Update! (New House, Financial Stuff, Animation Pack Progress) (Patreon)

Hello! I have a special update for you today. (If you only want some pixel downloads, you can skip this one-- this is mostly a personal post.)  

I was planning on releasing the beta of the Animations pack today-- but unfortunately it's not going to happen. Things are too busy here-- because today I'm moving into a new house! 

(in the absence of pixel images, this post will have pictures of Human the dog)

Some of you might remember that I made a big move last summer. I moved with my family to another part of the country (from the northeast to the deep south, where the taxes are lower!) 

I planned to move down here with my parents and have my own place in about a year. Well -- it's been nearly exactly one year since the move, and things are right on track for me!

All summer long, I've been working on buying a house. I finally found one, and then had to deal with over a month of paperwork, inspections, and lawyer stuff to work out the details! But the day is finally here, and everything is already packed and loaded. 

The last thing is the computer, which I'm going to pack up right after I submit this post!

Also, I'm going to give you guys a bit of a financial disclosure. In the interest of transparency (which I strongly believe in!). I think that as patrons, you deserve to have an idea of my living expenses.

I got a great price on this house. Of course, it needs a lot of work, and I'm spending a lot of my savings on lots of necessary stuff for the new place -- but that's to be expected.

My monthly mortgage is about $700 (that's only a little more than the cost of rent I was paying to my parents for the past year-- and it's less than the cost of rent for a tiny apartment in the city!). On top of the mortgage are the expected bills -- electricity, internet, phone, etc. When you add in groceries, the minimum for my monthly cost of living is about $1200 --

-- and that's covered by you guys!

When I started this patreon campaign, I had only hoped to "break even" on my internet bill. I'm very thankful and proud of the success that we've had here!

(Of course, there's more than that: my student loan payments are brutal, and I need to set aside plenty of money for Uncle Sam (I have to pay huge % of taxes being self-employed) . And it's important to put money into savings for emergencies! The profits from my marketplace sales and my commission work rounds out the rest of my income-- )

Keep doing what you're doing, and I'll keep doing what I'm doing! I'll keep pumping out the graphics to earn your continued loyalty! 

In the new house, I even have a dedicated room for an office-- so you can expect a steady stream of productivity!

As for the status of the Animations Pack-- I'm nearly finished with it. I have only a few more elements to do (dark and holy), and then some status effect animations (poison, sleep, stat up/down, etc). It'll probably take me just 4 or 5 hours to finish up what I want for it-- so I'm planning on pumping that out one afternoon or evening this weekend.

I'm planning on having a release ready at the beginning of next week -- at least the beta version for the $10-patrons to get an early look and give me suggestions and feedback.

I really wanted to get it done this month, but as you can imagine-- moving day never goes as smoothly as planned.

Apologies for the delay. I hope you understand!

Thanks again everybody! I can't say it enough how appreciative I am of your patronage-- your business and your support.

(As long as my internet is working at the new house, you can expect the end of month review thread tomorrow!)

See you soon!