Looking ahead in the Patreon 2019 and beyond - Read if you want to know what's coming! (Patreon)

OK Let's talk about what's coming down the line! Personally, I view the Patreon as a living thing constantly adapting to YOUR INTERESTS wherever and whenever possible. That said, after watching the response to the animation tier I think we can safely say you like that. So, let's see about doing MORE for you, shall we?

Please realize NONE OF THIS IS SET IN STONE! Feel free to comment (constructively) and drop an opinion (try and use positive focus if possible). Saying "I don't like this." isn't as helpful as saying "I would love to see more color work!" The first example doesn't give me much to go on other than your dislike. The second at least gives us a talking point I can work toward. 

Adding a “Learn to animate & process tier to the Patreon”

This would be something where you can download the CLIP STUDIO ANIMATION files I make to see how things are done! You would get a Clip Studio file with all my animation work for a given animation. From there you can see how I set things up and how I used the program to create the animations I put on Patreon. This would be a higher tier than the regular animation tier and as a result you would still get all regular patron animation rewards. I don’t know how interesting this is but I see a few creators doing stuff like this with PSD files. My HOPE with this tier is I get a few patrons who want to try their OWN HAND at making animations and want to see how another person does it. It would be great to bring in MORE ANIMATORS to the BE/GTS realm. HEY, we all win with more art, right?

New Tiers and combining old tiers

I'm always a little hesitant to muck around with old tiers and do things like remove them. Still, there are some modifications I am considering to streamline things. This is not really a big deal but I was considering taking the official $2 month pledge out if we hit a certain goal (don’t know yet). If this goal is achieved (users per month, money, etc.) then I would roll back all the $2 rewards to the $1 tier (at least that is the ROUGH IDEA). Basically, you get more for less. Still on the fence about rolling back the Discord so don’t quote me on this one. 

Making previews available for all tiers

This is related to the above and might happen separately. I am considering making previews (art, color work, comics) available for all. Again, this might be part of a new goal we can hit together. 

In the VERY long term!!! WAY, WAY WAY down the road

So, the animation tier is a thing and seems to be more popular than my regular comics. Awesome! Well, the thing there is at some point I will catch up to my giant comic reserve we have been living off. At the moment I have about three full years of comics ready to drop. That may or may not stay constant depending on the Patreon and how many pages get put out. If we stay at our current rate though, I can go about three years. Not too shabby!

I want to be clear if there is one overriding favorite (animation vs comics) and I have to pick one to give you; I will focus on the one you really want. If you want animations then you shall have them. The more animations I do the better I get. I still will be drawing comics. I LOVE the comics. I LOVE drawing them. Just putting it out there we are working on a finite supply of backlog I am not replenishing at nearly the same rate due to the animation Patreon. 

What does all this mean? Perhaps nothing. Maybe it means scaling back the comic output or adding something to the lower tiers if we end up running low. Regardless we are talking about something YEARS away. Why am I telling you? Well. If you want to weigh in about how much you love those comics then now is the time to do it! I’d love to hear from you!

Patreon as a platform for my art in general

There was some hubbub about Patreon earlier this year as I was temporally taken offline by the management while they did a massive shift over to make things more family friendly. The deal back then was many adult creators had naked or sexual imagery facing the public and Patreon took it down. I plan on staying with Patreon. I like it here for a lot of reasons and mostly I like the way it allows me to get you art quickly and efficiently. The Patreon plugin I use at my site is a godsend too! The only other option I could see working would be to take the whole site to a membership only site with a paywall run by yours truly instead of Patreon. I am not too crazy about that one so for now, we are here!

OK – those are the basics. I want to stress NONE of this stuff is happening right away. I wanted to drop it out there as a talking point and see what you think. Please respond as you like and if you want to message me directly – please do so.

Thank you again for your support.

-Ready