Progress Report, Account Update, and Poll, 03/07 - 20 (Patreon)

Hello everyone and welcome to an exhaustive look at project progress, two updates regarding patreon, my current life situation, and to top it all off, a poll. The poll information is at the bottom but I would recommend you stay to read the patreon related update at least.

Another busy week has laid much of my efforts low in terms of project work. You've probably noticed that the projected release window for LotW2 has passed, for which I can only ever apologize for, owing to sudden computer problems (now resolved) and an influx of work shifts, both long and brutal (not resolved). To give insight as to why the time allotment towards project work seems to fluctuate so frequently, it requires a short dive into my life situation, which I am sure not many might be interested in but which can still explain a thing or two as to how specifically my project work, well, works:

Owing to the slow but steady growth of this patreon over the past years, and the fact that we rather frequently touch on the second-to-last tier goal in terms of monthly earnings, I have made true on the promise to begin to phase out my regular daytime job. Knowing it provides steady work, I've opted to changing my employment from monthly to hourly, meaning I am scheduled through communication as opposed to a steady schedule in which I have no say, and which, normally, results in overall fewer hours and more spare time. Sadly, we do not live in normal times, and being a Swedish resident, the pandemic response here contains, in part, the appeal to workers to stay home if we feel even the smallest inclining towards sickness.  The downside with hourly pay is that I get scheduled with shorter notice, and I do not get sick pay for anything that I am not scheduled for. My colleagues however can, without fear for repercussion, call in sick quickly and easily, meaning I as the hourly employed "filling" along with a few others have to cover for them.

So in effect, owing to the pandemic, I have ended up playing myself when it comes to spare time, and I have ended up doing full-time and sometimes more, including night shifts, than I had previously.  As such, my project work lately has come mainly in short bursts, as opposed to a steady, reliable work schedule at home (which I would prefer) owing to me not knowing ahead as to whether I'll have the time to work on something during this day or that. I fiercely try to maintain the update schedule consisting of 2 weekly updates here, and while I occasionally stumble, I like to think that I at least succeed significantly more than I fail on that front. Lay on top of all this IRL commitments, with family and friends, and you can see why I am scrambling for time. Hopefully this pandemic thing will blow over soon enough.

Thus, onto the patreon update, which comes in two parts:  

First, for those who are unaware, European Sales Tax called "VAT" is now in effect on Patreon, starting July 1:st of this year. Who or what this exactly translates into in terms of pledge cost is unknown to me, but from my understanding, owing to my low cost tiers, it will not amount to much for those affected. You can read more about this using this link.

Secondly, and perhaps more relevant. Owing to the increased reliance on patreon as an income basis going into the future, I am going to switch from the current goodwill model into up-front charges starting today. This means absolutely nothing changes for recurring, steady patrons, but will mean you will be charged if you unsubscribe, and then re-subscribe again. While I have always preferred the goodwill model, this change reflects my wish to take this work of mine more seriously and to reduce the time consuming busy-work of tracking those who habitually subscribe and unsubscribe, on purpose, to avoid the pay-day window of the 1:st of every month. It is sadly the nature of the Internet that these things happen, and perhaps I have been a bit naive as to not address this earlier - especially going by what other creators have told me.

Now, onto the poll:

Lady of the Woods 2 have been in the works possibly the longest of all my projects, and early on saw me almost give up on it before I polled the community on the matter, made some changes, rewrote the script, and finally reworked the whole thing from the ground up, perhaps twice. Naturally, due to the passing of time, this means, as you can tell by the image at the top of the screen, that there is actually another updated Lulu model on the way from Aardvark. As he works on his V5 lineup, I didn't think it would arrive quite so soon, but the way he has projected things it looks like we might be seeing a release on Wednesday next week. This naturally spurs my interest, with the current, older Lulu model being unable to don a lot of the new, interesting clothing provided to us by our dear Lord as well as extensive, new slider options.

Since I am terribly pressed for time regardless at the moment, the poll question is thously:

Should we wait for the Lulu V5 model release and incorporate it into Lady of the Woods 2, inevitably increasing quality, performance, and thickness? In the meantime, I will naturally work on all the other projects I have in the pipeline. This would naturally set the project back somewhat, owing to already animated scenes requiring replacing, but I can attest that it won't be too bad.

Thank you, as always, and if you took the time to read all this then kudos to you. I hope you're faring well in these chaotic times - we shall make it through yet!

/DH