The Blog 02 : That Quality Problem of Mine...

Fuya

That is the part I have someone tested form but it didn't work out. I always have hard time doing line works, but at least I know I don't do it bad, and it'd require lots of learning to work with me since even on the lining process, the layers separation is still required and I really couldn't find anyone that could mimic my lines and are available. Most of the good ones are busy on their own. That, and I felt a little cheaty having assistants doing the work for Patreon. If it's a business stuffs like making arts for sales and all that, I wouldn't mind, but for the "support" that ppl giving me because they want "my" works, you get the idea. I also feel like it wouldn't be my whole work having a helping hand.

TheRelaxedGoatwoman

Could you possibly take an understudy to do the line work? It would have to be someone you trust and it would speed things up if someone could mimic your line work

Fuya

That's pretty interesting. This option, I never thought of it before. It would require lots of trading management though, but I might be able to handle that at some point even though I prefer people to wait for the new batches since my art improved a bit (hope I'm not speaking for myself lol...) New patrons come and ask me showing signs of confusion occasionally, twice or thrice a month, and most seem alright once I explained it to them. Still, I know they are disappointed.

jhonne

One option that occurred to me is that you could open up your back catalogue as a trade off against some of the pre-paid up backlog. This would help you zero out the time deficit and in the best case reset the timeline to 'now'. I'm not sure this would work for everyone as I guess some folks have been in since the beginning, there is also the admin overhead to consider of making each package available and working out who should get what exactly. It brings another question - how you are working it with new patrons at the moment? as in theory they would not see anything new for several months after their subscription which is probably not a great incentive. Just a thought to take the pressure off in one hit and allow you to get back on track mentally and delivery-wise.

Fuya

Thank you! I've actually pretty much settled on doing that. Not like I'd cut it starting from this or next month though, but at least for the upcoming poll, I'll be announcing that I'm dropping to just 3.

Remix22

I've been thinking on this for a day lol but I do think you should put your health first. I don't mind waiting at all cause I do like the content you put out every month. I do agree on making it top 3 for now so the workload can be lessen on you. It's understandable on when you get to a point in quality that you don't want to change after improving over the years. I'm fine on waiting and I'm fine if it becomes top 3. Once you catch up you can put it back to top 4 again. I'm still looking forward for the rest of your work :)

Fuya

Thank you Setsunai Seken, your comments are always long, but never once not worth reading. I appreciate your caring about my situation this much. Sure thing the doctor suggested me some exercise, but like you have guessed, I always keep postponing it and that's not a good thing. I really need to look into some free time to work out. Good muscles will kelp reducing chances that my sudden back injury would come back again. I actually have come to the point that I'm not super stressed about the delayed anymore. This might sounds bad but having the schedule delayed for 4 months at this point is way less stressful than a month delay. It just reached the point of letting it go with the flow I guess... So yeah no worries on that. I mean I don't feel that stressed, but the reason for this blog is to explain to those who might be worried and are stressed because their money went into pledging but it'd take them months to get what they intended to pay for, which is bad. final_agents' suggestion is good actually, if I want to make it that way, but I don't think many would appreciate monochrome and I won't enjoy doing them much. Painting is my strong point anyway, or at least from lots of you guys' words.

Setsunai Seken

Hi Fuya, I’ve read all previous comments so far and it seems like the majority of the people who have voiced their opinions think reducing the amount of drawings further, at least temporary, would be a good idea. As I’m also of the opinion you shouldn’t force more work on yourself than you can do this seems, at least temporary, like a reasonable approach but at the same time I feel you should be careful not to reduce your quantity too much. To me it seems like your habit of overdoing “some” drawings and your now diminished health are both equally responsible for your current delay. Just as an example you mentioned the Moon drawing taking you 11 days, I’m aware you are aware of it yourself that this is simply too much for a monthly basis like Patreon and any further delay of any kind even with 3 drawings per month would ruin your schedule again. So apart from reducing the quantity I’d say try to restructure your working process and find a middle ground between speed and quality and don’t focus too much on, for example, making every toenail perfect otherwise if you really WANT to focus solely on quality a change towards a per drawing subscription would be a better choice. The next part is your health and I mean both your physical and mental health. First your physical health, it’s been a while since we talked about it and from then it appeared to me like you wanted to improve your physical health but couldn’t quite muster the motivation or postponed it when possible though if you started regular exercise now I’d be happy to hear that and in that case you can skip the next paragraph otherwise…… I know with an injury, especially one of the back, it’s quite a bit harder to find the will to exercise as well as to find a training routine that suits/fits your current situation but postponing it further would help even less. ESPECIALLY with an injury at the back strong muscles are necessities as they have to burden much more now than before your injury, training them appropriately can/should get you to reduce the impact of your injury significantly. Though I should add as I don’t know the specifics of your injury you should talk with your doctor for further information as to which exercises might be better and more importantly what kind of exercises you should NOT attempt with your injury. Second your mental health is equally important and your delays, as well as other incidents, seem to have taken their toll, at least from my perspective. So the best advice I can give in that regard is to stop worrying too much and thinking positive. Yes you are quite delayed but as far as I can tell your supporters haven’t run away but are sticking with you and want you to just feel good about yourself, your work and finding a good rhythm again. I’m at least glad to hear you tried working with an assistant though it’s a bit sad it didn’t work out but as I mentioned before finding the right person can take a while and is not certain to happen. Also you may not want to take a break but I feel like you should at least think of and if possible plan a few breaks into your schedule now and then and I don’t mean a month long break but perhaps a week long so you can get some time to rest and relax. With all that said I just hope you find a solution that you feel is best and makes you feel better. Also after the next batch, with the removal of Tier-4 requests, you should have quite a bit more breathing room and perhaps that will be enough. As a closing note I wanted to say that “final_agents” suggestions of monochrome drawings didn’t appeal to me at all and I feel it would be a waste of your talent.

