Shadowheart Post Release Update

It's time for the usual review following a big project. I wouldn't classify the Shadowheart movie as a failure, but it's also very far from a success.

Initial support for the Shadowheart movie was similar to Jill gaining about 30 supporters to unlock two bonus scenes. That's about the only part of the entire process that went well. What follows is pretty much exactly what I feared what would happen with this kind of goal setup. The movie took about a month to complete once the supporter promotion was done, and in that time I lost literally all support from that period. From peak to low, I actually lost about 40 supporters which is over 10% of my supporter base. Indeed, launch day of the movie I was at net negative supporter count from project announcement.

Launch itself was fine. I've picked up 25 supporters in 7 days. That's a little over half of what Jill did (40), but I was actually expecting numbers like this. That does put it a little ahead of Project X in terms of success, but I also think this was a much more complex project. The silver lining is that this movie took less than 2 months from start to finish, so it's not the worst result. The second Project X movie took nearly 3 months, and did far worse. That said, the numbers aren't exactly encouraging either.

To sum it up, a middling but decent release couldn't undo the damage of fairly disastrous losses through production. Current supporter count a week after release is sitting at +3 patrons and +7 subscribers from initial announcement. That's still down about 20 from peak. I suspect that the closed off bonus goals after the first two gave no incentive for people to join. Due to holidays, VA availability, and the timing of the next project, I really had to close it off. It's still pretty disheartening that it makes the difference for support to completely collapse. December is actually poised to be the greatest monthly net loss in my patron history. Subscribestar numbers up is about the only thing stopping that from being completely depressing.

I mentioned what comes next. Now, I am not so sure. As much as I felt the need to take a break with smaller projects, I was really excited to work on the next movie. The plan was for RE4 Ada because of the timing for RE9. I wanted the movie to be bigger and less reliant on bonus goals, but now I don't have really confidence in either. I feel like the decision has been made for me anyway, so I will be focusing the next few weeks on commissions. We'll see how I feel after that. I don't feel the pressure to get that movie out before RE9, I always just want it announced before then.

In any case, thank you to everyone who has supported me through the project. All the initial support at least kept things from going backwards. It's not all doom and gloom as numbers are still up slightly since the Jill project. It's not the result I was hoping for, but I at least have the confidence to take on more longer animations even if I don't follow up right away with another movie.