[IMPORTANT] September 2018 UPDATE

THIS POST CONTAINS IMPORTANT INFORMATION THAT I NEED YOUR POINT OF VIEW ON!

Hello lovely people! 

I realise I am making this post rather later than usual in the month, so my apologies for the delay! I am making progress on catching up with all the work that was impacted by the move. :)

This post is a general update as to where I stand at the moment, but I will also be talking about Inktober, an upcoming shop sale, and some Patreon news! 

I will need your input on some questions I have about the future of my Patreon, so I would be really grateful if you could let me know what you think once you have read this! (You don't have to read all of it, I realise I can go on a bit sometimes, haha, but make sure to check out the "Giveaway" section and the  "Patreon News" section for anything that concerns you patrons directly). 

But first of all...

A big welcome to  Dietrich, Domonique, Ben, Erin, Shadae, Tepi, Emily, Geetha, Kayla, Virginia, Nadine, Valerie, Anna, Jennifer, Maddy, Karli, Cecilia, and Neflite for joining us!
Quite a few of you made your way to my little corner of the internet this month and the last, and I am blown away by your kindness and generosity.
Thank you for choosing to support me peeps! <3

The September Giveaway winners are : 

- Sticker (Golem) : Christina Wenzel

- 8x10 print + sticker : Carolina 

Congratulations peeps! :)
You don't need to do anything, just make sure your address is up to date, and keep your eyes peeled for a letter in the post!

I realise I haven't sent the August prizes yet either, so I will be sending all September rewards at the same time as the August rewards, in the next couple of weeks. Sorry for the delay, it is simply easier if I deal with all the Patreon physical rewards in one go, I hope that's OK! 

Tepi and Shadae, look out for your welcome postcards also! ;)

An important note about GIVEAWAYS : 

I was recently told off by Patreon for hosting  giveaways, as it appears these are against their Terms of Use, as they encourage people to pay money to win prizes. 

I had never thought of it this way, but I understand their stance. 

This means that I will have to delete this reward for the future. I am really sorry, and I hope that won't upset anyone, but I fully understand if you would prefer to cancel your pledge in view of this change. 

I will however, be replacing giveaways with MILESTONE REWARDS instead, where anyone who reaches a certain pledge amount will get an extra reward, depending on the level.

I will do a full, in detail post about those very soon, and they will come into play as of next month, so anyone that will have reached a milestone after their October pledge will get an extra reward. These will not backtrack, as they are to replace giveaways. 

10% and 15% discount codes are the same as last month, and will remain the same until Christmas.
If you are a new $10+ patron and haven't received your discount code, do get in touch, and I'll send it to you as a private message! 

Keep in mind however, that I will be having a Clearance Sale on my online shop  from the 22nd of September to the 7th of October.
More details to follow in a dedicated post closer to the date, but as usual, regular discount codes will be deactivated, and a Patron-specific discount code valid for ALL patrons will be given to everyone before the sale goes live. (The sale will be for 25%, and the patron code will be for 30%). 

As I mentioned above, there will be a fully dedicated post for this closer to the date, with all the details, but I just wanted to give you a heads up in this post too. 

I will be permanently retiring a bunch of my old pieces from my store, closing it for a while, revamping it, and adding new stock soon, so before I do all that, I thought I would have a "liquidation" sale to give everyone one last chance at getting prints and originals of those designs. 

The image below shows some of the designs I will taking of the shelves for good, but they will be clearly labelled by the time the sale goes live anyway. 

The sale will be from the 22nd of September to the 7th of October, and will be for 25% off everything, but patrons will ALL get a Patreon-exclusive code for 30% and a couple more days to browse before the sale goes public.

More details soon. 

I will be doing a dedicated Inktober post this week, talking about the supplies I plan on using, as well as the theme and style I have set for myself very soon, some tips and advice if you plan on participating, and a detailed break-down of what Patreon will look like during that time, but in the meantime, here's an overview of what will be going down. 

As most of you probably already know, Inktober is a yearly recurring art event/challenge created by Jake Parker (official website for more info). It happens every October, and the aim is to create 31 drawings in ink, one every day. 

Last year, I did it along the theme of mental health and illness, and it went down so incredibly, ridiculously, well, that I have to be honest, I am absolutely terrified for this year.
There is absolutely no way I can live up to last year's unexpected, gigantic success, and my impostor syndrome is screaming at me that I am going to disappoint everyone and that I will end up alone and shunned, because everyone will finally see just how much of a fraud I am. XD
But hey. I was expecting that from it and I'll give it a go regardless, because, let's face it, Inktober is hella fun.  Plus, this career has made me ever so slightly aware that I might be masochistic around the edges, because I love challenges that melt my brain and make me want to sleep for a year afterwards. 

As you can guess, Inktober is very intense.
That means that I probably won't be able to create a big painting in October, which also means no Process PDF in November.
I also doubt I will manage to find the time to sketch much, so that might affect what the Sketchbook PDF will look like. 

Therefore, I will be tailoring the November rewards to fit with Inktober.
I will go into more detailed in a future post, and each tier will get a break down of what their rewards will be for that month. 

♡ Be reassured however, no one will miss out on anything, all rewards will still be fulfilled, just with a slight Inktober twist!

Here are a few of my ideas, feel free to let me know what you think!
➽ I am thinking of creating a specific, temporary, Inktober tier.
➽ I will be creating an Inktober Sticker, maybe even a set if enough drawings lend themselves to it, and each $10+ patrons will receive one.
➽ $15 : postcards will be of each patrons at that tier's choice of Inktober 2018 piece.
➽ $20 patrons will be getting a zine if I manage to make one, instead of a print, and a postcard print of the Inktober drawing of their choice.
➽ Patrons will get first dibs of each Inktober original before I put it up on my shop.
➽ Instead of a Process PDF, I will create a detailed break-down of how I use brush pens, and everything I learned during Inktober. 

Other than the Giveaway news above, I created a new tier : 

 ➽ New $15 Postcard Tier
It is worth $15, and you get a monthly postcard, along the lines of the ones first time $10 patrons, and all $20 patrons receive!
$15 patrons will get to vote on the postcard design also.

 Some of you may recall that I talked about being part of a group gallery show in Florida, in October. 

Well, I'm afraid to say that this show has unfortunately been cancelled. 

My fellow artists and I were supposed to receive a contract detailing our collaboration with the gallery, but we never received anything, and didn't hear from them at all during the summer.  
We got in touch and never heard back, until a couple of weeks ago, when we received an email stating that our contact at the gallery no longer worked there, and from the sound of the email, had never communicated to his colleagues that he had been planning a show with us.   From what I can tell, we dodged a bullet, if that was their standard of organisation and communication.   

No matter, I am actually rather glad, since dealing with this would have been just too much for me at this point in time. I'm sure more opportunities will arise in the future, and I will obviously let you all know first! ;)

• Giveaway Winners for September have been announced. 
• Giveaway Rewards will be deleted, to be replaces by Milestone Rewards. 
• Patrons will get a special 30% discount code in my upcoming Clearance Sale. 
• Things will work a little differently during October and November, because of Inktober. 
• I created a new Patreon Tier. 
• The gallery show was cancelled. 

➊ How do you feel about the giveaways being deleted, and replaced with Milestone Rewards?

➋ What do you think of my ideas for Inktober themed Patreon rewards?

➌ Will you be participating in Inktober yourself?

I hope this update gives you a good insight into what the next couple of months will look like, and that none of it put you off!

As always, so get in touch if you have any concerns or questions, I am always happy to hear from you! 

I hope you are all well,
I love you all,