You guys just don't know how happy it made me to get a DD on Dive. And here I was being a mopey dopey face about my art for the past week or so! Thank you guys for filling my days with so many smiles. Each comment reminded me how grateful I am to be a part of such a diverse community of creative minds.

*buries self neck deep in comments feelin' cozy* ^_______________^

We live in a world that with each passing day grows to be more connected. International boundaries no longer define friendships or the people and events that shape our days and move us to action. The majority of my friends today live abroad or at the very least some thousands of miles away from where I live. But I am able to partake in their lives, to know them and even love them and to me the world becomes a small and familiar place and all it's myriad of sorrows become mine. Several decades ago Germany or Spain or Uganda were countries on a map and places in my history books, but otherwise they were just a name, a place that had little impact on my life. In today's technological world, the everyman has a voice and where before these voices were scattered and disconnected from like voices, today they may join in unison and make themselves heard.

To become relevant, ideas need to become familiar and to become familiar they need to be spread. How lucky we are to be able to do so today with such ease, a click of the button and a few minutes of our time.

I encourage you to spare a few minutes of your time to watch this video, take a moment to tweet the video or otherwise link it:

Video


Even if you feel that there are issues that take precedence to this one, to know of this issue costs you nothing and to know it makes it relevant. Awareness itself is a powerful tool for change. Make someone else aware even if you don't think it will make a difference C=.

Beyond this, as a personal addendum, I believe we owe it to the world to better humanity. To hold ourselves to a continuing higher standard. To stop even one such atrocity may not stop them all but it does better us as a whole to say "we will not allow this". It will take many such steps to change the world, but with each small step we prove to ourselves we are better than we were before and that we are capable of change. Today we live in a world that listens and hears voices and cries of people we did not once understand, it is a changed and changing world and we are it's voices.

I have always wondered personally how we are to make people listen and care about the plights of animals and the natural places in the world when so much misery, apathy and hatred exist in our own human world. If we cannot care for a fellow of our own species, how can we truly do so for a species beyond our own? I think the answer is right there. We must do both because the plight and it's consequences are the same. In either case, we will lose, be it our dignity, beauty, or diversity. We must do both, because they are intricately interconnected and one cannot be separated from the other. We,  as the custodians of this world (whether we chose this responsibility or not, whether it is fair to demand ourselves to be held to a higher standard or not) simply must meet the challenge at the risk of losing our humanity.

(PS: As a caveat emptor, do research your causes. It is easy to be stirred emotionally by a well made video or well written article. Even if the cause is legitimate, if you desire to be more proactive on whatever the issue, know what you support and read up on the causes/groups you give your time and money to. Some may mean well but do more damage than good, and some may do with the pretense of doing good. As easy as it is to spread word about good causes in today's e-world, it is just as easy to mistake opinions for facts and take them at face value. I am not saying this to detract from the necessity for awareness on the above issue. I only wish people to be more critical about whatever they read, wherever they read it and do further reading to gather all the facts before moving to action.  )

When did DA get so complicated??? I obviously don't come here enough...as everytime I do I find it harder to navigate...theres at least 30 more do-hickeys and gizmo-gadgets everytime I log in ;D! User pages have so many things now..it's almost hard to find the gallery button just to see the art all in one place.

I think I must just be getting old...you youngin whippersnappers with all your shiny fandagled apples and gadget thingies.... Excuse me while I try to program my vcr.  DA is so busy now...why back in myyyy day.....

But really I just wanted to pop in and say hello to everyone and say I'm still kicking ;}! Thank you for all the continuing support and all the beautiful comments. You guys are amazing and keep me going more than you know!

Why I will be darned, I have done a horrible job staying up to date with my deviantart account! Yikes, I am sorry folks. This journal is mostly to apologize to all those lovely people who have sent me notes, recently and not so recently, to whom I never replied. I have been receiving more and more spammy notes on Deviantart so have developed a bad habit to not check them!

So for all those that never received a reply to a note, I apologize sincerely! I tried to catch up with the bulk of them today but gosh there are so darn many! A better way to reach me is to contact me via my e-mail, which I check several times a day in most cases. My email is: xxbalaaxx@yahoo.com. Please feel free to drop me a line there {:.

Again I am sorry folks! And I am sorry for not updating my gallery much. I still lurk but I am afraid I have become terribly cloistered and just busied by life in general. Most of my time these days is spent working on commercial artwork. I am still debating whether to post it here on my DA, it is very unlike the bulk of my body of work and I'm not sure you folks would even be interested in seeing it!

Thank you all for staying with me, I will try to make a better effort to stay up to date with my Deviantart!

Wow the last time I updated this was for last year's calendar!! Sorry about that folks, I update my Livejournal with new art and other stuff a lot more frequently, so visit it here: My Livejournal

But the time has come again for the Werewolf Calendar sales! Sales will be closing in just under 3 days! So if you held off on buying one until now, NOW is the time to grab one. There will be a very limited number of calendars for sale after pre-orders close, but in the past, those have sold within a matter of days and so if you would like one, now is the time to reserve a copy for yourself or as a holiday gift for someone special.

On to more info!:


Calendars are 21$ within the continental United States and 27$ everywhere else. This price includes shipping and handling!

To read more about the calendar visit:

To purchase the calendar using paypal:
Purchase Now!

More sneak peaks of what the calendar will look like: