaneously disabled all users from the US from the ability to opt out, on any of their platforms.

Fuck AI and fuck Meta. I will give my time to a platform that gives a damn about the safety and privacy of its users.

Two commission pieces are on the way soon, and one is almost done.

In the software development world, sharing gets you jobs. It’s true. Your contributions to open source software and free-to-use content are a major plus in your career track.

I had several insightful conversations with interviewers on what they look for in a dev; it’s something they will often go out of their way to check when hiring. How many badges do you have on stackoverflow? How many stars does your MIT licensed GitHub repo have? How many downloads? It’s one of the reasons why job applications ask for links to those profiles.

Open source libraries and other resources are the building blocks of modern software development. Almost all commercial software relies on it. Hell, the apps you use every day rely on it. Tumblr relies on it. As a dev, I rely on it.

This is not how it works in art.

Artists are paid far less than devs and must closely monitor their work for theft, as it massively impacts their income when someone tries to circumvent royalties. Control of their art is crucial to financial stability.

When artists distribute free content, it has either no financial benefit or a net loss. A dev can distribute free-to-use code and use it as leverage to get a promotion or a better job.