Not Dead Yet!

Alright, I've been meaning to post this for the last week, but I kept running out of time or energy. So, sorry about that.

First and foremost, for Patreons, I'm still planning to get you guys a short story this month. Obviously, since I never ran the poll, it won't be The Elven Maid. Instead, I'm going to write a second bit for The Transformation Estate. I was always a tiny bit disappointed that it rarely got votes, as I think what I had planned for it was kinda fun and interesting. But, then, my audience hasn't ever really been TF people, so it wasn't a big shocker that it never got that many votes. Anyway, since this was a paused month and the story is just me trying to do SOMETHING for you guys, I don't feel bad about choosing it ;-).

Now, on to other stuff. As you can all see, I hope, I haven't been 100% idle despite my Patreon being on Pause since December. I've been spending some serious time trying to refine my current level of art, with results such as those of Sari the Succubus pictured above. No, she's not for any project related to this patreon. She's actually for an EXTREMELY long term non-lewd project (Yes, ironic I know. I've drawn a succubus for a non-lewd project -_-) I've been working on in bits and pieces for quite a while. She's only here to show the leap-forward I've made with my art. There's unquestionably still room for improvement, but I think we can all agree that she represents and serious upgrade on even the art from the second Cosplay Cafe release.

Which, as it happens, is extremely relevant! I haven't completely gotten over the stress-induced health issues that forced me to pause for a couple of months, but things are going a bit better. Nothing is 100% certain yet, but there's very good chance I'll be unpausing my Patreon next month and starting with a new update pattern. Patreons will know for certain by the 25th. If I'm not ready to start up again, I WILL pause for another month so they aren't charged. Hopefully, I'll be ready, but there's still a few things up in the air about some potential new work I MIGHT be taking on. If that ends up going through...I might not be able to handle both the new workload and restarting development. In which case I'll pause again. I will make that determination by the 25th.

Now, having said that. What do I mean about a new update pattern? Simple. Regrettably, I cannot realistically spend as much time on development as I used to. I'm a hobbyist developer and pretty darn close to 100% of all patreon funds I've ever gained have gone back into development in some way, rather than into my pocket. In example, the previous couple of months before pausing went directly to helping me buy a better drawing tablet, which has helped a great deal with the art side of things. Would I love to have enough support to make this an actual job? Heck yes! But I don't, so I can't keep spending 20-30 hours every week on development, along with a regular full-time job.

What that means is that if/when I resume development (hopefully next month, see above statements) I will be slowing development on my primary game (Cosplay Cafe). DON'T PANIC, I said primary game. The simple truth is that the new art quality generally takes me 4-5 days per piece of spare time (as it 2-3 hours a day, so 8-15 hours total from first line to post process) to finish a new piece, and I'm also working on fleshing out an actual art portfolio at the recommendation of a couple of artist friends. Apparently, they think Sari here and a couple of other pieces of my work have actually hit the point that I could take low-level commissions. Which, since I'm desperately trying to find alternative income to the jobs I hate, is something I might be pursuing. As a result, updates to Cosplay Cafe will likely now take 3-4 months to complete. 

HOWEVER. In light of that, I've been toying with the idea of creating a couple of much simpler Twine (Sugarcube) HTML games as an ongoing patreon reward. This game/these games would be much simpler affairs that make use of art from existing hentai/repositories, and would purely be for-fun extras that I make to reward my Patrons. They'd probably hit some niches that don't have many games, while still always remaining the same sort of positive-sex non-asshole games that I prefer to make. To this end, I've actually set aside some time this weekend to fully familiarize myself with TWINE, possibly even making a short demo example for everyone to see what I'm talking about. These simpler games would be getting monthly updates whereas Cosplay Cafe would not.

ADDITIONALLY. I will continue the short story rewards! As I have remarked before, I'm actually primarily a writer, not an artist or programmer. As such, these are the one reward I'm 100% comfortable with continuing to make at a fairly quick pace. Assuming I unpause the patreon next month, I will be doing a new chapter of The Elven Maid. 

And...that's all I guess? Hopefully people aren't overly angry I've been kinda absent while the patreon was paused...