NEWS! October Break and Future Revamps

Hello my wonderful patrons! I'm here with some news about polls, a break in October, and some future changes I'm thinking about for the Patreon. Read on and feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments!

PINUP POLLS - First thing's first, we've finally come to a point where only two characters from my polls remain! So this month I'll be doing a painting of Varryck and Kleo, and then we'll revert back to the usual polls, but with some of my newer characters in there ;)

OCTOBER BREAK - Four years have passed since I started this Patreon. That's incredible and hard to believe, because it's gone by so quickly. I'm so grateful for the support you've given and how far I've been able to take the comics since then!

Four years is a long time to go without a break though (even when I take a week-long holiday, I have to cram to get the same amount of content out anyway). So I'm going to be pausing the billing cycle for October so I can take a breather and do a little catch up! To be clear, pausing the billing cycle means you wont be charged for October and you won't have to do anything on your end to avoid being charged while I take my break. I'll be back to our usual schedule in November and billing resumes then :)

FUTURE REVAMPS - The patreon has gone a long time without any changes! I've wanted to make some additions, but at present the workload is too much to fit them in. Lots of you have told me that I'm one of the most productive Patreons you've been a part of, and that's SO awesome to hear. Unfortunately, it's also really hard to keep up with and I struggle to get everything finished each month, especially if I take any sort of holiday.

I'd like to make some exciting changes that will both mitigate the challenges of my workload while adding new, interesting things that are fun for you guys. I have a lot of ideas on both fronts, so I wanted to lay out some of those ideas and you can let me know what you think and make suggestions of your own. To be clear, nothing is set in stone thus far. I'm just brainstorming and won't be making any changes until 2020. You'll have lots of forewarning for any changes we decide on :)

tl;dr The idea with the revamps would be to reduce my workload to something more manageable while maintaining an interesting, varied amount of content and experiences for you guys, so you still enjoy your time with me and on Patreon. :)

SUGGESTION #1 - A Month for Scripting/Thumbnailing, w/ 2 Request Streams

One of the things that makes comic creation so challenging is that I can't just sit down and draw, I have to think about the scene, the characters, their dialogue, the panelling, the framing of a scene etc. etc. I call this 'active' work; it requires a lot more thinking and planning. Passive work is the sketching, colouring and final revisions done after the active work. Passive work is time consuming but easy. I can just sit down and do it. Active work is a lot harder and where I encounter the most hurdles, because it involves a lot more problem solving. I've fallen behind on the active work lately. This results in a lot of scrambling to get stuff done. I'm proposing a month where in lieu of four comic pages, I work on the script/thumbnailing so I have several months of active work compiled and ready for me to hammer out. To compensate for the reduction in content, I'd do a couple request streams (1hr long ea.) where I chat with you guys, doodle your characters, and just have a fun time. I'd have a year's worth of work planned or more and could stop scrambling to script/thumbnail as I go.

SUGGESTED ADDITIONS - low maintenance but fun/engaging things that you guys have expressed an interest in before!

• Discord Server! For community chats and sharing; I'm a noob with discord, but I'm sure I can get the hang of it ;)
• Livestreams! I've finally worked out OBS and can stream my progress on comic pages on Picarto while chatting with you guys!
• Tutorials/WIPs/Process Breakdowns? Not just for art, but writing too. I've taken a number of courses, seminars and such with tips I could share. This is a slightly more time consuming addition though, so not possible without a reduction to content somewhere

SUGGESTED REDUCTIONS - ways to make the work less time consuming so I'm not racing against deadlines and increasing my blood pressure on a regular basis ;) It's worth note that I'm reticent to reduce anything b/c.... I want you guys to have it all! But here it is:

• Sketchbook Tier: Reducing the number of sketches from 10 to 6 is a possibility.
• Commission Tier: the number of slots in this tier is too high for me, but I'm going to discuss that with my lovely Unique Unicorns
• Soft Colour instead of Full Colour Pinup: already doing this; it helps a lot! So far everyone's said the reduction in detail doesn't detract from the work for them so <3
• 3 Comic Pages instead of 4: the Patreon milestone by which I should be producing 4 pages a month has never been hit, and I've been making 4pgs/month anyway (cuz I'm nuts and hard on myself, not 'cuz anyone here's pressured me to) so 3 pgs might be more manageable. This is the least likely change though tbh 'cause I'd like to finish these comics before I'm dead lmao

SUGGESTED TIER CHANGES - I'm considering moving the early Cinderfrost page perks to the $2 tier and putting discord/livestreams in the $1. Reasons being, the $1 tier is currently my highest in workload, which at the lowest price point makes zero sense. $1 perks should be more about community/less about making piles of content, and both discord/livestreams are about building that community connection. Also, having livestreams/discord at a higher tier level would mean fewer people could participate, and no one likes a dead stream chat ;)

Like I said, none of this is set in stone, and I have no intention of doing all of this or doing it all at once. I'd introduce a couple changes at a time in order to a) give you guys time to decide if you want to continue pledging/change your pledge with those changes and b) ensure that the changes aren't confusing. I won't be springing any of these on you out of the blue so no need to panic. We've got time to chat about them <3

I don't want this Patreon to get stale and I've waffled about what I can do to spice things up for both of us. Let me know what you think about these ideas, and if you have any of your own! I'd love to discuss them with you <3