End of Year Updates & Plans

Hi everybody! This year has been a wild and terrible ride for so many people, so more than anything I hope all of you have been staying safe and well.

I just wanted to make a short post to update you on some developments with me, my comics, and my Patreon as a whole. A lot of you are patrons for different reasons (tutorials, comics, tip jar support, or commissions just to name a few) so not everything in this post will be relevant to everybody, but I hope you'll give it a read anyways!

Firstly, I want to thank everybody who has been patient with me the past few months regarding frequency of posting. The combination of the global pandemic greatly affecting my area and getting an increased workload has led to me being spread very thin over a lot of different areas, so it's been a real challenge to find time to balance it all. As some of you know, I ended up putting my horror webcomic RORY on hiatus in hopes that it would give me more breathing room for work, but even after that I've still struggled to find time for everything on my plate. As a result of this, I've been experiencing some burnout creatively - aside from commissions and comics, I really haven't been doing much personal art and instead have been trying to use my off time to rest. I went through most of my backlogged comic pages (hence why I haven't been posting many early access pages lately - they don't exist yet) and now am at the point of playing catch-up so I don't fall behind.

Thankfully, I'm able to say that I've recently been given several work opportunities that will hopefully shift my focus back onto comics and tutorials full time in the next few months. I can't speak directly about any of these opportunities yet, but when the time comes I will definitely make an announcement about them! I'm really excited to share the news since it'll mean good things for you guys too.

But of course, the change won't be overnight. Right now, I'm in an awkward transitional period between my old commission-based work schedule and my new work schedule, so I'm more or less doing two jobs at once. 

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For my commission patrons:

Sometime the next few months, I'm likely going to pause the Fullbody Commission Tier. I don't have a definitive timeframe for this yet since things are still in development on my end, but I'll let all of you know through our usual communication method what's going on when the time comes. For now, just assume the tier will be continuing as normal. Everybody who is still a patron in tier by the time it gets paused will get some rewards as thanks!

Until then, I am seriously so appreciative of everyone's patience with me. I may take a little longer than normal from here on out to get back to you with your commission progress, but please know that I am doing my best to get them to you as quickly as I can without sacrificing my health or the quality of the work. If you ever want updates from me on your commission, please feel free to reach out and ask! 

For my tutorial patrons:

If you're here for my CSP/art tutorials, I have some cool things coming pretty soon that you can look forward to! Thank you for your patience in the meantime, I seriously appreciate it and I promise I haven't forgotten about you! If you have any ideas or suggestions for topics I could cover or offer some advice on in future tutorials or guides, please feel free to let me know!

For my comic patrons:

If you're here to help support Deryli and the Magician's Key / RORY and get early access to  pages, I have some good news coming for you soon too!  Once I'm able to shift my work focus back onto comics, early access pages will be a lot more frequent and I'll be able to add some extra bonuses to the tiers. Expect more WIPs, extras, and assets too!

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I also haven't forgotten about starting a Postcard Club! The chaos of 2020 really dismantled a lot of my plans for the year, but assuming 2021 is less hellish (both generally and also regarding the US Postal Service, which is really struggling right now) I hope to get that started once things settle a bit more in my area. 

If you have any ideas or suggestions for how I can make my page/rewards better, please let me know! I want next year to be a great year of creativity and growth for me as an artist, and I couldn't do that without support from all of you so I want to make sure my rewards show how appreciative I am of that. 

Stay safe and I look forward to updating you with news soon! 💖

Thank you for reading!