The Future of this Patreon: a schedule (some Baiken included)

As some of you may be aware, my father passed away. What you may not be aware of is that for the past five years, my focus was on taking care of him. I moved back into my childhood home in the Summer of 2017 because he had gotten too weak to do anything and my Mom needed the help. Taking care of him was very rewarding. We ended up in a really good place emotionally. I got a lot of closure. It just dominated my time. He had a heart/lung condition where his lungs would constantly fill with fluid. I was 24/7 paranoid during COVID to the point where I basically quarantined our house. I didn't see many of my friends for, like, two years. During that time, there were numerous hospital and doctor visits because his body was still shutting down even without the help of COVID. I had to make sure he was fed because he was too weak to get to the kitchen himself. At one point, his Oxygen concentrator broke. It only worked five minutes before shutting down, and I had to spend an entire weekend constantly restarting it to make sure he could breathe. It was just a constant thing. My primary job. Now that he's gone, I don't know what to do with myself. Toph Heavy has been a part-time thing since 2018, and that's much of the reason why it has taken so long to get done. Even when I got on a kind of schedule, there would be an interruption. I am behind on Part 3, Chapter 2 largely because of the hospital visit last January. These past couple of weeks I haven't gotten much done because of the funeral.

Now, if I had the choice between a free schedule, and my dad still being alive. I'd choose my dad, but that's not the reality I live in. When he died I said working was the only thing that helped me, and it still is. SO I'm going to throw myself in to my work.

For starters, Toph Heavy will continue at a pace of about 1 to 2 colored pages per week. I was going to get it all done in one go, but we've had several leaks and I, as a result, have no interest in doing everything all at once. I think one chapter being out, while the other chapter is being worked on is fine for a release schedule. Plus that gives me extra time for coloring and fixing things to the quality that I want.

Secondly, I'm going to start my Baiken project. I cracked my tooth last week, and the cost of a crown is going to be $1000. I made an informal poll on Twitter for a pin-up I could draw and sell on Gumroad. Baiken won. Here are the preliminary sketches for that.

Drawing these made me realize that I don't want to wait to do a Baiken comic. She's really fun to draw, and I have a great idea for a short 15 to 20 page comic. I'm going to do that in tandem with Toph Heavy. The Baiken thing will be simple coloring and celshading.

Once the Baiken comic is done I want to start doing comics for this patreon with other characters, including original creations.

Commissions will be done on Saturday/Sunday and if I have one. If I don't then that'll be free time for me.

Additionally, I feel like I need to practice more. It's been three years since I've gone to a life drawing class, and I can feel it. So I'm going to spend some time training. Training how I draw the figure, how I ink, how I draw cloth, etc. I've heard good things about Proko and I'll be starting there.

My rough schedule starting this monday will look something like this until October/November of this year.

Monday - Friday

10AM - 11AM, wake up and eat breakfast

11AM - 12PM Art Practice/Training

12PM - 12:30 or 1PM Exercise

12:30PM/1PM to 2PM Work on either Toph Heavy/Baiken Comic (What I do will be determined by whether or not I've gotten a page done for Toph Heavy that week, and what I'm feelin like working on)

2PM take a break for Lunch.

2:30/3PM - 7PM Continue working on Toph Heavy/ Baiken/

7PM to 10PM Cook Dinner and spend time with family

10PM - 2AM  Free time. (Free Time includes making art if I feel like it. Playing videogames. Maybe watching a movie or anime.)

2AM - 10AM sleep

Saturday - Sunday

10AM - 11AM, wake up and eat breakfast

11AM - 12PM Art Practice/Training

12PM - 5PM Work on Commission stuff and eat lunch at somepoint

5PM - 7PM Free Time

7PM to 10PM Cook Dinner and Spend time with family

10PM - 2AM Free time

2AM - 10AM Sleep

I'm trying to balance work with living. And I think its important to understand that emergencies could override things. If my house floods or something, that's going to take priority over everything.

I just have a lot of ambition and free time now, and I'm inspired by my Dad's life and all he accomplished. Even then, he loved playing tennis and spending time with me. He didn't forgo life to work.

I'm ambitious mostly because I wanna make things, but also for fiduciary reasons. My family isn't rich, and my Dad's social security being gone is a huge blow to our income. My family has enough savings to last about a year, and there are expenses we are cutting. My goal is to earn an extra 400 - 600 a month by the end of this year. If I can do that, then I won't need to get a part-time job to pay the mortgage.

Now, I am someone who hopes for the best and prepares for the worst. If for some reason I can't continue making this work because Patreon/Gumroad/Twitter condemns my work, then I will pivot to taking on more commissions and they will become the Monday-Friday schedule while working on an SFW original comic will become the Saturday-Sunday Schedule. Don't worry, that SFW comic will still feature cute babes.  I'll never give that up.

So yeah, that's the plan.