Announcement -September and October- (Patreon)

Hello everyone!

This announcement will be more or less a heads-up announcement on what will be happening from September to the end of October.

After much silent contemplation, I've made up my mind that I definitely need a break.

To give a bit of background context, I started my Patreon journey in 2019 and rarely if ever, took breaks in between. Almost every day I've spent from morning to dusk at my tablet working away at completing a new artwork and while I still find it very enjoyable and fun, I feel very exhausted both physically and mentally. It's probably not the first time where I've been vocal about the health problems that worries me since I sometimes write about it through my monthly Gumroad DMs here on Patreon.

For those of you who aren't aware of it, for a long time I've been experiencing mild pain across my wrist due to the amount of time I spend on the tablet drawing away. There's also the back pains that's been getting worse over the years which worries me a lot. I've taken very short breaks in between the months but realistically speaking, it's just not enough to say I've gotten plenty of rest.

There are various other ailments that I'm currently suffering from, every morning I don't feel refreshed at all but rather I wake up tired, I also periodically suffer from shingles (this happens once every two or three months), which come as a stabbing pain across my neck. I know it's all very difficult to believe but for a long time, I've kept it under wraps and continued drawing as if it wasn't affecting me as much.

I just don't feel as energetic as I once was due to the amount of time I spend indoors most the time. I plan on seeking medical help during the break period as my problems have become a lot more dire nowadays. Some months aren't as bad but more often than not I feel so drained to do anything productive.

Starting in September, I plan on going away for two months to visit my family members in Korea whom I haven't seen for almost 5 years. Since I can work anywhere so long as there's space enough for my tablet and wifi, I've been living abroad, sometimes as a digital nomad as some of you might remember.

While I am visiting my family, I won't be closing my Patreon for those two months. My usual contents will be changed during these two months where I'll update this space with blogs of my visit in Korea. Contents may include diary of my discoveries there, rough sketches of Sister Reine and little background stories you might be curious about regarding art in general as well as my past experiences as a traveler. I'll still be drawing from time to time but because I won't have access to my usual beefy setup like I do at my workshop, I'll do my best to update with rough sketches using the basic equipment I'll prepare at the location I'll be crashing for two months.

Will I truly be resting during the two months?

Not really. I still have a ton of work that needs to be completed behind the scenes and while I can't disclose what they are exactly due to NDA agreements, it's been a huge heavy burden on my shoulders for a very long time so I hope to finish as much as I can during the two months where I physically can't focus on Patreon. All the free time I have available will most likely be spent on finishing these various NDA projects. If you see me stream games on Twitch, that will be the rare chance I take respite from work stress and just chill with you guys.

I think this is also a good time for me to try creating postcards again! I sent them out during my stay in Taiwan last time when I was spending my time there as a digital nomad, I would like to try and create and send out the postcards to my Patrons while I'm in Korea. Albeit last time I did this, I sent out like 200 postcards, if all of you stick around towards the end of October, I'd suspect I'll have more than 500 postcards prepared and ready to send out which is a lot more haha. I might even try to make some stickers too!

I'll start to collect Active Patron's delivery addresses around early October and post them by mid-October. More updates on this logistics at a later date but I hope to figure out everything by sometime in September.

There are a lot of things I also want to try out during these two months so it will be an experimental period for my Patreon to test various things. Things I might try creating is with other creators using my OCs. Might be a 5 page manga series, or it might be a MMD of my OCs with a collab effort with an ASMR specialist, there's lots of ideas I'll try and share with you guys during the break. Could also be just gaming streams who knows.

What will this mean for the people who signed up for just the Gumroad rewards?

Yes, unfortunately, this means I won't be creating Gumroad rewards during September and October, so if that's the only perk you were interested in when you signed up to support me as a Creator on Patreon, then I'd strongly recommend supporting me after October, once I'm back to my usual schedule or purchase the gumroad rewards directly from gumroad instead once they are made available. August will still have rewards delivered by early September, as usual.

This was by no means an easy decision for me to make since if it was at all possible, I would have wanted to continue my usual schedule. But it's gotten to that point where I just can't ignore my exhaustion. It won't be as intense as my usual schedule and I'll still be drawing, just not as much and this will give me some time to recover and see a medical professional about the multitude of health problems I'm facing on a daily basis.

So yes, that's the small update on what I plan to do for the coming months. Thank you for reading through it all and I hope to continue doing my very best at both art and taking care of my health from now on.

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TLDR:

1. Due to a long time I spent drawing without meaningful rest, my health in general has been in steady decline. I will take a rest for two months to take care of my health and use this time to visit my family whom I haven't seen in 5 years. I intend to use this time to work on as many of the NDA projects as I can.
2. August Patreon rewards will be sent to Patrons as scheduled on the following month, early September as usual. But from September through October, Patreon will temporarily change content to blog-style content with 4 blogs and 4 sketches every month. I intend to place an order during October to have postcards and etc printed and prepared to send to you guys who continue to support me throughout these break periods.
3. As mentioned above, Content will remain the same for October, 4 sketches and 4 creator blogs. Once the postcards and other goodies I placed orders on arrive, I'll start sending them out to you guys around say mid to late October.

-Regarding the goodies I intend on sending.  These will include postcards, acrylic tags, stickers and handwritten memos, etc...  Content will depend on the tier, I'll have more updates about this during September.  I don't know how expensive these are to manufacture now that production has become much more expensive after Covid. But I'll try my best to send them to everyone excluding countries that cannot be sent to due to postage issues.

4. I'll be back to normal Patreon activities starting in November onwards.

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Thanks, everyone!

PS: I found the pics of the Postcards I sent three years ago! They looked like this for anyone curious about what was sent last time~

It was March 13th, 2020 when I took all 112 postcards and went on a mailing spree at the Post Office in Taipei. I still recall it was quite the mission for the post office employees to figure out whether they could send all of them to the addresses. There was that one postcard to Micronesia that they had trouble figuring out but they still managed to send everything on the day.

That was 112 back then. This community has grown considerably since three years ago. I'm sure the post office employees in Korea will be shocked to see 400+ postcards being shipped globally when I scramble to get everything organized.

For anyone interested in a trip to memory lane, you can re-visit the particular posts on my Patreon here.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/postcards-have-34150729
https://www.patreon.com/posts/postcards-sent-34819862

I can't believe some of you have stuck around since three years ago. You guys are an absolute legend and I'm so happy I got to know all of you <3