Onyrica

Update // November who?

Added 2023-11-02 09:18:04 +0000 UTC

You know how I usually start these updates with a reference to the month, the weather or something equally banal? I just realised I’ve got nothing for November. Like, what even is this month? It’s not quite spooky, it’s not quite Christmas even if we keep rubbing up against reams of tinsel on our way to get toilet paper and the only thing remarkable about it is that they once again changed the clocks and made us all sad.

November really is the middle child of the year, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, October was the lousy younger sibling who wouldn’t stop poking me in the ear insisting I pay attention to it. We started off by catching a severe case of covid, which thankfully dissipated just in time to attend Fanfest and finally break my back at MCM Comic Con. And I won’t lie- the later two were insanely fun. I got to meet so many people, including many of my patrons, and actually be part of something I truly love and that has fueled my work for so many years. Exhausted as I am, I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.

Not pictured: 30 days of sleep deprivation, hidden by 2 tonnes of spackled on concealer

Now, on the flipside, the amount of things that had to sit on the backburner for the whole of October is sitting in a teetering pile, threateningly swaying as I slowly try to jenga my way through it. This update will do its best to cover most of it, but if I leave anything out please feel free to DM me a reminder, as my brain is a hornet’s nest and I’ve run out of paper to write “to do” lists on.

And with that, here’s this month’s brick wall of text. There is some highly important stuff in here, so please grab a coffee and make sure you endure to the end if you wish to stay in the loop.

On-going Patreon issues

Of course we couldn’t go a month without a multimillion company acting up like it’s manned by a team of untrained possums.

Unfortunately, this time the issue is more serious and has the potential to completely break StarStickers.

In their most recent update, Patreon removed the notifications for people who change their tiers (upgrade/downgrade tiers). As StarStickers is updated manually based on these notifications, this means I can no longer see when these movements have been made and thus I’m unable to update people’s accounts accordingly.

While there is a “relationship manager” dashboard, this also doesn’t accurately reflect these changes - nor does the CSV that you can download from it. There are discrepancies all over the place because Patreon doesn’t update in real time, and this is something I haven’t been able to figure out yet.

Of course I contacted Patreon over this issue and their response involved a “get used to it” among other unhelpful things, so at the moment I am busy fighting that battle. In the meantime, however, this does mean StarStickers is at a standstill as last month there were several movements I couldn’t track and therefore a lot of un-updated accounts.

Because of this, there will be several things that have to happen with StarStickers until this problem is resolved:

Point allocations for this month will be delayed until I can confirm who changed tiers (this is usually done on the 4th of the month, but will have to be put on hold until I can confirm who’s owed the correct amount. This will still happen later in the month.)
Some point amounts will need to be changed if it’s found out that the account changed tiers and the wrong points were given.
Illustrated rewards will be closed for this month for the reasons above.

That said, these other features will work as usual:

Prints and merch can still be booked with current point totals
Any point corrections due to bonuses, art challenges, referrals or other matters will still be allocated.
Points from referrals and challenges will still be allocated normally.

This has been an incredibly frustrating thing to deal with and while I aim to find a resolution with the Patreon team, in the meantime, what you can do to help is let me know in a DM (either here or on Discord) if you update your tier at any point. Please note that I still get notification for new joiners or deleted pledges, so those don’t need to be notified.

Pausing the Patreon in December

This is something I mentioned tangentially next month, but would like to elaborate on more now.

Please note that all your pledges will be paused to this Patreon page for December.

I am doing this for several reasons:

To be able to continue to catch up without the worry of adding more pressure to my list.
To take a break myself and reconvene with what needs to change going forward into 2024.
To give people’s wallets a break ahead of the Christmas season.

This will be the first time in 6 years I have taken a pause, and while I will continue to work through my backlog in order to continue to make progress through my ever growing list of work, do note the following:

As you will not be charged for December, no points will be allocated on StarStickers and all lessons will be paused until January.
You can still change your tier (upgrade or downgrade) but you will not be charged for this until January.
Illustrated rewards will not be available until January.
You will still be able to buy merch and lessons through StarStickers, but these will not be sent until January.
You'll still be able to use the Discord normally.

