[Important Update Especially to my Supporters] Major changes to my patreon

Hi Everyone! I would like to talk some major changes coming to my patreon.

and I would appreciate to hear your honest thought about it (You may comment or contact/message me directly).  I've been considering and thinking about this for quite a long time now. There are both negative and positive news, I'll tackle the negative first.

ART PACK - ENDING/CONCLUDING

It is unfortunate, but I am planning to stop making art packs due to a number reasons.

Making art packs has been quite taxing on me. This is not due to the artwork itself, but something more which I will elaborate below.

• I find myself constantly feeling pressured,restricted, and anxious everytime I draw as I am recording it due to worrying about how long the process will it take me to finish as if I take too long, processing, rendering, and uploading would get more difficult for me due to limited resources. And being too short, I worry that I may make my supporters feel that I am not doing enough, although at those times, it tends to hit the mark.

• In most cases, I end up spending more time preparing the packs rather than the actual drawing/painting part, even with the help of the template i made, it still takes more time, and I also have to handle multiple websites and setting it up (patreon, gumroad, cubebrush, my own website, youtube),editing, render, upload, etc.. I honestly feel burnout doing the production/preparation for each every art pack.

• I have less creative freedom. It made me feel like I have to follow a certain formula/pattern way to draw. Doing something different instill fear within me. My recent 2 art packs, Nina from Breath of Fire 3 & Tiki from FE:Awakening where i tried something a bit different, such as the way I color or drawing a full body, and honestly it left me terrified that it makes it look lazy or not as complete as the previous packs considering that there is no background. The Blade Nia artpack is an example of this which I originally wanted it without background, but I feel oblige I needed to put BG as the previous art packs have one.

• My game development project has been really affected negatively by the art pack production. And since my movement to 3D jrpg development, I want to put more time to learn and work with the technical subjects related to it.

**Now going with the positive stuff,

ARTBOOK - NEW

While I will stop with art pack, I am planning to make a mini-artbook/sketchbook/monthly art book just for my supporters. I do think that my supporters deserve more than just the credit, and I've been trying to think of other ways and this is the answer I came up with. It may seem like a paywall, but its the only way I can think of to make more exclusive rewards for my supporters. 

This approach, I fear that I may have betray your reason for supporting me because I make free content for everyone, and if you want to stop supporting me because of it, I will respect it and I deeply apologize for it.

Also, I will still be posting and sharing artworks in my social media/art platforms(upload version,like the one I usually post in my websites/social media --around 900px) that belong to the artbooks. E-book version & artbook image .PNG version will still be exclusive reward for my supporters/protagonists.

I've been trying my best to make everyone happy, but I felt like I wasn't able to do much for my supporters, this might be the opportunity for me. There are also many positives for me if I work on mini art book/artbook/sketchbook. 

• Less time spent on the production and more on drawing artworks

• I can draw more fanart characters or just about anything and in diversity, be it painted, sketch, short strip, etc. Sometimes I want to redraw characters(Which is hard to consider during the art packs as i am only able to produce few art packs per month). There are just so many characters from other games I want to draw

• More creative freedom

•  Less pressure due to not worrying about recording the drawing process.

• Looking at from the perspective of a videogame/anime fan, I think having a sort of artbook might be more enjoyable for my supporters.(When I have artbooks of games I like or something, I just adore it)

• More time to work on my gamedev project

• I only need to focus on 1 quality production for the artbook (Youtube Video to showcase/preview it and making artbook feel like a real artbook with its aesthethics)

• Sometimes I just suddenly have a flare of inspiration want want to draw something

Sometimes I just want to draw, and have fun,goof, or play with it. Maybe fuse two characters from different game, or make some short comic strip, crossovers, A basic drawing of character interactions, landscape/environment, and more. This is something I can do within the artbook without worrying about following a certain pattern.

*The artbook will be more personalized as I will also include also personal text there. Perhaps about why I draw this certain art, about the character, or something else. It won't be just a compilation of artworks.

*Two versions of artbook - e-book version and .png/image version

*Artbook will still mostly contain jrpg/rpg/video game fanart, and some anime/manga fanart too

PHYSICAL ARTBOOK (N/A)

I currently don't have resources or connection to have those resources, but I would really like to revisit/look into this case in the future. I can also do a quarterly edition(compilation of the artbooks released [3 monthly artbook in 1 compilation]) for it when I got the resources.
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I actually did have a one and only art book of my old works printed back in 2016, I got it for  a one time 0$ promo and just have to pay a shipping fee(ᗒᗨᗕ). I did not have that much time to work on the layout and such, but this is the result of what I've made.
Most of the artworks in here are original art unlike the upcoming artbooks where it will mostly be filled by fanarts particularly characters from jrpgs.

(p.s. This artbook is not the best example of what I am planning to do with the upcoming artbooks, there will be more to it, I am just showing/sharing my stuff for those who might be interested to hear about it(ᗒᗨᗕ) )

Hopefully in the future, I can make the upcoming artbooks  have an available option for those who are interested in physical art books.

NEW CREDIT SYSTEM FOR THE ARTBOOK

I am thinking of implementing a new credit system for the artbook.

1) All current supporters/protagonists will be listed in the credit section as I really want to give acknowledgement, along with the amount supported will be converted to Levels like in jrpgs/rpgs/videogames.(I'm still not sure if I will do it as [1$ = 1level] or [1$ up to 3$ = 1 level]).

And to distinguished the protagonist type, it can be a color text or make a mini pixel icon.

(The Video preview of artbook in youtube which I am planning to include credits there too, will still feature the main/mysterious/hidden protagonists system, but I can also utilize the new one if my supporters prefer it more)

As a supporter/protagonists, I would appreciate to hear your thoughts on this.

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Website update:

I'm also scaling down with posting content on my website shop as it pretty much hit its limit with the current amount of content

I'll probably have to omit the grid item list there. I feel like it has become redundant due to patreon, gumroad, and cubebrush, and updating it has become more difficult.

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Since this is a new workflow for me, it might take some time for me to adjust and learn, but I will give my best to make it look great. Hopefully my conclusion about moving to artbooks will be fruitful and healthy compared to the art pack. I have prepared for this new endeavor, but in actual practice, I hope it goes well.

This will cause changes/updates to my patreon's current overview/mainpage including the tier rewards. I am planning to wait few hours/days before making changes in case you want to review/note it before the changes comes.

As for the other content:

• Previous Art packs will still be available and free

• Emoticon/Emoji Pack will still be made and free, but I am uncertain if I will continue next month, but for this month I will be doing it and see how things goes with the artbook and with the time allocation.

• I am planning to remove the optional credit on the gofelem website as pretty much no one utilizes it and it will save me more time to do something productive instead of maintaining it

•The Collection pack will be omitted.

• My Draknier Story jrpg game development project, no changes as it will still be free

3D
Due to my game development moving to 3D, I am planning to work on placeholders later on
that is to be used for the advance prototyping. And these placeholders will be base on the
Main, Mysterious, and  Hidden Protagonists. I will talk more details about it in the Draknier Dev diary #03.

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I know that this post is long, and I can only apologize for taking your time, but this is something important that I want to inform you so you can be aware of this change in order to decide if you will continue supporting me or not.

That would be all the update for now. Also if you have any thoughts you want to share about these changes, you may comment or message me directly. Thank you and have a pleasant day （＾ｖ＾）