Time for an Update & Coming Changes! (Patreon)

EDIT:  In regard to changing over to my local currency; Having looked into all the charges, I've decided to remain in ($)USD. It is currently not worth it to move to (£)GBP, as I would actually be earning even less of your pledges, thanks to Patreon adding a 2.5% conversion fee on top of each pledge that isn't in the currency I choose. I believe most of my patrons are outside of the UK, so it just makes sense to leave things as they are in that regard. Hope that makes sense and thank you all for holding tight while I figure things out! <3

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Good day, all of you lovely patrons, you!

 So it's another new year! While the previous was a doozy and this one isn't starting much better, I am very determined to do my best and make the most of the coming year!  On a personal level, I want to work on myself, especially on my art skills and output. As far as Patreon is concerned, I want to try and make a new approach and rework how I do things a little bit! So here is an update, and my considerations moving forward. Apologies if this winds up a little long!

My Art:

1. I want to be able to take time and focus on some learning. Trying to better myself as an artist has always been important to me and I tend to get restless and sometimes, even depressed when I don't feel like I am getting anywhere (or where I want to be with my artistic skills). So I feel as though I need to take some time out, focus on improving my skills with courses and tutorials. All of it; anatomy, lighting, perspective, colour, etc, maybe even practice some new techniques!
2. In that same vein; I need to work and train myself to get a bit faster with my art. I will never be the kind of artist that can speedily pump out art, and I believe I will never be able to fully change my need for details and overzealous perfectionism. That said, that part of me is also a hindrance. Over the years, I've gotten slower and slower producing pieces. While maybe part of that is due to the care I have with my work, and any improvements I may have made in skill, It is also a detriment to running something like Patreon. After all, how can I reliably post something each month if it takes me more than a month to finish a single, fully painted piece? So I plan to dive into learning and courses that will also include more in-depth training. Things like speed painting and anything to help me learn to loosen up and keep from old habits that have progressively slowed me down over the years.
3. In this learning period, I will also be aiming to make some works I can use for a new up to date work portfolio. I have my sights set on a particular indie game studio. Due to this, it's important for me to set some time outside of my Patreon in order to move towards that goal.

So where does this leave my Patreon?

1. It might mean that, at least for a little while, my posting will be a bit more sporadic or that I even wind up not having a paid piece posted each month as is usual. Of course, as a reminder, if I wind up not posting full, paid illustrations or art packs, none of you will be charged. I might still post free content at this time in order to share the pieces I am using to learn with.
2. However, while I am setting time aside for all these other goals, I am in no way abandoning you folks or my Patreon. In some cases, I may still post some of these works as paid illustrations ( or even as a larger art pack) if I feel the quality is up to par and/or the content may be relevant and of interest to you all.
3. In regards to the speed of my workflow, I may have to rework and calculate my Patreon goals and stick to them rather more stringently. In the past, I've always had them there as pretty loose goals. But unfortunately, the time investment has become a bit of an issue. So, in the future, I will be sticking to these goals at very least, until my working speed is improved on.

What other changes are coming?

1. Firstly, I will finally be making the changeover to my local currency. This shouldn't affect any of you, my current patrons, unless you change the tier or the amount you wish to back me with, this will largely only affect any new patrons. It mostly ensures that I am being paid by Patreon in my local currency of British Pounds, which makes exchange rates and taxes easier for me. XD
2. Additionally, some of you may have noticed I've not been able to send out physical rewards, like stickers, buttons, pins, prints etc. in a fairly long time. I am deeply sorry about this, but as I am sure some of you may be able to guess, a lot of this comes down to some of the on-going problems caused by the Covid pandemic. It started with closures of many of my producers, continued with slowdowns (and in some cases closures) of mail services, and now on top of that, here in the UK, there are issues thanks to good ol' Brexit. Due to these issues, I will officially halt doing these rewards for a while. As much as I love doing them to give you folks something physical, I want to ensure that I can do this, without the risk of reward items getting lost, sent back to me, or even talking half a year to arrive with some folks. I will, however, bring these rewards back once I feel more secure in services returning to something resembling normal. I hope you can all understand. <3
3. Another big change I am considering making is how I hand out the digital rewards. For many years now, I've sent out rewards via the Patreon message system. I did it this way to deter bots and "scalpers" (for a lack of a better term), but luckily since then, Patreon has gotten better about dealing with bots and the like. So, I may go back to providing rewards in posts like I used to, to try and simplify things a bit for all of us. <3 Only awkward thing about doing it this way is, is the tier system. So I may have to do several posts for each reward tier, or just take some time to play around with how I do this. So please bear with me if I have a goof-up or two while I find what works!
4. As per this new system, I will also be working to update my Gumroad ( https://gumroad.com/ultraviolet ) so it has all the backdated image files that were on the old system.

Well, I think that's everything for the time being!  Please let me know if you have any questions, concerns, suggestions or even just want to share your thoughts! I love hearing from you folks! <3

Lots of Love,