August 2016 Newsletter (Patreon)

Hi everyone. Thank you for your patience with me over these trying months as I transition from having run away from home to settling down and adapting to my new environments. Normally when I do my newsletters, I require a very deliberate approach of shifting gears mentally into a more upbeat PR tone. While I'm by no means depressed over matters, and for the most part am a lot happier the way things are on my own, I am admittedly strained both physically and mentally, this month especially. With that said, I'll be speaking in a more subdued tone of voice this month as we go over what's been going so far with the Meatier Showers crew.

Everything's In Overdrive

The best way to describe things recently is that I made every day in July count, clearing commissions, drafting out Meatier Showers pages and practically meeting different people each week to fill them in on my current situation. Various opportunities presented themselves and I'm currently engaged with some friends whom I met in design school on a relatively "kind-of-a-big-deal" project that's expected to take awhile before I can talk details. This project is an extension of what I originally wanted to talk about in my Development Notes on the subject of, "safe spaces". If things work out, I'll actually be giving a talk in person to the public.

My first week of August was spent in Malaysia reconnecting with furry friends and exploring future housing options over there, where the standards of living are a lot more affordable with what I earn from Patreon and the irregular commissions I get. A friend and I have identified a few options and that's something we've left for 2017 to revisit, given that my current studio lease lasts till July 2017.

Ever since I returned from Malaysia, things kinda went from neutral to top gear within the span of a week. For the most part, everyday I'm meeting up with someone and exploring potential business opportunities. By night, I'm back at my friend's place on my computer typing away business proposals and trying to hustle and find some sort of opening to better things.

At this point, I've a bunch of cards which I'm trying to figure out how best to play them, and if possible, make connections in a way that they form a stronger, better hand. For the most part, my brain is fried at the end of each day, and it's mostly from trying to troubleshoot a lot of life and administrative matters.

I've also been systematically shifting into my new studio space. A lot needs to be done before I can actually start living and working from there, such as registering the company name - which I've no prior experience of doing, preparing class schedules and lesson plans so that the venue can pay for itself, dealing with the window situation where we don't have curtains or privacy, figuring out how to get furniture for students and ourselves without busting a budget, setting up wifi under a corporate plan since we're in a commercial district (and can only do so once the company name is registered), as well as figuring out how to get students to attend our life drawing classes.

It's kinda crazy in the sense that, the moment I decided to step out of my comfort zone and leave home, the amount of things that need to be settled have extrapolated - most of which can't be solved instantaneously and require a certain degree of sustained attention.

Project Progress

Personal life aside, I'm working on the sidelines trying to get more collaborative work done under the Meatier Showers banners. Comics are tough work, and not everyone's ready to make those sacrifices. Usually folks just want the instant gratification of rewards in this day and age without bleeding and sweating it out. It is an inevitable byproduct of our advancement in technology and affluence of society.

More pages will be released towards end of the month (incidentally which is also my birthday), and you'll start to notice as we go along, more pages will be added retroactively to past updates, eventually with dummy dialogues to give a better sense of what's happening in this new issue. We'll mostly be exploring things like kink, consent and aftercare - things I personally rarely find explored in furry adult comics, and something I would like to touch on in a non-preachy manner.

On a side note, I hope you guys have been watching Steven Universe lately. I really do adore the series and am enjoying the adult themes covered.

SnaresAug 2016