[Patron-Only Feed] October is Octover...

I've pretty much made all of this work public already since they were created on a daily basis with the intention of being posted during the final week of the month, but it's still good to see.

I spent quite a bit of time on the 2nd piece above, with Elayne & The Vampire Queen. I DID expect it to do better on social media than it ultimately did, but these things happen.

Good fun was had this month, even though I took a break in the middle. I should consider taking breaks more often, however, because they are very useful. 

Onto November...

It will be a good idea to take a little easy during November while we think about possible directions to move towards in the future. Especially since I just condensed 7 illustrations worth of work within a single week. I am contemplating a big workload in December too, so some time to relax before then will be a worthwhile idea. Let's not take it too easy though.

It's Garbage Day! Time to Clean up...

Perhaps you think this looks like an acceptable amount of space being occupied by files on my computer, but it was originally much closer to something along the lines of "50GB free." Ouch!

I've been moving a lot of older files I don't actively use to an external device. Oh, and I've been uninstalling a bunch of video games I don't play. My Steam Library is 100% the primary reason so much of my space is being taken up, but until I get something like an SSD installed, they're just going to have to stay because I think running them from an external hard drive is unwise. But I've removed games that I don't foresee myself playing in the immediate future.

And Skyrim. Because it's time to cut the umbilical, man... It's never gonna change. ;_;

I'm going to continue to try cleaning up even further. A cleaner computer is a better computer! Admittedly, there are a bunch of things in my life that could use cleaning up, like my home.

This month's poll results...

Earlier this month, I posed a question to you in the form of a poll. I had expressed interest in creating more ambitious pieces at the expense of taking longer to work on them. Since change  concerns us all, I wanted to know your thoughts about the idea. Here are the current results.

First thing we notice: 41 / 77 patrons voted. Although I admittedly hoped for more engagement, I understand that the amount of interaction received is never 100% of one's full audience. So that's okay. That being said, I am glad to see the majority of patrons (who interacted) in favor of my interests. However, nearly 30% is not in favor of those interests.

Given that the amount of people who voted is roughly 50%, we can assume that both choices would have their values doubled had the rest of you voted. That's a large enough amount of patrons who DON'T like proposed shift to concern me.

Which means I will have to do my best to make both groups of patrons happy. Make no mistake, I have every expectation to shift the direction of my Patreon more in favor of high-quality finished work -- but I will have to consider how to ensure that I don't neglect those of you who prefer quick sketches.

As I've previously mentioned, I will continue doing Patron Sketch Suggestions, but perhaps with some minor adjustments. Perhaps I'll complete MORE of your suggestions every month, but also keep them primarily black & white, so they can be drawn quicker. Maybe I can also devote stream time to them, that way there's time dedicated to blazing through them, and then uploaded in the format of a sketch dump. 

I try to keep an eye on what other creators do to make their Patreon fun & engaging, so remember I'm always open to suggestion. Unless it's commission tiers.

On Livestream Frequency...

On the topic of live streams, I have been streaming more as of lately. Primarily because I was working on Halloween art, but I am generally considering streaming more. Working on single projects over longer periods of time would easily encourage streaming more frequently than I would if my streams were simply limited to commission streams.

More streams would mean more opportunities for you to interact with me while I create, and even keep an eye on everything I'm doing -- which is great if the rate of production slows.

Though I might have to actually provide a bit more entertainment during my streams, but I've been considering subscribing to netflix/hulu anyway. It's always tricky to stream media when I'm working, because I typically can't pay attention to both my work & media simultaneously.

Anyway, I'll keep this update relatively short. I had more stuff I wanted to say, but I'll give some more thought and say more stuff later on.

Don't forget to check the Dropbox Archive if you have access to it.