COMM Plan Update Pt. 2 (Patreon)

Copyin' here too so the info is pretty much everywhere it needs to be:

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Took a little longer to come around to adding more info 'cuz I'm a derp, but anyways; I've mostly settled a number of key updates and general future plans for how comms'll be broadly handled:

1. First major thing is in terms of saying in the previous one that Colored Sketches will become 'standard' compared to Rendered ones: Starting with the immediate next comm opening, form openings altogether will be split between Sketches and Renders, mainly 'cuz of flexibility and timeframe needs. Essentially, a default mass opening will be for Sketch comms, and then based on how things are overall looking, I can potentially squeeze one or two renders during a month's transition. Refs'll be on a case-by-case opening alongside them since they have different needs of their own.

2. After a lot of evaluation, I'll be discontinuing B/W Renders and trading in B/W Refined Sketches; in much earlier years, they could more easily have been upgraded into color, but time and process factors effectively made them actually just another branch with nearly the same time requirements as simply going straight to color, whereas B/W Sketches are already part of the process when making Colored Sketches, as Patrons/Subscribers will be most familiar. But this was also figured out after considering the number of times I've done some comms for people that were just intermediate step ones anyways, so they work in terms of already being relatively natural finish/stop points along the way. The alternative to working out the balance would have been to raise the price on B/W Renders to be much much closer to that of Colored Renders as is.

3. Complex Alts (such as those that require repainting whole features / different positions, etc) will have a limit of +2. This doesn't relate to basic alts that don't require so many underlying changes and edits, like the normal clean/messy, etc; and this doesn't so much regard cases where overlapping alts end up creating other natural combinations. For now, adtl things like Panels aren't necessarily factored in that cap. For the most part, the grand majority of comms already fell within these bounds, so it won't impact too many cases so much as keep potential scope from getting too crazy.

4. Last relevant update I can think of is that the total characters within one comm caps at 3. Mainly 'cuz it only became more apparent in the last while just how much of a cascade certain things can become with just one or two characters as is, particularly in rendered pieces.

It goes without saying that there may be particular rare circumstances where I might make an exception to something, but those are at my own time and discretion. Beyond that I don't yet still have a hard ETA on the next mass comm opening, except that it could be within the next 1-2 weeks based on how fast I finish a certain amount of what's on my plate atm, so keep a close eye out!