Journal on Patreon stuff, NSFW art, VN Project, etc.

HI EVERYONE! I hope you all had a great May, and that you'll have an awesome June!

I've been doing well this past month!  Nothing too crazy, I did get my two vaccine shots so I was finally able to see my family recently.  Still being cautious with everything, of course, but I feel a bit more relaxed about seeing my parents.  Oh, I started working out recently!  Not very consistently/hard, but I will slowly become stronger.

✦ NSFW Content on Patreon

I think this has been a thing for a year or so, but Patreon has been cracking down on NSFW content.  I'm probably okay since I draw a lot of ecchi/vanilla art, but I have a NSFW-only account over on Pixiv's subscription service just in case something happens.  I hope I don't have to restrict my Patreon account to SFW-only, but I'm just giving y'all a heads up.  If it ever does happen, I'll make another post and DM everyone in the R18+ tiers about it.

✦ Past NSFW Art Collections

I got a bit lazy with these, but I finally put on 2019 and 2020's NSFW art over on Gumroad.  I'll start uploading 4-month packs as well, so January-April's NSFW art will be up there shortly.

Gumroad Store → https://gumroad.com/chocojax 

✦ Patreon Reward Folders

In case anyone's curious about this, I try to upload the high-res versions of the illustrations into the reward packs as I post them.  So, I won't really announce "hey, June's folder is fully completed!" but instead will write something like "this illustration has been uploaded into June's folder" in the art post.

✦ Notifications for the Art Poll Suggestions

I forgot to post about it last month on Discord, but I've put a reminder on my calendar to write something like "yo, you can submit for next month's poll now!" in the #patreon-announcements channel.

There's not much I can do on Patreon's side, but I'm starting to schedule out the suggestion posts so that they're posted on time.  Those are supposed to come out roughly 5 days before the end of the month, and if you don't see it, feel free to prod me about it on Discord/in the patron-only channel.

✦ Live2D Art?

I believe the last time I mentioned this, I said I wasn't sure if I should approach it as a monthly thing, or as a every-couple-months thing.  So, to finalize it in a way, I'll start doing the Live2D versions of the poll art again, but it'll be restricted to every 4 months.  At one point, I'll look back and see which piece has the most likes on Patreon after a month, and then I'll make a short animated version of it.  The Live2D files will be available in the folder, and patrons from that month will be notified about it.

AND SO!  The set of four I'll be looking at is:

• Keqing - January 2021 - 8 likes
• Camilla/Wiz outfit swap - February 2021 - 4 likes
• Pecorine eating BK chicken fries - March 2021 - 4 likes
• Mata Hari & Gudako having tea - April 2021 - 2 likes

And since Keqing has the most likes, I'll work on the L2D version... in a week or so... hahah.

✦ General Art & Work Things

Been in a tiny rut about my artwork, but I think I'm heading out of it.  I... FEEL... like I've talked about this before, but I'm too lazy to look through my past journals to see if I've mentioned it.

I have a lot of elitist ideals that I have to work my way out of, one of which is not allowing myself to use any sort of pose that I see from illustrations.  I've been struggling with interesting poses for my pieces, and then it clicked.  I'm ALLOWED to get inspiration from other people's poses, just don't copy it 1:1 'cause that's bad, obviously.  So, maybe my poses will look more interesting?  I don't know, but it'll probably help.

I'll also try to draw more NSFW stuff (cough), I just uh... I just gotta push myself to do it, 'cause usually I don't give myself a lot of time to draw personal stuff.

AND ON WORK!  Work is going good, I think I finally figured out my groove?  Before the whole VTuber blow-up, I just took on commissions as they came in, which led to a long list of things I had to work on.  It took longer than I thought, but after about half a year, I finally implemented a wait-list and restricted how many commissions I'd work on at a time.  It's a process, but I think this works a lot better for me.  Maybe.

✦ Visual Novel Project Update

Yay!  Applications closed a long while ago, and I've got 2 writers on the team.  Planning is almost done, and the prologue is being written.  I'm working on the character designs, but they're very rough and need to be polished.  I'll try to do a short writeup on what we have on characters & designs within the next few weeks, for anyone who's interested!

ALSO!  Since this project counts as something that I'm heading, I'll list 2*+ patrons who's supported me on Patreon since "the start of the project" (April 2021) to the month of public release.  It'd be unfair to only list the patrons on the month of release, so I'd like to thank everyone who supports me throughout the time of development.

✦ The End

And that's all I have to say for now!  I might've left some stuff out, BUT I'LL SAVE THAT FOR THE NEXT JOURNAL!  Have a safe June, everybody.  :D