Projects, Patreon, & the State of Things (Patreon)

Hey folks,It's been a while since I checked in with a sort of general status update. I felt it was about time to do that. This is a long post! Please don't feel obligated to read it. It's just an update to where I'm at creatively. The Patreon itself isn't changing.  It's been a rough few years, not gonna lie. My house burnt down in 2020 and recovering from that loss - not to mention the trauma of it - has been incremental at best. Art, storytelling, and creativity are a personal process, and it's been hard to be immersed in fiction while dealing with a lot of internal and external obstacles. That said, you are all presumably here because you enjoy my work and want to support it. In fact, I don't know what I'd have done these past couple of years without you patrons. This Patreon doesn't make a living wage yet, but makes enough to supplement my freelance work - preventing me from having to take on a truly sanity-blasting amount of client jobs. It gives me a little bit of time and space to recover and to pick at personal projects. So, About those.COMICSI'm not sure where I want to go with webcomics right now. The Beekeeper's Tale is a story I wrote before things went so badly for me, and it's just not clicking right now. I think it's one I'll return to eventually, but now's maybe not the time for it? I really can't say.I've been thinking it might be cool to do a one-person anthology of short comics, loosely tied together with a framing device. That way, I can experiment with different tones and styles without committing to a several-year-long webcomic. If I do this, patrons will receive early access.CLIENT WORK I've been doing a lot of illustrations for other people's TTRPGs lately. The big one right now is Aether Nexus - which is a high-fantasy mecha TTRPG currently on its last 10 days of Kickstater. I'm the lead artist on this, which gives me a lot of creative control and is pretty validating. I have more projects like this lined up. It's exhausting but it can be fun, and currently the it's main way I pay the bills. PERSONAL COMMISSIONSThose of you at the commission tier - or who hired me for comms a few months ago - are likely aware I've lost momentum there. I'll hopefully contact you all individually soon. I took on too much freelance work at the start of the year, and the workload's been catching up to me. They'll get done though.

In Summary I'm burnt out. The future is still unknown. It's been a long road to normalcy, and I apologize for the lack of new comic work but greatly appreciate the support I've received in the meantime. I hope to have new comic projects eventually. Maybe after I can clear my workload and get some proper rest.-Ben