Summer Changes! (Patreon)

Sorry for such a long post. I did not intend for it to be such a big post. There is a TL;DR at the bottom for those less interested. For those who are, read on!

During my holiday I’ve done a lot of thinking and I really feel like it’s time to shake things up again, and since Patreon is cracking its whip again it seems like the perfect time to do so.

First up, the boring stuff. I need to make sure I fall in line with the new Patreon guidelines. As such I need to make sure every post that contains even a hint of sexual content is patron only and that my home page on Patreon does not mention erotic content anywhere. Basically I can’t even mention I am drawing porn. That’ll will be a bit tricky, but I have some fun ideas to work around it.

I’m a bit bummed about my tier graphics as I really liked them. One option would be to censor them but it’s not so easy with the higher tier ones.. I will put them in the archives (as someone suggested) so they can still be enjoyed for their artwork. I will either try to creatively censor them or come up with new versions to replace this set.

Next up, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how my work month is spent. While on holiday it struck me how rigid it all really is. Because of the way my events work, I feel like I never really have time to explore cool new things (except within the Daily Dirties, which are still limiting). I had a lot of fun during my “experimentation” month because I really felt like I could do whatever I felt like, rather than the same old stuff.

I wrote down two words during summer which stuck with me: freedom and fun. The rigidity of some projects made it feel like I was stuck in a grind which was hard to escape from. And while I usually have fun drawing, it can be draining knowing when x amount of work is still waiting which are more important than my own ideas.

Simply put I would like my Patreon to be more fluid. Each month is like a bucket that needs to be filled, but I wanna fill it with water rather than bricks. I want more freedom to be introduced and I want to feel like I have to space to explore and sort of wander off the path, without the worry that my patrons might not like it.

If you’re wondering what I mean, I’ve already been doing this in the experimental month: Wall of dicks, the visual novel animation, the last supper pic… all of these came from acting on something impulsively and following my own curiosity.

The point is: Do I need a monthly theme to have the “excuse” to draw Poison when I just want to draw Poison? The answer should be no. This is pretty radical. It would mean throwing out quite a few things and losing a lot of structure (which I do like). Structure is also good because it gives you an idea of what to expect to get for your buck.

So what stays and what goes? That’s a good question. I want space to create more personal stuff and have the room to explore some ideas. Daily Dirties were meant to be this but it didn’t work in practice. DD’s are too narrow and give me the feeling that I need to create single images and can’t work on bigger stuff. I feel like for now we can do without the concept of Daily Dirties and simply replacing it with me doing art. Same amount of content, less constricted.

Patron Pictorial has been bugging me for a bit. It’s become fairly stale. I’m going to do one more round of it this month without there being a poll. I will simply choose one idea I like and draw it. Next month I will probably phase it out, unless I can find some twist to it.

Sexy School and Wishing Well are still happening, but no longer on Patreon itself. I am moving them to Discord. I will be adding all the proper roles for each tier and creating temporary rooms for each event. A post will be made in the Discord room explaining it more clearly. In the future it will also allow me to hold different kinds of events without feeling like I’m dodging bullets on Patreon.

This does mean you will need a discord account to participate. I realize this is is a hassle for some but its the best solution to keep these events going. Otherwise they would need to be axed.

Picture Polls will be playing a bigger role. We already had one and we will be doing more this month. The ideas that come into this selection can come from anywhere, including my own, from the hotline and from the stream.

Lastly we have the Hotline. An idea I think works perfectly in theory but falls flat in practice. I think moving the hotline to Discord will also improve its functionality as the post won’t move down so much.

In totally other news, I’ve worked through a huge block on the game so I think I will be able to move forward on that front too! (I will make a seperate post soon)

So that’s it. I know it’s a lot to take in (thank you for reading!) and in the coming months I’m sure things will shake up even more.

I appreciate all the support and look forward to lots of lewd this month!

Alba

TL;DR - I am tweaking projects in favor of having more freedom and allowing chance to have more impact on the things I draw. A lot of stuff is also moving to Discord so make sure to link those accounts!