Progress Report, 18/06 - 21 (Patreon)

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

This week has been a tough one, starting arguably last weekend with some heavy shifts, which would occasionally rear their ugly heads during the weekdays as well. Regardless, I've gotten a lot of technical stuff sorted this week, in particular the rigging of multiple male characters from various universes, increasing our roster significantly from before and, most crucially, making sure we have less performance-heavy male models available for gang bang scenes. The teaser above might just have something to do with at least a few of them, but there's more in the works for the sake of facilitating further work down the line.

And speaking of further work, there's the on-going Content Preference Poll, where you can make your voice heard on your reasons for backing me and the likes. The poll's set to run until next Wednesday, but people have been incredibly on top of this one so we're seeing remarkable results already. Thank you, in particular, for your thoughtful comments - know that while I don't answer to everything, I read every single one you write and take them to heart. On that note, I understand a lot of people are backing me for large projects, but I am heartened by the amount who enjoy my Monday updates as well. Wallpapers, I have realized, serve mainly as a good content padding during the week, and I am honestly glad to see that they are performing as they are.

Why is that? The reason is two-fold:

Firstly, over time I have found myself spending more and more time and effort on the wallpapers, to the point where I've sometimes spent entire Monday/Tuesday Patreon work hours fretting over an array of intricate scenes not turning out the way I want them to, and the likes. Previously, this was time I spent brainstorming and working on concepts for future loops or project work, which I find myself struggling with in the present - in other words, after giving it some thought, I realized that seeing Wallpapers not being crucial to people in general is thus a lot of weight lifted off of my shoulders.

Secondly, they seem to suffer the same issue as my old concept posts did. For those unawares, concepts being posted on Patreon deliberately ceased to be the case a while back, owing to the reaction they spawned where people would either assume they were future work that 100% would be turned into some manner of animation or the likes, which would simply serve to be a source of disappointment when they realized that was not the case. Many left exit poll answers (upon cancelling their backing) where "concepts never finished" were the reason, even when I continuously explained that this was never their purpose. This is also the case, in the present, but with wallpapers.

In other words, wallpapers suffer similar issues that concepts did, particularly in the vein where many see things they like and fret over them not being animated, and if the immediate response to a wallpaper piece of mine is disappointment over something that ostensibly "could have been", then it becomes obvious that, for a not-insignificant group of backers, they simply serve as a frustrating, potentially demoralizing agent that may put them off of my work. To push the point home one, final time, and give an example, here's one reason why wallpapers, never, ever would be animated, using the Jack group piece from a while back:

"I wish this was animated"

These tricks is what you resort to, most of the time, to make the more radical wallpapers somewhat feasible. Why do you think many 3D artists in the scene try to stick to a single, if very detailed angle? The answer lies in the image above.

Now, I want to make clear that I don't put the blame on any of my backers over this. I understand that there's a language barrier for instance, and most importantly, many can't be arsed reading my ridiculous walls of text, and with an overturn of patreons (old leaving, replaced by new) over time, I cannot keep repeating these factoids over and over in the hopes that it'll somehow solve the issue that lies at the core: that the current way I do wallpapers grant false hope and often annoy backers. Know that any public commentary on wallpaper posts are always dwarfed by the amount of private messages I get about them as well, meaning this isn't a handful of people "being loud", but a systemic issue that I have managed to paint myself into a corner over, and which falls squarely on my shoulders.

So what is the solution? Simply put, I will slowly transition back to what wallpapers were meant to be in the first place, which were detailed, high definition pinups of characters, without any penetrative action, for the purposes of highlighting the just insane amount of detail that model makers have put into them. This will also coincide extremely well with my need to lower my work load, meaning I can perhaps get more balance in my life owing to not having a medium-to-large-sized pose project to deal with every mid-week. Again, to clarify, this doesn't mean wallpapers will go away - it simply means they will change into a form where they cannot be mistaken as potential animation prospects, while serving as potential teases for ladies that people will want to actually see get railed in animations :)

Phew, alright, with that out of the way, the few remaining commissions are still underway. I had hoped to re-establish some contact this week, but got sidetracked on account of lacking the time. When all these are sorted, we'll see how future commissions end up working.

TLDR: Wallpapers are going to be pinups from now on. Tons of model work has been sorted. Sculpting is underway for the comic still. Owing to my new rig, larger Blender projects have resumed production, and I have another, potential, Scenario in the works. Exciting times, regardless!

Thank you, as always, for your continued support, and for all of your kind words! We've hit our first 30C up here and it is slowly melting society into a puddle, but with the power of technology (mostly fans) we persist. Hope you're doing alright, wherever you are!

Take care of yourselves, and each other!
/DH