Update // Back on the road! (Patreon)

Don’t you just love that brand new year smell? Those notes of hopefulness and freshly-baked resolutions that just about mask the stench of weeks-old Christmas turkey you’ve forgotten to chuck out or the scorched musk of 2023?

Seriously though, go throw those leftovers out now.

This is going to be a heavy update, so for those of you who need the credits before the movie, here’s a TL;DR:

• Roadmap for 2024-27: my goals for the future and what this will mean for the Patreon
• StarStickers: rewards opening this month, application window has changed
• Merchandise: new prints added
• Mentorship: point cost of StarStickers lessons changing, new rules for lessons
• Patreon: notification issues ongoing, limited tiers currently available
• Other: all websites, guides and documentation has been updated

As we know, I paused the Patreon in December to give myself some room to rest and catch up. Truth is, I mostly impersonated a catatonic possum for most of the month, the compounded exhaustion of the last decade pinning me belly up to the couch like an anvil. While I did manage to get some work done (WIPs coming soon), I mostly used that time to listen to my body, mind and the dozens of people screaming at me to sleep, touch (wet) grass and, most importantly, consider my goals and think of what I want in my future.

By the end of 2024, this Patreon will be 7 years old and I’ll be 37 in turn - just three years shy of the big 40, also known as the first time most people realize they’re halfway through their lives. That thought alone was enough to make my eyes roll a little inwards, where I found a long list of things I still want to achieve.

Hence, the rest of this update will be a summary of what some of these tentative goals and plans are, as well as a loose roadmap of the next few years for this Patreon. Please note that these are all basically drafts and that more detailed updates will be sent on as the year goes on and any changes are scheduled to happen.

Roadmap for 2024-27

• Complete all the pending commissions and rewards on my workflow. I know many of you have been waiting for a long time to receive the things you booked a while back and my ambition this year is to finally hammer them all out.
• Consolidate my art style. For many years I’ve dabbled in multiple styles - flat, semi-rendered, fully rendered… and while I enjoy trying out new things, it makes my work look disjointed. My most recent piece is a good example of the direction I’d like to head in.
• Collaborate in more projects, particularly with book authors and indie creators. While the D&D project of 2023 was an ordeal to get through, the pride I experienced at seeing my work published was something I’d love to feel again.
• Develop my teaching skills and offering to bring up a new generation of artists. I genuinely love teaching and going forward I’d not only love to make it a more prominent part of my work, as well as develop new forms of teaching such as tutorials, courses or consulting.
• Publish an art anthology. This has long been a dream of mine - not just to compile all my completed work into an artbook, but to create a specific anthology of themed artwork with a narrative focused on horror and mental health.
• Develop StarStickers to a point where it can be converted into a product other artists can use. This has been in the works for a long time and in the next three years we’d like to get to a stage where it can become more than just an Ony-exclusive system.
• Progress out of a 24/7 lifestyle that allows me to see friends and family more often, prioritize my health and focus on long-term supporters and personal goals.

In order for these things to be more than pipe dreams, several big changes will have to happen to my current setup to make space for these new elements. Some of these might sound ominous now, but please bear with me, as per how I’ve always done things, I will not be leaving anyone out in the cold if they’ve been supporting me this far:

[ Illustrated rewards on StarStickers will become a legacy feature exclusive to patrons who are pledged by 2024 ]

What this means, in a nutshell:

• Patrons who are actively pledged by the end of 2024 will retain access to illustrated rewards on StarStickers as long as they remain pledged on any tier.
• New and returning patrons from the cutoff point will only get access to merchandise and mentorship (as well as commissions should I ever reopen those).

This will be a big shift and it’ll be done carefully and with enough time and notice for everyone to understand what it means and how it’ll affect them. Just to reiterate though - this will not affect anyone who is pledged/remains pledged at the time of this change. More information on this particular change will be announced in future updates.

[ StarStickers points reset for unpledged accounts will change from 6 months to 3 months ]

This change will likely happen in spring 2024 and it will affect anyone who deletes their pledge after that point. This change, as before, will be implemented to make sure the system can cope and that long-term patrons remain a priority going forward.

[ The current limits on Easy, Intermediate and Advanced tiers will be lifted once these changes have been implemented ]

These limits were set to make sure that StarStickers could stabilize and avoid an increase in accounts that would make the system unsustainable. Once the changes above are implemented, this limit will no longer be necessary and it’ll give people the opportunity to shift tiers more easily should they wish to stay pledged on a more accessible tier.

