Everblue

Health Situation Update!

Good news this time!

After months of chronic pain and doctors visits since December, I think I've finally gotten to the bottom of this! It took me forever to convince them to get me a CT scan, but they did at last and found out I have impacted wisdom teeth.

If this is what's been causing my health issues, I'm glad it's not something worse. Mystery pain and illness can make your mind go to dark places. But now I have a path to fixing all of this -- I just need to schedule an appointment with a dentist, get the wisdom teeth removed and recover. It shouldn't be much longer now!

I'm sorry that all of this has affected my ability to work regularly. I appreciate the continued support because I don't think I would have been able to get through all of this without it. I'm looking forward to getting my health back in order and being able to get more pages done and do things like stream and take on bigger workloads again!

Adobe Software Alternatives

Quick Links for all the software mentioned here:

Freeware and/or Open Source:
PS:  GIMP | Krita | Photopea | MyPaint | Paint.NET | Sketchbook | Fire Alpaca | Medibang Paint
AI: Inkscape | Vectr
IN: Viva Designer | Scribus
AN:  Blender | Open Toonz | Pencil 2D  |  Wick Editor | Synfig*
LR:  RawTherapee | Darktable
DW:  Blue Griffon | Brackets | Aptana Studio
PR:  Davinci Resolve 15 | Hitfilm Express | KdenLive | Shotcut
AE:  Tracktion 7 | Audacity 

Affordable and/or No Subscription Necessary:
PS:  Affinity Photo | Clip Studio | Corel Photo-Paint | PixelMator | Paint Tool Sai | Paintstorm Studio
AI:  Affinity Designer | Corel Draw | BoxySVG | Mischief
IN:  Affinity Publisher | PDFelement
AN:  Cacani | TVPaint Animation | Moho Pro | ToonBoom Harmony
LR:  Capture One  |  Luminar
PR:  Davinci Resolve 16 | Hitfilm Pro | Vegas Pro
AU:  Reaper 

 
*Synfig's performance is currently pretty bad on Windows, so I can only recommend it as an Animate alternative on Linux.

Did a post on Adobe alternatives that blew up on Twitter somehow xD. Decided to do an updated version since I found a bunch of really nice alternatives and remembered some I left out.

I completely forgot about Blender's new 2D/3D hybrid animation features, which have been used to produce amazing animations like the animated short "Hero", using just the tools available there. I've used Blender's grease pencil myself for animation and it's only getting better with time (the upcoming version 2.8 is looking fantastic). A very unique and promising alternative to Flash/Animate. 

Brackets is a great alternative to Dreamweaver, especially for web developers. It's got a real-time preview that destroys Dreamweaver's because it uses your installation  of Chrome or a separate browser and not something reliant on the software to be up-to-date with web standards. I'll be using Brackets for any redesign I need to do on the site.

Kdenlive and Shotcut are fantastic alternatives to Photoshop's video editors. I left these out of the previous graphic because I didn't think I had enough room, haha. But seriously, if you need to cut some video together, whether it's OBS stream recordings or a time-lapse drawing, I highly recommend these two open-source programs. I personally use Shotcut for all my video editing!

Patreon Payment Errors

Patreon posted some news today that some people's payments may have been declined in error. If you're worried that yours hasn't gone through, they've advised that you double check your payment settings here.

I definitely noticed an abnormal amount of declines today: 18% compared to an average of 1% this year. So if you think yours got declined, it might be a good idea to double check your settings, because it's likely that happened across all the creators you support.

Sorry for the trouble! I wish there was more information I could provide, but that's all I know about what's going on :<

Good News!

Patreon announced that misguided new fee structure won't be happening now!

It still stings knowing that they were planning on it at all, but at least we know the voices of creators and patrons alike can be heard on this platform.

Thankfully I won't be needing to do anything complicated with the tiers to counteract Patreon anymore. $1 will still be $1, and payments will remain aggregated for the foreseeable future here, making things simpler for patrons, and that's really what I cared about. This site should be something that makes supporting as many creators as you want easy, not some kind of exercise in complicated budgeting and timing of payments.

I won't be thanking Patreon for basically pulling the rug out from under you guys and then carefully slipping it back, but it is a start, and I'm glad someone there is listening.

New Lower Pledge Tiers Incoming!

With the news that Patreon may be changing the billing model by this month, I've come up with a new set of lower price Tiers to cover the extra fees for you. These aren't up just yet because there's been a huge backlash by Creators and Patrons alike at this news - with any luck and pressure from the community Patreon may reverse their course on this one.

However, in the event this change actually does go through sometime this month, I've got your back!

As for $1 Patrons, since this is a monthly page, Patreon won't let me create a Tier below $1. I could see a solution being to reimburse Cadets $1.20 through PayPal every three months, or $0.40 every month, but that would require everyone to have PayPal, so it's not a perfect solution.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think! Thanks so much for your support over these years! You've all kept this ship afloat!

$500 Goal Reached!

We finally hit the No Ads goal! As promised, I'll be removing the remaining ads from the site and trying to come up with a good way to use that extra space in the sidebar XD.

Thanks so much for your support, everyone!  The next two sketch pages should be up here for you to read this week, sorry for the wait on those!

Patreon Reward Index 2016

Since Patreon doesn't have any kind of archive, here's a list of all the non-sketch-page Patreon Rewards available so far!

Freebies

Manga Studio 5 Pencils | Patreon Wide Monitor Theme |

All Patrons

The Order of Chaos | Angelique's Shop 3D Model |

Future Chapter Concept

Wallpapers ($5+ Tier)

Volume 1 | Feathers | Summer | Flying

Resources ($5+ Tier)

Leaf Brush | Stone Texture | Shading Markers |

Wood Floor Pattern | Ice Brush | Ch4 Pg 49 PSD

PDFs ($10+ Tier)

Chapters 1-3

Resource Packs ($20+ Tier)

Foliage Pack | Versatile Pack | Floral Brushes |

Sketch Pack | Simple Pack | Quick Actions

Let me know if any of the links aren't working right! Thanks! :D

Patreon Theme for Wide Monitors

I didn't like the new Patreon layout, so I made a new one that shows two posts side-by-side XD. It was just a huge waste of space before, especially on wide monitors. This will work on all Patreon pages, not just Everblue :)

If you have Tampermonkey (Chrome), or Greasemonkey (Firefox) for your browser, you can install my custom theme from right here.

You can also simply paste my CSS into the Edit CSS section of Stylebot for Chrome when you open it on Patreon.

Freebie - Clip Studio and Manga Studio 5 Pencils

Here are some free pencils for everyone :). Happy New Year!

Full-Time Plans!

We're closer to the full-time goal than I thought we'd be at this point, and I just wanted to post my overdue plans for when we reach that :).

This calendar is tentative as I'll probably be adding more work onto this as I figure out how much I can handle. I started with conservative time estimates to be safe.

Friday will be the new Update day, I'll have more time for scripting and development, working up a buffer of sketches, thumbnails, and eventually completed pages, which will all be made available for advanced viewing here :3. I'll also have some extra time to work on prints, wallpapers, and various Patreon things, which means more rewards for you guys.

If you help out by sharing the comic and this Patreon on your various social networks, I'm confident we can reach the full-time goal even sooner. As soon as we hit that goal, I'll give my two-weeks notice at work and start transitioning over to full-timing Everblue. Even being this close to that dream is surreal to me, but I couldn't have done it without you guys and I certainly can't make it the rest of the way without you either :D.