Progress Report, 30/04 - 21 (Patreon)

Hello everyone and welcome to yet another teaser, and yet another in the line of progress reports!

Things have overall been moving forward this week and I've found myself with such abundant energy and motivation that I've bounced between projects like some kind of deranged ping pong ball, working a bit on pretty much everything. I also have a new banner in the works, having commissioned an artist to draw me up a proper profile picture on top of that, as to reflect my new content style and general move towards Blender in terms of animation, wallpaper etc prevalence. SFM isn't going anywhere anytime soon, though, but more on that next week where I plan on making a deep-dive into the near-future plans for what we're doing here.


This week is sadly very meta-heavy, and with that I mean we're talking content use and the SFM-DH brand. Still, it's necessary for clarity's sake:


First, I'd foremost like to take this progress report to specifically clarify something that I keep getting private messages regarding, which is the utilization of my content in your own work. I just want to make things clear, unequivocally, that I am perfectly fine with you cutting together music videos or the likes out of the extra angles on this patreon so long as it's strictly for personal use and enjoyment. My patreon exclusive content however is not, and I repeat, not meant to be set to music or simply cut together into longer videos for the purposes of being uploaded onto pages like xhamster or the likes. Want to utilize my public, watermarked work or the major projects (which are released to everyone) in compilations or the likes? Go for it, just mention me in the credits or something. Similarly, if it's a commission of yours, it's yours to do with as you wish. But the proliferation of patreon exclusive content will, no doubt to some degree, disincentivize people from backing me and will thus, in the end, strike in some capacity against my ability to keep doing this work - especially if it becomes commonplace.

Bear in mind that the vast, vast majority of cases I've seen of this are simply borne from enthusiasm over my work and not from maliciousness, and it's specifically the enthusiastic folks I want to address here. We're good, absolutely zero hard feelings on the matter, I just want to finally make this matter clear as I realize I've actually never come out and mentioned this publicly and, again, I keep getting messages regarding it (and let's be honest, probably still will after this post). I can't really stop you at the end of the day, but I'd appreciate it if those among the community who are video making enthusiasts (and who I haven't already spoken to personally about this) considers my plight.

On the more insidious side, the people who systematically take, cut together, and present content from animators on their channels over on these pages, as if it's their own, would not care one bit if our ability to make this stuff went sideways. If you've somehow ended up contributing as a person to one of these, I would kindly ask you to reconsider.

The reason I bring this up, finally, is because I tend to get a handful of messages a week from backers who have stumbled across supposedly patreon-exclusive content of mine in the wild and are, rightfully, concerned over the matter. No matter the tier, you people here are supporting me and my work, and are the reason I can continue to do this, so finding the stuff you're effectively paying for in the wild is no doubt jarring to say the least, and I'm more concerned how you as backers react to these kind of events really. Major kudos to those who have directly approached me and respectfully asked regarding this content use matter, and similarly thank you to those who have reported to me their sightings out in the wilderness of the Internet. It's truly touching and humbling to see people care about your content to this degree.

Second, we're talking the branding matter. Short but sweet, I am considering rebranding in the near future. Nothing radical - just a name switch from "SFM-DH" into something akin to "DH Productions" as to reflect my overall 3D focus as opposed to the strict SFM work I was doing in the past. I'll make sure to announce the final name I settle on loud and clear as to not confuse all too many people, or myself by all means.

On the commission front, I've contacted the next person on the commission list and will continue down the list until we've reached the road's end. Then, we'll consider opening up for another round. As I find myself in desperate need of a new computer rig, this might be the most feasible, if time consuming, manner in which to accrue the funds. Keep an eye out for the post in the future.

Phew, that was a mouthful. Hopefully it wasn't too dreary to read through, in which case I apologize. I hope to have more exciting things to report on next week, as well as some clarifications regarding my near-future work. Thank you, as always, for your continued support and for all of your kind words. Though we still hit the minuses here during night time, growing frost upon the budding roses, nothing can stop the coming of spring.

Take care of yourselves, as well as each other!
/DH