Amaranthine (+ some talk)

it is... done...!! one of the few illustrations i've done this year so far T _T it did not turn out how i envisioned it AT ALL but i guess that's fine and also when i first sketched this out i know i had something completely different in mind for the finished piece, which i can't remember?? because it's been half a year since then.

again, this is based on my friend's ficlet, set after the storyline of the heart of thorns expansion, and i love it so much because it healed all my battle wounds immediately!!! T uT)

the colours are super bright, just how i like it, but i feel like i got lost in trying to put too much detail into everything, it makes the end result a bit too cluttered for my tastes, but not to a point that i'd say EW I CAN'T STAND THIS. overall i'm pretty satisfied with the result.

and i hope you like it, too! although i know most of you aren't familiar with guild wars 2 at all. however, if you like MMOs and exploring beautiful, BEAUTIFUL maps, as well as strong lore and playable story parts that start out kinda weak (imho) but get progressively much MUCH better!! +a shit ton of fashionable armour and weapon skins and a loooot of other cool things.... maybe consider giving gw2 a chance! the core game is free to play right now and already offers a lot of different things to do, it literally never gets boring. i'm still at a point where i'm doing 20 things at once and don't know where to start and on my journeys to finish things i keep getting distracted by other cool stuff i wanna do and explore, so it's. really QUITE an experience. (also if you decide to play, pls be on EU server and hit me up in chat XD)

ANYWAY, this isn't what i wanted to talk about actually.

i have decided to make some more minor changes to the rewards, please hear me out:

my initial thought was to post CSP/PSD files & high-res art etc throughout the month, but there are two good reasons imho why that's not a very good approach:

1.) doing that throughout the month means i'd have to post like 3 times in a row whenever i upload a new artwork. 1 post for $1 patrons, who get the basic finished piece, 1 post for $5 patrons who get the step-by-step, and another post for $10 patrons who get the files with all layers. it would clutter higher tier patron's dash with basically the same post 3 times in a row, which is making me cringe so much that i keep putting off posting the higher tier rewards, because i wanna wait a little while to avoid spamming the same stuff multiple times, which in case leads to me forgetting about it altogether because i've already moved on to other projects.

2.) in the past few months it's gotten verrrrry obvious that many people tend to delete their pledge one or two days before their money is collected, which means they got what they pledged for throughout the month but they won't pay for it.
don't get me wrong, i have no beef whatsoever with people changing or deleting their pledge, i FULLY understand that everyone also has bills to pay or that my content might not be enough for them to stay interested enough in financially supporting me. that's absolutely 100% completely alright with me. but i DO have an issue with deleting pledges right before the end of the month because it kinda cheats me out of a valuable amount of money that i, too, need to cover bills and maybe eat. i don't say this to attack specific people, i definitely understand that there are cases where the timing is just unfortunate and they mean no harm whatsoever by deleting/changing their pledge, it's because they HAVE TO. so please please, if you're one of the patrons who had to do that, never feel called out by me talking about this topic!!!
this is about some people who i've noticed doing that a lot. not just here but also on friends' patron accounts. it's a problem in general.
i probably wouldn't even give a damn if i were in a position to live comfortably with what i make but at this point in time i am still very much in a position that i need to be VERY careful with my funds in order to survive and literally every cent counts, i'm not well known or famous or super successful so seeing this small percentage of people who abuse this platform to get what they want and then fuck off is quite disheartening. i'm aware that i could be offering a lot more on here but i cannot work on a broader spectrum of content as long as i'm not at a point where i can afford to set some time and energy aside to get into that! again, i'm not pushing that responsibility away from me completely, it's on me too to figure out plans and schedules but i also need an audience i can rely on in order to make that happen. if i didn't need that, then i wouldn't have made a patreon in the first place. I GOT HEAVILY OFF TOPIC HERE but that's been burning holes into my soul for a while now.

ohmygod i'm rambling too much, let's get back to the ACTUAL POINT OF ALL OF THIS:

i can avoid both the cluttering of the dash (and thus me forgetting about the reward entirely) and the abuse of patreon's payment system by deciding to go about these rewards like i do with the sketch PDF - starting NOW i will be posting the previous months' CSP/PSD files & step-by-steps AFTER i've received the pledges in one post each. in hopes that that'll give me an opportunity to deliver rewards in a timely manner and not forget about them, and that it's more convenient for those interested, to have them all in one place.

i think that's good?? better?? hopefully.

please let me know what you think if there's any feedback or criticism!!

i appreciate all your support very very much and i want to continuously try to improve this platform and what i can offer you and i'm very thankful that you've all been very patient with me ; -;