the future of rewards (update)

Hi gang!! I have an important update here for today concerning the weekly reward benefit moving forward- I will try to keep this CONCISE but forgive me if I ramble on anywhere lmao (TLDR at the bottom)

I opened up an idea discussion in January about the future of the weekly rewards benefit, and the feedback was something I appreciated massively & considered a lot over the past month and some as I thought over what I wanted to do and what might be best for myself as well moving forward! It hasn’t been without an incredible amount of consideration & going back and forth with myself on it but I’ve finally made the decision that I’ll be retiring weekly rewards as of March. I know people really enjoyed them, and it’s not without some guilt that I make that decision, but after about 5 years of doing them the constant queue has become more than I’m able to healthily manage, especially working away from home now as well. I went over a lot of options & ideas about it- smaller rewards, possibly changing the schedule at which I add them to my queue, different styles (and I hugely appreciate everyone’s support of me experimenting with new things as I’ve worked on them, it has helped quite a lot) but at the end of the day I’m burning out faster than I can keep up with them, and as the tier has grown- which I’m so incredibly grateful for!! So has the wait times and the list of people, which has just become a lot to manage for me. And that’s nobody’s fault! But having a list of 50+ pieces per set is just a *lot* to do I’m realizing :’)

And again, I really do appreciate everyone’s feedback when I initially brought this idea up in the server a bit ago. I totally realize & respect that this isn’t the outcome people were hoping for, and if a tier without weekly rewards isn’t for you, that is 100% fair! All of your support for the entire time I’ve run my Patreon- whether you’re new or you’ve been around for a while is *so* important and so so meaningful to me. Making it worthwhile to everyone has been something I’m always trying to perfect, but I had to accept that I can’t do absolutely everything all the time, and in the mix of my work schedules & just life stuff, adding to my queue weekly is just something I can’t keep up with healthily at this point in my life.

So what does this mean exactly? Well for starters, I’m not dropping my current list of owed rewards! If you’ve never received one, or haven’t received one since April 19th, 2024, please submit a form for one! I will be limiting this to currently subscribed people, so the form will be checked over for that once March payments are completed. Link is here> https://forms.gle/74EnkyKuYBjrc8oU6

The focus moving forward in lieu of weekly drawn rewards will be F2U base files! This is something I was trying to do for many years (and succeeding at wildly inconsistently) but opening up more time to do them means I’ll be aiming to have new ones up monthly or every 2 months, size of files depending! For example, it may be a longer wait if I’m dropping another species in the ref base series as those ones are pretty large, but the *goal* will be monthly as best I can. And much like the valentines base, I’ll also be working on some fun, more “art piece” oriented files as opposed to ref sheets/adopt styled linework. This also means I can get art to everyone simultaneously, which cuts the months long wait times down & I definitely feel better about that!

In the future, the intent is to open up a limited slot art reward tier- likely three people, but as it goes on I would definitely consider adding spots (or different tiers for different pieces) in the future. I realize such a limited amount doesn’t leave much accessibility and it’s not the most fair, but I have to make sure I’m not overworking myself as I have a massive tendency to overcommit myself to a point of burning out as I’ve done. Time and time again lmao! The particulars and the pricing are something I’m working on, but before this comes out in any capacity, I have a small stack of pieces I need to complete from both the final weekly rewards and my old closed limited tier first. Doing weekly pieces & 6 larger scale projects a month 1000% got away from me, and that tiers been closed for a while now, so completing those outstanding pieces is my first priority before I introduce any new art benefits.

At this time I’m not tweaking anything else tier benefit wise- I know I discussed potential price changes and I may still look into that, but for now I wanted to focus on the change I know I needed to make. I know it’s not the most desirable outcome at the end of the day but in the long run I know it’ll benefit me, and there’s a lot I want to be able to give back here that I’m confident this will help me to do.

TLDR: starting in March I’m retiring the weekly art rewards to help myself prevent more burnout & alleviate constantly adding to my queue- instead I’ll be focusing on (ideally) monthly F2U bases, and eventually introducing a new limited spot reward tier once I complete my rewards backlog!

Regardless of if you read all of that or just the TLDR, thank you so much for hearing me out and for your support in me & my work. Taking this step for myself & my well-being both physically and mentally isn’t an easy one by any means, but I think it’s a necessary one, and it’ll open up a lot more for my future & for the future of things here for all of you. 💛