2019 Retrospective (Patreon)

A lot happened this year, most of it trying to cope with the big change since the move from tumblr back in December 2018. Wild that it's already been a year.

My patreon has been an incredible boon to my income, and every year since I opened it in 2016 has been financially better than the last, and i must thank you all for helping me reach where i am today!

But that said, there still needs to be some fiddling with how things are going on.

A year ago this January marks when i did a major change to how I did the Polls. I went from having 1 winner getting a shaded sequence with a few consolations, to having 2 winners and a good handful of consolations, both to address that I wasn't happy with my coloring and to help spread the variety of characters being drawn.

Then in April, i changed the slot system to accommodate upwards to 20 people getting monthly requests.

With the way things were after all these changes, I was drawing, at the very least, 41 figures a month, so by most accounts, I was very productive!

But ultimately, i've concluded that this is unsustainable.

In september/october, i fell behind, and falling behind cost me a lot of time and peace of mind for the following 3 months. 

In addition, having to devote so much time to doing patreon work has been a massive drain on my personal time and to my overall mood, especially since that despite this notable output increase, there has been a... less than notable increase in interaction or feedback... the things that truly drive me to keep doing what i'm doing. In fact, "disconnected" is an appropriate word that can describe how i felt throughout 2019.

And While the workload is doable, im also finding myself, as the year went by, not content with the quality of some of the patreon request pieces i've been filling. I dont really get anything in the way of negative complaints, (whether its because the patrons are just being nice, or they are simply perfectly happy with what they're getting either way) but im 100% aware when im just rushing to Get Shit Done™, taking note of any and all shortcuts and mistakes that i leave in order to stay on schedule.

I also found myself unable to find time to devote to neither personal projects nor exercises where i can develop new skills (both artistic and otherwise), and this has left me quite discontent. I wanted 2019 to be the year i figured out a better way to color that i enjoyed, and maybe even find a background style i liked! Neither of those happened and the number of attempts to do so i can count on one hand.

So given the fact that this pace is quite nearly one that will no doubt result in burn out, I'm going to have to dial things back... freeing up my schedule so I can have ample time both for my own health and for allowing myself room to grow as an artist.

So going forward to 2020, i'm gonna definitely be trying to improve on the artistic aspects that i've been meaning to, and I hope i can count on you guys to leave feedback that can help guide me.

Please be sure to read my post concerning my ideas for coming changes! And feel free to let me know what you think.