Hello! This is the first post of this kind where $5-and-above patrons get access to the month's chapter in full. I hope you like it.
You can always view the comic on its proper website, wisteriacomic.com!
(One day I'll get around to fixing the now outdated links embedded on the pages...)
Hello!
I was running around yesterday making lists of lists to make sure everything was ready for today. I think it is, so here we go.
I've been talking about my Patreon going in a new direction for a while now; mostly vaguely at first, then a bit more precisely while referring to comics, followed by a big post a week ago to explain things more concretely. Today is the culmination of all that as I publish the first page of the comic I started working on, entitled WisteriA.
It's going to be a long post, but hopefully it will contain everything to answer most if not all questions anyone might have about how this all works. Here's the TL;DR:
If you want more detail than that, read on!
The comic is hosted at wisteria-comic.squarespace.com, and as of this announcement, the first page of the first chapter is available there for reading. Three years in the making!
About WisteriA
WisteriA is a story about a girl named Momo (a name I borrowed from her sometime ago before she got her own comic, as I repeat often to avoid confusion). If you've been following the character file posts I've been rolling out, you already know all the main characters that appear in the first chapter. There are a few more on the way, but like with any story, some of them will only be appearing later...
The title WisteriA was picked for a few reasons, but one of those main reasons is the plant's aesthetic. It's a pretty, almost wistful plant, with lovely colors and a fantastic fragrance (or so I've read. Time to buy and plant a wisteria). There's not too much reference for its flower language meaning, but the few sources I did find have welcoming and wishing wellness in common. Welcoming someone to a new house, place or life, perhaps. Wishing them a safe and pleasant journey. I thought that the way it droops almost makes it look like it's cradling whatever's beneath it, or watching over it. That's just me, of course, but there you have it.
It is obviously based on an existing format of comics, namely the yonkoma or four-panel format so popular in Japan. However, it's read left to right, as you'd expect English comics to be. Left to right, top to bottom.
I hope you'll enjoy reading it.
Update schedule
To confirm the uploading schedule, each month will see 8 new pages posted on the site on Tuesdays and Fridays. This number is also inspired by four-panel works being published in Japanese monthly magazines 8 pages at a time. Partly that, and partly because it seems to be a good workload for me at the moment.
I avoid saying every Tuesday and Friday because it won't be: rather, the current plan is to stick to that 8 pages/month model, with breaks in between updates as needed to keep the schedule. That means a month with four Tuesdays and five Fridays won't see 9 new pages, and posting will only begin after the first Friday, for instance.
To elaborate on that a bit, I was originally planning to start publishing chapter 1 on November 6th, then through to the 30th—eight pages over four weeks, which is a pretty average rate for webcomics. I decided, however, that I wanted to put at least the first page out before November started so that people could know that they're paying for when they pledge here on Patreon. Bumping up the schedule by one week means chapter 1 will now end one week before December.
The website
Naturally I needed an actual website to host the comic on. I opted for Squarespace because it was just the simplicity I needed given the time I had to get everything ready for today. The comic's site itself is fairly simple in design and hopefully it'll be easy to get around when you visit it for the first time.
On that note, I'll probably be switching to a different platform (and URL) fairly soon. The pricing on Squarespace is kind of bad and I'm fairly certain similar results are achievable on WordPress with plugins and such, albeit with a bit more work on my end. Fine by me. So expect an announcement sometime during November about that!
That's it for WisteriA itself. The other half of information that I'm sure everyone's itching for is the details about how Patreon fits into all this.
My Patreon will now be fully supporting WisteriA's creation. Like I mentioned at the beginning of the month when sending out September rewards, those reward packs we're all used to were the last of their kind. The new tiers are as follows:
It's nice to be able to keep things simple this time. The average tier price is at its lowest yet, so tell your friends!
That said, an important note: with the formerly highest valued tier of $7 now gone, you'll need to update your pledge with the new reward tiers in mind. Most patrons have updated their pledges to more suitable amounts since the last change, but there are still a few patrons with $10 pledges. I won't tell you to like, not pledge $10, but make sure you intend it!
