Upcoming Patreon changes (only for members joining after Jan 1st!)

At the beginning of the next year, I will be changing the benefits of the membership tiers. The most important message: Everything remains the same for YOUR existing membership. The changes will only affect new members signing up after January 1st, 2024. As long as you keep your current membership, you will continue to receive ALL the benefits of your tier, now and forever. I promise there won't be any extra content in the new tiers that you'll miss out on.

The new tiers for new members look like this:

• Guardian Defender tier (2.50 €/$/£/monthly)
  Includes access to the weekly Patreon updates and WIP posts, as well as the special supporter role on Discord and a 10% discount on merch. The discounts at our partner stores will be moved to the Dire Avengers tier.
  
• Dire Avengers tier (6 €/$/£/monthly)
  Includes everything from the Guardian tier, as well as the discounts at our partner shops. There will still be a new and Patreon-exclusive freebie each month (1 masterclass tutorial OR 1 hand-painted colour swatch OR 1 PDF hobby guide), now sent directly to the inbox. This means that access to the full library of my tutorials and paint swatches from previous months will be moved to the Autarch tier. There will still be access to my PDF Hobby Guides, and, as a bonus, access to the latest version of my Contrast/Speedpaint/One Coat paint comparison chart.
  
• Autarch tier (12 €/$/£/monthly)
  Includes everything from the Guardian and Dire Avengers tiers (including the monthly freebie). Additionally, this is the tier to access the full library of ALL of my masterclass tutorials and paint swatches. And there will be the special Super Supporter role on Discord, like with the current Farseer tier.

Again, this will only affect new members joining from January 1st, 2024. Your current membership will remain unchanged! E.g. with your current Aspect Warrior tier membership, you’ll still be able to access all tutorials and paint swatches, and still receive the monthly freebie.

This also means: If you're currently a free member or on the Guardian tier and want all my tutorials and swatches, NOW is the time to switch to the current Aspect Warrior tier and benefit from the cheaper conditions, as these will move to the pricier Autarch tier after January 1st.

Why the changes?

You probably noticed while reading that a higher tier will be required in the future to access all benefits. The purpose behind this is clear: I want the Tale of Painters' Patreon to generate more income. Why? Am I super greedy? Yes erm no! ;)

The "sad" truth is that the effort I put into Tale of Painters and my YouTube channel is not yet proportionate to my income. Content creation (at the quality level I want to offer you) has long ceased to be just a hobby for me; it has become a side job. A passion project for sure, and earlier this year I was able to reduce my working hours to 4 days to have more time for Tale of Painters.

It's an incredible privilege to spend part of my working hours on the hobby I love, but it also creates pressure for success. In the end, there must be a payoff – and we all know that we live in challenging times. Inflation and increased rent and living costs also affect me, my loved ones, and the people I’m responsible for. Moreover, starting next year, we have to comply with a new privacy policy regulation to continue displaying Google ads on the website. For this, we need a new cookie and privacy management plugin, which comes at a relatively high monthly/annual cost. So, the plugin not only eats into our budget, but the regulation will also likely lead to a decrease in ad revenue. More costs for less profit, yay.

You've probably seen that there is now a Patreon shop and Tale of Painters merch. It helps, but it's not enough. Since I don't want to clutter the website with even more ads (or start promoting dubious mobile games or VPN services in my YouTube videos), I am trying to generate more financial support through Patreon.

And I believe there is a lot of valuable content here. I got amazing feedback for my swatches and paint comparison charts. So in 2024, I want to create hand-painted swatches for all major miniature paint ranges (Vallejo Game Color and Citadel are already out, Warpaints Fanatic and more will follow). I want to make more masterclass tutorials, and I also have a few other cool ideas for my Patreon account. Stay tuned.

I hope you can understand these changes and continue to support me. It is only thanks to your support that Tale of Painters has been able to develop so quickly over the last few years, thank you very very much!