I am all but closing my dA account. This decision does not come lightly or happily, but after much thought, I feel that it is the right thing to do. Before I go into my reasons for doing so, let me stress that this is NOT personal! This is definitely not one of those "I'm not getting on the front page, so I hate the world!" dramas. I'm not angry or upset with anybody.

The first reason is my art. I have certain sites people very interested in using my art, and I feel that if I am going to sell the images to others, I need to be able to protect those investors. I've always known it was risky putting my art up online, but while I wasn't selling it, that didn't matter to me. I do know that a lot of deviants sell professionally and use dA just for fun, but it makes me uncomfortable, even with massive watermarks (which really are a pain). I was afraid that perhaps I was overreacting with this course , so I asked my aunt, who is a copyright lawyer and she strongly advised me to protect my clients by removing my art off of sites like dA because of the logistics that go along with selling it like I plan to. It grieves me greatly to because so many deviants enjoy it and I've learned a lot. But, again, I cannot risk my investors' money and my art with art thief's ripping and making a profit without my consent.

The second reason is the simply complex one of life and time. Things are crazy with my surgeries, recovery and school. Life only looks to be getting more insane. I'm spending less and less time on here. Since I won't have my art up anymore, and non-online stuff keeps me away from the community, I decided to let publicly announce that I'm not going to be around much anymore rather than just fade away without anyone knowing what happened to me.

This makes me truly sad. I have enjoyed the last year that I've been very active here. The people, the art, the learning, all of it has been lovely and I'm truly thankful for it!

I love you all! Thank you for everything! I'll pop in and out every now to say "hi!"

~Natalie