An Introduction to Ribbons

Digital Ribbons

I've come up with a thing I want to try out with you. Sometimes when I'm taking breaks from working on my projects and other regular content, I like experimenting and playing with other miscellaneous ideas. Digital Ribbons are a result of such an experiment, and I want to see if I can implement them to my Patreon now that there are custom membership pages for each tier. 

What are ribbons?

A ribbon is a simple render of a 3D ribbon, a very silly idea I came up with to mark certain milestones as well as giving you all something for being there for it. They are meant to aknowledge your support in a small way whenever I achieve some sort of goal. I personally see them as a type of memorabilia. Their design is inspired by military ribbons:

Looks kind of neat, right? This is the standard Brass Tier Ribbon (at 75% resolution) for all you Brass Claire's out there. All patrons have access to a standard ribbon based on your tier. A link to the folder containing all available ribbons to your tier can be found in the new welcome text under the My Membership tab on my page, which has been customized to your tier. Please let me know if you're having issues finding/viewing this page. The page also includes a pretty little render of your current tier character, so go check it out! 

What can I use ribbons for?

Not much, really – It's just an image. It's not even porn, so that's one use less actually. But get creative with them if you want! For instance, I see very few of you have avatars – why not try putting one as you profile picture? Or save them to a folder on your pc to make a pretty collection after a while? Or just ignore them completely – after all this is all optional and completely up to you. The only use for them is what you come up with yourself, they're just images after all. You probably won't be hearing much about this concept besides here anyway.

When do ribbons appear?

Whenever they're relevant. Reached 200 patrons? Ribbon! Released a large project? Ribbon! Whatever I think is worth commemorating spawns a new ribbon. You're all welcome to suggest ribbons as well, they're very easy to make! This should make for a colorful little collection after a while. But stay sharp – Some ribbons come in two editions, and one of them is only available for a limited time. These two types are:

• Normal Ribbons - These are what you'll be seeing the most. Normal ribbons are available to all patrons and look the same regardless of tier.  Once added to the ribbons folder, they remain there forever, letting everyone enjoy the collection that builds up!
• Producer Ribbons - These ribbons are for those who pledged to my Patreon during larger projects. It's a variant of the Normal ribbon that has extra decoration in accordance with your tier. Producer ribbons are only available while I work on the project itself and up until release day. After that, it is removed from the ribbons folder and only the Normal variant remains to commemorate the release of said project.

So as you can see, the Producer ribbons can be a bit elusive. They're a way of saying "Hey, thanks for being there during that thing I did". I want it to feel like some sort of collector's item and make your collection feel exclusive – you can look at you own Producer ribbon and say "I was part of that project!". So if you're a die-hard fan, save them to a folder and keep them for memories!

Does the making of ribbons delay other works?

Not at all, that's the best part! As I experimented with the idea, I ended up with a "blueprint" that's very easy to edit, making it possible to create different designs in minutes! So this whole thing is not producing any extra work for me in the long run, making it incredibly fun for me to play with and easy to implement. 

This concludes this introduction to ribbons! It might seem pointless to many, but I see it as a potentially nice way to scroll through my history if I manage to build a collection with them. If just as much as one of you thinks this sounds fun, I'd call the concept a success, because that would make two of us!

Thank you for your support!