I'm glad to finally be sharing the real project that I've been wanting to work on. I guess I can consider the past two years as practice for making the comic more presentable. Then again, most webcomics/manga start out one way and end up looking better over time anyway, so there's that consideration... Regardless, the second best time to get it started is right now, so that's the plan.
Also, along with the first page, there's an introductory blog post on the WisteriA website as well, so you can check that out if you still feel like reading things (it's shorter).
If you have any questions/reasonable suggestions, just leave a comment down there. Otherwise, thank you for all your support up till now, and I hope to see you around in the future.
-momo
2018-10-30 17:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
I am currently working my butt off preparing at least twelve different things for tomorrow. Included in those things are publishing the new Patreon tiers, launching the comic's website and posting the first page of chapter 1. Soon!
2018-10-29 18:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
It's Yaya! She's the last main character who appears in the first chapter.
Yaya is small like Momo but with a more pronounced personality. She speaks her mind fairly readily. She also alters her own clothes, as you'll see by her ribbon and the hem of her skirt. I'm assuming it's all within school regulations.
Her design was a bit last-minute, as I was ready to start storyboarding the first chapter when I realized "wait, I don't even know what Momo's friend looks like." I think it's a design I'll be okay with keeping going forward, though. Like Momo, her style is changeable given her longer hair, and I don't see myself ever becoming disenchanted with her sleepy eyes or tomboyish air.
Here are some additional drawings of her leading up to the look that stuck!
Linnaea takes her name from linnaea borealis, alternatively named twinflower. She's the same age as Mari and they get along well. It's Linn for short!
She's a bit of a pillar of support for the more delicate Mari, though I tried to include a sense of delicacy in her own design, too. She's definitely more prone to the wistful look, it seems.
She was actually the next-to-last character I designed out of all of them, but she gets introduced first here since she appears in the first chapter alongside Momo and Mari.
2018-10-28 17:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
The second character is Mari, who is Momo's upperclassman by one year.
Her design took a long time to come about in a way that I was happy with. I think I had a specific idea in mind, but wasn't able to express it in the design for a while. The look above is a sort of blend of all my favorite elements from previous tries, dating back to around the same time I first started working on Momo.
I couldn't really find any older (or better) snapshots of the process, though I'm sure there must be some somewhere. That "first design" drawing was a recap sketch of my ideas up to that point, if I recall correctly.
Mari is tall and gentle, kind of like an older sister to Momo, at least at first glance. She's even more timid than her, but also has the composure to work through it (most of the time).
2018-10-27 17:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
It's Momo!
She's the first one I worked on designing two years ago. Her look was largely the same for a while until I revisited and updated it in May of this year.
Three years ago, apparently. It's been too long.
She was always meant to be pink and kind of fluffy, with a personality to match. I tried to keep the same idea for the redesign in May, which I think I'm pretty happy with. It has the upside of having the possibility to be styled in a lot of ways, including pigtails like the first designs. What a win-win!
I've already scheduled the other character files for the coming days, so stay tuned to know more.
2018-10-26 17:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello!
I haven't posted in a while—forgive me if anyone's been antsy wondering what's up. I want to finally offer some insight into what will be going on here from now on.
First things first: the tiers published at the time of posting this are not the tiers that will be charged for October. They'll be rewritten before billing begins on November 1, or in the event that I need more time to plan, all payments will be paused until the next payment cycle after that.
What will the new tiers be? Well, I can't talk about them now because I haven't set anything in stone yet, but they're along the lines of "see WIP screenshots, read new content as soon as it's made" and such. Possibly even access to exclusive streams if I manage to set that up, but that's just an idea I may or may not even implement. PSD files won't get their own reward tier, but I'll try to fit them into an existing tier when I have some to give away.
