Updates for November and December

Hey everyone! Hope you’re all having a great morning/evening/night.

I thought I would kinda take the time to lay out some changes coming in the next month so that everyone’s on the same page. I’m sure most of you are aware of a pretty significant change already, that I now have an art manager to help keep me organized, on track, and handles the communication between me and clients. This is not meant to separate myself from everybody, the main intention is to answer questions, expedite the process of taking commissions, sending WIPs, and receiving feedback, as well as helping me post updates and finished pieces.

So with that out of the way, here’s the biggest immediate changes coming next month:

• Payment method is being switched to Up-front.
    For those that have been pledged, this isn’t going to change anything. This is partially to ease the confusion of how the billing cycle is set up currently, and to prevent people from trying to snipe high tier rewards and cancelling/reducing their pledge before billing. There won’t be any extra charges on you for this change. The billing cycle coming up on Nov 1st would normally be the billing cycle for October, but instead it will be for November, with this change (which makes more sense, right?) 

• Titanium tier will be reset every 5 months.
    This will be the last month for Titanium tier patrons, and then the tier will be removed for the month of December to give me time to focus on taking/doing commissions, and then relaunched on the start of the year. The cost of the tier is to be determined, but the tier will more than likely be raffled this time, to make it more evenly fair. This is subject to change if we find a more suitable method. 

• Sketch streams are going to be public.
    First three weekends of the month are going to be public sketch streams from now on, and the last stream will remain exclusive to Patreon. Prices will remain the same for patrons, and sketches will be $75 for non-patrons. Stickers will still be available to patrons. 

• Medium detail commissions will be replacing the old sketch commission system.
    The layout will be the same as they are now, where the first week’s slots will be exclusive to titanium and obsidian tier members, the second week will open up to gold tier members, third week will open to silver tier, and the last week will be open for the public. More than likely the slots will open right after the (public) sketch stream ends on Saturday, and picked on Sunday night, and completed across the week, every week.
    In November, we’re doing a “test run” month where each weekly opening will be public, and I will be personally picking which projects I want to work on. We will then resume the planned method going into December.
    The reason I chose to do this is because I feel that people are more interested in purchasing higher quality pieces besides sketches over and over again, and I wanted to offer these opportunities to patrons first and more often, and dropping the lower detailed work to be available publicly. 

• High detail and ref sheet commissions shall resume opening up on a monthly basis
    These were put on hold for awhile since my move back in July had pushed my schedule of course, but these are planned to open up one slot each at the beginning of the month. 

• Monthly sketch requests are being replaced/removed
      Since I’m focusing more on taking commissions, I’m removing the monthly request feature and using spare time to do personal art, fan art or studies to better improve myself.

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 And after hearing your feedback, we decided to implement a cooldown system to prevent the same people from winning slots every week. 

• Cooldowns and bonuses
    For the Titanium Tier, if you are currently a Titanium supporter, there will be a 5 month cooldown. So you would be eligible to try for another Titanium slot every other refresh (On for 5 months, off for 5 months).
    For regular commission openings (high detail, reference sheet, and medium detail), if you were selected for any one of these slots, you'll be on cooldown from commission openings (excluding commission streams) until next month, to give everyone else an opportunity to get something. On the other hand, for each opening that you attempt to get a commission  (Starting with HD/ref sheet commissions) and you aren't selected (To a maximum of 3 months), you will receive one bonus entry for each time you were not selected, giving you a higher chance of being selected overall.  When you are selected for a commission, then that resets back down to the standard 1 entry after the appropriate cooldown period. We will have a separate page elaborating more on this system, as well as a public spreadsheet to keep track of cooldowns and bonuses. 

I hope all of this makes sense, and you guys look forward to the changes! Like I've said before, my main goal is to be as fair as I possibly can be, to everyone and to myself. Thornbird has been a big help in regards to helping me stay on track and making my life a lot easier, so I have more time and energy into put into creating artwork. 

So again, thank you all for your continued support!