Post-Premiere Update, Short-term Future Plans (Patreon)

Good afternoon guys! 

Last night we premiered Gildedguy vs Oxob to the world and it was absolute mayhem. The premiere for the previous animation (Green Eyed Cowboy), which was back in Aug 2019, peaked around 300 viewers. 

This year's stream started (within seconds) with 900 viewers and rose to 2200 concurrent viewers during the main premiere!! It was overwhelming, but also incredibly energizing. You could almost say the atmosphere was electric. You can relive last night's stream on the VOD here.

In partnership with Anim8.io , we also held a watch party on the Anim8 website, but as you can expect, we overloaded their servers with traffic.

Back when I worked in software development with CBP, me and my fresh-graduate colleagues would do these live presentations of our apps called demos (demonstrations). We demo'd our projects to big (sometimes, physically big) government officials, and sweat our butts off when the application would glitch out right in front of our clients.

You'd expect a tiny team of 1-2 devs would freak out over the overload, especially with hundreds of users knocking at the door, but CryoLogic took it in stride and worked hard to keep the servers alive.

Sponsors

My goal with Patreon is to independently fund projects that I believe in. Relying on sponsors is often times restrictive, and can interfere w/ the art process. Fortunately, we're currently in a good position to pick and choose sponsors to work with, when it makes sense.

I had the opportunity to work with Howard Wimshurst from Animator Guild. Just 2 days ago, he launched one of his master projects - A fully fledged 2D animation course for beginners. I reached out to him about a sponsor spot and I wish to continue promoting his course, which I know is valuable just based on his track record alone.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/FF_4dlLMl6s , 19+ Hours of content spanning 100+ videos

I trust what Howard has to teach about animation. He doesn't sugarcoat anything but also keeps it motivational. There is solid knowledge, and I agree with so much of his understanding of the animation principles. I know there are some of you who want to make high quality animations for others - this is a great starting point. 

The base price of the course is $197, but for the next few days, you can get it on heavy discount through my referral code: SENT-BY-GILDED-GUY 

Before you signup, go ahead and check out Howard's channel at Animator Guild on YouTube. Get a good feel for his presentation style before spending your money.

First Post-Premiere Priority: Fulfilling Key-chain + Care Package Orders

Last year vs this year.

Once the animation releases on YouTube today, and I get the initial social media posts out of the way, my first priority is to mail out your guys' thank you cards and key-chains from the Special Offer promotion earlier this month. Similar to the reception at the premiere, the numbers are multitudes larger than last year's!

You guys also have addresses from all around the world, and confirming safe shipment of your merchandise is gonna take some time, especially considering there's only one of me and a box full of key-chains. 

Regardless, I'm very happy to do it, it'll just take 2-3 weeks. I'll be taking a vacation, but this really comes first.

Short-term Future Plans

There's always a secondary wave of work to do after a big release. So I'll be attending to new patrons, writing posts, and scouting out new opportunities that'll inevitably be coming in. It's a lot of E-MAILS.

A running theme throughout this post is that everything is scaling up, fast. 

I'll have to start thinking about macro-strats (quantity), while still balancing the quality of the micro. This means you may find me experimenting with new Patron-tiering and content style. Or you may see me collaborating with helpers who's drawings look different than mine. This "R&D" may or may not bear cocofruit, but my gut says that I need to keep upgrading and keeping things fresh.

Gildedguy vs Oxob Thumbnail Art by Soapy Bubbles

So I'm going to do those things before I announce the next project, of which I have about 3 candidates in mind. This next month will determine which one will be the optimal fit, in terms of production time and artistic merit.

Thank you for your support, and for checking in on this update.