Progress Report, Poll Results, 24/09 - 21

Hello everyone and welcome to another in the line of progress reports.

Before getting into the poll, let's address the project work that I'm presently focused on in the form of the Wonder Woman comic. While the high quality renders are all sorted and the script is finished, GIMP proved to be very much insufficient for comic panel work, my lacking skill level in it certainly not helping either, and I am currently researching other user-friendly programs for the matter in question. I have no doubt however that once I figure out how to actually structure and build panels, the comic will see a very swift release indeed. Thanks for being patient with me on this - I really don't want to render really high quality stuff only for speech bubbles etc to actively detract from the enjoyment of the comic.

Now, to elaborate on the poll and pull off an old band-aid.

Just for clarification: this poll was never for the purposes of finding a new breast size standard or the likes. The "DH-Canon" with all its variations across the gallery of ladies that you've seen previously in my work, which I assume is one of the reasons people backed me in the first place, will not be changed.

As any good statistician will tell you, polls are the most truthful when people do not fully understand the information you want out of them - dubbed "mild deception" in psychological research ethics. So to address the elephant in the room, let us talk about Enhanced.

As a short history recap, it all started during my days where I worked exclusively in SFM, and was as a thing I began to occasionally include in response to a subset of my audience expressing a desire for it. "Can you make them even bigger?" I believe was the question the first time I saw it, and at the time I thought to myself "Why not?", figuring that even if I wasn't particularly interested in it myself, it wasn't much of a hassle (if anything, owing to SFM's really short render times) and if I had the time and it made some people happy there wasn't much objection to it on my part.

This is the position I have maintained on the subject of Enhanced over the years - I've considered it a small thing, something I do occasionally, a bonus given to people who otherwise enjoy my work but also draw pleasure from even more extravagant curves. As such, it's never been part of my marketing, never been listed as a perk for backing my patreon, nor have I, to the best of my memory, ever posted any of it publicly for the sake of drawing in more people interested in it - it does, in fact, not even have a tag in my Patreon tag system.

For every creator, there's the art of toeing the line of what you yourself are interested in, and the intersecting Venn diagrams of your following's interests. The best spot to be in business-wise is to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, of course, but I found that my niche suited me rather nicely, corresponding with my own tastes as well as drawing the interest of multiple demographics that all could find something common in it.

For every creator there is also the greatest fear, where you begin to create something that you yourself aren't interested in, only to realize years down the line that your audience's interests are exclusively outside of your own zone, and you are sitting there making things you don't personally enjoy, hoping to somehow find the time to make things you actually do enjoy, only to eventually burn out and quit. This has been the case for many creators, and thankfully, I don't consider myself among them, though I have had my scares in the past.

This brings me back to Enhanced and the Poll. When a bonus, an extra, slowly warps into something else, where popular demand for something never listed as a feature in the first place slowly turns into an expectation, I as a creator need to take stock in what following I am courting, and if need be, hit the breaks very early on as to not have it spiral out of control. Thankfully, the poll results show that we are not at that juncture, but had I woken up to the results this Thursday and found that my backing suddenly, in strong majority consisted of those only interested in Enhanced (and bigger, by all means), it would have made necessary a period of heavy curation of my content where I, in effect, probably would take a backing hit in the short-term for the sake of the long-term well-being of my own mental health, my creativity, and the continued existence of this Patreon and my work. In short, when being convinced as a creator to create things outside the scope of what you plan on making and enjoy, and it becomes an expectation that you keep giving in to, it warps from a bonus into pandering, and pandering eventually makes creators quit.

As it looks though, things are fine, which means we can continue work just as usual.

I want however to make clear, in no uncertain terms, that Enhanced is, and will remain, a bonus I include on occasions where I have the time and energy for it, and never at the detriment of the things I actually promise backers. If I didn't make my issues clear above already, this of course begs the question of "Why not simply promise your backers Enhanced and make it a feature?", and to that the answer is:

"Because, sadly, I personally am not interested in Enhanced."

Sorry for the dour note, and in particular to those who, perhaps, hoped that my work would over time turn into something more in line with their own size preferences. Again, I will continue to include Enhanced where I find the time to do so, but it will never be a guarantee, and I want people to understand that whenever it's not included it is for good reasons where I, as a creator, made a judgement call with all the things I mentioned above in mind. I hope all this doesn't strike you as overly dramatic - it's simply become something that I feel needs addressing, and I wanted to be honest and do so publicly, which also means I'll have a post to refer back to later in the event that someone expresses curiosity over my stance on all this.

As always, thank you so much for backing me and for all your kind words, and I hope that these matters don't make your Friday all too sour. Hopefully my content is good enough to maintain your interest regardless, and I want you to know that I sincerely do not intend to kinkshame anyone over what they enjoy - rather, I am simply speaking from my own views, plans, preferences, and what I think will keep me in this industry in the long-term.

Do take care of yourselves, and each other. Autumn is looking to be turning cold really quickly up here.
/DH