Scaling Back To 1 Update A Week For The Next Month(ish) (Patreon)

Long story short if you want skip it: I'm over worked, I'm sick, and I finally broke down yesterday and cried. I can't keep it up right now.

For the longer story, keep on reading. Just note that whatever is written here I am not in the mood to really get into it on Discord and such. I plan to make dinner and try to relax before returning to work tomorrow. So if you reach out to me and such and I ignore you, don't take it personal.

Drawing both Bodysuit 23 and Kat has taken a huge toll on me. Even though I'm privilege in the sense that I can work on my comic stuff when things are slow at work, I'm still having to resort to working an additional 2-3 hours after work. Some days on stream, some days not. And that's also not taking into the account of the half-hour or so of time spent saving files out/posting them onto websites.

Depending how I feel on Friday evenings I'll try to catch up on work I fell behind on in the week, or I push it to Saturday. To give a bit of insight into how I go about things: I do not like to do much before work that I need to get done. I don't like starting any games, watch anything outside of something I can half pay attention to, or more or less do anything outside of maybe checking Reddit and such before work. How this plays out is I stay in bed until I get up to get food, or run errands. After which I lay on the couch or go back to bed and mindlessly browse social media until I go back to sleep after being up for about 4 hours. After which I sleep until 6-7 PM, where I get up and get started on comic work.

This happens both Saturday and Sunday, as on top of getting work I missed done I try to get some additional stuff done so I don't wind up spending 5-6 hours Sunday evening doing it.

Here's how my weekly schedule typically goes:

Monday: dayjob (8:30-5:00)/do warmup drawing for Kat and do roughs (and storyboard if it's not done)/Color B23/post Kat warmup on Patreon/post finished B23 page and additional materials to Patreon and pixivFANBOX.

Tuesday: dayjob (8:30-5:00)/Ink Kat/do roughs for B23 (and storyboard if it's not done)/save out Kat episode and prepare it for Webtoons and Tapas/make small ad banner for newest Kat episode

Wednesday: dayjob (8:30-5:00)/Color Kat/ink B23/post Kat ad to latisbooks, deviant art, tumblr, twitter, blue sky/post Kat episode to MangaPlus CREATORS because they don't allow scheduling/post finished Kat episode and additional materials to Patreon/post inked B23 page to Patreon

Thursday: dayjob (8:30-5:00)/do warmup drawing for Kat and do roughs (and storyboard if it's not done)/color B23/post Kat warmup to Patreon/post finished B23 page and additional material to Patreon and pixivFANBOX/post B23 page to latisbooks, deviant art, pixiv, tumblr, twitter, bluesky
Friday: dayjob (8:30-4:30)/ink Kat/ do roughs for B23 (and storyboard if it's not done)/save out Kat episode and prepare it for Webtoons and Tapas/make small banner ad for newest Kat episode
Saturday: post Kat on MangaPlus CREATORS/post Kat ad on latisbooks, deviant art, tumblr, twitter, and blue sky/finish anything I failed to do on Friday/if I have the energy color Kat
Sunday: Color Kat if I did not do it Saturday/ink B23/post inked B23 page to Patreon/post B23 page to latisbooks, deviant art, pixiv, tumblr, twitter, and blue sky.

Sprinkled throughout is sending stuff to Cooper for his approval and discussing story matters. If it wasn't for him being so patient and willing to put up with my bullshit all of this would have blown up years ago and neither B23 or Kat would around right now.

Whatever I don't get done while clocked in at work is done after work, which can vary depending on how busy it was or if I had to something to do like go to the dentist or have a doctor appointment. At least once a month I have to go drive an hour for some family thing such as birthday/holiday/etc., which cuts into my nap time and can push out work needed to get done on Saturday. Once in a while my family decides to host something on Sunday despite my having said for years that I am very busy with comic work on Sundays. Just happens that way. Same situation when I visit my friend, though this typically only occurs once every 3-4 months.

If there's a 3 day weekend, I treat that additional day like Saturdays and Sundays: I sleep and do as little as possible until the evening when I get to work.

"But when do you outline/write the chapters?" It randomly happens at points during that schedule, typically when I run out.

The few times when I do take a break and have a "vacation," it involves me staying home. Those times I go to an anime convention it's local, so I drive home in the evening. The last time I went anywhere for a vacation was in 2011 when I spent a month in Japan with someone who I have not been on speaking terms, and if I had a time machine I would have told past me to NOT go because, as neat as it was to go to Japan, it ultimately wasn't worth it due to the conditions of the trip. Another friend went with that someone the next year and confirmed to me that they had the exact same issues as I had with said someone.