This is kind of the big question. The good news is that I can answer it properly now that I'm as far into it as I am:
I'm making a web comic (title TBA) that will see 8 new pages per month, published twice weekly on Tuesdays and Fridays. I'll be setting up a website for that, which I can't link to yet since... it doesn't exist. But I endeavor to make it so soon. If all goes well, your Patreon pledges will be supporting the comic's creation starting November!
I'm more than halfway through the first chapter right now, sticking to a schedule of one finished page per day. It's worked out well so far, so I think it'll be viable going forward, too. The header screenshot is a sample from the page I finished today.
Making this comic was something I first wanted to do around two and a half years ago, when I was still just tinkering with the idea of a Patreon campaign. I've spent long enough thinking about it and doing other things in the meantime, so now it's time to finally get to it.
That's a shot from the same page I finished today. It's the main character named Momo (whose name I've been borrowing since two years ago)!
Along with all the big changes, some smaller ones will follow.
I just remembered that I never posted those character sketches I said I would, so I'll do that in the days following this post.
Anyway, I hope that was a reasonably concise post. Thanks for your support up until now! I'm excited to be realizing the original vision at last and I hope you'll be around for the new developments to come.
-momo
2018-10-23 12:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello! Actually, I'm sure everyone already gets e-mails notifying them of this, but I sent out the September rewards earlier today. Thanks for another month!
Normally this is where I talk about plans for the coming month, but since I'll be rolling those plans out over the course of October itself, I'll hold off on writing anything extensive here. Not being secretive or anything; I just can't write much right now that wouldn't simply create more questions. So until then!
I do have some drawings though, which I will post here probably over the next few days.
-momo
2018-10-03 01:13:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Here they are!
And to leave nothing up to fate, another reminder:
Here's the post where I first mentioned the change. There are still some patrons who haven't tended to their pledged amount, so make sure it's where you want it to be by the time October 1st rolls around. Thanks!
All right, that's all. I hope you'll look forward to the reward packs.
-momo
2018-09-28 02:02:28 +0000 UTC View Post
I finished this today. That's all of the month's rewards! I'll make the rewards summary in a bit.
I was trying out yet more coloring ideas in this one. I'm not sure if you can tell, but there's supposed to be more grays in there. I've been working on the concept for a while now, but sometimes I forget about it and I'm sure the drawings suffer for it a bit.
Like the others, this drawing will include the hi-res/PSD ($5 tier) and line art ($1 tier).
2018-09-28 02:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey, yo, come on
After what feels like forever (two days), it's done!
I did some different stuff for this one, mainly regarding the coloring. I'll be including the hi-res version/PSD ($7 tier) + process page ($1 tier)!
2018-09-26 02:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello! I've talked about this before, but I made some more changes since then that everyone should be aware of.
First off, the price for the highest tier has gone down from $10 to $7. No one's pledges will change automatically, so you'll have to manually adjust your pledge based on the new prices. The $1 and $5 tiers are the same as always. You have until October 1st!
The second thing is just another quick recap of how this month's rewards will work. I've finished two drawings so far and plan to do two more over the next few days. They'll be split across rewards sets #1 and #2, with two drawings going into each. The $5 tier nets you two of those drawings (and their associated PSDs) and the $7 tier bumps that up to all four drawings.
And... that's it. Hopefully that's simple enough to avoid any confusion.
To finish off the post, I'd like to mention that these tiers and the pricing are extremely temporary, in that I'll be doing a big revamp of my entire Patreon starting next month. Like, everything. I'll be switching over to a different project and it'll be more or less like starting from scratch, so the September rewards are probably the last illustration/PSD-based rewards going out. There will be a lot of time to assess your pledge, adjust/delete it, etc. Nobody panic.Naturally I'll have more details about that later on. I want to plan more and post a proper, comprehensive announcement to try and answer as many questions as I can from the outset.
I did say at the beginning of 2018 that it was going to be a pretty big year. It's finally happening !(?!)
2018-09-24 01:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post
It is finished! It looked okay with just the lines I had, so I worked with it. I changed them quite a bit along the way, though.
Hi-res/PSD ($7 tier) + line art/steps ($1 tier).
