Ending the $10 Senior Tier this month

Hey y’all! I wanted to let you guys know that I will be ending the monthly commission raffle after this month and removing the $10 tier from my Substar/Fanbox.

I have a couple reasons. The first is wholly pragmatic: Making a 4 picture commission for only $10 is just not worth it financially anymore. I made the raffle system back in early 2021 when I was only charging a flat $30 fee for commissions and it just doesn’t make any sense now. The amount of time it takes me to make a specific image varies wildly, but even erring on the conservative side it probably averages about 3 hours per pic not counting render time. And whenever I take on a monthly challenge (which I LOVE doing!), the raffles get horrendously backed up. I work 40 to 60 hour weeks and if I have a raffle to do along with running errands on my days off that’s usually all I can actually work on that entire week. This is the main reason that I had to push my planned commission opening back from early March to what will now probably be late April.

The second one is a bit more personal: I NEED to start learning how to use Blender. I’ve pretty much pushed Daz to its limit. The quick posing and easy character generation is amazing, but what used to be a welcome help in the beginning has now become a crutch I need to get rid of. I’ve seen dozens of 3dx accounts pop up recently that started with Blender and are already doing big numbers on Twitter, and it makes me feel woefully behind the curve. Tbh it’s a bit disheartening. I know everyone says you shouldn’t try to keep up with the Joneses as an artist, but just because it shouldn’t happen doesn’t stop my brain from doing it. There are dudes with less than 6 months of activity in 3dx that are already doing awesome butt jiggle physics, and it twists my stomach into a knot whenever I see them and think about how much time has passed for me. I need to take a couple months to dive deep into the program, making shitty pinup pics as I try to figure out the pose methods, how lighting and softbody physics work and hopefully functional animation in time. And I can’t do that if I have to dedicate 1/4 of my monthly effort into making something in Daz for practically no money.

And the other Senior tier bonus, a 10% discount on commissions, only makes financial sense for people already getting large comms anyway. And since I don’t open comms all that often, it feels disingenuous for me to keep it open when there’s no guarantee my subs could even use that benefit.

I’ll still be taking commissions and making personal art in Daz Studio for the time being. It’s what I’m most familiar with and there’s no way I can just chuck the characters you guys love so much into Blender without getting proficient first.

I can’t thank each and every one of you guys who has stayed subscribed to the Senior Tier and helped me along the way enough. ONDG, ArborDay, Dantels, Rommels, LlamaBadger: y’all some #REAL1s. I don’t know when I’ll reinstate the Senior tier again or how it will change but I’m sure it will be back one day, don’t worry!