Life Update and Announcements

Hey Guys!

Hope you are all having a wonderful 2021 so far! 

I just wanted to swing by and give you an update on what is going on with me, as well as a heads up about some changes that will be happening to the Patreon over the next few months.

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Normally, I don't like to bother you guys with life update posts, but there have been some new developments that will effect the way I am able to do things on this Patreon, and I'd like to keep you guys in the loop.

Firstly, the biggest news. I've been admitted to Animation school! I start in April and will be attending on top of working full time. As you can imagine, this is going to eat up a lot of my free time. 2020 was really hard with my work demanding more than they have in previous years, which is why I often had to take breaks. Moving forward, I want to avoid this as much as possible, but it will likely be unavoidable every once in a while.

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Upcoming Tier Changes

For those of you who have been here since the beginning, you know that I have never once changed my patreon tier scheme since launching my patreon back in 2017. However, I feel that it may finally be necessary in order to balance it with my current lifestyle.

The following are some ideas I have been mulling over for the tiers moving forward. While nothing is set in stone and is still subject to change, this is the general direction I intend to take the Patreon.

As my time will be limited moving forward, I'm of course going to have to readjust the way my tiers work. Currently, the $20 tier drawings take me about 4 to 5 hours on average to draw, while the animations can vary from 6 to 12 hours. This means I currently put between 30 and 40 hours per month into Patreon.

While I could try and cut down on the time spent on each drawing, I don't want to have to sacrifice quality in order to meet my obligations each month. As such, I am going to need to increase the price of this tier and cap it. I recognize this decision will probably sadden those that have supported me in this tier, and I am really sorry about having to do this. However, the tier has become too much for me to handle with the current schedule. I will be posting updated details about the pricing and member caps shortly. This will also allow me to spend more time on each piece, so that I can really make them special.

In regards to the animation, I am undecided as to whether I should do it raffle style in the highest tier, make it an entirely new tier, or just stick to my own characters. I do intend to continue with one animation per month though.

Now that the bad news is out of the way here is some more exciting news. I've decided to revamp the $5 tier as well. That is, I intend to split it.

Firstly, there will be the $3 tier, which will have many of the same perks the current $5 tier has. This includes the ability to see animations and other limited illustrations.

Secondly, there will be a new $7(price pending) tier. This tier would, in addition to the prior rewards, include a flat colored character sketch. I will be posting more examples of character sketches in the upcoming days, but they will be similar to the picture I drew in the banner of this post. These sketches would be with no background, or simple background, can include a prop, and you can double up($14) if you would like a piece with more than one character. You can opt to describe the image, as you would a commission; or, if you'd like, you can tell me some of the general themes you like, and I will draw the image with my own scenario in mind. 

In addition to this, I've also been thinking about starting a $5 discord sticker tier, but this is still under consideration. Please let me know if this would be of interest to you. 

As far as the $1 tier, I have no intention to change that. So that will stay the same way it always has. 

After thinking it over, I felt that these changes were the best way to manage my work life balance, while also giving the opportunity to increase the amount of AR content, as well as the quality of the highest tier's work. I am still 100% to feedback and ideas regarding the pricing, and would welcome any thoughts or criticisms.

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Billing Changes

This is going to be a big update regarding those who will be subscribing to tiers with rewards. Given that animation school will be eating up a great amount of my time, I will likely have months where I will have to pause payments. However, this would not be fair to those of you that had already paid and will now have to wait another month. As such, I am going to pause payments next month as we switch to the new system, and then begin doing a new post-reward payment system. 

How does this work?

I will ask for your reward references and preferences once you join the tier and again at the beginning of each month. I will then draw it within the month you join and when you pay at the end of the month, that payment is for the reward I've just drawn.

(Example: January 1st: Join Sketch Tier--------> January 20th: Receive Reward--------> February 1st: Pay for January)

As you can imagine, this system leaves the possibility that someone would take there reward and then not pay. However, I have trust in the members of my patreon not to do so, and I would rather that as the alternative to people feeling as though they have to constantly wait for rewards. 

I will post more details on this system soon, as well as the cut off date(probably around the 20th each month), since I'll still need a bit of time for drawing.

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Discord Update

In other updates, Shmergal was kind enough to help set up a Discord server for the patreon!

I will be posting a link soon. Generally, I am easier to get a hold of on discord, so I think it will help everyone keep in contact better. :)

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Thank you all again for all your support over the years. You guys are the reason I've been able to create so much fun content.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts on the changes, and always feel free to message me and say hi!

Thanks for reading! :)

-Sock