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Nooo, my babies! gonk Why not just toss the Skrith in with the Spire crowd and...well, I have no idea what Twisted Fate is so I don't know how that would work with the other two. What happened to the person who took over the Skrith's? And why did the Feather Dragons need new lineart at all? I don't remember anymore...I always thought they were pretty the way they are. sweatdrop

Failing all else...turn the shops over to others to manage while you focus on retrieving the joy from drawing you used to have and seemed to have lost?

Or....go into Minishops. It doesn't have that same sense of community you wanted to build forever ago, but it's a lot easier than competing in B/C.

Or....find another shop or three with pets you think could inhabit the same world as yours and create a shared guild with them? You can create events that feature critters from more than one shop, and pull in people that find appeal in different things, at least a few of whom will take a peek at the other shops and maybe get pulled in.

And if all else fails, hire bumpers. The biggest problem with B/C is just getting noticed in the sea of shops.

Pssh, public opinion sucks and you damn well know it. Don't go listening to the s**t of other people who know pretty much nothing about art. Hell, you have better art than a good majority of the shops out there. It pisses me off that people have the audacity to critize (so I can't spell, you know very well I can't XP), and it not being constructive. I personally love your art. It's definitely unique and the concept behind your plots for your shops are totally awesome.

The FD's are fun. I'm guilty of not visiting as much as the next regular (*nudges* Yourself included, ne?), but I love them none the less. They were like, my first pet and I would not part with them for anything. I would personally like to see new lineart. You said yourself that you are getting better.

Ari'Skrith, I'm in an rp block. I'm think I should ask for help on how Zhiril is supposed to find Kalandra. I definitely haven't forgot about it. And I certainly don't want to see the shop go. It just needs more activity...and sadly, as with all shops. You need activity to get activity. So, I'm going to try harder to get both shops activated.

And I swear, if you close TF I will personally hunt you down and whap you to start it again. And I know where you live! That, or I'll take over and draw everything, and you know THAT won't be pretty. blaugh You have Xaki and I who are really into it. I'm just waiting for your reply, no da. And no one has seen the art for TF, except for a select few, so there's a reason right there why it's not all that active at the moment.

Hun, you can't let a bunch of assholes get to you. Ignore them. Ask to see some of their art. Don't let some unhelpful comments get to you and stop you from doing what you love. Besides, Keila just might have something to say if you stop too, ne?

*hugs* You know I'm here. Don't hesitate to whap me or whatever to talk. I've been on AIM a lot more lately. And don't close shops, pleeeeeeeasssse?

@ Phara: The Spire stuff needed new lineart because I got completely sick of the old lines. I don't ever want to colour on them again. Plus the new Kyurii lines (the only redone linearts that are FINISHED) look infinitely better than the old ones. As for Gen... she had RL stuff to attend to so she quit, after catching up most of the Skrith stuff. And those two shops are integrated plot-wise already. The Dark Kyurii storyarc was rather deeply linked to the Skrith fight against the shadow.

@ Ki: It's hard to get back into the Spire stuff when the only activity that pops up when I post is "HI!" and then three tumbleweeds the next day, no matter how active I am in that duration or afterward. It's like the people who come in want to make absolutely sure to emphasize the emptiness of the shop and rub it in. That hurts. Really bad.

Skrith stuff, you're literally the only person who's been active in the past year. We might as well have done Zhiril's summoner training one-on-one over AIM; the result would be exactly the same as it is now. He might've even finished off all his training by now and gotten like halfway to Grand Summoner or farther. Everyone else? Oh, let's see. There are what, six summoner trainees, each of which total little more than the freebie training?

As for TF... The only reason I've kept it going for this long was because of you, Xaki, Maru and Skie. Everyone else I've talked to about it was so excited initially, but then dropped it immediately after I started the thread or thenabouts. Luca actually got sarcastic on my a** when I asked her if she was still interested, and I think she's just completely abandoned it.

