My Third Second Birthday

My third second birthday

Whelp: those of you who’ve known me for a while are aware that three years ago yesterday, (Nov. 28), on my daily walk from my apartment to the McDonalds where I would sit and draw all day, I suffered a stroke. Today I got to meet the ambulance crew who picked me up, and I found out a few interesting things:

That thing you see in all the hospital dramas+crime shows where the paramedics shine a little flashlight into someone’s eye and use the dilation reaction to check for concussion? They really do actually do that. Relevant to me because I’m been blind in my right eye (Nothing to do with the stroke, had a bout of Diabetic retinopathy some 10 years ago now: that’s a whole ‘nother story), and as a result my right eye is permanently dilated, so i’ve always been a little paranoid that someone would do the flashlight thing and incorrectly assume I’d had a concussion due to the resulting lack of response in that eye. Wasn’t a problem when they picked me up three years ago, but I need to get an updated Medic Alert pendant. X3

You know how people will complain about having to wait like 45 minutes for an ambulance? Chances are, quite often, that’s probably because the ambulance has to drive out from the next town over. An ambulance centre covers an entire region, not just one metropolitan area. When I had my stroke, the ambulance centre was literally about a block away, so they got there in a matter of minutes. (Stroke of Luck #1).

When it happened, I had been walking down the street, someone saw me keel over on a lawn, and called 911... stroke of luck #2: If I had stayed at home that day, no one would have found me till my brother got home from work several hours later... if whoever had made the call hadn’t seen me keel over, but rather had simply seen me lying there, they might have assumed I was just passed out drunk on the lawn or something. For that matter, I’m lucky they decided to call an ambulance at all.

Second thing I found out on my visit: once the ambulance crew drops you off at the hospital, they don’t hear anything about what happens to you after that. I would have thought that one of the major payoffs to being an ambulance crew member is the satisfaction of helping to save peoples lives, but once the hospital takes you in (if you make it there, that is), doctor patient confidentiality takes over, and the ambulance team doesn’t hear anything unless it makes the papers... which it usually doesn’t, unless the news is bad, which, all too often, it is.

So, when I showed up to meet the guys who’d scraped me off somebodys lawn and spent 45 minutes trying to resuscitate me right there on the street (keep in mind: 10 minutes without oxygen is long enough to cause brain death, tho CPR will keep the air pumping into your system, so, stroke of luck #3, I’m really lucky they got to me so quickly and didn’t just give up and call it after 20 or 30 mins), they were pretty happy to see me up and about, hale and hearty.

Details of the Stroke itself below the break.

Anyway: once I landed in the hospital, They thought I’d suffered a heart attack, and treated me as such (technically a correct assumption, since the stroke had immediately caused a heart attack). Stroke of Luck #4: everything they did in the first 24 hours to treat me was the exact same thing they would have done if they’d known at the time that it had been a stroke.

So: after a bit of time in the hospital (and notifying my parents et al), the cardiologist, Stroke of luck #4, asked the staff Neurologist, who wasn’t even supposed to be in that day, #4.1, and asked him to take a look at me. The neurologist saw something on my EKG chart that he had heard about at a conference he’d been to that very weekend, which suggested that I’d suffered a stroke rather than simply a heart attack, #4.2

Anyway, after that all got straightened out, I went through 2 months of rehab in the hospital (Including daily physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech Therapy). Stroke of Luck #5, I had an amazing team of people taking care of me (Including, coincidentally, no less than 5 therapists/doctors named Michelle, and I think a nurse or two as well). Turns out, my town has basically the best rehab team/facilities in the region. Stroke of Luck #6, the costs for whole thing, top to bottom, from the ambulance ride, to the therapy and hospital stay itself, to the bucketload of pills I was proscribed, down to the gas my parents burn driving me to and from doctors appointments, is totally covered by Canadian social assistance, since I’m on medical disability (Have been since even before the stroke: my diabetes and ADD make a very nasty combination).

