State of the Union - All We Try To Do Is To Reach You

Welcome welcome! Ladies and Gentlemen, the state of the union is….COMPLICATED!

Been a while since one of these eh? Last I checked was back in 2022! This can probably be attributed to how bad 2023 was, but y’know, no-one’s here to hear the wah wah, so we’ll try and stick to practical concerns.

You may also note that unlike other state of the union posts this one isn’t public- that’s because I figure I’ll be talking about some slightly smuttier things here or linking items with a bit of skin, and don’t want to give Patreon the excuse it needs to shut this place down. Eee.

Anyway, with all that said, lets get to it!

Brass Tacks

To start with the end, we’re getting back to doing 3 things each week:

• Thrallworks

• Commissions

• Volition

Things like the Movement game and the Pony game I’m only going to work on if I still want to do stuff after working on whatever the day’s project is…probably with the ponygame as a priority.

How I work on the Big Things themselves also needs to change, so I guess let’s go over them.

Thrallworks

Starting at the end of November, I’m going to start putting Reorientation builds out in public.

I think my initial thought of ‘holding back until everything from Orientation got re-added’ ended up being very damaging to the game’s production. There were too many additional bits I wanted to put in to have done it in any reasonable time even if I wasn’t wrestling with the engine or how to do things,, and by keeping schtum publicly, it kind of removed focus off of Thrallworks as a game and back to just a setting, which wasn’t good for impetus in getting scenes done or systems smoothed out.

To begin with, it’ll only be the 1st hospital scene that will be made public, and I’ll be going through it and the early scenes to make sure they have enough in them to justify putting them up– as well as finally sorting out the Enthrallment procedure and its animations, which I’ll be wanting done by year’s end.

I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything as hardcore as putting out 1 scene a month, but I do at least think I can put out 1 TW Update a month for new CG’s, scripting and the like. Let’s say the last Saturday of the month for now.

Commissions

Things like the Material Index entries got in my way on working on these, but by and large it was actually the scope of the commissions to do that basically stopped work on the Domine Set. However, in dropping side-projects and organising the to-do list, I’ve resolved myself to get back on this wagon.

Indeed, given my current living situation, commissions are going to be a common necessity going ahead. A prospective commission sheet is available in the attachments, as well as a list of progress on said commissions- both of which I think I’ll post up alongside the Art Updates I do.

I have ideas on potentially more interesting commissions to do, but for the time being this limited list seems ok to me, and I’d at least want to get through half the Domine and some Pony reworks before taking on new comms, so just consider what’s being offered a preview. If you’ve any ideas or want to ask if X or Y commish would be ok, feel free to message me!

Volition

It’s been a while coming, eh? I’ve been in need of a steady serial kind of project to put out into the world on a regular basis, and when it comes to it, Volition’s the most obvious one to do. (I almost picked a Harvester comic, but maybe that can be a little further down the line?)

Probably how this is going to work is that I’ll be releasing this for $5 members on a weekly/fortnightly basis. I’m tempted to give $10 people WIP art, but I do kinda doubt the worth of that. Perhaps some other bonus content should be available, alongside the sketch suggestions, which I want to rework a little bit to keep it fresh (though I’ve still much to do for those sketches. Mermaid thralls, huh…probably Dancers.)

After the next chapter’s done, it might be nice to do a mini-comic on something else before jumping into chapter 3. Perhaps a vote on it?

Rota

So to break down the work schedule it’ll be something like:

• 3-2 Days for Volition

• 1-2 Days for Commission Work

• 2 Days for Thrallworks

Occasionally I’ll need an extra day for drafting pages in Volition, but mostly it’ll be 2 days apiece for the foreseeable.

As a helpful visual indicator, here’s Cerise for the breakdown!

Got it? Hooray!

Depending on the work I may stream on the day or not. To my mind I only want to show art from linework onwards, which is a little difficult for me to tell right now when that is. Ideally I’d be able to say ‘ah, it’s Tues/Weds and Saturday, but I guess we’ll have a better idea of the probable days after doing this for a few weeks.

General Dates and Tier Bonuses

So to sum up what’s going to happen when, for different tiers and in general:

$1+

• Art Updates!

  • Whatever art has been made in the last week that’s not Volition, you get to see it here.

  • Once per week, if anything new between Fri-Sun.

• Union Posts

  • Like this one!

  • Whenever there needs be one; probably 1 every 3-4 months

• Presumably any other posts that also lead to public content, such as new game demos or etc.

  • When? It’s a surprise! For me as well as you.

$5+

• Volition Pages

  • To begin with, aiming for 1 every week, posted on Wednesdays.

• TW Game Updates

  • Once a month, posted on the last Saturday of the month

$10+

• Sketch Suggestions

  • Make a suggestion for something for me to draw!

  • Going to make a new one of these every 3 months or so just to refresh ideas for peeps.

• Discord Previews

  • Not on Patreon, but $10 people have their own place on my discord and typically I post up the day’s work in there way before it’s seen anywhere else.

• WIP & HD Art

  • Previews of CG’s in progress and lineart, as well as larger versions of Volition pages and completed CG’s.

  • Posted once a fortnight

• $10 Special

  • You get to vote on some special content! Writing, or some art and writing, or some art, you’ll be offered a few choices. At the end of the month, you get it! Who knows, some of it might end up in a game or two…

So yeah I think that about covers how I want to take a crack at things for the foreseeable.

Sounds Neat! All that Aside, How’re you TDL?

I’m…pretty good. Not happy with how the whole ‘small game every 3 months’ shook out. Turns out working as a duo does not make things twice as fast. I’ve also gotten rid of a few things that gave me a lot of personal stress in my own life, but at a bit of a cost- The next few months are going to be pretty important in seeing whether I can devote all my time to this kind of work or whether I need to do a side-hustle. Lets hope for the former, eh?

But I suppose it is prudent to plan for the worst-case scenario too. I guess maybe my Sunday’s won’t be much for ‘cooling down’ after all, hohoho.

Anyway, thus is the state of the union! Ciao bellas!