Update // The real fools were the friends we made along the way (Patreon)

It's a good job my art is better than my ability to title my updates...

First of all, I wanna say a huge thank you to everyone who participated in our little April’s Fools event. This was my first time doing something like this and although we had some minor teething issues, it was a blast and just as dumb as intended.

Throughout the 5 hours of streaming (whilst wearing a terrible wig - bet you're sad you missed that) I managed to pick and doodle 13 winners. After that, I selected a few additional entries through StarStickers to complete in my own time. If you were selected - on or off stream - your StarStickers account should now reflect that. If you were not, your application points will have been restored back.

Once my current NDA deadline is over (April 6), I’ll polish and publish all the event sketches and hopefully get back on the cart of my actual Patreon duties. I honestly can't tell you how badly I can't wait for that...

Personal Updates

As you all well know by the virtue of me not shutting the hell up about it, I am currently neck deep in an NDA project for a big publisher.

I will be upfront and say that the complexity of the work that’s been requested far surpasses what I was told when I signed on, which has been a bit of a shock to the system. While I believed at the time that I’d be able to still fit my own work in, this hasn’t really been the case and, worse yet, I’ve started to develop a strain injury on my right hand due to the intense detail work required.

As it stands, my next looming deadline is this coming Thursday (April 6), after which I’ll be off the hook for a few days while they compile feedback and revisions. During that time, I’ll be doing my best to speed through pending rewards and comms to try to catch up before the following deadline (May 11, assuming nothing changes).

On the flipside, that surgery that I was due for on April 17th ended up getting canceled entirely. This is both frustrating - as I was on that waiting list for over 8 years - and a relief, as I will not have to lose more time in the recovery. So uh, silver linings I guess…?

Rewards: Illustrated and Merchandise

I’ll get straight to the point: rewards for April will be opening tomorrow, Wednesday 5th, until Monday 10th. Please note however, that due to the insane backlog accrued over the last few months, it’ll be a very limited opening of only the simplest rewards (ie, lineart, fanart, color busts).

While I appreciate that everyone loves Mystery Boxes, there are more than 25 of them currently in the pipeline and they do take an intense amount of work/time, so for the time being I need to be realistic about what’s manageable. That said, this restriction is only temporary and MBoxes will be available again as soon as this crunch is over!

Additional changes and updates:

1 - The cost of some rewards will be changing from April. This will be as follows:

• Lineart Bust: 200 > no change
• Fanart Bust: 200 > 150 points
• Color Bust: 250 > no change
• Mystery Box: 300 > 350 points
• Couple Lineart Bust: 375 > 400 points
• Outfit Mystery Box: 850 > 750 points
• Ultimate Mystery Box: 850 > no change
• Traditional Artwork: 1000 > 900 points

2 - A new print has been added to the Merchandise shop in both A4 and A5 formats:

A reminder that you can check ALL available prints here: MERCHANDISE

3 - All prints that were pending in the system were shipped about 2 weeks ago so many if not most of you should have received them. If you had something pending and haven’t received it by next week, please make sure to get in touch and I’ll see what I can do.

4- All Patreon tiers remain capped and the numbers are continuously being revised to make sure that I progress towards having a manageable workload. What this means is that available slots will continue to shrink overtime as I further limit how many patrons can join. At the time of this post, these are all available slots:

• Easy Tier: 0 slots
• Intermediate Tier: 1 slot
• Advanced Tier: 2 slots
• Mentor Tier: 1 slot
• Extreme Tier: 0 slots
• Ultimate Tier: 0 slots

Please note that if your pledge is declined and unresolved within the month it still remains occupying a slot even though you’re not effectively a patron. If you no longer wish to be a patron please delete your pledge manually from your account page, as otherwise the slot will continue to be locked up and I’ll have to file a request to Patreon’s CS team.

5- Lastly, a critical reminder that the point reset on unpledged accounts will be reinstated in May. This means the following: any account that deleted their pledge from May onwards will have 6 months to repledge and keep their points. Any accounts that go unpledged longer than 6 months will be wiped clean. Additionally, any accounts that have been unpledged for longer than 6 months by May 1st will automatically be reset.

If you are a former patron and wish to retain your points, please make sure you repledge this month to avoid the reset, as this will happen automatically.

General updates

And along with all the above, just a drive-by reminder of the usual routine stuff!

• Our March-April art challenge is still going! The theme is “Spring Cleaning”, which gives you the opportunity to dust off that WIP that’s been screaming for your attention since days of pencils past and give it a good old, 2023 glow up. More details in the Discord!
• If you haven’t joined our Discord server, you absolutely should! A reminder that you can do this via patreon.com/settings/apps and connect your account to your discord handle, which should automatically add you in. If you can’t do this for any reason, feel free to DM me for a manual link instead.

QUICK LINKS:

• Patreon Guide
• StarStickers Guide (please note you must be logged in to access this link)
• Workflow board (all booked rewards and current batch commissions)
• Commission list
• Mentorship calendar

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Is it me or do these keep getting longer and longer…?

Either way, if you’re here and you’ve put up with me for this long I just want to tell you: you’re my favourite.

Don’t tell the others.

Much love,

Ony