Important changes to the next exclusive picture: please read.
Added 2023-05-06 08:44:11 +0000 UTCWell, that will teach me :/...
Hello everybody, I unfortunately have some bad news to share and I hate that I have to write this post, but I hope some of you will understand. :(
Honestly, I had no idea if I should simply shove it under the rug, be super brief and vague, or clearly explain it as I'm about to do it: I've always been terrible at communicating (the most keen among you might notice how much I keep editing this post, adding one word here, changing another one there...Oh my God, I need to stop constantly editing!).
So, as I've said yesterday, I have taken down the most recent posts and I might pause billing for a month if I can't find a proper solution. Basically, I have decided to shelve and restart the next exclusive art for reasons explained below. Maybe I can recycle what I have so far to create a new piece, but even that best of case scenario might add a few weeks of work.
This will probably disappoint some of you and I'll understand if some decide to cancel their subscription as a result, specially those who just joined the 5€ tier as I've removed all the content I posted for it. (I'll propose a refund to those patrons on that tier if I can't come up with a new WIP by next week).
I am so sorry about this, I apologize to you and specially to the person who suggested this idea. I'll do my best so it doesn't happen again : this is a beginner's blunder and my own doing for not being careful enough. -_-
It would be so simpler for me to just say "my hard drive failed and I lost all progress!", but it's not the case and I prefer to be honest.
I recently posted a few updates about the future patreon picture, sneak peaks and WIPs, with the intention of publishing it in the next two weeks. I even worked more on it yesterday evening and was happy with the progress I was making. It truly frustrates me because what was missing was basically the coloring...
That new picture was based on a patron suggestion, and featuring characters from an IP I am absolutely NOT familiar with nor know much about. I haven't played any of the games from this IP, nor watched any series, and I had never drawn those characters before. I prefer not mentioning which IP it is in case some of you didn't see the updates and guessed the IP, so please do not bring it up in the comments.
I didn't know that the characters, while seemingly adults, are officially underage, which I realized yesterday evening...
I tried to look if there existed somewhere an official piece of media where they are featured as adults, but didn't find any I don't feel like simply saying "oh no-no-no, but on my artwork they're all above 18" fixes the issue if, canon-wise, the characters are minors.
So I am simply following my own TOS when it comes to commissions here: no underage characters in any fetish oriented content, as tame as it might be, since I do not feel comfortable with that, not mentioning it probably goes against patreon's rules.
To be clear I am taking this decision alone. o one contacted me to complain about the WIPs and pressured me to switch course. It's suddenly occurred to me to check the character's age, and I'm taking this decision alone.
Also, this is my responsibility and mistake and I'm not putting the blame on anyone else: I should have checked this information before accepting to do this piece of artwork, specially from an IP I am not familiar with. I didn't do proper research prior starting this project, I went blindly with it thinking it would have attracted more people to my patreon, and that's on me.
I'll also make sure to mention not to suggest anything with minors on future posts where people can submit ideas.
I wanted to explain the reasons so it would be clear for the future. Simply saying "it's a hard drive failure" doesn't solve the issue at the core and a similar scenario could have come up in the future.
I know what some people might say: "You're over-thinking this and several artists draw fetish material with these characters. They're fictional. They look and sound like adults. You yourself drew a few foot-oriented pictures of Kylian in his underage form". True, but those were commissions from more than 10 years ago and I no longer do that.
Plus, I have to draw a line somewhere. Do I allow this because the characters look like adults even if they're not? Then what about adult characters that look like minors? What about future content featuring similar characters?
I understand things can be more nuanced than I make them look, but for the time being my rules are no characters under 18, but also no characters over 18 that clearly look like kids.
So what about now? I will need a few days to decide what to do.
I still think the best thing would be to re-cycle what I already have (mainly the pose and angle) and use different characters: I already have some ideas you could like in mind (something about a fox, and a wolf, and some stars and clouds if you see what I mean), but they would require me to redraw the characters. In any case, whatever characters I'll end up using are much more detailed than the original ones. I'm estimating here an extra week of work at least, just at a moment where IRL work is getting more intense. I'll probably need to pull extra hours.
The last option is to restart from scratch with a different scenario and characters, but this will likely take me more time.
So if by next week I haven't figured out a proper solution, I will pause billings for one month.
Once again I am sorry about this, and thank you for your understanding.