General Patreon Update! (Patreon)

To give some context for this update, the SweetCanvas Kickstarter goal that we successfully reached wasn't ever going to fund the entirety of SweetCanvas.

The idea was that it would buy me time to hopefully release the demo, and from there what I hoped would happen with the release of the demo would be that much more people would gain interest in the project and subsequently, the Patreon would start making enough for me to not worry about funds.

That was an ideal scenario, so of course, it was always likely that things just wouldn't go that way, and they didn't, so now here we are.

This scenario would have only been possible if I could use the Kickstarter money as I had originally envisioned, which was as a means to cover just my food costs, as well as all of the SweetCanvas demo expenses-

(The animated opening featuring Weilin Zhang which will likely be the biggest advertising pull for SweetCanvas in general, other advertising costs, the remaining backgrounds, the costs of getting it in certain marketplaces to begin with, the ability to pay my playtesters even a little, and so on)

-but unfortunately, due to my focus on SweetCanvas, and namely, how much writing is involved in the production of it, I haven't been able to update Patreon as often as people probably would like, or with the kind of content that would bring people in or keep them here, since not everyone that's pledged is specifically interested in the project, (which is understandable) leading to a steady stream of people leaving that has resulted in the Patreon money not even being enough on its own to cover my rent, let alone any bills either medical (as of recently) or monthly.

All that being said, let's get into the actual update now, since these changes are how I'm planning to address this current issue.

Firstly, and most importantly:

Fan Art Polls Are Making a Return!

For those of you who have been around for ages, like, years, you might remember that I used to do monthly character polls on here. I stopped doing them mostly because I was in a period of learning (of course, I'm still learning, I just way worse back then) and I was constantly frustrating myself trying to make something good for Patreon while also not really knowing what I was doing and trying to figure it out, so it just didn't really work out for me mentally.

I have developed a lot since then, both as an artist and as a person, so I feel that I would be able to separate my self worth from how well the Patreon illustration turns out at this point, hopefully.

Either way, we're gonna do it again!

I've created a preliminary list of all the characters I want to potentially draw, and starting next month, there will be three of them in a poll at the start of each month until I run out.

Once I do run out, I'll probably start taking Patron suggestions, but by the time that happens, the SweetCanvas demo should be out, and it might no longer be relevant depending on how that goes. Just felt it was worth mentioning

Anyway, the list:

Oleana, Marnie, Rosa, Cammy, Poison, Nessa, My Wife, Chun-Li, 2B (and/or 2P), Mona, Plumeria, Lenora, Roxanne, Lusamine, Olivia, Bayonetta, My Husband, Venti, Marina, Sephiroth, Cloud, Alexander, Gilgamesh, Nero, Bathory, Ibaraki, Shuten, Cheelai, GOKU, Jenny, Aqua, Ryoka, Ryuko, Yoko, Usagi, Ed, Aile (x4), Vent, Yuna, Sera, Zero, Sage Harpuia, Mega Man, Morrigan, Lilith, Kirby, Double, Asuna, Sonia, Tulip, Bede, Tsunade, Android 18, Rosalina, Tatsumaki, Aether, Voyager, Ushi, Drake, Gon, Shinji, Asuka, Michiko, Passionlip, Meltlilith, Raikou, BB, Satsuki, Etna, Meiya, Sumika, Wasp, Power Girl, Yasuri, Yami, Fairy Leviathan, Tron, Ning Hai, Gogeta, Gojo, Rei, Midna, Raven, DVa, Shiver, Bulma, Zelda, Callie, Marie, Light, Kat, Marine, Ina, Flonne, Neige, Ragyo and finally, Susie.

(The tiers shouldn't mean anything to you guys, don't worry about it)

If any of those characters interest you, or the potential art I might make of them interests you, then consider pledging! Or, at the very least, stay tuned so that you don't miss the chance to vote for your favorite.

All patrons will be eligible to vote, so you can vote for as little as just one dollar.

That's not all though, as we'll also be having:

Poll Events!

The first event that I want to do will be in December, and it will be appropriately Christmas themed.

What I'll be doing is, instead of a fan art poll, I will instead be polling a bunch of Patron OCs to do a free illustration for one of you guys!

I'll get into that one more as we approach December, but I hope you guys will look forward to that!

That's all I have to say about polls for now though, so lets move on to:

Tier Changes

I've made a few minor adjustments to each tier, so I'll go over them one by one, skipping over the tiers that haven't had any notable changes yet.

Wood

• As mentioned, the ability to vote in polls is now back, since polls are now back.
• I will actually start using the Early Access feature. For real this time. Meaning that all Patrons will have anywhere from a week's to a month's worth of Early Access to all public posts, depending on what that post is. Polled posts will always be posted for Patrons a month before they're released publicly.
• Access to the lowest version of the new Patreon Archive, which includes a majority of all things I've posted publicly since 2018, as well as anything that has been posted for patrons only (wood) in that time.

Bronze

• Access to the Bronze Patreon Archive, which includes everything that's in the default one, as well as all Bronze locked posts, making it much easier for new Patrons to view all of their rewards.

Silver

• Access to the Previous Year Through Current Year Full Resolution Archive, which includes all full resolution posts from the current year, as well as the last.

Platinum

• Access to the Full Resolution Archive for all posts from 2018 until the present.
• Legacy access to all posts (Timelapses, PSDs and Full Resolution Images) from 2018 until the present on Patreon as well.

And that's all of the tier changes for now. I may make more as I think of things that could be appealing, especially for Gold and higher tiers, but for now, that's all.

Weekly SweetCanvas Updates

This one was suggested to me, and it's nothing that I hadn't considered before, but I just figured that most people wouldn't interact with them, which is why I didn't bother, since they take time out of my day that I usually spend for leisure (since obviously, I can't write an update and draw/write a script at the same time, and those things are what I spend most of my work day doing), but it's worth giving a shot if it means that people might feel more connected to the project as a whole.

By the way, tf this kind of thing interests you, I'd highly suggest that you join the SweetCanvas Discord if you haven't already, since discussions about the characters, world and such happen pretty frequently there.

Getting back on track though, these will probably be short updates (at least, past the one I'm going to post either later today or tomorrow), detailing, as suggested, what I plan to do that week, how successful the previous week was, and just some of my general thoughts and musings on the project itself.

I'll just be trying my best to be transparent with you guys, and hopefully engaging more with any of you who either haven't joined the Patreon discord or just don't feel like talking in it, since I realize that outside of that context it would probably feel like I don't have much interest in interacting with you all, which is absolutely not the case (although I do recommend connecting your Discord to Patreon if you have one, since it's way easier for me to talk to you guys on there compared to here, but yeah).

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That's pretty much everything for now. I am considering finally after years and years of people asking, doing "tutorials," but it must be stressed that I'm only considering it.

In fact, I'd be way more open to doing it if I knew for a fact that people were interested enough to pledge for it, so if you are interested in that then consider pledging and maybe I'll just suck it up and make one if we can hit 1k+ again at least. That would be awesome.

But in all seriousness, thank you all for all your support, and if you actually read or even skimmed through all of this, thank you for your time as well. Some of you have been here since legitimately the beginning or near to it, and I genuinely appreciate you sticking around with me for so long and supporting what I do.

I'll keep trying my best to improve my own skills, as well as the Patreon itself to hopefully foster the best experience that I can reasonably provide for you guys as thanks for making it possible in the first place for me to work on a passion project like SweetCanvas. It'll take time and some ironing out of kinks, but eventually I hope we reach a place where everyone can be satisfied.

Have a great rest of your day or night, and I'll see everyone again in the SweetCanvas update, coming soon! (Probably tomorrow)