Moving on.

Stressors: I've been dealing with a lot of stress for years now, a lot of it tied to finances. I am insanely fortunate enough to be able to live by myself, with the ability to buy anime or a game when I can get a good deal from time to time, and in the past few years managed to have a $1-2k for me to drop into my emergency savings, which has given me something of a safety net. Once a year I might splurge on a big purchase around christmas time for my birthday, but otherwise I try not to. I'm still rocking a Pixel 3aXL that I bought as an emergency in October of 2019 because my other phone could no longer hold a charge for longer than an hour. This year due to apartment flooding issues and worry I finally upgraded my computer after using a zombie build since 2017, plus I plan to spend $2k on a new website for latis books due to Square Space's 1000 blog post limit which I'm about to trigger, so I'm checked out for big purchases this year unless it's an absolute necessary or if I do something to try and get a splurge of cash (YCH commissions/regular commissions/etc). I try not to do them because doing them throws a wrench into my comic drawing schedule and backs everything up.

So while I'm fortunate in that aspect, it is also expensive to live in a small apartment by yourself in Dallas. I currently pay $1080 a month, not counting electricity and internet for my 550sqft apartment. Later this year I plan to move out due to maintenance failing to fix a leaking faucet after 7 work orders over the course of months, and instead doing a botched caulking job that resulted in the caulk being washed away by said leaking faucet and exposing the inside of the walls to moisture. Apartment prices have gone up, where even the area of Dallas where my job is located, where everyone at work told me in no small terms NOT TO MOVE THERE because of how dangerous that area can be and high crime rates...costs more than what I'm paying right not. No matter where I go, I plan to see a $100-200 price jump. More than 50% of my income goes to rent. Thankfully I have really good credit, so that will help me.

I do not like having roommates. The one time I moved into an apartment with a friend of mine it ended in disaster. Since then the only people I still hang out from time to time are a married couple, so yeah. I am also wary of meeting new people or rooming up with strangers. Because of these selfish reasons my options are very limited.

My current job pays me less than what is considered the median wage in Dallas/Fort Worth in 2021 for a similar job. Because I'm allowed to do comic work while on the clock when things are slow I take it as the cost of being given that luxury.

I am the only person who can run the flexo-plate making machines. I was not hired to do that, as originally back in 2016 I was trained to be the back up of the back up of the back up. A month later due to circumstances I was the sole plate maker. Anyone else who was trained forgot and require me to train them if I plan to take any sort of time off longer than a few days without risking stalling the entire building. We got a whole new system that made the process longer and made it so I spend 2 hours a month having to deep clean the nastiest shit and change the filter. When we got the new system, my other boss said that he planned to start a rotation of people to man the plate making position so that I was not the only person doing it to prevent a situation where I was not around.

After training, nobody else has done it. I am once again the only person who knows outside of someone I had to retrain a few years ago when I took that week long vacation.

The pressmen come into work at 6:30 AM, which means if something happens to a plate, that pressman stands around and can't do anything until I clock in at 8:30 and spend the hour and a half to two hours to make the plate. The head press guy always yells when this happens. He also yells that they have nothing to do if I hadn't made any plates recently and then forced to go through the process to make sometimes literally 1 single 1"x3" plate, taking roughly an hour and change to do.

Said guy also does not want any of the pressmen to be in charge of making plates, despite the fact it makes more sense to due to differing schedules and issues that may come about from time to time to have them do it instead of sitting around on their asses until I get to work or drag me away from my main job. But what can ya do.

There are only two people in the art department. If my supervisor takes any time off, I'm the only one there to run the entire art department and the plate making department. Twice a year she goes on a week long vacation. This is why Hell Weeks exist and I get Cooper to cover me. I had a third Hell Week sprung up on me due to my supervisor getting Covid and was out for the week.

I am currently ill, but I had to go into work today for 4 hours to make plates.

I do not have a degree as I never finished college despite going to community college on and off from 2008-2013, then my year and a half stint at Texas A&M where I stupidly tried chasing my dream of getting into animation via their Visualization program. $17k of debt later I bailed. I got my current job via nepotism because my dad works there. When I was hired my supervisor flat out told me that she had expected to teach me how to use adobe illustrator, but thankfully I knew how to use Adobe CS suite due to all those years of schooling.

I don't have the confidence to try and get another job in the same field. I'm dogshit when it comes to explaining how I do things/how to do things. This is why I am not a teacher like both my siblings and my mom used to be. I can do the thing but God help me if I have to convince you in words that I can do the thing.

