New "serious" update and poll! :) (Patreon)

Hello lovely patrons, I hope you’re all doing well, and time for a new serious update! :)

First of all, I hope you all had a great (and hopefully not too hot) summer, had the opportunity to have fun traveling, spending time with family and friends, or maybe simply taking a few days of to relax at home! ^^

Now, let’s talk business. I know it can be boring, but I’d rather keep you informed about the state of patreon and I also need your input again. You’ll notice below in my message a few questions/survey, so please don’t hesitate and answer to them in the comments.

I’m gonna repeat a lot of stuff I said on previous updates, so sorry for sounding like a broken record, but I had time to think about all of that a bit better over the summer. I’ll also explain on a future update what I have in mind regarding burnouts and pausing billing, but I will only focus on patreon content on this one.

Unfortunately, I’m technically loosing money on my patreon, but I'm not giving up yet: this is a marathon, not a sprint! :) But basically the math is not in my favor: I’m spending too much time on patreon content with too little in return. I have also plateaued as I’m barely getting any new members anymore, which was confirmed with the last starfox comic page. It's my bad for not being able to work faster and getting burnouts when creating fetish work: that's on me and I'm fully responsible.

However, the two significant increases that happened in the past were when I posted the Puss in Boots + Death pic, and the first image of the Starfox comic. While the comic pages brought some newcomers (hello there newcomers! :)), those are far from the numbers those two “bumps” had.

My guess is that I can get new members that may stick around when I propose new content, aka new scenarios and new characters (most of the time featuring fanart instead of OCs, unfortunately that’s what works online :/).
For that reason:
- I think I’ll have to revert to some exclusive pics from time to time instead of full comics, with new scenarios and characters, to bring in new patrons.
- The next Starfox page will likely be the last one (or second to last) for a while, before I’ll revisit that scenario and maybe add a few new pages. I already started working on that next page and it will come out next month unless a major catastrophe happens (like computer dying or whatever :P)!
- I also started reworking the first pages of Kylian’s adventure and would like to post them asap, but it’s taking me a lot of time to polish them, and the worst thing is that the first pages are just a bunch info dump x_X! ("A long time ago, the four nations lived together in harmony, but everything changed when blablabla!") Ah, the joy of being a perfectionist always unhappy with my work!
- There’s also another comic I really, really, REALLY would like to start for my own sanity: simply to get my mind busy with a project that motivates me.
- There’s also the project me and Crazy-Wolf were working on…
- Plus the Trollangina remake!!!

All of that would already keep me quite busy as a full time job, and I don’t have the luxury of time: my IRL art duties are close to a full time job already! :/

I’m not sure yet how I’m going to juggle with all of that, and I promised a remake of the Trollangina challenge!
Only problem is: Kylian’s adventure is non fetish, nor is the project I pitched to Crazy-Wolf. The second comic story would barely have any fetish content. And the Trollangina wouldn’t have any fetish content before quite a while (in the original comic, the “fun” stuff doesn’t start before page 12!).
That's also why I think it’s important to revert to some exclusive pics, because with my current speed of “one comic page per month”, you can imagine how long you’d have to wait to get any fetish content! o.O

I already mentioned in the past plans of creating new tiers: those could allow me to increase revenue easily without changing too much, and would allow me to work more on personal projects while relying less on commissions.

I gave each of those ideas a bit more thought:

- Private streams where I work on the regular art + comics. This would be for an €10 tier approximately.
Last time I mentioned them, no one was interested...But I'll propose them again, just in case! ^^"
I could do them a bit each month, but not 100% of the time when working on a project and unlikely every single day. It’s not only because of the lack of time due to my IRL job: I’ve realized that streaming commission work takes a tool on my energy. I can’t relax nor take breaks the way I would like to, I’m in “performance” mode and feel pressured, like if everybody is scrutinizing what I do. On top of that, without moderators, I would need to constantly keep an eye on the chat.
So, would you be interested in private streams if those happen occasionally, a few times per month (or maybe once a week)?

- Art alternatives. €10 tier as well. That’s easy enough to do, even though there are a couple of things I am not comfortable with. Also, keep in mind it’s easier to propose alternatives with pics rather than a full comics.
What I could do: socks, red/blushing, sweat, dirt/dirtiness...Erm, other ideas? ^^
What I don’t want to do: smell/stink/musk. I’m really not into body odors nor body fluids, but I know this is something important to some of you so I don't know how much of a deal breaker it would be :/
Would you be interested in pic alternatives that do not feature foot smell?

- Even more private "secret" streams at a higher tier. €15 tier approximately. Streams where I have to go behind the scenes, aka the “boring” stuff: anatomy practice, studies, character and environment research before I start working on a comic, etc…
From time to time I could spice things up a bit by allowing people on this tier to propose scenarios/ideas I could draw during the stream, or vote on the art suggestions the people on the €5 tier did.
Would any of you be interested in these type of streams?

I’m also debating about adding recordings of my art, but I’m highly, HIGHLY, worried about AI art: soon enough those models will be able to be trained on painting videos, and I don’t want my stuff feeding that monster.
So, the idea is up in the air, but that’s about it. Same with creating a private discord server: at this moment it's not a priority, but maybe at some point.

Okay. I think that’s all for the time being, so thanks for reading and please let me know in the comments what you think! :)