Patreon Updates + Downsizing

Hello all,

First of all I want to thank all of you for continuing to support what I do, especially through the tumultuous last few years. I've never really pushed my Patreon super hard, so the fact that this many of you are subscribed does mean a lot to me and helps stave off a lot of the imposter syndrome all artists get.

In short, though, I'll be downsizing this Patreon account, and removing the reward tiers along with reducing the threshold of access. I'll explain why below, but if you're not interested you can skip to the last section.

The Last Few Years

When I started this Patreon in January of 2016 I had less of an idea of what I wanted to build my future out to be. Everything was on the table, including the prospect of being a full-time artist with my primary income stream being freelance work and worldbuilding. This Patreon was started as a way to get that going early if this ended up being the case, both in terms of building a core audience and getting some practise in.

Of course, things have changed. I began a degree in Industrial Design, I fell in love with the field of UX design, and decided although I like art that I didn't want to turn that into anything more than a side gig for earning amusement money or to make people happy when they get a comm from me. This changed relationship was reflected in a bit of mild but pervasive burnout from 2021 through most of 2023—the mindset of a "continuous content release schedule" was still stuck in my mind even though I had already felt like I didn't want to make this a job. I am reminded that burnout is the feeling one gets when the relationship with one's work has fundamentally and irreversibly changed, and on reflection that dissonance between how I felt like I should be treating art and how I actually wanted to treat my art was clear.

The slow but relentless destruction of Twitter, my largest singular audience base, along with my migration to BlueSky I saw as less a blow to business and more a wake-up call for me to really re-evaluate myself as an artist. It severed an ingrained performative-ness I had built up from dealing with a large audience that expects Content™. That performative-ness had prevented me from committing time to learn things other than 2D illustration, especially on the fronts of 3D art and music—I've felt more able to work on more projects that may not be my usual wheelhouse of drawing furry art, worldbuilding, or both (KSP modding, 10GOKU LAISHIR, the 3D model of Antraea's flat, etc). Building an online art audience isn't conducive to this kind of inconsistency, but as an artist I do find myself enjoying the variety.

So here I am at the end of 2023. I've come to terms with the fact I am not just an illustrator but a multidisciplinary artist and designer, whose calling in life is not to turn their art into their career. 

Relationship with Patreon

As mentioned previously, I started this Patreon years and years ago when I still entertained the thought of making art a full-time career seriously. Frankly, the page has changed very little since, but my relationship with the platform has.

Truth be told I was never really someone who needed Patreon money to survive. Those of you who know me better know I live a pretty financially secure life, all told. Hence, I never really committed a lot of resources and energy to this page versus other creatives who certainly did rely on it as a main source of income, and as such many of the common perks creatives would give to their patrons here never really made a lot of sense for me:

• Like most other creatives, I have a $2 "early access" tier, in line with Patreon as a platform being  based around exclusive paywalled content. Despite this, I never had much in the way of large, long-running projects that had a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. More than anything, if I made something, I could rarely contain my eagerness to post it publicly to the big wide world. In that sense Patreon was a glorified relief valve to post stuff that was nearly done but not quite, so that I could at least sleep on a painting and commit to fixing errors after getting some rest, rather than rushing to post it ASAP. Otherwise, the whole "Patrons get access to this Content™️a week early" never was something that I did here, and thus couldn't really justify a $2 monthly early access tier for.
• I also have a $5 "commission discount" tier, which is also a common feature for many creatives. Again, though, I've never actually had to rely on art for income, which included commissions. As a result I'd maybe open twice a year at best—some folks started to jokingly refer to me as the "furry scifi commission pop-up shop" because of how rare opportunities were to get art from me. Since I also use a curated application style of comm submissions in the event I do open—though I try to be impartial and focus on the ideas submitted than the people—the fact that I know there are a lot of people who have been paying $5 for months or years wanting a commission has always hung over my head when making those decisions. In that sense, a commission discount isn't really something I think makes sense to try to onboard people on and is frankly something I feel a little uncomfortable with continuing with.

In short, the core reasons for me using Patreon don't exist anymore, which means the core reasons why someone might actually subscribe here don't exist either. Forgive the ramble, but I felt it was good to explain my reasoning and aims.

So, Those Changes

In light of the above, I have changed the tiers to the following:

• The $2 exclusive access tier has now been set to be a minimum of $1. What exclusive content I continue to post here will be available to anyone subscribing for any amount of money. What I post here will probably not change too much, mostly consisting of WIPs and high res images of works I am particularly pleased with, but you may see a gradual decline in frequency over the next while (not that that wasn't happening already, let's be honest).
• The $5 commission discount tier has been removed, and will not be replaced. I won't be offering commission discounts anymore for reasons stated above.

Since it's worth mentioning in plain words: no hard feelings if you decided to reduce your pledge or cancel altogether; if anything, I'd be more surprised you didn't do so sooner. I will admit I will miss having the same payout as it does help make budgeting month-to-month easier during my final semesters in university (heaven knows rent never gets any cheaper), and if you do insist on pushing me some change every now and again without a monthly commitment I do have a Ko-Fi. Again, though, as far as artists go I'm in a relatively privileged financial position with little worry of my ability to make ends meet. If anything there are likely other things to put your money towards that need it more than I do—a Palestinian charity wouldn't be a bad idea right now.

I do want to apologise for the awkward timing right at the start of the month, but I've been meaning to make this post for a while now, and realising there's not really a not-awkward time to make it I decided that sooner is better. I'm not really sure what recourse patrons have when it comes to post-hoc cancelling payments for December, but should some of you want to that I understand too.

If you do decide to stay on, even if downsized, I do want to again thank you for supporting me. It is a privilege to be able to know there are people out there who just like what you do enough they commit to sending you money every month, and the thought does get me through some more difficult days as a creative. And last but not least, for anyone who has ever pledged or donated to me regardless of reason, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am quite quiet and reserved in my public-facing persona but I do see those donations and comments, and I want you to know they probably did make my day that little bit better.

If anyone has any questions or concerns, you are free to message or comment below and I will do my best to respond.

Thanks,
Kavaeric