Relaunch News #1 (Patreon)

I'm going to make the occasional post during the rest of May, to summarize what's happened since my Patreon relaunch, and other relevant info on what's to come.

Art Production Resumes in June

I've mentioned this in a few places already, but I think it's better I mention it once more. I won't be doing new art (except for promotion material and such) during May, so don't be alarmed if you just pledged $10 and there's nothing new for two weeks. No pledges are charged until the start of June, which is also when I will begin working on art in earnest. 

Current Pledge Total - What Do You Get?

Right now the total support of my Patreon is sitting at $444, which would mean 2-3 colored works a month, with at least one being hi-res (for $10 tier and up), one exploring slightly outside my usual subject matter, and one being exclusive to $5 tier and up.

What does 2-3 works mean? It means I will create at least two fully colored works, but my goal is to do three. The reason for the variability is that my works can vary a lot. I could do a crazy orgy with multiple girls, or a single girl with single guy. Guess which one is more work. Yup. So the variability is to account for that. If I create only 2 pics, they're much more likely going to have multiple characters, multiple panels or detailed background.

I just added a $500 goal between the $400 and $600, to make sure there's something extra for the next few round hundreds. It just ups the goal to 2-4 works, but hey, it's something!

Current Pledge Total - My Thoughts 

Of course, I'm hoping that the pledge total rises higher than what it is now, before the end of the month. Originally I was hoping to get about $600 for the start of June, then up to $800 a few months later, once I've done plenty of new art and promotion to attract more subscribers.

I still plan to at least establish a pixiv gallery before June. Newgrounds too, maybe, but pixiv is priority. Maybe I'll get a few new subs from there.

The survey I did earlier totalled roughly $570 from all 71 participants for what they'd be willing to pay per month. Of course, that was for guaranteed four works a month, and many people were willing to pledge amounts that are outside the pledge tiers I have available now. And since I can no longer accept custom pledges, it tends to round down. Quite a few people mentioned $15, for example, but I only have tiers for $10 and $30. I could've made the $10 tier $15, but I can't justify that price for only one guaranteed hi-res pic at this point. Likewise, I couldn't think of other feasible rewards for tiers between $10 and $30.

Just so you know, the $30 tier is there just to have a middle ground between $10 and $60. I'm hoping that people will consider the $30 tier too, even if the rewards aren't that great. I just needed to have something unique at that tier so that it counts as me selling something. Damn laws... >_<

Here's a question for $10 tier people. If I dropped the $30 tier to $20, would you be willing to up from $10 to $20 then? Ultimately, the sketches I have stashed have no specific value, and it's better I get rid of them for small price, rather than let them gather dust because no one's buying them at higher price. I'd love to go even as low as $15, but postage for sending those sketches would be roughly $3, so... Though, you wouldn't need to choose a reward every month, you can just let them keep piling up and then choose a bunch of sketches at once later. Or maybe by then I can think of a reward of equal value I can offer in place of those existing sketches. Maybe I can even turn those to credits towards art requests or the like. No guarantees on that, but it's been on my mind as an option even before the relaunch. I just need to test how art requests fit in my schedule alongside the regular art and commissions, before I commit to more of them.

Commissions And Requests, Part of Monthly Quota?

This is something I never really thought of in greater detail, so I think I'll put down some of my thoughts here. Partly for myself, and maybe to spark discussion.

Let's say someone commissions a work from me. Could that be part of the 2-3 works (currently) quota of my Patreon? Generally speaking, NO, unless the content makes me think "I would've/might've done something like that myself, even without it being a commission", in which case it might count. For example, if someone commissions another Love Live sequence from me, with exactly the same kind of content I did for the previous ones, then it might count. But if they commission me to do a draenei from World of Warcraft having fun with tentacles, nope, that's not what I normally do... but I might do it as a commission, maybe. If I do count a commission or request towards monthly quota, then I would aim for the maximum quota (3 currently).

Ultimately, I want the monthly quota content to feel like they're what you're used to getting from me, situation, character and style wise.

Declined Pledges

About $30 worth of pledges (roughly 10 people or so) are currently in 'Declined' state also, so I hope everyone will check their payment details. If I see any people who have been declined for a long time, like several months, at the start of June, I'm going to have to remove your pledge, unfortunately. Feel free to re-pledge later though. Just make sure to fix your payment details! Thank you!

That's all for this update. Next time I'll probably go over reward delivery in greater detail.

And let me just say, even though $444 per month isn't enough in the long run, it still makes me super happy. It's never been that high before, I think.

I need to make a super happy Harmony chibi at some point. Would've put that one right here. ^^