Patreon and Commission Changes (Patreon)

Because I wasn't paying attention, it's February already! I was considering updating my Patreon tiers for February, but since I charge at the beginning of the month and it's now Feb, I'll wait until March to make any changes.

I've been considering revamping Patreon for some time now. With me going back to doing furry art full time (or thereabouts) this seems like a good time to do it. I'll give this new workflow a try-out in Feb and assuming it goes well, I'll make it official in March. Mostly I want to offer comic pages and/or animation loops which will happen on a new tier. Also, literally every person I've ever talked to says I should be charging more for what I offer here (that is—of the people who already support me. I've also had people just tell me straight up that they steal my art, so there's that, too.) So I think I'm going to make some adjustments.

Starting in March:

- I'm going to remove the $1 tier. I appreciate the support here, but it never had many patrons. Which in fairness is probably because I didn't offer anything here either. But it always seemed a little bit superfluous that way.

- $2 tier - will be my new lowest tier, but will include all my regular hyper sketches in full res. None of the more extreme kinks, but all the regular sketched pin-up poses, hyper, cum, rule 34, etc. I might also throw in a few color pics from time to time here. All clean art I do would also be posted at this level in full res. All tiers including this one will also get 24 hour advanced commissions notice.

- $5 tier - this will be basically what the $4 tier is now. Includes all art, all kinks, all alts in full res. Also going to start doing polls again, so that will be included here.

- $12 tier - I want to start doing more animation loops, comic pages and/or themed portfolios. My plan is to spend one day a week just on this type of work, which would net around 1 - 2 animations per month and 1 - 2 comic pages per month. This is a tricky tier to price because it needs to be high enough to support the extra time spent doing it, but not so high that people won't go for it. But I'm going to give it a try and see what happens. :>

- $20 tier - Once again this is my highest tier. I might start offering exclusive YCHs for this tier. It's an idea I've been toying with, as I'd like to do more of them anyway. I might also hold off on offering this one again. I'm not sure yet.

One thing I've always been concerned about with Patreon is spreading myself too thin. However, in the past few years I've gotten pretty good at predicting how long things will take me. I also want to try some life hack type things to hopefully improve my productivity, and schedule my time more specifically to account for the work I'm doing here. I've already got a solid start with Patreon. If I can grow it to be a larger percentage of my monthly income, then spending more time on it makes more sense.

Commissions Changes:

I'm going to make some adjustments on pricing and what's on offer. Over the past few months I've had a chance to experiment more with different styles and they don't always neatly fall into the styles I had been doing. Also I've noticed that color is a lot more popular than black and white, so it makes more sense to have three color options rather than two B&W and two color.

Sketches will stay the same, $50 per character, or $50 per hour for more complex ideas.

I'm going to split "cel shaded" into two categories:

"Basic Color" will include ink, flat color and simple highlights, $80 per character. There seems to be a significant demand for a 'cheaper' color option, and I think this might help with it.

"Full Color" will be basically what cel shading is now, but a bit more advanced. I've been using a new technique for it which yields a softer line and a more full-bodied painterly look. Includes multiple layers of shadow and highlight, rim lighting, reflected light, etc. But it uses cel shading techniques which is a lot faster than a full on render. I'm also considering including a basic background with every pic at this level, to force myself to do more complete pictures and practice with backgrounds. $150 per character.

Renders will still be the same painted look, but will be significantly more expensive. They always take far longer than I anticipate. If I can't hit a balance between cost people are willing to pay and time spent, I might just drop this as an option. $240 per character.

So that's the full plan I've been considering for the next year. Let me know what you think in the comments. :>