So, that was three years ago... during the 2 months in the hospital I did very little drawing, and virtually no writing, and my skills basically rusted away to almost nothing nor does it help that apparently I suffer a neurological right side neglect, which has an interesting impact on my drawing (i’ll draw a figure that looks pretty decent overall, but their left side will look like I phoned it in... interiestingly, not the right side of the drawing, the figures right side). I’ve basically spent the last three years trying to regain my prior skill, and there’s a loooot of rust to brush off for the 10 years of independent study and practice I’ve done in comic art and writing. (when I dedicate my entire life to something, I don’t take half measures).

The hospital stay did have one side benefit; with a whole team of nurses handling my blood tests, insulin shots, and meal records (none of which I was ever able to manage on my own). The diabetic specialists were able to sort out a management system for my diabetes as a whole! I was first diagnosed as diabetic when I was 6, 27 years ago now. Back then the insulins available weren’t nearly as effective as what they have now, so I was never able to keep my management on track. Bad management meant bad blood sugar levels, which was painfully discouraging, so I sort of just let my management as a whole slide. Since I wasn’t getting tests regularly or keeping records, my specialists couldn’t even advise me without any data to work with. Which only made my blod sugar levels worse. But, over the course of my hospital stay, the nurses handled all my tests/shots/pills. With that information, the specialists sorted out a management plan, which I’m happy to say has working quite well for me these days. I’ve been doing pretty well following it. Every stormcloud has a silver lightning.

At any rate: I ramble. Back to the sketchbook for me.

You're a Superstar

I was reading up on stellar nucleosynthesis today... turns out, any chemical elements other than hydrogen, helium, and lithium are created by the immense heat and pressure in the heart of a sun. Elements heavier than nickle are only created by type-II supernovae. Which means that trace quantities of your body were made in the death of a massive star. A heavenly body that was 8 to 50 times the mass of our sun, and one to ten billion years old. You have some of that inside you. I like to think that's a pretty big deal.

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motivational stellar nucleosynthesis my brain goes to wierd places sometimes

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whitefoxart

11 years ago

I start livestreaming, and what's the first thing I do?

Make a banner for my Livestream, of course. Eyup.

Still streaming!

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traditional media

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whitefoxart

11 years ago

Online, Five By Five, Alive and Amplified

Well, I finally got my internet all hooked up at home. You know what that means?

We's gonna be Livestreamin's tonight! Probably 4 or 5 hours from now... That's gonna be around 6:30PM (Eastern Standard Time) for me, 5:30 for those of you in on the east coast of the US, 4:30 in the central US and Mexico, and 6:30AM for those of you in the middle of Russia or Indonesia.

Still taking suggestions/requests for what to do! I'm gonna be drawing stuff this afternoon and screwing around with it digitally for the Livestream... if you'd like to see something, now's the time to speak up. Ask and Submit buttons are right over, you know how to use 'em. I might take requests in the stream, but I'd rather do the drawing and inking on paper in advance (I have a webcam, so I may be able to stream some traditional work. I don't have any of it actually set up yet, tho, so that's speculative at this point).

One thing in particular: If anyone has B/W or grayscale lineart they'd like to see coloured and rendered, I'd totally be up for doing some of that.

At any rate... see you there!

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whitefoxart

13 years ago

Concept art for June and Jove, characters for a sci-fi comic. Same setting as James, but different storyline.

AI's use virtual appearances for things like video-calls and AR appearances. To make themselves instantly identifiable as AI's, but easy to relate to as people, they use appearances that are lifelike, yet unfeasible or "impossible."

The most standard element of this is to use a hybrid of animal species for a base appearance: June's a combination of rat and eland, while Jove is a mix of cat and dog. June's rigid gauntlets and boots don't cover the joints (knees and elbows, that is), which is a normally an important consideration. Jove's spandex tights... well, most spacers in this setting wouldn't be caught dead wearing something so flamboyant.

These aren't quite final designs... I'm still deciding on how to mix the features. And I'll probably be giving June a tail.

I need to work on those horns, too.

