April review / May goals

Good evening gemlins ❣

I don't even want to talk much about the shit show that was April, there's not much for me to review. All I wanna do regarding that month is thank you for being patient with me and sticking with me, while I scrambled to get back on my feet : D I've been reflecting a lot recently on how I want my work-life-balance to look like moving forward and there will be some changes in the near future, more on that at the end of this post.

The sketches above were drafts for the cover illustration of the upcoming chapter! And an alternate version which I will have as a print for Dokomi. I'll share the finished pieces with gemlins soon! I am currently also working on a partner piece of Kai which is coming along nicely, too.

Alright, moving on to my goals for May!

 Morganite [$5+]:  

• #MUTED update(s)
• sketch PDF 
• #MUTED redraw part 04

If possible:

• Couple artwork
• Hogwarts AU

Aquamarine [$10+]: 

IF POSSIBLE:

• a process video
• a selection of CSP/PSD

General:

• Livestream on May 12th at 7pm CET

This is the aforementioned end of the post, continue reading for my thoughts on how to make things more sustainable and less straining!

I am leaving myself some more room in my schedule this month, because I still have to prepare for my convention in June, too, and also because I realise in general, that the tiers I have here on Patreon mean more work than I can actually deliver regularly without burning myself into the ground. It's too much extra stuff that most people probably wouldn't miss much anyway, especially for the $10 tier. Speedpaints are fun but in the end I don't think they're content worthwhile enough to justfiy putting hours of work into editing that I could very well use to work on comic pages instead.

Same with tutorials, I don't believe I have much to teach, I feel more comfortable giving everyone links to other tutorials and references I've found helpful over the years. There's not a lot to learn from me, other sources are much much better and will help you a lot more than I ever could. Making the tutorials does take me a really long time, and again, I feel like that is time that would be much better used working on my own craft, studying things instead of trying to teach things that many other people would be able to teach so much better.

I'm not sure yet how I want to rework the tiers, but some things have to go, I definitely still bit off more than I can chew and it's making me unhappy and robs me of a significant amount of motivation because I look at these tasks on my schedule every day and all they do is make me anxious, haha.

Same goes for the $20 tier. The sketch commissions will have to go. I know that for sure. Everyone who's part of that tier will still get them, of course! Before I close that tier down I'll let you guys know and give you the option to pay whatever remaining amount until you're eligible for your next piece in one go, so you still get your sketch. Or I'll refund you if that's not your jam. We can figure that out for sure, but regular commissions are also something I am dreading at this point, because often I simply do not know where to take the extra time from. I'd rather go back to offering normal commissions every now and then when I know I have the capacity, instead of having them at the back of my mind all the time throughout the year.

I do not believe in the unhealthy grind culture that's propagated all over social media, I despise reading all these hot takes on "if you're not pulling all-nighters all the time, if your wrist isn't in constant pain, if you're not posting a whole new illustration every day, then you're not a real artist and will never make it in the industry" etc.  I don't wanna go into details about that right now, that's a rant for another time, but I've come to a point where I, personally, want to have things a bit more balanced. I've been getting better at not overworking but I still have a tendency to do that, and it's not doing me any favours re: health. You've seen how often I've been getting sick in the last 4 months alone. 

I saw my doctor about that a few days ago and I got an emergency asthma inhaler now in case I start suffocating again, yay! And I have to get some allergy tests done, the chance is high that's the reason I've been getting bronchitis symptoms every other week. That inhaler already saved my life a few times because my breathing has been kinda problematic again the last few days. HOWEVER, I could have gotten this inhaler months ago already, had I not been "too busy to see my doctor I'm sure it'll just go away forever on its own I did kinda rest for a week after all". That thing solves my problem within seconds, but instead I've been waiting until things got so bad that it put me out of commission for at least a week each time. Ridiculous, in hindsight.

And that made me think. Time is my greatest asset. As the wise Mr. Jake Parker said in a video once "every heartbeat you spend, you will never get back. it's gone forever" so we should all strive to use our time as wisely as possible. And I wanna do that more from now on, too. Which is why I have to cut out some work so I can instead spend my heartbeats on work that is more meaningful for me.

So that's where I am right now. I still have to figure out the logistics, but that'll have to wait for a little bit longer because I have to prioritise my energy and time a little bit right now.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on this! If you agree that getting rid or at least reducing the frequency of some rewards would be good if it meant I could put more work into the main comic, which would also mean more updates and more pages for YOU! Or if there's any other rewards you would rather have, because I feel like reception of speedpaints/tutorials etc isn't too great anyway so it seems a bit pointless to spend so much time and work on those things etc! 

So yeah, thank you for reading through my rambling, I'll get back to working on that Kai print now and then back to the comic! The next update is almost done, I should definitely be able to update this week! :D

Cheers! 💜