I'm going on an indefinite hiatus.

I have reached that point in my creative life where I can't cope with having my artwork stolen and manipulated. Maybe I'm just not cut out for the way the internet works. The stress of trying to police ongoing art and avatar theft is wreaking havoc on my schoolwork and my relationships with my friends.

I'm leaving my tutorials up, and I hope that they'll continue to contribute to the community. I've released the avatar that has caused so many problems under a CreativeCommons license. I've taken the rest of my art down, including the FOCI project work, to ensure that it's kept safe from theft. I won't be doing any more work on the FOCI project, my appologies to the thirteen fascinating characters that I never got to illustrate! I'm not going to be logging on again, so if want to say hi, you can email me at vaalkar@gmail.com. I won't be able to reply to notes or comments.

My thanks to everyone for all of their kind comments, their helpful suggestions, and their support while I dealt with art theft over the years. DeviantART is a wonderful community and it is unfortunate that so few people can make the internet such a dreadful place for artists to be. I've met so many friends on here, and of course I'll continue to roleplay! DeviantART even gave me my best friend and probably the love of my life.

This isn't really a goodbye, just a sort of vague "see ya later". If I do start posting my artwork online again, I'll let you know.

Sheep