I appreciate that’s a whole mouthful to digest, so as ever, if you have any questions please do let me know. As I said above, this is a 3 year roadmap and everything will be taken into careful consideration to ensure the impact is minimal and progress remains smooth as ever.

And now for our general monthly updates!

StarStickers

• After a pause in Nov/Dec, I’ll be opening a small batch of illustrated rewards between January 5th and January 8th. Please note when I say small, I mean 2-3 rewards will be allocated this month. I am hoping that by allocating fewer rewards per month, I won’t have to close the system down as often going forward.
• In case you missed it above, the window for applications will be reduced from 5 days to 3, meaning that previously the window was open between the 5th and 10th and going forward it’ll be open between the 5th and 8th. This is simply because most rewards are booked in those first three days and this gives me a chance to organise myself better without having to wait an extra two days.
• Lastly, a reminder that in September we added a bunch of Tokens that you can stack onto a booked reward - such as hairstyle, outfit or tattoo designs - as well as a NSFW token to make your piece a little extra spicy. If you have an excess of points you don’t know what to do with, these are good ways to spend them out!

Merchandise

• New prints have been added in A4 and A3 sizes:

• A note of apology here, as although I said I would send all pending parcels back in November, certain mail issues in my area made me reconsider sending so many things so close to Christmas when the mail is notorious for being a mess. Hence I decided to postpone all shipping to January. I’ll be enlisting some help to deal with all pending orders and I’ll make an announcement when all parcels have been sent. Once again, apologies for the delay!
• As briefly mentioned in November, I am looking at introducing high value, limited merchandise rewards in the coming months - including signed and detailed copies of the D&D book I worked on as well as other mystery projects. More updates on this will follow soon.

Mentorship

• From February, the cost of Mentorship sessions on StarStickers will increase from 30 to 40 points. This is to ensure there’s no capacity overflow as more tokens continue to be booked each month.
• If you’re a patron on the Mentor Tier, or booking sessions via StarStickers, please check the Discord for some new rules I’ve introduced to ease the process - such as sending your work ahead of time, checking sound quality ahead of the session or session rescheduling.

Patreon

As in previous months, the issues with Patreon notifications persist and with them, the amount of work I have to engage in to figure out who’s in which tier to assign them the correct points on StarStickers. So with that, a reminder that I’d be eternally grateful if you DM me if you change your tier to help ease this burden.

Additionally, there has been an increase in the number of pledge declines in the last few months, as well as the issues patrons are having to restore them (be it that they’re not being notified or that the system doesn’t allow their retries to go through). In the first instance, if you’re having any issues, a good work-around is to delete the pledge and remake it. Should you have any other issues though, please feel free to get in touch and I’ll be happy to do what I can do help.

Lastly, a reminder that tiers are still limited and that current availability is as follows:

• Intermediate Tier: 3 slots
• Advanced Tier: 4 slots
• Mentor Tier: 1 slot (out of 10)

Other

As every year, the sweeping, dopamine-fueled momentum to rebrand and reshuffle all the content on my websites kicked in hard, and so several things have been updated:

• Banners and graphics across Patreon and (most) social media sites have been updated!
• My website has also been hugely updated to be more intuitive to navigate from a user’s perspective. As I move into consolidating my art style going forward, you can now find all art organised by type of work (client, patreon, original, fanart) as opposed to styles. The information on rewards and Patreon has also been unified and updated.
• The Patreon Guide has also had a face lift to be more intuitive and less cluttered. There is now a quick menu at the top and bottom, as well as clearly labeled links in the front page.
• Along the Patreon guide, the abridged Masterpost on Patreon has also been updated.

There are a few more things left to update, including the documentation in the Discord (rules, about, guides) which will be done throughout the month. In the meantime, if you have a look through the above and spot any oddities please let me know! Any extra pair of eyes is a great help, as my 3am vision can’t really hold itself afloat anymore.

In closing

If there’s one thing that’s definitely not changing, and not for lack of trying, is the length of these updates. I am so sorry to all 3 of you who got this far, even if your eyes are glazed over and you’re checked out on reading anything else for the rest of the year.

As always, I want to just repeat myself and say how immensely grateful I am that you’re all here, boosting me up yet another year. 2023 was nothing short of a trial but if I’ve come from it with anything aside from the tattered shreds of my sanity, it’s the resolve to push onwards and make every goal I listed a reality - starting with making sure that I meet everyone’s expectations.

So with that, and a whole lot of love, I wish you all the best year you could possibly ever have. Let’s make it a good one.

With love from the bottom of my 4th coffee cup,

Ony