Almost-Half Year Update (Life & Patreon)

Good timezone to all fellow Blades!

I hope everyone's been doing good and okay, as I'm pretty much recovering myself after wild weeks of merch prep and attending both the FFXIV fan event last Saturday, and a game event at a local game shop the next day.

LIFE UPDATE

Among the four events I've tabled, this last one was the best in terms of sales (got to get back the table fee at least) and of course celebrating a niche that I adore. Although I did mention that I will be stopping from tabling for the meantime as this year's events weren't really... eventful and productive on my end. I ended up over-preparing merch stock over the years I've tabled, and over time I've burned out from how I felt my works ended up being almost ignored by the local market.

As much as I've been fortunate that my family supported me in this endeavor, but it felt like a waste of effort and money to see them not getting as much attention nor sales throughout all the events I've been in. I knew I haven't been getting breakevens on events I attend to, that what kept me going was the fact that I'm letting others know my works are here and out there for them to be seen at the very least.

Blush felt like we were out of place and realized they weren't our audience at all. PICOF I was so under-prepared and didn't have new comics in time, and I couldn't sell any of my merch there. PotA on the other hand, happy to see friends who visited, but still felt out of place there like in Blush. HeWo had my niche, but my merch didn't sell as much as I thought they would.

I probably just wanted to inform everyone here to know why I decided to stop tabling for the meantime, but would still like to pursue it again once I'm more confident with my works, like they're capable enough to be out there with how the local audience is a bit of a weird one to please given a lot of certain factors.

Working on those events really took a toll on my end, resulting to my on-off slump that lasted for months, and has affected my drive on drawing as a whole. This affects supposedly projects or works I've wanted to do, like from some OC stuff on my main, to growth drive on my alt and my overall drive for drawing macro there as well. Thank you for understanding, as I myself is still struggling to consider what to do in order to get things out there and get financial support in the long run.

PATREON UPDATE

It's almost half a year since I've started Patreon, and I thank you all so much for all current and previous patrons so far, even if it's only few at the moment. I've only prepared HD and non-watermarked works here of stuff that I posted on my socials, as it was I could offer at the best of my ability, from both my main and fortunately some from my alt as well.

I've tweaked some memberships for now, just leaving the Blade of Shades, the Blade of Growth, and the Blade of the Mimic at the moment. My lack of experience posting WIPs online felt the Blades' Tip membership lacking, as I got too used to posting finished works more due to how the algorithm was being wonky about it over time.

I haven't started on doing the monthly polls as well, as I felt it would be more suitable to do these once there's a bigger number of Blades here, and my drive for it given the hiccups from my slump, hasn't been at my best unfortunately, hence I've only resorted to posting what I've been posting ever since this site has been up.

If anything, do let me know if you have any suggestions on what I may able to do (be in DM or in the comments haha), even if it's something small, or a monthly thing, just so I can show appreciation to everyone's support over time.

P.S. I actually haven't touched what I've earned here yet, as I've been thinking of keeping them as emergency funds or when I need to upgrade my PC at some point next year, so thank you so much for the support ever since!

Thank you thank you thank you so much for at least being around here with me as I eventually go through these for my artworks and random stuff endeavors!

~ Grey