StygianRook's Master Post (Patreon)

This was something I've posted on my DeviantArt subscriptions page, so I figured I should post it and pin it here too to make things easier for all my patrons.

It's mostly Dropbox links to every pic/reward I've made so far to make things easier for everyone, as I've received many messages that it's difficult to find a specific reward from past months/years.

I'll always keep this and the linked posts up to date. You might see a notification whenever that happens.

I'll also append some things at the end of the post that I haven't posted before due to it all previously being my unnoficial thoughts, but feel free to just read up to the parts that interest you. And no, I'm not quitting or going anywhere, giving up is not an option.

Knight Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/89919575

Bishop Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/89919880

Rook Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/89920014

Patron Suggestion/Feedback Form: https://www.patreon.com/posts/83304444

As for access to my Discord server, make sure to connect/reconnect your Discord account to your Patreon account and the bot will assign you the role automatically. You can do so by going to Settings > More > Connected apps > Discord > Connect. In the past I could invite people manually, but that doesn't seem to work as well now, so please follow these steps if you haven't been invited yet.

And for transparency's sake, here's also a roadmap or to-do list for things I've planned, so if I ever look like I'm inactive, chances are I'm working on one or more of the following:

-Studying/researching professional art techniques, fundamentals, design patterns, and conventions. I find myself constantly asking or expecting too much from myself, so I'm working hard to meet such expectations, as giving up is not an option.

-Finding ways to draw faster/easier due to my unpredictable real life situation leaving me with inconsistent amounts of free time. Again, giving up is not an option.

-Making my galleries and profiles more presentable or more professional, possibly making custom banners and/or icons and emojis as well. This is more of a nice to have, but it should help making my content more presentable too as a result.

-Planning the composition of future pics, whether it's personal projects or patron rewards. Planning/construction phase always takes the longest for me, but it's one thing I cannot afford to cut corners.

-Preparing more original content. Fanart is great when it comes to series I really like and attracting new fans/customers, but I also feel I'm not doing my own characters enough justice, so I'll need to fix that.

-Preparing to reopen commissions. I can't count on passive income as things are, and the tradeoff would be to increasing my commission prices to account for any future risks or losses for as long as I decide to continue drawing niche NSFW art (more details and my thought process below). I'm going to be more proactive once I have the necessary skills and an optimized workflow to make my prices worth it.

-Improving my existing setup, equipment, and tools/assets. Since whatever I earn with art is barely enough to cover one person's expenses in my country, I'll focus on investing it back into my own art/craft. That way I should have a better chance of producing higher quality content and in turn be able to eventually earn what I need for my family too.

Additional thoughts going forward. These are just my opinions/stance on various art-related topics and might feel like a rant, so feel free to skip them (though rest assured I don't intent to sit around without achieving any meaningful results):

-The Western art meta, especially for niche NSFW art, heavily favors quantity over quality due to social media demanding a constant stream of content, which would usually demand a style change to prioritize speed, which in turn goes against what I want to do. I want my art to keep evolving and discover new heights rather than being busy doing what's more popular to please the algorithm or what's more lucrative. That is, I want quality over quantity. The only way to change this reality into one where one can succeed while drawing what they really want is to git gud myself and somehow set a new standard for art. Changing the status quo is a monumental task, and drawing to improve is incredibly painful and it might not even reward any effort put into it, but at the same time nothing will change if nobody does anything about it, and I'm tired of waiting for someone else to make it happen. I still plan on making alts and sequences because that's what people want/expect from me, but I'll be thinking less about how many I make and instead focus on how good each given pic is.

-As time goes by, Western platforms and social media are making things harder and harder for niche NSFW artists to reach their audience. Twitter (now X) kills/throttles your reach if you include any keyword the algorithm doesn't like, sometimes even seemingly inoffensive words related to art. And DeviantArt is getting more rigorous with what they allow on their website, deleting posts and banning artists with no warning. Obviously, I want to keep drawing what I really want to draw, but if the day when my options become severely limited by whatever guidelines those websites decide to impose on their artists then I might be forced to draw less niche content to conform to the guidelines if I don't want my accounts deleted/banned. This would obviously go against what I believe as I refuse to sacrifice my freedom to conform to something so trivial, so I gotta think of ways around this.

-DeviantArt is one platform where more than half of my followers are, and if the website starts deleting more of my posts (especially vore-themed ones), I'd essentially be limited to posting my niche works exclusively either on Eka's or on Pixiv, which isn't optimal, as the former would essentially mean my vore pics won't reach anybody outside that website (and in return I'd have to conform to what's more popular/mainstream there), and the latter isn't optimal either because very few people on the Eastern side have the same fetishes as me. Both cases would make it significantly harder for me to connect to newer clients, on top of the meta essentially dictating what I should or not be drawing if I want to reach more people. Again, I don't agree with having the freedom of my art being taken away this way and I'll need to do something before it's too late.

-I imagine this is something most creators go through, and they either power through it or give up. Once again, giving up is not an option for me, as stopping now would mean I would suck for the rest of my life and as a creator I must keep going until I reach the goal I want.

-I don't have a direct answer to any of those problems as at the end of the day I'm just one person, so for now I'm going to bet in the future and work on improving my foundations to be prepared to adapt to any outcome, no matter how unfavorable they might be, and endure any hardships that come my way until then.

-tl;dr: Let me cook.

Cheers,

StygianRook