Patreon Update, Tablet Repairs, Life. (Patreon)

Gonna start off with a brief apology, I fallen behind on posting regularly and working creatively the past few weeks in general. I should have made an announcement or some kind of heads up last month about the situation, but things got overwhelming and I didn't. So I apologize for not keeping you guys in the loop.

I had wanted to update with visuals or anything regarding the P5 comic back in December. I still have every intention of seeing it happen. But I haven't been satisfied with my own current loose plans for it, and lately I've been just barely scraping by trying to keep up with monthly bills. I don't have much to update with aside from a tease of a few test sketches from when I was doing some prep work. (See below)

Recently, I'd been struggling with doing digital work around mid December due to hardware issues. My drawing tablet surface sheet was in dire need of replacement, and my pen's pressure had been malfunctioning making catching up with my workload near impossible. These issues continued into early January, where a bunch of family issues came up. Which left me in a very stressful toxic atmosphere for a week and a half.

Since then, I've been recovering from an extended episode of seasonal depression and heavy anxiety.  I managed to finish a few small commissions last month, but the time I lost worrying about it all made me feel increasingly anxious/guilty. The looming idea that I was letting people down by not actively keeping up with posting made things more difficult to cope.

I spent a good chunk of my time this last 2 weeks just trying to take a mental health break/mini hiatus. So I have been working at getting back to normal, and things have been difficult, but I've been taking baby steps at clearing out the thoughts holding me back. 

I fixed my tablet, spending a bit to replacing my pen and surface sheet. Hopefully to last a longer while. I am close to being caught up with commissions. There are a few things left, but only one or two will take more than a day. I did have some finished commission work and other personal art from while back. Which I will post as soon as I've finished organizing my folders.

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With regards to the Patreon.

First thing I wish to do is reformat the tiers of the patreon and take a break from commissions. I've been spending too much time hyper fixating on all the things I need to finish, and not spending enough time actually feeling creative and excited about working on things. I need to experiment and do something refreshing for a little bit.

I'm going to change how I post art on patreon. The main thing I need to get back into the habit of, is posting art immediately, or within 24 hours of it being finished. I am going to try to use Postybirb to post things on Patreon and FA around the same time, and also post some pieces on twitter sooner.

Recently it has come to my attention that the contents of my patreon were pirated and released on a certain website. This patreon was never meant to be a paywall for viewing any art. It's always been a tip jar with some small early access perks.

I feel it's unfair to you guys if I am promising early access to view a comic or posting extra files to commissions if they are being ripped and accessed for free by others. So it leaves me feeling very disappointed that I can't even offer that kind of benefit without others taking advantage of it.

This month I am going to put a billing pause on the patreon so no one is charged for the next month. And I will be adjusting the tiers/updating their descriptions appropriately before March.If you still wish to support me for March, then you can send me a Ko-Fi via this link: https://ko-fi.com/steeveart

I'll be changing things to 2 tiers. $1 for accessing all art content/posts/comics. $5 for supporting extra if you desire. This is purely to make things easier to post so I can put my art out more frequently.

If you feel unsatisfied with anything regarding this patreon, please message me directly. I'd rather make things right than leave any feelings of regret.

For now, comics take a considerable amount of time, commitment and planning. So while those projects are still something I will try to work on when I can, I cannot fully commit my time to them with outstanding paid work keeping me busy.

Originally I hoped to receive enough support that I didn't have to rely on commissions for income, and could focus purely on comic works for this patreon. But that goal has shown to be very difficult to achieve. Hopefully someday we can reach it.

That's all for now. I will try to post as much as I can this month to make up for a slow start to the year. Thank you all for your support, it seriously means a lot to me.