IMPORTANT! PAUSED BILLING FOR NOV & CHANGES
Added 2020-10-25 05:00:23 +0000 UTCHello there everyone, I'm not sure if Patreon notifies you all for this, but you will not be charged anything for November from my Patreon. Everyone will still receive their early previews, Discord bonuses, and other stuff like that- but anything reward based (e.g. monthly poll & rewards) will not be fullfilled. There will also be some changes that I plan to do with the tiers. I will have a TL;DR of some of the changes I plan at the end.

Now for the down and dirty.
FOR THOSE WITH THE $30 DRAWING TIER (scroll past this if you aren't in it)
With the current $30 reward tier I've kind of had a two fold problem that's kind of always gotten in the way of things. First and foremost is the issue that I tend to kind of go overboard with how much work and time I put in the drawings. I originally intended for the tier's rewards to be a sketch linework drawing without much else to it, but I've almost always overdone it by doing full color drawings. Now that wouldn't generally be an issue, but it kind of got compounded by how tough it's been to get everyone to send me their drawing rewards on time, and as such it's been hard for me to really get all the drawings done when I don't often know what I'm supposed to be drawing.
Now, I don't hold this against anyone in specific at all. Life has gotten in the way of things recently for everyone, and I've gotten information almost a full month late from everyone at least once. That's not an issue, it's just life. But it doesn't fit well when I myself take time to get around to drawing. My end goal with the drawing reward tiers has always been to basically force myself to draw at least something every month, but I don't want to have to worry about having a backlog of paid for drawings (when I almost always have one of personal drawings to begin with). I feel like stressing out about this has kind of hindered my motivation to draw in the first place. So to alleviate this I will be using the month of November as a catch-up month- so anyone of the current $30 tier that has a backlog of drawings should send me their ideas for what they'd like drawn. I will be personally messaging everyone how many drawings they're due, and how many ideas they need to submit to me to draw. Any of the drawing ideas that aren't submitted to me by November 30 will be discarded. I love you all, and I really do appreciate your support, but it's not really fair for me to have to keep trying to get ideas that you're paying me to do. I hope this isn't unreasonable, and if you are part of this tier and feel that this isn't fair, don't be afraid to talk to me about it. I'm sure we can work something out so that we're both happy.
FOR THOSE WITH THE $20 and $10 tiers (and maybe $5)
I originally started drawing in the first place because I (at the time) could not afford to get any drawings of my OC done. Over time as I got more into drawing I started the Tumblr ask blog where I would draw Sile with other people's OCs using other people's ideas- gratis with no charge. That's always kind of been my goal with pony drawings, to be able to make drawings for people who would otherwise not be able to have any.
Now, Tumblr isn't really a thing anymore (though I still use it) for most people, and the number of suggested and requested drawings I've received has really dropped compared to what I used to get. And I mean seriously, from 10-15 asks/requests a month down to maybe 2-3, and even then it's by people on my Discord who I interact with on a regular basis. I feel like this has kind of dropped the ball for everyone, and it's really limited what I've been able to draw since I myself am not that original or creative of a person.
I've also noticed that it's been extremely difficult to get poll drawing ideas posted on a regular basis by everyone with the tier (you may notice that there's only been 1-2 people each month)- which feels unfair to those who only get to vote. To counteract this, I am going to remove the $20 poll reward tier and the monthly polling entirely. Instead, I'm going to replace it with something much better for everyone as a whole- at the start of every month I am going to post a link to a Google form where you will be able to submit a drawing request. The poll is going to ask for a few simple things: Your Patreon name (so that I can verify that), what the drawing request is, reference pics of any relevant characters, alongside with what's the best way to contact you for more information. I will draw one or two ideas that been suggested. The higher the Patron tier, the more drawings the patron will be able to suggest each month. I think this sounds a bit more fair for everyone.
Now: A goodie for everyone
You may have noticed that I've been doing more art streams lately on Picarto. I've recently been thinking of using this to do more drawings for everyone. As long as people send in their ideas to the monthly drawing request forms, I should be able to do those drawings on stream. And if you are a Patron and the stream is going, you are free to ask for quick doodles and anything. There's a good change I'd do something quick for you there.
I will also start including the drawing files with each Patron post so you can all see the disaster of how I go about setting up my drawings. T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶I̶ ̶a̶m̶ ̶r̶u̶n̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶s̶p̶a̶c̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶g̶o̶o̶g̶l̶e̶ ̶d̶r̶i̶v̶e̶.̶ I can also export the drawings to different program's formats (e.g. .psd) so that you can add colors to drawings without them. Although if the drawing features someone else's characters, I would ask you to please ask them before doing any color jobs and/or character swaps.

IN SUMMARY
- No one is getting charged for this Patreon in November
- $30 Patrons have until November 30 to send in their drawing rewards ideas for their backlogged rewards
- $30 Patron tier will be purely for a base sketch/linework drawings
- Expect a new tier higher than $30 for full scale drawings
- No more monthly polls
- $20 and $10 (and maybe $5?) tiers will be able to submit drawing requests to a form at the start of each month. Higher tiers can submit more drawings.
- Patrons may be able to get more drawings if they visit a drawing stream
- Art files will be included with posts so you all can do art related things with them (like coloring, or dunking me with edits).
More news to come as I get through drawings and work on redoing the Patron tiers! Feel free to comment any questions, concerns, or anything like that.

I really do appreciate you all, and thank you so much for sticking around with me!
Comments
It's okay, I completely understand. I just felt like those with the $5 and $10 tiers were kind of losing out a bit if there weren't that many submissions. I hope that with the monthly form more people will be able to get benefit from their subscription
Lorenzo F
2020-10-25 05:06:26 +0000 UTCOh geez, that's a lot! Sorry if it came off weird that I was never submitting requests! I was just kind of donating to support you, and as I normally didn't have any ideas I'd just forget to say anyjing
Stephen Francis McDonald
2020-10-25 05:03:05 +0000 UTC