September: Return to work on Comic + Major Update!

Hi hello and thank you to all my Patrons on here for being so patient with me these last two months!

FOR THE TL;DR VERSION, PLEASE SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM!!

I've been incredibly busy, stressed out, and positively hammered with art block, anxieties about my work, and general sad-boy, self-deprecating, 'ART IS HARD' issues. I know that excuses are not what you support me to hear though, so rather than that, I am writing you all for a MUCH more exciting reason:

That block is gone! (or at least beaten into remission for now)

I recently traveled to Camp Feral, my favorite event of the year, hands-down, and it totally revived my creative process, made me feel much better about my work, gave me new insight and direction for the comic, and TRULY put me in a much better place, artistically, emotionally, and spiritually.

This month, I will be focusing on completing Jumbo Juice, gathering all of my files, WIPs, .PSDs, etc and passing out rewards, creating cover illustrations, taking care of physical publication, and creating art packs/comic packs for online/digital sale!

My only work this month will be the comic and a Frenzy Stream... All of my other spare time is going to be devoted to beginning my transition into physical products! I am going to be selling a TON of new products to fill niches the fandom doesn't seem to have covered this year at FC (my products-dealer debut, if you will) and I'm extremely excited! I've already begun pre-production with several manufacturers in China (hence a lot of my slowness the last few months) and I cannot WAIT to start sharing my progress and little product previews with you all.

Concerning projects after Jumbo Juice... I think it is time to be forthcoming about my thoughts on the current comic. Though I'm quite proud of the finished product and would like to publish more comics of the same quality, the level of work involved on each page is simply too great for me to take on at the moment, and my attention span and desire to drawrather than fine tune, edit, and fuss with tedious details has really prevented me from completing the comic in a timely manner.

My future projects will be comics, yes. I LOVE making comics and want to make tons more! However, the majority of my future comics will likely be closer in quality to the sketches I put out for jumbo juice (cleaned up, of course) rather than the finished color pages you folks see here! This will, of course, result in a much different structure for my Patreon (likely transitioning to a monthly, pay-up-front Patreon, rather than per-creation) with tiers of availability for basic sketches, comics, then a few 'secret stash' tiers of personal work, high-definition digital copies, etc!

Anyhow, I'm still working out the kinks but wanted to send you guys a heads up! I WILL be creating another full-color, big production comic soon to go to print with Jumbo Juice for the physical prints, but between JJ and my next piece, I'm going to get in some practice on quicker, more fun comics, to focus more on telling stories I want to tell, than putting out high-polish pieces. I would rather let quick art suggest and tell the story and get the idea across than slave away at hand-painting a bathroom floor in the background of a panel that nobody's going to appreciate because it's time to move to the next panel.

THE TL;DR VERSION:

• I've been a stressy baby and have been super art blocked
• I went to Camp Feral and feel WAY better (amen)
• Jumbo Juice will be completed this month
• My line of Physical Products (streetwear, stickers, accessories, small electronics, prints, etc) debuts at FC2017
• This current comic has been WAY too polished for my tastes
• I'm going to be moving to quicker, more efficient forms of storytelling to focus on communication of ideas and stories rather than detail & finesse
• I'm still making BIG finished fancy comics, just need a break for other stuff
• Likely moving to monthly, pay-up-front, tiered patreon format (i.e. $1 for sketches, $5 for comics, $10 for secret stash & wips, $20 for early access orders on physical products... or something like this)
• I love you all and am very sorry I have been so hung up on Jumbo Juice and I'm really excited to finish it up!
• Keep your eye on this Patreon for final Jumbo Juice voting stuff this month!! HOME STRETCH!

Keep your eyes on your emails and patreons this month! I'm gonna be working fast which means there will be at least TWO big voting periods this month with VERY short periods in which to vote! (The longer I wait for voting results the less time I have to work!!)

MUCH LOVE Y'ALL! IT FEELS NICE TO BE BACK <3

- Kihu