May Newsletter!

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all keeping well and safe during this weird and difficult time. Firstly I just want to express my absolute deepest thanks for continuing to support me! I'm worried that saying this too much will make it sound insincere but honestly like wow I appreciate you guys So Much, thank you!

There are a couple of important things I need to talk to you about in this newsletter! First of all and probably most importantly:

IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT SALES TAX FOR U.S. PATRONS

Patreon has emailed all its creators to tell us that they're legally obliged to start adding a sales tax ranging from 4% to 11% on to some pledges. As of right now, they're being very unclear on who is going to be affected but they seem to be saying that only tiers with physical rewards (prints, stickers etc) will be affected and maybe some digital downloads too. The sales tax will also only apply to patrons who live in the US.

My $5 tier does have digital downloads included but it's unclear whether or not they will be taxed, seeing as they're a one-time download and more downloads will only be added as I finish more books, brushes, fonts etc and not necessarily every month.

There is some more in-depth information available about the sales tax here: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043054911

All patrons will also receive an email from Patreon about the sales tax on 1st June. I'm sorry I can't be more clear with this information and say for sure whether anyone will be affected. If I learn anything more about which tiers specifically will be taxed, I'll let you know straight away. Unfortunately it seems like they're using keywords and an algorithm to determine which tiers will be taxed...

COMMISSIONS

I've been struggling a little bit to find a way of doing sketch commissions that looks good and takes a reasonable amount of time haha and I think I've finally managed to pin down a process! Here are some revised guidelines on how this will work:

•  One character per drawing or you can save up your sketches and have a 2 character  sketch every 2 months!
• Characters will be drawn as busts/torsos and not full bodies
• Sketches will have very limited or no colour at all (although if you really want colour, I'll probably still do it haha just not like, all the time)
• NSFW art is fine to request as long as the character is 18+

Of course, the drawings don't have to be characters at all! I'll basically draw anything that isn't a vehicle haha 

COMICS

I finally finished the Staying Afloat miniseries! Thank you so much for your support which allowed me to make it! I have plans to turn it into a book at some point soon which means I need to design a cover, but I'm going to focus on making new comics for now!

I'm planning on getting back to my regular kind of comics and doing those for a while since I have a lot of ideas but I like the idea of doing another small 20 page comic or so in the near future... the temptation is strong...

But as I said, I'll be focusing on individual comics for the time being. My plan is to kickstart a collection of all my autobio comics (minus the Staying Afloat comics) at some point in the Summer, after my current Kickstarter fulfillment is over!  (Maybe I could kickstart Staying Afloat at the same time as a streth goal..? So many possibilities!!)

VIOLAPSE

I've been working on Violapse a lot during this last month!! I've been reading The Anatomy of Story by John Truby and it's basically saving my entire life haha. I've been struggling with the writing for Violapse for literal years but as I'm reading this book, I'm really able to structure the story in a way that I'm happy with. I should have a working script to share with my $7 patrons by the end of this month! Thank you for being so patient

DISCORD

I linked my Discord to my Patreon last month and all $5+ patrons should have access to the server now. If anyone has struggled to get in, please feel free to DM me here on Patreon and I'll send you an invite link!

LIFE STUFF

For about two weeks earlier in the month, I got super depressed after finding out that one of our dogs, Floss, was in really bad shape and had to go in for high-risk life-saving surgery at the fragile age of 17. She survived her surgery but was not recovering well. She refused to eat or drink for several days and couldn't walk and we were all sure that she wasn't going to make it, but in the last week she seems to have stabilised and is walking around and eating again, which is great news! 

In other news I'm due to become an aunty in three days (although it's looking like the baby will arrive late!) It's a very strange feeling knowing that my sister's having a baby and I don't know when I'll get to see them because of quarantine and such but I hope everything goes well.

That's about all the news I have for this month I think! Thank you so much for continuing to support me!

Chat to you again soon!

Your artist,
Bex