The Backlog (and Upcoming Tier Changes) (Patreon)

Alright, it’s time to talk about the massive backlog of unshared art that’s been building up for the past 2 years. I’m now sitting on a pile of over 600 mostly-completed, but never-shared pictures.

How did this happen? Let’s get into it.

I used to post every picture I made. When it was a hobby I could only do for a couple hours a week, I  averaged 4 black and white pictures a month. That was 2017, my first year on Patreon.

In 2018 I quit my job to do art full time, supported entirely by Patreon income! As you can imagine I started producing a LOT more content. Daily sketches, weekly full-color pinups, but also; stories, comics, and other projects like commissions on top of those.

So I had these 4 Patreon tiers set according the content I was producing back then:

$2 – a handful of B&W sketches each month.

$4 – color versions of some pinups, and short (20-40 page) stories every now and then.

$8 – voting on upcoming content, work in progress previews (WIP), earlier access to new stuff ahead of lower tiers (usually a month or two ahead).

$12 – special projects like color comics and audio versions of stories, plus an archive of the 350 daily sketches that were drawn in pencil then colored digitally.

THE PROBLEM

Things were good for a while, growth was steady, but at 150 patrons I plateaued, and was never able to grow past that point. The more content I posted, the more patrons I’d lose, just as quickly as I gained new ones.

So I figured people were getting tired of generic futa pinups, or I needed to increase the quality of my art, rather than just producing more of it.

Around the time I started streaming on Discord and Picarto in the spring of 2020, I began studying and practicing art fundamentals seriously for the first time ever. I had basically taught myself to draw by looking at other artists techniques, combined with photo references for new poses. However, I didn’t have a proper understanding of anatomy or color theory. I would just try to make pretty shapes that look gud. Messed with the lines until they caused monkey brain neuron activation.

I’d like to say improving my quality helped me reach a wider audience, but every month for the past two years, my number of patrons has remained about the same.

THE BACKLOG

So 2020 was when The Backlog began. I was doing a lot more rough sketches and exploring a wider range of body shapes and art styles. At first I didn't think it was all worth sharing. I didn’t want to invest too much time into any single picture anymore, because I was aware of how much I still needed to learn.

So I sketched and sketched, and filled up an entire page (or more) every day. Sometimes as many as 15 pinups in one day. 

Other times I’d spend all day coloring one single picture to the best of my ability, going all-out on lighting effects, and channeling some Bob Ross for maximum-effort backgrounds.

By the end of 2020 I was making about 90 Patreon posts a month, ramping up to 120 in December, but that wasn’t even HALF the amount of art I was producing. Over 1,200 pictures drawn in that year, 300 in color, but more than half were never shared outside my livestreams.

But I noticed a pattern emerging with patrons always deleting their pledges at one specific time. I was accustomed to a handful of patrons leaving at the end of each month, before the next billing cycle. Usually about 10% and fairly consistent from month to month. However, when I started posting 3-5 pictures every day, I noticed all the deleted pledges would come immediately after posting. Within minutes of sharing new art, there would be another handful of patrons gone, not sticking around til the end of the month to see what else I had in store (or get their money’s worth by seeing all the content for the month).

Clearly, people were getting sick of seeing the pictures they’d paid for!

For a while I tried collecting all the new pictures into a single weekly post with 5-10 images. But the results were the same: even a weekly bundle post on Sundays resulted in a group of patrons deleting pledges within minutes of each post, canceling out the slow trickle of new patrons that would arrive throughout each month (having found me on Twitter, Discord, or Picarto).

When I posted very little, I gained supporters, and when I posted a lot, I lost supporters.

Around this time I also stopped forecasting my upcoming content ahead of time. I worried that announcing a specific comic or story schedule was causing people who weren’t interested in those projects to abandon ship early. So I cut back on bigger projects, and aimed to deliver fewer, higher quality posts.

I skimmed the top 30% of the best pictures to post on Patreon, and left the rest in the “work-in-progress” pile – not abandoned, just in need of a bump in quality before they were up to par with the other pictures I was posting.

The pattern continued, lots more content = less happy patrons. So I held back even more and only shared the best 20%. Then 10%. And The Backlog grew and grew.

Plus there was this compounding problem: my drawing and coloring skill was growing faster than I was finishing pictures in the backlog. Now I’m faster at making a new picture from scratch - at better quality, and in less time - than it takes to improve one of my old sketches from last year to the same level of polish. So I keep drawing as many new pictures as I can every day, rarely looking back.

I always want new posts to be better than previous works. I worry that sharing older work of lesser quality will cause people to leave when they might have stayed if I had only shared the best ones.

That is the nut of the problem. I’m afraid to post more content! I don’t want it to send me backwards from my goal of remaining a full-time artist. Every time I start sharing a little more than usual, my income takes a dramatic hit, putting me at risk of not being able to continue full-time.

THE SOLUTION

So… I should just post it, right? Doomp eet all in a big pile, and walk away in slow motion as it explodes behind me, right?

Well…you see, I worry about driving away current patrons, and also burying my good stuff in bad stuff. If a potential fan’s first exposure to my art is one of those “bad” pictures of lesser quality, it might kill any chance of them seeking out my other art and potentially becoming a patron some day.

