JOES BACK and other important news

Where you been, Joe?

Hey yall! Sorry I've been MIA. Here's the deal...

2 months ago I was hired to be a trainee/contractor doing lettering for a comic publisher! It was very exciting because it was a legit company (I checked and they came recommended by a trusted friend), I had done lettering before helping friends (and really enjoyed it), it could lead to bigger things down the line and would give me another shot at doing commercial art full time.

Turned out to be absolute hell. They were disorganized, they called us trainees but put us into crunch immediately, a 6 week turn around became 3 weeks, the pay wasn't good (although I knew that going in), my editor was insanely picky (which is understandable except WE'RE TRAINEES UNDER CRUNCH!) and I still had needed to continue my dayjob to pay bills. Needless to say, it took all my remaining time and energy for 2 months which meant reduced working out, no meal prep, no videogames, late nights working, no weekends and no time for making art outside of the gig.

However, I'm glad I did it because it taught me alot about how the industries are still very intense and sometimes toxic and I know definitively I don't want it and am moving forward with a career change (but that's another story).

But yeah! I'm back :) I'll be working on that overdue Aeris piece and will have another voter poll up on Monday!

What's going on with Patreon and the Apple Store?

This requires a little more research but it appears patreon is going to be changing their policies on how patrons can be charge per post like I do. This is because it doesn't match what the Apple store wants and they're worried about getting delisted. I don't know how to explain it but it really is just bullshit from tech companies fucking with creators again (eyeroll). This means I'll need to change my approach to publishing in the future and switch to a monthly model, this will probably mean a cut to my income but it's not too much and I am lucky to have a dayjob to pay bills right now. However, I will be waiting to do this till the last minute in hopes that this incredibly unpopular decision will get reversed.

Other changes?

I want to expand this patreon to give non-patrons a taste of my work so I'll be posting art for non subscribers to see. These will be pieces I've already posted online on my social media feeds for free which means if you want the exclusive stuff you still need to become a patron. HOWEVER due to patreon's regulations I can't post NSFW here for free so all those posts for free members will either be SFW or tastefully censored in order to meet the sites guidelines.

There's more coming down the pipeline but this post is already kinda long so I'll tap into this more later and just share some Aeris with yall to sum things up :)