Unpausing my Patreon, Tier Changes

I'm back! That was a weird month, and pausing my Patreon definitively put me in a weird spot financially, but you know what I really just couldnt have made any rewards this month so this was probably still the right option.

Either way, before pausing my Patreon I said that some changes would be coming when I unpaused and well, they're finally here. There's gonna be a major restructuring of every tier. This is absolutely something that if you care about supporting me in the future you should read in detail, but if you don't really care THAT much to read the long winded explanations I'll put a TL;DR version in a couple of days (as a reminder of the changes).

Tier Changes

$5 USD - NEW TIER: Full Rewards

This is the star of the changes. This is the tier that you're gonna wanna get.

What is it? As the name suggests, it's "the complete package". It essentially means that you get the full version of each reward. With that, I mean that every reward is gonna be shown in full here. That means that every version of every reward, like clean and NSFW versions, or different versions with clothes, underwear, nude, ghost hands, no text, etc. are gonna be available to everyone on this tier.

Why the Change? In the past I have continuously overshot my plans for rewards. I start working on something that should be simple and find myself still working on it a few weeks later because I decided to add so many things to it not taking into account the time and effort that they would take past the sketch phase. By doing this, I can at least guarantee that Im fully "compensated" for the extra effort I put into them, and also letting you guys still get rewards that got a lot of effort put into them, instead of trying to make 'em too simple.

$2 USD - NEW TIER: Small Rewards

The accesible version. The "coke zero" of patreon tiers.

What is it? It's the "less-complete" version of the full tier. That means that you still get the rewards, but if there's several versions of each picture, you're not gonna get to see all of them, maybe even just the clean version. Some of the more elaborate stuff might even stay entirely exclusive to the full tier, and you only get a preview. What you get depends obviously on the reward, but I would basically be choosing which one would be the best to show. Of course, if a reward only constitutes one picture, you get that one picture, and you wouldnt be missing out on anything.

Why the Change? As mentioned in the explanation for the full tier, I sometimes "overshot" with my ideas for rewards, and it kinda felt like giving it all away for $1 was selling myself short. Of course, this means that I can still give you guys rewards without asking for a minimum of $5, all while keeping the Patreon "paywall" accesible. Don't worry, you'll still get regular rewards every month, I wouldn't cheapen out on you guys.

That's the gist of the new stuff, and all of these changes will be applied to all the future rewards from July onwards. "But wait, whats happening to the old tiers and rewards?"

$1 USD - Legacy Tier

An archiving tier. A place to revisit old frie- er... rewards.

What is it? Instead of removing the $1 tier completely, I've decided to keep it as an "archive" of sorts. Every single reward (before June 2019) for the $1 tier of the past will be available here. It will also be the place where full resolution versions of every (current and future) ex-exclusive rewards will be available. That means that when I release something publicly, it will only be available in full resolution in this tier (for example, when I made the King Dedede reward from last year available on Twitter, I had to post a much more scaled down version, and if you wanted to see it in full, you would have to pledge to this tier). From now on, it will also be the only place to get every version of multiple-picture ex-exclusives (for example, that 18-picture reward featuring Yoshi, when made public, will only be available in full here).

Why a Legacy Tier? Put simply, I didnt wanna completely alienate people who can only pledge $1. I understand that $2, let alone $5, is sometimes out of some people's "patreon budget", so I wanted to give those people something. It might not be new rewards, but hey, if you wana get the new stuff, it is only $1 more. Besides, I like keeping Patreon as an easily accessible archive of all the stuff I've made for Patreons, and bumping old rewards to one of the new tiers just didn't feel right.

And that's whats happening to the old stuff. "But wait, aren't you forgetting something?"

$10 USD - REMOVED TIER - Image Pack Tier

Sometimes it's hard to say goodbye. But we must move on to better solutions.

What was it? It was a tier for everything Image-Pack-related. You know, those things I totally couldn't keep up with making on a regular basis, which meant this tier was kind of a complete failure. I mean not the tier itself, but me. Im the failure.

Why remove it? Well like I said, I just can't keep up. And that's unfair to you guys. And that was a big source of stress for me. Every stress period I had about Patreon basically boiled down to "oh god I have a $10 tier that people are pledging to and I just can't keep up with it". So, it's just better gone.

Does that mean Image Packs are going away too? No, Im still gonna be working on those. I'm definitively commited to finishing the Animal Crossing one, at the very least. The big difference now is that if you wanna get the pack, you're gonna have to get it directly from my itch.io page, instead of Patreon.

I pledged to get the AC Pack, does this mean I'm not going to get it? It would be kinda extremely shitty of me to suddenly be like "jk guys youget nothing lol" so everyone who pledged to the $10 Tier in between the release of the Halloween Pack and the deletion of this tier will still receive the pack, I'll just be sending it to you privately.

What happens to all the Image Pack content? All the pre-production parts of the packs will be staying on Patreon, such as the polls to decide the themes and characters and all that. Previews for the illustrations will also be moving to the Full Tier, because you know, complete package and all that. That includes the WIP for the Tom Nook illustration I posted earlier this month.

Anything else we should know? Yes actually, I believe if you're currently pledging to this tier you can download the Halloween Pack from Patreon. That will of course be going away, so I'm giving you a few days notice to download it if you're pledging and you haven't. Tier will be deleted on June 30th 12PM CDT.

And that's it! I've been thinking about making these changes for a while now, and what better time to implement them than after coming back from a hiatus, just like a new season of a show coming back after a few months of showing reruns. The new tiers will be added on the 30th at the latest, and I will be sending out a reminder so that you guys remember to either update your pledge or even delete it if you aren't down with the changes.

Please, let me know what you all think, even if you think things should stay the same and you don't like this, that's fine. I'm just always interested in hearing what you guys think.

And, to show you guys what's coming up next (and to maybe nudge you guys to consider the new tiers, wink wink), here's a preview of the new reward coming up in July.

Of course to show off the new tiers, this is a multiple-picture reward that will be available in full in the Full Rewards Tier, while the Small Rewards Tier gets, well, a smaller version.

If you read everything up to this point thank you so much! See you again in a few days!