Is it a crazy fear? Probably.  But I can’t help thinking, if those non-patrons were only exposed to my “best” pictures as a first impression, would a few more of them choose to support me, or at least follow me to keep an eye on future work instead of writing me off based on a bad first impression?

I asked a few friends who know my art about this dilemma, and they agreed that over-saturation of too much content was probably an issue holding me back. It seems that leaving the backlog where it rests, on the cutting room floor, is the best move, so I can spend all my time focusing on new pictures. Right?

But there are sooo many hundreds of pics in the backlog pile… I do want to share them all, but I feel pressure to keep them hidden, because I can’t afford to lose more supporters if I want to keep doing this full-time. 

So let me know your thoughts… if I posted hundreds of extra pictures this month, would it cause you to delete your pledge and never return? Or would you enjoy seeing the extra content and stick around? I honestly believe I’m already sharing too much for my own good so I need some reassurance here.

WHAT ABOUT THE TIERS?

I want to change and simplify the tiers like this:

$2 • Squires – tip jar, gets all my free public content plus 2 Patreon-exclusive pics per month.

$6 • Knights – baseline art supporter, you get ALL my finished work each month (approx 15-30 pics), plus at least 4 of those will be Patreon exclusives every month (weekly updates on Sundays)

$12 • Wardens – see EVERYTHING I make, the same day I make it, whether or not I circle back to finish it another day. This would mean new posts almost every day, plus access to a channel on discord where I post ALL pictures big or small, rough or polished, immediately after making them. Instead of letting a backlog pile up, this tier sees everything right away, and a lot of it will probably never be shared anywhere else, so lots of Patreon exclusives.

$50 • Paladins (new) – limited availability (~5-10 slots) custom sketch tier. Everyone in this tier gets 1 request sketch each month. The limited slots means I’ll always have enough time set aside to complete them. Normally I would charge more than this for a commission but I want to incentivize people to stick with me for a more reliable baseline income, as higher priced commissions are too unpredictable. Because these slots are limited, when someone leaves this tier, someone else can swoop in and take the spot, so I hope the slots will stay filled year-round as they are cheaper than the commissions I’ve been doing a la carte.

$69 • Valkyries (new) – limited availability (~3 slots) color sketch tier. Same as $50 tier but I’ll color these ones.

With this tier change, I plan to stop taking all bigger ($75-$300) commissions  for a while, and only doing custom sketches for patrons in these tiers. When someone is paying more than $100 for a picture, I spend way too much time trying to make the commission perfect, and it jams me up, so I want to try doing things differently for a while.

WHAT ABOUT STORIES, COMICS, AND VOTING?

I know a few patrons (about 5 I think) are here for story content, and I have been writing a good deal more of Kim and Jenna’s story, because I’ve gotten really attached to developing them as a couple. Those of you on my Discord know I’m obsessed with them lately. I will continue writing stories, I’m just in “emergency maneuvers” mode right now and feeling like I need to regain a solid base of art supporters before I can enjoy the luxury of having more writing days (I usually go to the park with my laptop and write offline without distractions, but haven’t allowed myself to do that lately because so few patrons are here for stories, and I worry making them happy will come at the cost of displeasing the majority).

I do want to make more comics, but I’m not ready to invest a lot of time in a small number of big projects. I just feel it’s too risky right now if people don’t like them. I won’t be promising any particular comic projects coming up, just making a page when the mood strikes.

Votes on upcoming content for $8 and $12 patrons have also been missing for a while. Instead I pushed myself to do ALL the options, whenever I had ideas I would normally put to a vote.

For example: the futa Marvel characters series, futa Disney Princesses, Futalympics sports events, Kim & Jenna activities, were all planned as votes where you were only going to pick one option for me to draw. But I did all 5-6 options for each theme instead.

Also, the last time I made a vote poll for $8 and $12 patrons, only 3 out of 83 eligible patrons cast a vote at all! I got the impression nobody cared much about voting, so let’s just drop those for now, while I focus on delivering greater quality for the lower tiers and greater volume for the higher tiers.

TLDR;

For the past two years I haven’t been sharing a majority of the art I make. By overhauling the tiers, dropping big commissions, and not having a set schedule for votes, stories, and comics, I’ll streamline my workflow and start sharing everything I make with patrons, instead of spreading myself too thin and getting tangled in ambitious plans. There will still be comics and stories but not on a guaranteed schedule.

What will change from the current tiers?

$2 tip jar, the same as now but also gets 2 exclusives per month.

$4 and $8 combined into a $6 tier – gets all “finished” color artwork, including 4 exclusives per month.

$12 gets absolutely EVERYTHING I make, hot off the press. A lot more content, well over 30 pics a month.

New $50 sketch commission tier, this will be the only way to get a commission for a while.

What about dat Backlog doe… should I share all of those at once? Spread out over time for the $12 and up tiers? I need to hear that people actually want to see all this older art that doesn’t look as good as my latest and greatest stuff, because I worry that sharing too much will only drive people away. Please let me know if you would like to be showered in 100s of extra pictures, or any other feedback you have about all of this!

Now I’m celebrating my 5th year on Patreon, feeling very excited to shake things up and refresh my approach to making and sharing muscle futa art with you!

Thank you all so much for making it possible for me to do this art full time, I only made it this far because of you wonderful patrons, and I’ll continue my crusade to bring more muscle futa into the world for as long as I can!