Updates // It's already April, in case you blinked (Patreon)

No, but really. Why are we in April? Where did March go? Why can I see 2022 waving in the distance? These questions, they haunt me.

So hello everyone and thank you for reading through this April update. I appreciate March was a little quieter than usual on the public front, though not for lack of working my hands raw on the back end. Lots has been happening both on the art and life side, so this update should catch you up with what’s been going on, as well as where we’re at in the timeline of things as I wrote in this post in Feb.

So without further ado…

What happened in March

March was a very intense month. I pretty much worked non-stop as I tried to keep up with my commission schedule, as well as rewards, while also taking some time to do practice sketchies for patrons. It was very productive, though several of the pieces I worked on couldn’t be published due to being secret gifts by those who commissioned them - which might explain why it was a little quieter than usual around these parts. Fortunately the NDA behind those pieces will soon be lifted, so I should be able to show them off soon.

That said, this schedule wasn’t flawless so I am a little behind on my timings with things. As it stands, several of March’s rewards have slipped into April and a few commissions which were due to be finished last month will also be worked on this month. Thankfully the delays aren’t major, but having said that I did just experience some recent upheaval which may up-end my life a bit more than expected…

Let me introduce you to...

Garrus. He’s a lint ball of fury and destruction and also the newest addition to the Ony family. You can also see him in live action here.

He is also the reason why nobody in the house has slept more than 4 hours in the last two nights combined.

We shall never own anything nice ever again

Garrus is a Jack Russell terrier (or so we think) who is currently 8 weeks old. As many of you know, I already had another dog - a rat terrier called Tali (you can see a naming trend here) - who is currently learning to dial the RSPCA to report the ignominy of her house being invaded by the shouty little pissing machine that keeps trying to chew her tail off.

Pictured: Disappointment

In all seriousness, as joyful a decision as this was, I didn’t remember the sheer hassle of having a young puppy, so all my careful planning around work, breaks and general life now looks more like “Work shall be attempted while a fuzzy piranha bites the shit out of your ankles. Breaks no longer exist. Life is pain you better learn to enjoy.”

The state of my eyebags is that I can almost carry this dog in them.

Looking ahead

So with all of that, where are we now?

You can currently see my progress on commissions here, as well as my general workflow here. If you read my post in Feb, you might remember I said that I hoped to finish my old batch by April, so that I could take a break in May and open up some more slots in June.

As it stands right now, it’s quite likely that some of this work - as well as pending rewards - will slip into May, thus pushing my break (which I really need, despite my eagerness to keep to my schedules) a week or two into June. This being the case wouldn’t really make much of an overall difference to my original plans, as I didn’t have a specific re-opening date set for June.

That said, I have recently had several people express their wish that I had more availability on StarStickers each month. The main reason the current availability is set to 5-6 rewards per month is that that’s all I can possibly do if I’m also churning out 3-4 complex commissions in that timeframe. Opening more availability at that point would just amount to a major backlog of rewards I can’t possibly complete without severely burning out or lowering the quality of the pieces.

So as I think about that, I did want to put the question forward to you guys:

• Would you rather I widen the capacity for freebie rewards on StarStickers while offering fewer/less complex commission slots?
• Or would you rather more commission availability while keeping rewards as they are right now?

Of course, if you have any other thoughts or suggestions I’d be more than happy to hear them. Sometimes it can be hard to plan when all I see is my end of things, so I’d love to know your take on this - as well as anything else going on with this Patreon.

A final word

I don’t often talk about myself much beyond puppy-business in here, so I sat on this thought for a minute before I decided to type it out.

Almost a year ago I wrote this post talking about where I was emotionally and mentally in the first two months of the pandemic. From that point on, I somehow found a way to deal with and get on with it and all things considered, 2020 was my most productive year yet - probably by the virtue of burying myself in work to avoid thinking too hard about what was going on outside.

Then we barrelled into 2021 and I continued to push in the same way as I’d done so far. But even though I realised by the end of January how fundamentally drained I was, it wasn’t really until March that it hit me, and it hit me hard.

I’ve tried my hardest to keep up with the quotas and the schedules and lessons and streaming, but I can see how I’m faltering in other areas, such as replying to DMs, or posting on this timeline & social media, or making more frequent updates. Smaller things which suddenly feel large and overwhelming and I know that it’s a clear sign that I am over capacity and that I need to take a break soon or I’ll risk disappointing a lot of people, let alone myself.

So while none of that is to say that anything is going to change- as I’m still determined to keep to the outline I’ve set for myself- I do want it to be sort of a pre-emptive apology for anyone who’s messaged me or is waiting for any form of updates, as well as a request for some extra patience while I gather my bearings and work my way back up the slope. I will get back to everyone and things will eventually settle back into the usual rhythm and then you’ll end up missing the days I was actually quiet. Like really, enjoy it while it lasts.

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And if you read this far, congratulations! You get another puppy pic for your troubles:

Thank you all so much for listening - I truly appreciate you guys being here. Now that’s plenty about me - I’d love to hear from you and how you’re doing in the comments below!