some changes! (Patreon)

hello. i wanted to inform you of some changes to my higher patreon tiers.

these changes are for my wellbeing, to hopefully aid me in producing more video content! i've been a bit afraid to do this for a while, but with me having been at my limit recently i've given all of this a good think over.

these changes will be taking place beginning may 30th, to prevent any tiers getting charged for next month. please downgrade, or unsubscribe (i won't hold it against you, i promise) before then!

the first of two changes is that i am going to remove the $100 tier. i think it's way too much money, i never really expected anyone to pledge this high. i've been feeling bad because i intended on it to be used as a one-time-donation tier and some of you have been uh, subbing to it for a while! (panic)

this makes me feel a bit nervous and unworthy. of course i love you guys so much, i really do appreciate it. but i feel a bit guilty taking so much money every month, especially when i haven't even been able to put out a sufficient amount of content recently.

the other, secondary reason to this is that i've been struggling to make patreon-request videos lately. ever since i started drawing my own art especially creating a video takes such an incredible amount of work, one video usually has 50+ hours of work invested into it and sometimes now i build up quite a backlog of videos requested by high tier patrons, which makes me feel nervous especially when people can end up waiting for months for the video they requested. i feel a lot less passionate working on these videos sometimes too, especially with the added pressure, and i'm just worried about delivering a lower quality of content to you guys. i want to put everything i have into each and every video, and i'm always on edge recently feeling pressured to get content out as fast as i can, which leads to burnout and fear and all of this just spirals down into a big painful whirl of not-fun. i have had a lot, a lot of fun working on patreon requests before, so don't take this as i don't enjoy them, but i also feel a lot of pressure to make good videos that the specific requester will like since it is their video request and that i can't keep them waiting too long and this can really add to my stress. i hope you can understand.

if you currently have a video that's in my queue, aka i've accepted a video request from you, don't worry, i'll still make that video too. and don't worry, i will still be doing video idea voting here for all patreons! i like the idea of the community here selecting a video all together, it makes me feel a lot less pressure than just one person offering me an idea. i hope that makes sense. given my video backlog the last 6 months or so (in december i was taking video commissions for march/april etc, it just got really stifling both personally and creatively) i haven't been able to do a patreon video idea voting poll in a while, which makes me pretty sad. i hope i can get back to doing these more often if there's a bit less pressure and a shorter video queue. 

the second change i'll be making isn't so much of a change, but more of a slight alteration to try and continue doing a reward.  i really enjoy writing patreon letters for the 50+ tiers, i think it's a cute reward and i've been trying to keep on top of it for months now. gradually the amount of letters that needs to be written has been growing and growing, which really flatters me and makes me super duper happy. i'm so happy that you guys want to support me so much and you enjoy my letters so much!! i can't say i'll be able to continue writing these letters forever, whether they're long or short, but for the time being i want to continue. i don't know where the future will take us. one day it might just be too unsustainable. i really hope you can understand!

before i started writing patreon letters last year i literally had not written with a pen on paper in years, like, 7 years? i haven't been in school for a long time and i had no reason to write down anything non-digitally. this meant i have next to no writing stamina and it took me a bit to get used to it. i could keep on top of letters just about until a few months ago. there's so many to write now that i end up hurting my hand! still i've been okay, but last month i think i did quite a bit of damage writing them, i've never done anything like this to my hand before! but my hand got quite swollen and my fingers started bruising, it took a few days for the swelling to go down and my wrist hurt whenever i bent it for a couple of weeks. i'm all okay and back to normal now, but this has frightened me a little bit because i'm scared of doing semi permanent or even permanent damage to my writing hand, since that would also mean i can't draw! 

so from now on i'm going to be making the patreon letters quite short. i've probably been pushing myself quite hard to continue making them, but i hope you guys can still appreciate something hand-made by me even if it's not as long as some of the others in the past. i never would've given up if it weren't for that last month, i would've kept them as long as i can for as long as possible. still, i hope to keep sending these letters (even if they end up being really short) to show my love and appreciation for you guys for as long as i possibly can!

thank you so much for reading such a dumb, rambly post. i'm currently finishing up the script for my next video, and i plan to record it either tomorrow or the day after. the art isn't done and then there'll be editing, but my goal is to upload this week!!

thank you so much for everything, for all of the support, for all of the love and energy over the last few years. it's been a crazy ride so far, i don't plan to go anywhere, i want to do this forever. i hope you don't mind me making it a bit more sustainable for me! thank you all for the love on my last post too. you guys are really really sweet. it was a bit difficult to reply to all of your comments, but i read your kind words and they mean more to me than i could say anyway.

i love you always,

shadow.