Bikupan
patreon
Update - 22nd March, '17
🕑 Added 2017-03-22 14:00:38 +0000 UTCHello everyone! I'd like to take a moment to outline some changes coming to this patreon very soon. If you have any thoughts on this, I'd love to see your comments.
Weekly Format switchup
I've realised that doing weekly illustrations and the occassional animation isn't all that fun. It's not a complete chore either, but I'd like for this Patreon page to represent work I'm passionate about. So, I will be switching up the format a bit.
Every other week will feature an illustration poll, with suggestions provided by higher tier patrons. Much like last week's animation poll. The remaining two weeks of the month, I will present a poll based on a more long term project. This project will change over time, but expect things like short comics or sequences featuring my characters, or choose-your-own-adventure style content.
This format will begin next week! I hope you look forward to it.
New pledge tier & requests change
I will be introducing a new pledge tier for 15$ at the start of April and sketch requests will be migrating to this new tier. With this, the sketch requests will also become equivalent to my 1-hour live commissions. It's also worth noting that it's 5$ cheaper than my actual commission rates, so consider it a monthly subscription to a live commission, at a discount. Naturally the requests for March will continue as usual for all 5$ patrons.
Here's some examples of what they may look like:
That's it for this update. Thank you all again for your continued support, and I hope you like these upcoming changes! Have a good one!
Comments
Bikupan
Good question. You can at any point after the month shift (April 1st and onwards) up your pledge to match the new honey tier. After some consulting, in the end I settled on 20$ for this tier. So once you upgrade, you will be charged the difference for that month, so 15$ in total, and the subsequent months after that you'll be charge the full amount of the tier you're on as usual. You can upgrade at any time, just make sure to do it after the month shift, so I'd say wait 12h or so from the time of this reply. It's just I don't know which timezone the Patreon servers go by, so might as well be cautious and make sure it's April all around the world first.
furofletters
What's the correct way of going about this if we'd like to sign on to the new $15 tier and are migrating from the $5 one? :)
aabsurdity
Sounds good to me. I think the system is still open to some level of abuse if someone pledges to tier A, you deliver and then they switch to tier B, but I honestly don't think Patreon know what they're doing anyway and that patrons and artists just need to sort things out between themselves, no matter what Patreon says
Bikupan
Alright! Update, I'll make a proper post about this later in the week so it's up front and clear. I just "verified" this patreon, which allows for upfront payments. It basically makes payments work the way you described. Mar 1 payment is for March, April 1 payment is for April etc. If you switch up your pledge mid-month, you are immediately charge the difference, and can partake in your new tier rewards.
Bikupan
Yeah, that is weird. I've very little experience on the pledger side of patreon. But just from like.. my interfaces and looking at the transaction history, Patreon does categorize the payment at the first of the month, as payment for the previous. So "Febuary 2017: payment processed Mar 1". Not making an argument if that's how they should do it, just reading it as I see my dashboard. I'll dig around a bit, see if I can find something to make more sense of it, otherwise I'll stick to the Mar 31 plan. Regardless of pledge, everyone should still have what they paid for at the end of the month. And new patrons have been able to jump aboard mid-month before so it *should* work.
aabsurdity
I think I've heard that, but it's never made any sense to me. Patreon can be set to bill only at the start of a new month or to bill immediately. If it's set to bill immediately, then if you created the new tier now and I joined it, I'd get billed $15 once now, and $15 again at the start of April, so the $15 I paid right now would be for work you should have delivered in February and the $15 charged in April would be for work you should have delivered in March (which makes no sense). If your Patreon is set only to bill at the start of the month then I could join on the first day of the month and pay nothing, but you'd have an obligation to draw me something so that when I paid in April, it would be for the sketch I received during March. However, once I received a sketch during March I could withdraw my pledge and pay nothing in April, ripping you off. Again this makes no sense. Patreon only makes sense to me if I pay $x on the first day of the month and you then become obliged to deliver me a sketch during that month. That's how I've always expected it to work and it's how I've always worked things with all the other Patreon campaigns I've joined.
Bikupan
ah, yeah, I see your point. It's worth noting tho that when payments are processed, it's for the previous month (with the exception of new patrons). So when payments process April 1st, you're paying for what you got in March. However, I think I will introduce the new tier Mar 31st in that case, and at the start of April, lock sketch requests to that tier. That way, people should be able to change up their pledge mid-April and still be eligible.
aabsurdity
If you wait until April, ie after we've paid for another $5 payment, I think the idea is that you'll have to continue the $5 sketches next month and won't be doing the $15 sketches until May. I'm cool with you introducing the $15 tier right now. I'll increase my pledge before the end of March and get a $15 sketch in April. If you want to give patrons some time to adapt, perhaps make both the $5 and $15 tiers available in April, and withdraw the $5 tier just before the beginning of May. Did that make sense?
aabsurdity
Agreed. $5 has usually seemed very cheap for the quality of sketches we get for it. $15 is a more comfortable amount.
Norman A. Letterman
That all seems like pretty sensible changes. $5 sketches do feel quite cheap by your quickly increasing standards.
