Life update + Changes to Patreon

Job search and family matters:

Both my brother and I did some follow up calls to the job we applied for this month (to confirm that they received our resumes and if there was an update on its status) and they started doing evaluations last week, though they couldn't give an estimate on how long it would take. They've yet to contact us themselves and my family (brother included) has been bugging me to call them back again. They gave us the same answer this week. It's best that we start sending out resumes to other places again as soon as possible.

On a side note, our family has been slowly trying to remodel the house and clean things up. I bought a new kitchen faucet a couple of days ago, though we still need to buy paint to repaint the entire house (both interior and exterior), as its been in a state of neglect for many years, among other things. This means that I've had to put my plans to get a new mattress on hold. After that, we bought some new tiles for the sink that I've been pushing our stepdad to finish because it's been well over two years or so since he had started working on it. Spent most of that day sanding and cleaning it, as well as one of the kitchen walls that will be tiled and repainted alongside the rest (though he doesn't have strong enough scraping tools, so it's been taking longer than it should.

We finally bought some new doors for the house before yesterday. I was going to help pay for them, but it seems that at some point our grandpa decided to just pay for all of them since he also needed to get some doors for his house. My brother didn't help much at the time; he pretty much just went to sleep a while after we carried the doors upstairs. I had to stay up to help set it up, put up with our parents' bickering, and do some other errands, despite having only slept for 2 hours or less. My brother didn't help me sand down the area of the kitchen wall that's going to be tiled, despite saying he would. Had to stop after a while due to our parents bickering. (I've still got a bit of a headache from all of that.)

Changes to Patreon:

I've kept trying to catch up with my workload during the past year, but despite doing all that I currently can, I've yet to make a significant difference in what I've been able to finish off. As of late, I've felt that the only way for me to actually catch up at this point is to change how I handle things, including what I offer, so the work doesn't keep piling up twice as fast. Before I go into any specific details, I would like to let you all know that this will not affect any pending drawings and you'll still receive them when I'm able to work on them.

To help alleviate my current and future workload, I have decided to make the following changes: 

• Temporarily disable tiers 3-5 (Cosmic, Astral, and Dimensional Journals).
  - There haven't been any pledges for these lately and I already have a lot of past rewards to catch up with.
  - If/when these tiers return, I might offer different rewards that hopefully won't be affected too much by my overall workload and rl.
  
• Changes to the currently available monthly goals.
  - Monthly Goals #2-4 (Growth Sequence, Single Character, and Double Character polls) will no longer be available. This won't affect any of the pending rewards for these goals.
  -- Growth sequences as a monthly goal became a chore at some point, despite them being done with just lineart and flat colors. The way the polls for them worked was also rather messy, now that I look back on it. Even if a poll for them doesn't exist, it doesn't rule out that I might make new growth sequences in the future once I'm comfortable enough with tackling them again.
  -- Single character polls were one of the most popular polls I've offered, next to the monthly body type ones. Like body type drawings, these were also done fully shaded and included a background. I already quite a lot of these to catch up with.
  -- Double character polls were the least favorite and active of all. With barely any votes/suggestions per month, these practically faded into obscurity. The only times they picked up any traction were when the character pairs were already preset and people simply had to vote for whichever of the options they liked.
  
• New monthly goals that won't interfere with my current workload will be added. Some of these will simply be milestones for those who might want to help me remodel my family's home and pay monthly bills.
  - Monthly Goal #2: Drawing Streams
  -- This guarantees that I'll make at least 1 drawing stream for the month it was reached. Since my internet was fixed and the speed upgraded, it should be feasible to do these without any complaints or interference from my brother, who would constantly barge into my room and complain that the bandwidth got too slow and/or would unplug the router to "fix it".
  -- Unlike previous streams, these will be announced beforehand to give Patrons a chance to attend them. If I need to reschedule due to technical difficulties (ie. internet or electricity going out) or rl matters, I'll make sure to update the stream announcement post with those details.
  -- These streams will mainly aim to provide live progress on any pending work (as long as it's not a private commission/reward).
  - Monthly Goal #3: Phone Bill
  -- This is the total amount that needs to be paid to cover my family's phone bill per month.
  -- Having a phone plan allows me to stay in touch with my family and potential jobs after sending resumes, as most of them prioritize phone numbers over email addresses.
  -- Thanks to our current phone plan, I'll be able to get online through my phone whenever the power or the internet goes out. This means that I'll be able to keep you guys updated and still be able to upload new content whenever that happens.
  - Monthly Goals #4-6: Appliances
  -- These are home appliances that need to be replaced, such as the fridge, stove, and washing machine.
  -- Each appliance's goal will state the condition of the one my family currently owns and list an average minimum price of the cheapest available option for purchase. (Tax included)
  -- A FAQ post that includes further details (ie. store, screenshots of the flyer, regular price, etc.) on these will be made and linked in the goal descriptions soon.
  
• Try to make new exclusive sketches more often.
  - Originally, I would upload these at my own leisure, though I lost track of them at some point. Perhaps once a week or every two weeks would help?
  - I'm sure that I've piled up quite a few sketches that I've yet to show on here, which I intended to upload as part of the sketchbook rewards (aka unseen sketches). I'll be going through my files and double checking to make sure they haven't been posted before.
  
• Figure out what to do with the Discord server.
  - The Discord server is open to all patrons, though it's seen better days. As of late, there has only been some brief activity in it if I happen to make a message on it (usually when it's in regards to a general update or drawing WIPs). This server was made for everyone, so you're all free to chat and share ideas, though I know you can't force anyone into having a public conversation if they don't want to.
  - Maybe I could hold some live AMAs (Ask Me Anything) on there? I'm not sure if there's any interest in that kind of thing, though I feel like it might get more traction if it's on-site through a post's comment section.
  - Feel free to leave any suggestions on what other things I could do with it.