Alarm (Patreon)

I reduced the line weight of the backgrounds for this comic so the characters would pop out a bit more. I'm still getting there, but I'm growing more comfortable with dynamic posing. Additionally, this comic wound up finished a little early. One I get far enough ahead of the posting schedule, I'll have time to work on wrapping up the animations that have been in production.

I have noticed the slow bleed of patrons, which is of course concerning, but the decline really starts a far back as July. There's not really a lot I can do about it. Animation is very time consuming, so if I were to put the pedal down on animations, then that's all I'll be doing. Original Youtube content won't draw in new viewership, and NAS will only pull pony fans. I have noticed that not all, but the majority of people leaving have had pony avatars and are mostly supporting MLP patreons.

I understand if you guys are skeptical about these comics. Stebe started off as drawing and shading practice, and continues to be that even as I build up notes on the whole thing. It's definitely improving my artistic skill much, much faster than the animations were, since I'm not able to rely on rigs. Additionally, my work load hasn't really decreased, with my wife noting I've been hunched over my tablet for longer stretches of the day than usual.

Bottom line is, the shake-up is necessary. Short term, I knew it was going to hurt, and I kind of wish the patron bleeding would hurry up and get over with or stop. But the ends are going to justify the means, and if this is the end, this the end. I told myself I wasn't going to succumb to doing the kind of exploitative garbage that succeeds on Youtube today, and that means needing to take risks and varying the creative directions I invest in.