Some Updates and Changes!

Hey folks!

Now that several months have passed with this Patreon, I'm starting to get into the swing of things. I'm able to get a better sense of what's working well and what is not! Overall, things have been going pretty well, and I'm super blown away by how much folks want to support me. Freeing up my time for my own pursuits, however minor they may be for now, is feeling fantastic.

That said, I'm still planning on making some changes. Overall, the token system is working well. Its a bit underutilized, admittedly, in some cases, but that's not entirely something I can control. Limiting the slots has made it very manageable alongside my other work. As of right now, I plan on opening up a couple more Acolyte slots and an additional Hierophant and Enthralled slot once I'm finished up with my EnorMouse project. I have no firm ETA on that as of yet, though, but I will certainly announce it when I'm ready. Right now I don't have any plans on forcing people off of the various token-based slots. I would encourage folks to perhaps take a break if they so desire, but I understand that there's no guarantee they'll get that slot back, and such wouldn't want to give it up. If folks end up not utilizing their tokens for long enough, though, I'll likely get in contact.

However, there are some bits that aren't working as well. I've seen other artists doing this monthly art poll, and wanted to give it a try! I figured it would help rekindle some of my waning inspiration, and I could even have a tier where folks could have more influence on it. Well, that didn't really work out the way I wanted. Its ended up feeling and becoming more of a chore than I'd like. The monthly deadline really caused a lot of undue stress for something that should be fun and relaxing, and the small amount of input in the upper tier didn't feel like it justified the extra work. What's more, I really didn't feel like I could come up with adequate ideas for the things suggested, or even just a general theme for each month. It essentially started putting stress on my time, because I needed to make sure I budgeted things properly so I could work on my projects, my commissions, and the poll results. Of course, I'm not placing blame on anyone for this: we tried it out, gave it an earnest run, and it's just a mismatch for me!

So, I need to make some changes. I'm no longer doing monthly polls. Instead, polls on what I should work on or what characters I should make art of will merely happen as they happen, with no set schedule or date. They might end up being more simple in some cases or more defined in others with regards to what I'm polling on. This will likely lead to me spending more time on WIPs for now and spending a bit more time on each piece overall, rather than just finishing something up to get it done by the end of the month. So, with all that in mind and the lack of consistent polling, I feel like its only fair I remove the Power Overwhelming tier. I appreciate the support y'all have given me, but with these changes I can't justify a tier existing on the basis of something that won't happen every month, and charging you for that. Perhaps in the future this tier may return, when I have a proper use for it and things to provide for it! But for now, I think it will be retired.

Overall, I'm very happy with things are going, and I'm excited for what future projects are coming up! The EnorMouse project is going well and I'm looking forward to being able to have some fun with that. I hope to be able to do more stuff like that in the future.