About Velvet and August Models (Patreon)

Hey friends!

Short version: Velvet will be created next month as one of August models. However, all July patrons will still receive her upon release.

tl;dr End of the month is almost upon us and I'm sure some of you have already begun to wonder why we've never shown up any Velvet WIPs and what's going on with that particular model. It's only fair for me to shed light on it and offer an explanation.

As you know, Elena is currently taking a break from sculpting until September to recover her strength after pumping out models for over a year. Which means we are currently back to having only two artists, but with a higher workload than before. And based on our recent history of meeting deadlines, I'm sure you can see the problem.

Our original plan was to hire a freelancer, but then we decided to let Milana sculpt two models in July, Modred and Velvet. However, given the unexpectedly excessible work to finish Officer Vi, she couldn't really start a new project up until 8th. By then it was already too late to hope for two models without sacrificing quality, and that's even without two extra Mordred versions for the 3D Printers Guild. Obviously, we couldn't have that, so we reverted to plan A, even though precious time had already been lost.

That said, I take full blame for poor planning and risk assessment on this one, so it's up to me to set things right. First order of business - make sure Velvet gets created, preferably without killing any one of our artists from overwork. Luckily, there is one wonderful person we know and love who has agreed to step in and help us out with this predicament. Of course, I'm talking about Lena, a.k.a. Mofu, a talented artist and ex-member of our team who many people remember by her Shinano and Emperor Edelgard models. She will handle Velvet next month, allowing us to release her without digging our own grave even further.

Second order of business: how do we dig out of having to deal with 5 models in August (3 regular + Velvet + new Loyalty Reward)? The most logical choice would be to call Elena back from her vacation a month earlier and put her to work. Alas, I'm only willing to consider this as the last resort. You can't just give someone a long-awaited rest only to call them back half-way because things are falling apart; that's the perfect recipe for burnout. I can't push more workload on other team members either, because there's only so much a single person can do. With a heavy heart, I've made a difficult decision to not create a third regular model in August, instead replacing her by offering Velvet two months in a row. Well, techinically, three, as she'll still be availalble in September. This decision didn't come lightly, as we've only recently announced switching to 3 models a month and now we have to immediately admit we are unable to meet our own quota. But I am confident this is the right decision and I am willing to see it through and put an end to our struggle with deadlines for good.

Obviously, this one gesture isn't enough on its own, so I have more measures planned in the next couple of months. For one, I have already hired another external artist to begin work on Byleth, and I will disclose their name in a couple weeks along with first WIPs. Considering their service record, I'm confident the quality will be up to everyone's expectations.

Lastly, I am probably looking at hiring freelancers for at least two more projects in the upcoming months to give our team members an opportunity to spread out our own releases so we could pump models at 5th, 15th, and 25th of each month instead of crumping them all up together in hopes of making it before 30th. In fact, that's something we've been trying to achieve for a long time now, without much result. Obviously, we will ensure that all freelancer models meet our quality requirement and all cutting will also be done by our team.

I am hopeful that all these measures will help us overcome our repeated difficulties in the long-term!

Cheers!
Des