post-meat plans

so, i'm working on the last page of fresh meat, which means it's ending this week (hopefully)... which means that most of the content i've been steadily outputting will vanish.

as most of you are probably expecting, i will be going on a small hiatus in may due to the sort of breathlessly awaited surgery. i don't know how long i will actually need to recover, but i'm assuming at least a month will cover it.
after this, the publication of a big comic (catharsis, in this case) will remain on hiatus while i do some other work that will be posted here. i've posted and pinned a list to my tumblr, but i realize that not everyone uses tumblr, so i will post that list in this post as well.

before i get to that list, i'd like to talk about some changes in the regular production of the art and streams that get put here. starting with catharsis, pages will be 6-8 panels long instead of ~15. there will be 2 updates per week on tuesdays and thursdays instead, leveling out to about the same amount of content per week.
the main reason that i'm switching to this twice-weekly schedule is to avoid more missed updates due to shabbat. at best, this will give me a day off where i can draw other things, as drawing or writing on shabbat is prohibited even if it is stress-relief. at worst, i'll just kind of stumble through a 2-day weekend due to a strange sleep schedule, not necessarily making anything extra besides the updates, but not missing updates based on when the sun sets, either.
the other big reason that i think i would like to switch to this update schedule is because it'll allow me to, some weeks or months, switch to working on side comics for the second update, without necessarily expecting me to do more work than i'm honestly able to do regularly anymore.
this catharsis-update-tuesday, side-comic-update-thursday format will be overall less content for public consumption sometimes, but side comics are ultimately intended to be published anyway. this feels like a fair compromise that isn't necessarily whittling down the amount of art produced overall to try to fit in "free time" for other creative pursuits, while still figuring out how to coordinate small benefits for patrons specifically.

the other big change i'd like to make is to streams.
at some point, i started to stream my daily work publicly on twitch because it helps me focus, and there's not really any harm in doing it besides spoilers. i don't post notices for these here, so they're kind of public. twitch notifies followers of any stream when it starts, though, so streams for patrons, without any way to select users who get to view, are generally public.
a week or so ago, i upgraded my account to an affiliate account, which gives a lot of little benefits and utilities to try to Increase Engagement -- most of which are oriented around subscriptions, or monthly microtransactions you make to twitch that i get a part of to receive particular privileges in particular streams.
one of these privileges is access to sub-only streams, where only subscribers, moderators, and "VIP" marked users can view specific streams. to avoid forcing patrons to pay me a separate fee just to view patron-only streams on twitch, you can ask me to tag your twitch username with a "VIP" role if you view streams, even if you only lurk and don't participate in the chat. sub-only streams will be how i handle patron-only streams for now, unless i find a less awkward method of doing that.
there will be some other tweaks to the streams, but they've already kind of been in-progress. it's mostly just to make them a little more fun or interactive for people who enjoy that.

anyway, to this list:

-finish transcribing fresh meat

-make a nicer stream layout for twitch

-finish that patreon header wip
not much will be touched up with the patreon's layout, but it's always nice to put out newer art, so i might make new tier icons as well.

-studies (reading, observational drawings, master copies of film scenes, etc.) studies will be done on-stream unless they're reading books... drawing out some films to get a feel for how shots translate to panels will be kind of complicated due to copyright, but it does sound entertaining to stream. the streams will likely be public.

-beat sheet and beginning buffer for catharsis
a comic buffer is where i draw pages ahead of time so that if i don't finish a page by a deadline, a new update won't be late, because the next page to be published is already finished. buffer work for catharsis will likely be done on sub-only streams.

-thoughts comic on continuity and canon in comics

-thoughts comic on film vs comic
both of the thoughts comics will be exclusive to patreon for some time (or maybe forever, if i'm feeling lazy), similar to tutorials, and work on them will therefore probably be via sub-only streams.

-finish a skeleton for drawing a blank
because drawing a blank is so far off, work on it won't be streamed. i think it's fair to point out that some of the work i will be doing during the hiatus won't be streamed, though.

-finish editing drop-out
this will likely be done via public streams.

-finish soft-pedaled
this is probably how i'm going to test-pilot sub-only streams. there's a high chance i may also tweak or touch up older pages of soft-pedaled. we'll see what the timeline looks like.

-possibly a second, more in-depth shot tutorial

-finish any commission backlog if there are comms left
these will definitely be public streams.

-beat sheet a couple of side comics about sugar and lola, possibly thumbnail or sketch them
these will probably be done via sub-only streams. i'd also like to brainstorm a few other side comic ideas, as i don't want a sugar vs. lola vote for the next side comic, but would like voting to resume after them.

-test out video editing freeware to format stream archives as speedpaints
this will be, ideally, the new way i upload stream archives to youtube for viewing, making them more manageable to watch. the only streams that wouldn't be sped up would be sunday streams, where the commentary would be more relevant, and the length wouldn't reach into 5-8 hours of stream.