Update: Archives and Guidelines details (Patreon)

So the Patreon Archives folders are back up. For those of you out the loop, these folders contain the backlog of not just my Patreon work, but work from my days before Patreon. Recently some of the work in there was flagged for reasons I'll elaborate on below, and so I had to temporarily disable them while I worked out what was wrong and what needs to go. Now they're back and you can access past work, which is especially important for new patrons.

Below is a VERY long read, but it answers any questions you'll have after the past week.

What the violations exactly were for?

The violations were said to be due to work depicting characters as underage. Now what does this mean exactly? Well NSFW artists and fans have towed the line on what this rule means for years, but I've gotten a concrete answer when it comes to Patreon. This rule is in regards to the depiction of characters as an adult. Not their age in the source material, and not the age you as the artist claim they are; whether or not they look like an adult is the main issue. 

I specifically discussed two examples with Patreon. One was Timmy, who is obviously a small child in the original cartoon. My example, a panel from later pages of Dicky Vicky where he has an adult body, matured face with a strong jawline, and thick neck and shoulders. And I was told it was acceptable. Another example was Nobara, who is a high school student in the source material, but in both my art and the manga/anime, she's drawing indistinguishably from the adult women. I was told the character is fine because of those reasons. So in summary: Yes, any solid, visual aging up of a character has been said by Patreon's team to be perfectly fine.

Another example I gave later on was My Hero, which featured characters that of course are in high school. And while I give them adult bodies, whether faces like Deku and Uraraka's, obviously designed to be youthful and childlike, would be an issue. And I was told the faces could definitely cause some concern, but the bodies being adult in most panels made it ok. Another concern from the team was the context of them being in high school would basically override any visual changes, so I may have to make changes to remove any mention of that context.

Changes going forward? What's being removed?

Basically I can draw any character, as long as I put in the extra effort to make them look adult and portray them as adults in the context of the comics/dialogue. So for me that means I'll probably stay away from small body proportions that are kinda suspect just to be safe. This doesn't mean no petite, short women like Rukia from Bleach. I mean extremely small and childlike proportions like Uzaki-chan or shortstacks, and I've never really been one to draw anyone like that anyways. 

And in regards to My Hero specifically, I plan to slightly step away from trying to perfectly mimic the series' style and make the characters look visibly more mature in the face. Just for added safety. This will also go for any characters I draw in general. I'll try to stay on model if it's not a liability.

Early pages of Dicky Vicky where Timmy and others look too young have been removed. I've seen people suggesting I redraw them. I'm always a little hesitant having patrons pay for work that isn't brand new, but if you'd like to see this let me know.

I had to remove the entire Incredibles comic, as not only was Dash's age questionable but the comic is just an incest violation waiting to happen. It's the reason I only drew pinups of Helen and Violet when I last drew them, as well as why Timmy didn't have a scene with his mom for the entire last half of Dicky Vicky. Incest has been off the table for a while but I'm making it clear right now. I know some might be upset, but I think my work can still flourish without any incest in it.

I've also removed any one-page comics/pinups I found with questionable ages and incest. I can't name them all, but it was only a handful of work, and aside from the Dicky Vicky pages you won't see any more changes to major comics.

I'm still editing the Pre-Patreon archives, so expect some more deletions there too, but it's a much larger folder to sort through.

Where will removed work go?

I have an archive Twitter page. And I'm told as long as it is never used to promote or link to and from my Patreon, I can host whatever I want on it. Idk if this is allowed, but just add "art" to the end of my main Twitter handle and you've got it. The Incredibles and all of Dicky Vicky is already over there.