New horizons (IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT) (Patreon)

Hellosie!

I have an important announcement to make. Due to my ongoing health issues, working on the Patreon in its current form has become increasingly difficult. After thinking it over and discussing it with friends, I have decided to overhaul the way I do paid content.

At the end of February, I will sunset both the Monthly Damsel and its related rewards, as well as Damsel Yearbook requests. Instead, the Patreon will exist in a lower-key form focusing on early access for whatever I happen to be working on as well as feedback and suggestions for things in the works. Additionally, all patrons will receive a discount on any commissions they get from me. I don’t know yet how I will handle future paid content like art packs, but the Monthly Damsel sets will remain available to patrons.

Changing things this way allows me a greater degree of freedom to work on what I’m passionate about and able to work on at any given moment. Nevertheless, I will try to plan ahead enough that I can inform all of you ahead of time what I intend to work on, so you can adjust your patronage accordingly. For example, if I say “next month, my main project will be a comic about this or that!”, and you don’t find that interesting, you could easily leave for that month and come back when I’m working something more to your taste. Of course, this isn’t perfectly foolproof as life doesn’t really happen in 30-ish day increments, but I will do my best to provide as much transparency as possible.

Doing this will also allow me to start taking commissions again and even do Yearbook requests on a singular basis, since I’ve often had to turn away disappointed fans who were never able to get a slot in the Knights tier. By opening and closing commissions at my leisure, I can avoid burnout as well as avoid overloading myself if I have a collaborative or otherwise time-sensitive project in the works.

Please understand that this isn’t a decision I’m making lightly, and that I’m very sorry to disappoint anyone who was looking forward to voting on many more polls or requesting many more Yearbook portraits. However, I think this will work out better for everyone in the long run, since I’ll be happier and more productive, and all of you get to enjoy even more art!

All that said, here is exactly how the next few months will be working out: January will continue as normal, with the Monthly Damsel and Damsel Yearbook rewards releasing as normal. In February, there will be a final Monthly Damsel poll. I will also be accepting a final round of Yearbook requests, but it may take me longer to complete. I understand that this announcement may change who you want your last two requests to be, so if I have not yet sent you a sketch for January’s request, please contact me as soon as possible if you want to change your request.

At the end of February, I will be discontinuing all of the current tiers since a lot of the rewards will be going away, and instead have a $3 minimum for getting all of the early access stuff and interactivity, and a higher tier (price TBD) for access to the Monthly Damsel archive, since it is quite a bit of content. Of course, I totally encourage giving me more money per month if you want to, but it’s up to you. :P

In March, I will probably focus mainly on recharging my batteries, finishing any remaining unfinished Yearbook requests and doing some pinups of characters I’m interested in, so I can rev up the new system gradually. I want to open up commissions soon after, but half the reason I’m doing this revamp is because it’s hard to plan too far ahead—anything can happen, and at any moment my brain can decide that working on something I promised is going to be ten times harder than it should be. So I’ll keep all of you posted as we get closer to March and I have more concrete plans!

I hope I’ve explained everything well enough, and once again I’m sorry to anyone I’m disappointing with this change, but it’s a necessary one. Hopefully you’ll stick with me as we sail to new horizons, and if you’re not, I wish you well.

Rosie rollin’ out!