On top of that, changing jobs also risks throwing a wrench into the comic schedule above as I highly doubt I can get away with doing as much comic work as I do while on the clock anywhere else.

My parents love me, and have helped me on numerous occasions, it's hard to talk about this sort of stuff with them. When I brought up how much I'm working, my mom told me "Well, other people are putting in long hours, too." When I told my dad that I literally could not afford a monthly car payment if I for whatever reason lost my car, he told me "Yes you can." They're both in their 70s so I can't blame them for not understanding, despite the fact my dad is still working, so I don't bother bringing up these sorts of topics much.

On top of that, and it's basically been an open secret if you ever watched my streams: Yes, I am trans. She/they. I've been on HRT since the end of October. I'm just not blatantly announcing it or making it a big deal because I prefer not to make it as such. Being stuck in Texas, surrounded by people, even at work, who go "Trump may be an asshole but he sure as hell is a lot better than Biden," makes it so that I'm boy moding at all times except when I'm at home. Even then all I do is wear an oversized shirt or night gown and shorts. Some had already figured it out, but Patrick in chapter 40 of B23 is effectively me and how I looked/dress when at home at the time of my drawing it. Difference now is my hair's gotten longer, I pull it back into a ponytail, and I'm having laser hair removal done for my facial hair.

Only my brother, sister-in-law, and Mom know about it. My brother and sister-in-law have always been pretty understanding, and whom know all about Bodysuit 23, my interest in wanting to get into kig and even a cute female fursuit for over 20 years but either never have the money or for whatever reason lose contact with the person I was inquiring to have something done. They were the first whom I talk to in real life that I told I was first nonbinary, then later said that I was full on trans. "Cool," they said, not making such a huge deal out of it, which I was incredibly thankful for.

Health:

So right now I feel out of breath when I raise my arms over my head for like combing my hair and such, or kneeling down then getting back up and becoming insanely light heated. This is something I noticed since around February. My assumption is that I have a low iron deficiency for whatever reason, but unsure if it's 100% that or not. This started close to the time when I upped my dosage of spiro, the flooding of the apartment which could mean it's a mold issue, or something else. I'm getting bloodwork done at the start of April, and then will get the results a week later, hence why I wrote that this slow down if for the next month or so: I'm waiting to see if my hunch is indeed correct and can quickly address it, or if it's not and I have to go to my PCP and talk to them about it. Regardless, it's part of the reason why I'm feeling like shit right now. I also got the shit sleep side of the HRT coin toss, so that's been something I've been having to deal with, which could also be part of the equation as to why I'm feeling the way I do right now. Previous visits had shown good blood work, went to the dentist the other day for my annual xray and showed no issues, so things can/are looking up.

In conclusion: I'm so fucking tired right now. I keep worrying about both of the patreons, of which have stagnated/descreased, but I do not have the willpower or energy to do "more stuff" to lure people into pledging. I tried doing additional weekly sketches for B23 but that only got a small bump of increase, only to go backward and eventually wound up worse than I started. I do not want to lean on "just draw porn" because I don't like to draw porn. Some nudity, sure. Fetishy masking stuff even. But that's not what I want to do. What I want to do, what I enjoy doing, is telling fun silly stories. I consider myself a writer before an artist. I find drawing pinups boring outside of doing so for a warmup before getting to work. I prefer to draw sequential stuff, but with how much work it takes to draw both B23 and Kat I don't want to do more on top of it. I don't like doing commissions because I don't like drawing other people's ideas. I draw because I cannot afford to pay someone to draw for me. It's how its always been. I improve my art for the sake of expanding the stuff I can do in my comics. I've reached the point where I'm comfortable with drawing action scenes, hence why Kat is currently in the middle of one compared to every time it was either skipped over or done off screen in B23 till today. And I want to continue to draw even more fun stories that bring people joy and entertain them. It's the only thing that keeps me going these days. Everything feels incredibly bleak. I'm constantly worried what's going to happen to me in the future. It's fucking horrifying. I'm scared. I'm sad. I'm tired. Despite this current snag, I have to keep telling my stories. My life may be a mess right now, but if someone else is going through a dark period and can read Kat or B23 and get a nice chuckle and brighten their day just a little bit, it's all fucking worth it.

Though it would be cool if suddenly I had a million dollars or two to allow me to move out of Texas, get a tiny ass condo in Minnesota, then throw the rest into a savings account or whatever and live off the interest and focus solely on my stories. But hey, gotta be realistic.

Hopefully by a month's time I can return to the original update release schedule.