A few scheduling updates! (Patreon)

Hey patrons!  I just wanted to give you a few quick updates.

1. January's Secret Gallery art went out yesterday, along with a little Merritt's Story book 3 excerpt! 

2. The January monthly letter will go out today to Pen Pal tier folks and up!

3. We also have a new public DOTU page today!  Big thanks to everyone who's been reading and commenting on the main site, even on pages you've already read!  It helps to rebuild the community over there, which is super important in bringing in and keeping new readers.

Here's the newest public page:
https://www.demonoftheunderground.com/comic/p332/

4. Today's planned early access DOTU page will come next Monday instead.  I had an especially brutal freelance month in January (in that I was overloaded with high-detail work), and my hands are crying.  I *really* need to take a few days off drawing to give them a rest, because if I let the hand pain get worse, it could make me have to take even more time off.  But I promise it'll be worth the wait!

I don't normally share my freelance work, because stuff that hasn't gone public yet is covered under non-disclosure agreements, and it's, like, corporate type artwork instead of "my" artwork.  But if you want to know the source of my sad hands, I sometimes do these adult coloring book pages...  Here's an older set I did that's already been produced (the licensor is Thomas Kinkade) :

Anyway, I had 18 of them this month.  8 of them were for a different series that's *slightly* lower in detail, but it was still a crazy amount in a short time, on top of other work.  But that means I probably won't have any more for at least half a year.

5. February is a Sketch Tier month!  That means we'll have ~16 original sketches posted to Patreon later in the month!  Patrons in the sketch tiers get to request their favorite sketch to be sent to them in the mail, but I scan them and post them for all patrons to see.

So that's what's coming up!

This week while I wait for my hand to stop crying, I'll be focusing on the writing parts of my work instead of the drawing parts.  That means more progress on Merritt's Story!  As I said, I shared an excerpt in the secret gallery, but if I end up with something shareable that's less of a spoiler, I'll share it to the other tiers too.

And just some general info for folks who don't know: Outside of DOTU, I work as a freelance illustrator.  January-April tend to be my busiest freelance months because my client is ramping up getting art so they could meet production deadlines in June.  Having steady Patreon support means I have more freedom to turn down jobs to avoid getting overloaded.  January was a bit of an anomaly because of some bad timing with post-holiday jobs, but I hope to take it easier over the next few months so I can focus more on DOTU!