Update // All I want for Christmas is a nap (Patreon)

It’s only been a few days since the last update and yet I’ve somehow managed to sprout 5 new white hairs and a wrinkle the depth of Mariana's Trench across my forehead. The end approaches swiftly, rallied by wraiths that wail oddly alike Mariah Carey.

In brief, I survived my second Comic Con, but just barely.

Me, when I was innocent and untarnished- circa 5 days ago.

Hyperbole aside, it actually went brilliantly. It was an exhausting feat of 2 weeks of 15 hour days, reprinting stock well into the early hours of the day, but I could honestly have never expected how many sales I’d be making or how lovely it would be to chat to new and old faces, people coming to find me for ME and those who came to find me several days in a row. I have a lot of sappy feelings revolving around this event, but perhaps you’ll have to tune into one of my streams to hear me wistfully weep about it.

In the meantime, we have quite a lot of ground to cover as I have now tethered myself back to reality and am doing my best to trim down the delays on all my projects. So with that, let’s get to the real stuff.

Points & rewards

Monthly Points: Firstly, this month’s regular points will be allocated shortly after this update goes out, as well as the point allocation for those who participated in the previous art challenge.

Bonus Points: As per my update last month, I will also be allocating 50 bonus points to all patrons who were pledged by November 1st. However, due to a large number of declined payments this month, I decided to delay this allocation until some of those patrons had a chance to fix their pledge. For that reason, the 50 point bonus will go out tomorrow morning. To receive this bonus, you must make sure that your pledge has been processed by tonight.

New merchandise: Thanks to purchasing a dedicated printer, I am now able to offer a TON more prints as an option on the Merchandise section of StarStickers. My original plan involved overhauling this entire section so that you could place custom orders of whatever prints you wanted (including commissions I may have made for you). However, due to my primary developer fracturing his wrist, this update is going to have to wait until next month. In the meantime, I will be manually uploading the new stock into StarStickers over the next few days so that you can purchase it in bundles as per usual. For this reason, if you wish to purchase any of the new prints, please wait until a future update (aprox. 1 week) in which I confirm this stock is available.

Illustrated rewards: As things are at the moment, you’re all aware that I’m heavily backlogged on rewards as well as commissions. For this reason, in order to catch up to my workload without the pressure of adding more to it, illustrated rewards (ie, custom art) will be largely limited over November and December. To manage these limits in a way that’s fair to those who haven’t had one yet, I’ll be allocating rewards manually, so if you wish to purchase a reward in November please write your username/desired reward in this spreadsheet by Sunday the 6th. Those who get in will be contacted by Monday, with those who don't being considered as a priority in future allocations.

[ Sign up form: https://bit.ly/novSSallocation ]

Mentorship

Last month I trialed the new lesson system, wherein I split sessions between “online” and “offline” (i.e, in person vs. a recorded video). This worked really well to relieve the burden on my sundays, as well as to make things a little more accessible for those who couldn’t coordinate the time to be there in person, so in a bid to make this month as productive as I can, I’m going to continue using this system in November.

As per last month, patrons in the Mentor Tier will get preferential booking of any slots (online or offline) until Friday 4th. After that, all remaining slots will be accessible to all patrons in eligible tiers or holding an Art Lesson reward.

To find available slots please check the calendar here: https://bit.ly/ony-calendar

To book your session, please use your allocated channel in the Discord server (or DM me if you don’t have one yet)

If you wish to book an offline session, you may also let me know in your dedicated channel (or DM), in which you’ll have to send me the material to review by November 18th latest.

Other

This has probably been the most sass-free, straight-to-the-point update I’ve put out so far this year, which I hope shows my intent to really get myself back on rails and get everything that’s due in people’s lap.

I know it’s said that you shouldn’t apologise on the internet, but I do want to earnestly say I’m sorry to everyone who’s been waiting for things - be it rewards or commissions. I know things are VERY far behind, and although it’s not for lack of trying, it doesn’t make it any fairer on those of you who are waiting for things that you’ve rightfully paid for.

I don’t want to say it too loudly lest karma hears me, but these next two months should be a lot more “normal” than the rest of 2022 has been, so if you’re on the pipeline for something please just give me a little longer. I’ll be with you all asap.

In the meantime, a massive thank you for everything again and a big, fat hug for your enduring support and kindness.

See you on the other side of this month <3