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illustration furry original work sci fi traditional media

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whitefoxart

9 years ago

Not my art, but.. guess what I got in the mail? A while ago, in fact, but I’m only getting around to posting about it now because I’ve given up on finding my digital camera to take pictures. Let me just say: this thing... is gorgeous. The pictures do not do it justice. For one, some of the edges of the cuts here and there look a bit rough in the image, and the surface seems a little scruffy (this is the wip version, though). The final piece is nicely polished, and it is very shiny indeed, top to bottom. Also: it’s double sided, which I was not expecting, so there’s a face on both sides with a sheet of aluminum sandwiched between them... (both sides use the same design) Accordingly, I have dubbed the pendant “Orthrus,” after Cerberus’ two headed sibling. I wasn’t quite sure about the actual size when I ordered it, It looks larger in the picture... my best estimate from the image was around two, maybe three inches across, possibly more, and I was worried it might look ostentatious, but the actual pendant is slightly more an inch across: the little details are extremely fine, and overall it looks as elegant as it does fierce. Well worth every last penny.

The cord is a little short, almost but not quite long enough to actually fit over my head, but that’s hardly a consideration. The “lobster claw” style clasp handles easily enough, and I like the height it hangs at, so I hesitate to even complain about it.

I’m a rather sentimental fellow, to be honest: I wear three items around my neck, every day, without fail: “fin,” a small, steel dolphin pendant, (a keepsake from the estate of a dearly cherished aunt who passed away some years ago), as well as a pewter medallion of a stylized foxes face, dubbed “Ren,” (after ‘renard’, the french word for fox), who was a gift to me from the fellow who taught me a thing or two about metalworking back in the day. I’m happy to have these two items joined by Orthrus* here, as I’ve dubbed the new pendant... I’ve been following Saucy’s development as an artist for some time, even before he got into metalwork, and I consider him a good friend, so I’m very pleased to add this piece to my assortment of accoutrements. Doesn’t hurt that I’m rather fond of small metal shiny things in general, and this pendant is very shiny.

I have a personal policy about money: when the occasional windfall comes my way, I make sure to spend some of it on something that will last, instead of just buying crates of jujubes and chocolate milk to gorge myself on for a week or so. Previous acquisitions include my 42 inch monitor, and before that was an intuos4 medium Waccom tablet. Things that have served me quite well for many years, and continue to do so even now. When my most recent windfall came through, I knew exactly what I wanted, and picked up one of these pendants. I have no doubt that I shall cherish it for years to come.

I’ve made a number of suggestions for LeakyCrucibleFoundry designs since the venture started up, so it was about time I got around to procuring one of their products myself. I’ll probably pick up a few more, in due time.

*I considered naming the pendant Syzygy, after the wolf character from my comic project, but elected not to since I didn’t want people to get confused about which of the two I was talking about in conversation.

At any rate: I’m rambling now. tl;dr, I love this pendant, excellent quality... 9.5/10, would wolf again. X3

One of our signature wolf pendants, ready to send off.

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not my art sauce

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whitefoxart

9 years ago

Robot attempting to attain the perfect form because his crude metal body is ineffectual for his true calling: synchronized swimming.

Skynet becomes self aware, takes over the entire worlds telecommunications: forces news agencies to publish the unbiased factual truth, and mandates proportionate coverage in demographics and international events: ten years later, everyone can’t believe how much better off they are. Fox news, in a last ditch effort to survive, sends a terminator back in time to prevent it from happening.

why is it always that the sign that the robot/AI is becoming ~*too human*~ is when they fall in looove

give me a robot who realizes they’ve ~*exceeded their programmed parameters*~ when they get incredibly emotionally attached to their favorite movie and start writing fanfiction about it

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whitefoxart

13 years ago

Quick little study of my hand, 5-10 mins. Hands seem to put most artists on guard, but I love drawing 'em. Well, maybe more of a love-hate thing. I wasted half my time in high-school drawing my left hand.

Sweet Celestia in a bucket... when I sketch, I just fling lead everywhere, don't I? Tho, some of that is actually hair on my knuckles. I'm kinda scruffy.

Does that mean this counts as furry art? Guh.

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illustration artists on tumblr life drawing traditional media

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whitefoxart

13 years ago