This isn’t a decision I’m taking lightly, as it’ll mean a whole month without getting paid and having to fall back on savings instead. However, I think it’s necessary - both for my mental and physical health, and to give myself some time to enjoy Christmas - which I have historically worked through for the last decade - and plan ahead for 2024, which is desperately needed in order to restore balance to a system that has quickly become unsustainable.

Of course, as always, if you have any questions about this please feel free to send me a DM or leave a comment and I’ll be more than happy to clarify anything I’ve left out.

New merchandise + changes

And now for the fun stuff. New merch has been added to the store! Additionally, some changes have also been made.

Changes:

A new option to buy a single A4 print has been added.
A new option to buy a single A6 sketchbook has been added
Most bundles have been renamed to better indicate what they offer.
The x4 Small Prints (formerly A5 Bundle) now includes 4 prints instead of 3.
The x3 Bookmarks (formerly Bookmark Bundle) now includes 3 bookmarks instead of 5.
The point cost of most merchandise options has been reduced.

Prints: New prints have been added to the store!

You can check all available prints and what sizes they come in here.

Artbook: As I had excess copies left over MCM I’m bringing these back!

Please note that this will no longer be a bundle and instead the package will just consist of the artbook. The cost, however, will remain the same as previous rewards and not increase as previously stated.

This run will be limited to 10 artbooks. More batches will be added in the future.

Bookmarks: New bookmarks - especially made for the FFXIV Fanfest - have been added. Please note these are a limited supply.

Sketchbooks: New A6 sized, plain paper sketchbooks have been added. Please note these are a limited supply.

As I want to keep expanding on the merch side of things, please feel free to tell me what sort of things you’d like me to see make in the future! It’s always a joy to see my art printed and sending it to people’s homes, so I’m really eager to hear what kind of things people would like me to make in the future.

And as a footnote to that: please note that all pending artbooks, prints and other merch will be sent before the end of this month!

Limited tiers

And now for my usual reminder that all tiers remain limited and are constantly reviewed and trimmed down in order to balance my workload and manage expectations.

That said, should you wish to bump up or down into a tier that's not currently available, please let me know and I'll be more to figure something out for you.

With that, please remember that if you delete your pledge your points will remain on StarStickers for 6 months before they expire.

At the time of this post, the available tiers are:

Easy tier: 1 slot
Intermediate tier: 2 slots
Advanced tier: 2 slots

Other

After a long hiatus due to stress and health concerns, I’m gunning to be back to streaming art a few times a month - featuring the usual art shenanigans and feedback sessions. If you’re interested in these, please follow me on Twitch and join the Discord to get notified when I go live!
A new Art Challenge will be available soon in the Discord! Make sure you keep an eye on that if you’d like to accrue more points and join the loveliest people on earth in making something special. Always open to all creative endeavors - from art, to writing, to even photography and baking!

Personal

What to say here that I haven’t already. October had me in shambles, and I’m glad to be stuck home for the rest of the year. While there’s some recovering to be done yet, I’m really gunning to get back onto my iPad and get back to drawing.

Truly, this year has been a bit of a mess - between the D&D contract, sickness and other pressing matters and I feel like life has been slipping out of my hands for a while. Hence, I have opted out of every event and contract for the foreseeable future and my focus from now until late next year will be to improve my health and get on with my workload to make sure I prioritise you guys as well as myself.

With that said, I would love to receive some feedback about how you feel things are going, what you’d improve, what you’d like to see in the future… anything really. I appreciate some of you have concerns with the way things have been delayed and at this point I believe that taking input and hearing what you reckon I could be doing better might give me better insight than constantly griping about things on my end.

So if you have anything you’d like to share, please leave a comment or DM me - I’m always happy to receive input and use it to pivot as necessary.

And with that, I leave you with a reminder that everything you need to know about this Patreon is heavily over-explained in the following links: