Big apology, rant and a thanks

So I want to say it again, I'm really sorry for the delays, and I guess this time I want to rant and explain what has been happening on my side, and why I can't post that much...

My issue started last year, in december. My living situation wasn't the best, I lived all my life in my family's house, which was small, and I had to share a room with TWO sisters most of my life. My room was 1/3 of a room, separated by some sort of fake wall, I had no door, and even though I put some curtain later, I never had any sort of privacy. I had a small window, for airflow, but there was none, because on the other side there was a roof and lots of random crap that my dad hoards, not even a nice view. I coulnd't see the sky, it was like, the worst bunk you could get in a jail lol.

I love my family, but living in a small house isn't fun, particularly when we are all adults and we all have our own times.  My sisters were quite helpless too, laudry? nah, doing dishes or cleaning their room? nah, cooking? nah, it was mostly my dad and I the ones doing it.

So, the only times I could work, was when both sisters were at school and my dad at work. Last year one of my sisters moved to her own apartment, so it was slighty better..

The times I couldn't work, was when my whole family was at home, loud music, no privacy, sisters inviting lots of friends, etc, therefore I couldn't have the peace I needed to work on art. But it was fine as long I had a schedule to work while my family was gone most of the time...

Last year, I worked quite well, I was dreaming about moving into my own place, so I was saving money.

Now in December, I was kind of worn out.. and in this side of the hemisphere, December is summer, therefore sisters and dad had vacations, so, working became difficult as usual. However, I took a couple of commissions because I thought I could do it, just keep it up til March... because that was the month I picked to have the first vacations in the last 6 years (now 7), but it was a terrible mistake, I should have taken the vacations on December, as I couldn't work, and being worn out I needed a break..

Anyway, I did take a break, where I spent most of the days gaming, so I decided to pause the billing cycle on Patreon during January, to catch up with December stuff, first two weeks were quite good, I worked a lot.. so much, that I injured my wrist for the first time of my life, and it prevented me to draw for weeks.

Meanwhile, I was looking at apartments to move in, since that was my plan, It took me a while til I found one... during February, I could work, but I had to take it easy, to let wrist heal, since the pain would come back rather quickly, so art was coming slowly.

By the time I found the apartment, and the real-estate agency aproved all the warranties and things needed for me to sign the contract, it was mid March... they told me to go sign the contract the next day, a Friday... FINALLY, I was gonna be able to move, to have my own place, all the problems I had were gonna be gone. But that same night, Goverment announced a full lockdown for 2 weeks, keep in mind we only had like 100 infected at the time, so it was a very unexpected decision at the time, but understandable, living in South America, they had to take action earlier or it would have been quite bad.

Nonetheless, this was quite bad news for me.. but 2 weeks didn't seem too bad, however, my country was already dealing with a crisis, I had money saved (Argentine Peso / ARS), ready to be spent for all the things I needed for the apartment, but the peso started to lose value quite fast, and everything I wanted to purchase, started to go up on prices, so I was losing hard earned money. My anxiety started to grow.

Worst part is that, the sister that had an apartment, just happened to visit us that Thursday ( no idea why), and she got stuck there because of the full lockdown... so whole family party at small house, and not being able to go out for fresh smog in my city, it wasn't too fun. 

When we were reaching the two weeks of full lockdown, the  goverment announced that they were gonna extend it ANOTHER two weeks.... then after these two weeks, ANOTHER TWO ONES, then other two ones again!. In these months it was impossible for me to work, I kept losing my savings, due peso devaluation (and I'm aware that many of you also lost a lot due COVID), and my hopes to move were starting to be gone, and motivation to do anything was dead. It's one of the reasons I paused Patreon during April and May.

Finally, after two months, goverment allowed real-estate agencies to operate again with protocols, I could sign the contract, and I started to move... it took me like a month to move, had to take a loan to afford a couple of things too thanks to the devaluation. And then I started to try to work again.

I had months to catch up, and as you can see, I still have a lot to catch up, I can't fix this no matter how hard I try.

And then I started having another issue, I can't go into full details and explain everything because I'm no economist and I don't know everything, but basically, goverment put very strict restrictions to money exchange, due my country lacking of reserves (In USD), and I'm unlucky that I work with ppl that pay me in foreign currency (this restriction applies to everything,so Euros or Pounds, it would be the same)

Apart of restrictions, there's normatives, the worst one is the fact that, whenever I charge someone (I have to report this income to my tax agency, like I always did), I have to repatriate the income within 5 days... the transaction takes between 3 to 5 days, therefore, whenever I get the money in PayPal, I have to make a receipt for tax agency and initiate the transfer....the bad thing is that I pay $10 USD + VAT per transaction, so Imagine this, if i work with 5 different customers in a month, it means that I have to make 5 transactions, and I would lose a lot of money. This made difficult to work on sketch commissions as well... so I tried to have all of my customers to pay me on the same day, which is also difficult because some people can't pay, issues arise and it's understandable..... another bad thing about this, is that I can't refund anyone anymore, goverment forces me to repatriate the income, and restrictions doesn't allow me to put USD in my PayPal account if I wanted.... These restrictions were done thinking about the big corporations/exporters that make millions of USD,  so they are forced to repatriate the USD, so Argentina has more reserves... but independent workers like me, that earn like 1k USD a month and not millions.. we aren't exempt to these normatives either, because we don't even exist for the goverment.

And nowadays I'm having another problem, the whole exchange rate by doing it with the "Official dollar".... we have different prices for dollars... my country is a mess, and again, I don't want to explain, but, I get about $65 pesos per dollar after fees and taxes, however, If I want to buy 1 usd, I have to pay like $136 because it has a huge TAX to it... so, goverment takes my USD and gives me $65, but if you want USD goverment forces you to pay $136 for them, very fair right? (Also I can't actually buy USD because other sort of restrictions, and the people who can get those USD at 136 ARS, are allowed to get a max of 200 usd a month)

Apart of that, we have import fees as well, I'll put an example, if you want a tablet that in the US costs $250 USD.... it's costing $800 - $1000 USD here., thanks to the taxes on currency exchange and import fees ... plus sellers having to earn money, plus also inflating the price more "just in case" cause peso loses value on a daily basis. 

So you can imagine, that whatever I earn, doesnt feels rewarding anymore. I have been trying to find for alternatives, PayPal isn't a good option for me anymore even though I'll still use it, but I'm looking at crypto currency, I can exchange them for pesos, and I get a much better exchange rate.... 

Anyway, all of this that I have been explaining, is big part of the issues that I had to deal with, and the ones I'm dealing with now, but not all of them. I know that a bunch of you might be having a rough time as well. I don't want anyone to feel bad about me either, I just wanted to explain, and apologize about why art has been so slow. I really hope things could normalize at some point once more, and I can work in peace.

I feel guilty as fuck because you all pay money, and I take months to deliver what I was supposed to deliver, but I thank you all for being patient with me, you are great and I appreciate your support a lot. 

I will pause the billing cycle in January to catch up with everything that I have to catch up. I imagine it will be a better year :P