Merch is live!

Sorta. ^^;

The Vanilla Velvet store on Spring is finally up and running, with a bunch of stickers available if you'd like to cover your world with more Velvet! Almost all of the issues with youtube integration have been solved, but I'm waiting on the last little finicky bugs to get fixed so that the merch shelf can go up properly. (For instance, there are multiple listings of some items in the storefront. Why? Search me! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

In the meantime! Patrons of all tiers get early access to the shop, and I come bearing a discount code: use EARLYBIRD at checkout to get 20% off your order. 🙌 The code is good until November; I'll eventually set up a proper permanent Patron-only code, but for now if you want a sticker, use EARLYBIRD as a special thank you discount!

If the stickers prove popular enough, Spring will allow me to unlock other merch production like keychains and such. So that's pretty neat!

Now that the store is up and running, I can start planning to properly license thumbnail images to release character merch. That's the official goal for 175 patrons and while I know we're quite a ways from that point, it never hurts to prepare early. (See also: I'm currently poking around looking for original thumbnail artists for when we hit 75 patrons!) 

Plus I'm already hard at work making some bonus chibi art of some of the more popular characters:

(Art by me using Nukababe's chibi bases; someday I'll master the art of the chibi. That day is not today!)

...which may eventually be released in merch form. 🎉 The legality is a bit tricky in some cases. I don't want to infringe on stock artists' copyright, so it'll take awhile to figure everything out so that it's all above board.

When is a character design sufficiently different from the published stock to qualify as an original design? That wolf girl didn't have ears and fluff and my chibi design is quite different from the original stock aside from color scheme. Is that enough? Is a blue haired girl in a purple hoodie generic enough to not be copyright infringement? That sort of thing.

Anyway! I'm really happy to have finally got this all squared away. I was starting to worry I wouldn't be able to deliver on my own time table, so I'm relieved that wasn't the case! If you've been wanting merch, I hope you enjoy what the shop has to offer! 

And remember: buying merch is optional! Please, only grab some stickers if you really want them. I'm serious. I'm just as happy to have you in my comments on youtube as I am to have you in my shop! Promise. 💖