EMERGENCY UPDATE: PLEASE READ (Patreon)

Hey, everyone. I'm making this post public because it's important that everyone reads this to understand what's going on.

My wife has been working from home for the last two weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic keeping people indoors. She just got off the phone with her employer about half an hour ago, and hasn't been able to hold the tears back since.

Effective once she clocks out from work today, my wife is being furloughed. What that means is that she is still employed, but she is no longer being paid. She retains her benefits, but she also has to continue to pay for them, which is a ludicrous request for a person who has no income.

My employer, by contrast, has requested that I continue to stay home and self-isolate for another two weeks, meaning I won't be going back to work now until April 19th at the very earliest. Despite that, they continue to pay me, and my benefits remain intact. My wife's employer is doing the opposite, holding onto her as an employee but no longer supporting her. This is going to be a colossal financial strain on the two of us, and it could go on for up to eight weeks, if not more.

While my wife looks into filing for unemployment, I come to you now asking for your aid. Any support you can provide will help us get through these trying times. I know that's asking a lot for you all, who could be experiencing a similar situation yourselves. If you can't, then please don't: we don't want to be responsible for any additional strain on you.

If you are not yet one of my patrons, I would sincerely appreciate you consider making any pledge at all, whatever you're most comfortable doing. As explained on deviantART and Twitter already with regards to my current comic project, Mamabito: Memories of Arcadia, all of my patrons are able to read a full two pages ahead of what's been shared publicly. I've got a lot of momentum and love going into this project, and I aim to see it through until the very end.

To those who are already patrons of mine, thank you so much for sticking around. I can't tell you how grateful I am to all of you for supporting me like you have. Your contributions have already done so much to keep me and my wife afloat, especially right now, when things are about to get very tight very quickly. If you're at a lower tier, please consider temporarily upgrading your pledge to better keep us going. If I can get enough people interested, maybe I'll even do some fun stuff with Mamabito? A few of you seem to be down to see it already! This might be the tipping point!!

Also, to add to a post I made a couple months ago... I do intend to open commissions later in the spring, perhaps no later than May. I'm not yet taking public suggestions. Instead, my patrons will be getting top-priority, and I would encourage them to reach out to me personally to let me know if they're interested. Just drop a comment on this post or send me a DM here on Patreon and let me know what we can do when the time comes.

I think that's it for now. For making it all the way to the end of this post, I thank you so very much for reading and being understanding during these dark days. I'll keep you all up to date periodically with what to expect, both art-wise and life-wise. I've got a new piece on the way and some sketching to do for Page Seven of Memories of Arcadia tonight, so something to look forward to!

Thank you again, everyone! Let's get through this!