Frank Talk: State of My Patreon

[Leema Har'gachi]

State of My Patreon

Hello, I’m Loren Deerwester also known as Ultimatewkar on Deviantart.com I am an artist and game developer, and I think it is about time I talk about the state of my patreon as well as the state of the projects I’ve been working on. As my patrons know I have been working on a Tabletop Role Playing Game for a long while now and I’ve made a lot of progress on it over the course of the last two years, unfortunately its at a state now that it is going to cause me to have to make some decisions on what to do with my patreon. You see, when I started my patreon over four years ago I had started it with the idea that I would focus on using my art skills to make money to support me, while I worked on my game with the hopes that once I got it far enough along, I could publish content on my patreon and expand my revenue while working on finishing up the projects for the game. Something like a early release, or beta/preview pipeline. About halfway through last year, I felt that I had reached enough on the development of my game that it was time. This actually why I started my twitter and started post my RPG content on my patreon, to actually try to expand not only the amount of patrons interested in my art, but also expand peoples interest in my game. While it has had some success, my average number of month patrons jumped up from 5 to around 10, however it also hasn’t been as effective or increased interest as much as is need. Worse still, last month (January) I produced and published more content in a single month than I had in any single month in the entire four years that my patreon has existed for. But, the amount of money I make for the amount of content I produced makes it pretty clear that this isn’t very sustainable, both in the amount of hours I spend producing content and the amount of money I make through my patreon is far too much for the small amount I am making. It is basically impossible to break out on my own which was one of my intentions behind the patreon when I started as I still live with my family despite having finished college, making matters worse is I don’t have a place to set up my display tablet at home to work on art there and I am forced to go to the library not only just to get access to internet, but to even have the ability to make art. What only makes this hit even harder for me is that I have well over a 100 fallowers on deviantart, yet only a small fraction is willing to support me as patreons which really make the amount of content I’ve been working on feel pointless.

I have hit something of a crossroads, as I found out back when I worked on the piece featuring of Eilistraee, when I don’t produce Giantess transformation or breast expansion art my number of patrons basically goes down to 1 if not 0, this was the case back when I was working on that piece. While focusing on making giantess and breast expansion art is possible, I still only make a pittance for the amount of time put into it and when it usually take you two to three weeks to finish a piece that quickly shows how unsustainable it is, worse yet I at a point in my games development that I need to start making art for it. But, each time I produce art for my game my patron numbers drop, and the game as of right now produces no revenue, yet long term once it releases, it has the potential to very productive. So this has become one giant issue, no of the possible choices are very tenable. If I focus on the giantess and breast expansion art, I am basically throwing able over 10 years of hard work, only to make such a small amount of money that I will never be able live off it. If I focus on working on my game, my number of patrons drop most likely to zero and the art I need to produce for the game will most likely not interest any of them enough to keep them patroning, more over the amount of hours I will need to put into make art for the game is substantial possible taking several months of work, which will be vary exhausting. Especially with the level of detail and polish each piece will need. One of the other options is to do what I have been doing the writing at home and make the giant women art at the library, but as soon as I finish all the books writing it comes back to the issue of making art for the game, worse yet after last month I feel VERY burnt out and the pay isn’t really worth trying to push through it. The Last option is one I HATE with every fiber of my being because it would mean stopping everything I have been doing, everything that I love doing, and just get a normal job which would effectively kill me, I would basically be so exhausted that I couldn’t do anything else and while I would possible get paid enough to live off I would basically be dead inside.

That is the dilemma I face and honest I do not know what to do, I’m tired, exhausted, and frustrated. No option is really idea and no matter what choice I make I really still lose. I will be making several polls on my patreon some time soon, both to get a better idea of what will entice more patrons and to get a better of ideas of what kinds of work arounds I could implement. The polls will be free and open to all, so please when I post about the polls fill them out, they will hopefully help me understand how to make more content that will interest more of you and keep you ladies and gents satisfied.

Sincerely,
Loren Deerwester

[Bhaern Quel]

I was concerned that things were not going well for you. Sorry to know how poorly it has been.

I can not really offer much help. One idea that occurs is a Kickstarter effort, however hard to guess if it would generate much interest or funds.

[Leema Har'gachi]

I was concerned that things were not going well for you. Sorry to know how poorly it has been.

I can not really offer much help. One idea that occurs is a Kickstarter effort, however hard to guess if it would generate much interest or funds.

Yeah, been rather fustrating. Pushing myself to try and attract more people to my patreon while working on the 3D's system has really taken a lot out of me, the only thing I can think of to maintain the content I know they are interested in, but free up more time to work on art for the game would be to make less complicated art (ie. Just line art), but there is no telling how that would turn out. Last month, just really strung me out.