The problem is, at this point in time it's not the random assholes that are ripping into my art. Now I have Fa'e people telling me to GTFO the internet for some reason and I've been getting insults left and right. When I have something I really love and I want to show it to someone, all I get is "Oh that's nice" or "Cute!", no matter what the content. I could draw a gryph disemboweling its prey, and I'm sure I'd just get another 'cute' comment. No one pays attention anymore. It really feels like all my art ever gets used for is a sig spaceholder. Not as RP characters or anything. My art is actually so bad that no one can RP the characters I draw for them.

*pats* Nevermind about Minishops. You'd never survive there if you can't stand listening to the sound of your own footsteps bouncing about. sweatdrop

I didn't mean just plot-wise, I meant make them into one shop altogether. Plots are fickle things. They end, begin again, end again, begin again. Never staying still, even when it looks like they are. Not that I've had much to do with them in, oh, forever, or really plan to ever again. Frankly, roleplaying bores me for whatever reasons. I've never gotten why people are so crazy for it, even when I think back on the days I used to be into it too.

I suppose you could look at the bright side...if people have been insulting your art right and left, then at least they know it exists. Have they been giving helpful critcism or just shouting out random insults that have nothing to with anything, like the n00bs do? Myself, I am a frequent user of "Nice" and "Cute" because it's either true, I have no real opinion, or don't want to share my real opinion because I have a tendency to find the bad in everything. I can find the bad in kittens and rainbows, trust me.

If you really want your creations to become rp characters, you're probably going to have to start making anthros. No matter how hard we try, identifying with creatures outside our own species is hard, and we're a lazy people. Adding more human to your beasties makes it easier to create personalities that actually fit rather than just trying to force human thoughts, reactions and emotions on completely non-human critters.

That was the point of the Dark Kyurii storyarc. It introduced the alternate/human forms of the Spire things. Sapphire knew about it, she talked about it near the end and how she doesn't want her alternate form, because she doesn't have any sort of important skill that might be enhanced by such a change. Skrith have it too; I've had Kalandra's humanoid/anthro/whatever form down on paper for about a year now. But the two shops cannot merge; their ideas are too different.

I was going to introduce the Airi'Sinth at the same time as the alternate forms of Skrith, once the RP had gotten to the point where Death was healed and could produce spheres again. Very few people know that I had elementals for the dragons, as well as higher-level forms of the demon/angels that would produce 100% angel/demon eggs. Hell, I even made pixie dragons! A few months ago, I had the idea of creating an item I called the "shatter gem", which would literally destroy a dragon's DNA structure (if it wasn't a full normal) when fitted to an adult. It would draw out recessive traits and it was permanent. While it mutated the dragons badly and decreased clutch sizes, it would increase their chances of passing on their special-type genes in all breedings thereafter. Like a shattered angelic could have full angel offspring in a breeding with a fire dragon, and shattered half-demons would count as full demons. A bonus was that it allowed demonics to fly (instead of low gliding) and thus be eligible to chase the queen, but at the price of their claws. I'd even made lineart of the 'shattered' angelics.

Then I realized that there was so little interest in either shop, that it was in the negatives. What's the point of adding new and exciting ideas when no one was interested in the stuff in the first place? If no one is interested, no one sees. If no one sees, no one hears about it. If no one hears about it, it never gets used. Why would I do things that would never be used?

Also, regarding all the crap I've been getting:

The thing is it's not just the art, I'm getting character bashing, too. Apparently they think I'm a terrible person and that it's a crime to be upset when someone insults something I was proud of. Was, since I'm starting to despise any image that I churn out, no matter the medium.

I don't get criticism even if I ask for it. Just saying that I suck doesn't tell me what I should fix. Telling me I'm 'good' or 'talented' doesn't boost my confidence, it actually makes me feel worse. It always feels like an adult telling a child "Oh that's nice" and patting them on the head without even looking at the drawing to see what it was. I've actually gotten a "That's cute!" when I showed someone a gryphon killing something. There was blood and gore. I got the offhand "Oh that's nice *patpat*" reaction. Real criticism makes me happy because it tells me that the person is actually looking at it, looking for what's wrong, looking for what's done right.