2018-09-24 01:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Here are some sketches I intend to work on and finish over the weekend and following week! There's Nana and a rabbit up there, and also this drawing of Sakura because I've been watching the series lately:
I've been pondering whether going with "proper" line art or just leaving them like this. I'll figure it out when I get started in just a bit.
Also, the Nana + bun one made me think of a Fumika and bun duo, so I want to try to sketch that out too. Tomorrow sounds good. That'll be four drawings for September (including Koume from earlier this month)!
2018-09-22 22:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello. I was going to post this yesterday but decided to finally draw some kind of logo for my announcement posts first, since I make so many of them. Now they won't be as bare!
I have a lot of sketches piled up at the moment that I'll go through over the next week to pick some out for finishing. That's the first announcement.
The second announcement is in the title: so that it's not ambiguous as it may have been in the last post where I mentioned it, there won't be any more NSFW/R18 content in the rewards for the foreseeable future. The main reason for it is that I simply enjoy my work more without that obligation.
You'll notice the description for the $10 tier has changed appropriately. I'm aware some patrons' pledges to that tier were based on the adult content involved, so please revise your pledge with this change in mind before the end of the month.
I'm going to post some of those sketches next. This was just to give that bit of information its own post. Thanks for the support up until now!
-momo
2018-09-21 17:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello! I made a logo for announcements in order to make them less bare.
It features this character named Momo, who's made her appearance a few times already. I plan to eventually make variations of this graphic based on other characters from her universe.
Incidentally, I have a bunch of sketches of those characters to post, but not before coloring them first. I'll get to it before the end of the month.
2018-09-21 16:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Hikari of Revue Starlight, sketched today.
2018-09-16 01:00:59 +0000 UTC View Post
It's... Koume!
I forgot to post some WIPs for this over the past week, but here's the finished thing, in any case. I will include both the PSD and line art in the September rewards. Thanks for looking!
2018-09-11 17:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostHello! Happy September, all. I hope summer was fun.
Earlier today I finished sending out August's rewards to all the processed patrons. Thanks for the monthly support and I hope you like them!
I fairly enjoyed not having a NSFW tier to worry about last month, so it might happen again this month too. There's your heads-up about that!
Anyway, stuff I'm working now includes that Koume sketch I posted, plus some work on a handful of original characters. Here's one of them:
And I have a few more in the works. I think I'll be able to post them all this month.
(*´▽｀*)
2018-09-02 18:23:30 +0000 UTC View Post
Rewards! They're here! PSDs all over the place this month. There is no NSFW/R18 tier this month, so I just split what I did have across both tiers.
Line art for the $1 tier includes Koume, Momo and Kirara. Heck, Rika's lines are just a sketch, but I threw them in after writing this because I figured I might as well.
They're going out at the beginning of next month as usual. I hope you'll look forward to them! And I hope Patreon fixed its payment issues from this past month. I'll have to check.
2018-08-28 12:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Finished! Full resolution and PSD in the August rewards...
2018-08-17 21:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
I wanted to make a colorful background too, but here's the bulk of the work for now. I went back to my cel shading roots to see what it's like now that I know a bit more.
I'll include the PSD in the August rewards!
2018-08-10 18:56:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello!
With July done I'm just about done resting up, which means I should be drawing some stuff again. It's nice to know I can pause Patreon anytime I don't have content to release for whatever reason.
My break was ultimately well-timed, seeing as Patreon is running into some problems with payments this month... Hopefully the problem is fixed by September so that everyone's pledges on here or elsewhere are processed smoothly and without any headaches. From what I've read, it's causing people all sorts of very stressful problems.
I wonder if I'll have to move my campaign somewhere else someday.
But until then, I'll be doing my usual thing here, more or less, starting with a sketch today. The character isn't anyone in particular or doing anything in particular.
Summery drawings for summer, naturally.
Also, good news: it looks like I can still draw properly!
2018-08-01 00:21:26 +0000 UTC View Post