Fuya

There's still one more batch (March) until I'm done with Tier 4 requests so it's our last batch containing that. What you suggested is interesting technically, but practically it'd mean that the characters that won the poll for that month and many patrons supported that exact batch to get that exact characters would miss them because they're now transferred to another month so I can't afford that to happen. Some people would be upset and it's reasonable for them to do so.

Fuya

ありがとうございます！!

Tsukichan

ご健闘を祈ります！

Inquisitor

I know it isn't something that you would really want to do, but I believe you're now done with the 2 additional requests for each batch? On top of that being taken off, I would say reduce the amount of pieces in each batch to two, keep a note of every character that you removed from a batch, and then when you have caught up use the removed characters for a batch as apposed to having a poll that month until everything in the backlog is done. That way you're technically catching up but also not dropping any characters. Just an idea anyway.

Fuya

I have considered getting assistants but after I have some tested, I'd say it's better sticking to just me. It's not about skill level or anything, but working with the others is complicated, especially when I tend to use hundreds of layers in each files lol

Fuya

Good to know you like this blogging thing! And actually I have recovered a lot from the back injury, but after I went to get an x-ray on my backbones last month, it came to a conclusion that a partial of the spine was cracked permanently and that makes the muscles on the part way easier to stressed. It'd never be fully healed, but at least it's not the crippling worst. There's noting much I could do to it now I guess. It's better though, but yeah it'd cause we to work slower than in the past. Dropping from 4 to 3 might be the only way out, at least for now...

Fuya

Yeah I figured that's gonna be the way out. I really can't drop the quality. It's not like I don't want to work faster, but I'd feel bad about myself. Thank you for your suggestion! Seems like many have come up with dropping from 4 to 3. I will heavily consider that.

Fuya

I really do not want to drop the characters from announced polls. It's like throwing away the effort of so many that voted for them and it's pretty much almost sure they won't get another chance. I might however, reduce the number of winners from 4 to 3 starting from the next poll and try to live with what's set up until August.

Fuya

Thanks Frank Leo, you always drop by with some cheering words!

Fuya

Thank you Raven, I will really consider that. Seems like many of you guys are fine with dropping some workload. I don't want to, but will consider it.

This is pretty tricky. Normally I'd suggest assistants, but at your skill level I think inking assistance would be out of the question. Perhaps a flatter/prelim shader? If only to take some stress off of you

Exhorbiiii

With 4-5 months behind the schedule and your injury, it's recommend to take a proper break or reduce the amount of work. Maybe 3 rewards each month? Although I understand your fears of disappointing countless of current and future supporters, your health is more important than that. Instead of feeling guilty not being able to send out the rewards, focus on your recovery first! I favor quality over quantity and I wouldn't mind getting no rewards for a month, if this decision helps your recovery. But I would appreciate if you could keep us updated with a couple blogs instead! Whether you decide to take a break or keep working on the delayed rewards, I'll keep supporting you (*＾ڡ＾*)

MGL139

I think what might be best is to just reduce the number of characters per month from 4 to 3. It's understandable that you don't want to reduce your quality, so if you need to stick to monthly pledges I think reducing the workload for future months is the best way you can catch up. Your drawings take a long time because of the quality you put into them and that quality is only going to improve and require more time to produce as you continue. Pair that with the occasionally more complex piece like Moon and it makes it very hard to get extra time within a month to get through the backlog. I don't think anybody who supports you wants to see your reduce your quality or push yourself too hard and hurt yourself, so I'm pretty sure everyone would understand reducing the number of characters from 4 to 3, especially given the quality you put into your drawings.

Densetsu Meru

While unfortunate as your delay backlog may be, it's probably for the best if you deal with your health (physical and mental) first. It's understandable that you're using Patreon as the means for supporting yourself and the art you generate for us is the return we would expect from you. Worse case would be to knock a characters off from each of the monthly batches and reintroduce them into the polls again so that you're caught up.

Frank Leo

just take your time, rest as needed

Raven Heart

Being dedicated is nice and all, but your health comes first. Reducing the amount of characters might help lessen the burden.

Fuya

This is actually quite interesting though it might be complicated to pull out since it'd require so much participation on each voting and tbh some of the characters that got voted out wouldn't get their chance back into the top again due to the long lost hype, and on top of everything, would everyone be okay for fewer contents overall? I mean dropping from 4 big rewards to 3 is huge to be considered, but I will definitely think about this.

Fuya

Haha thank you final agent. Saw your tweets on this and even though it would really be a good solution on my side, I doubt many of my patrons will agree with this as monochrome is not for everyone, and I actually don't want to do them that way myself. I wish I could just go with the less neat quality like I did in the early batches but again, so many wouldn't agree with that, or so I guess.

Fuya

Thank you ImpSyndrome, yes that's one of the reason I'm writing all this. I can't figure it out alone since it requires more opinion from the supporters, and I don't think I could afford switching to a non-monthly campaign. In fact, I don't even know what will happen to the system if I do. I might have to ask Patreon staffs on that.

SeniorEquis

Try doing 1 less character a month. You could make a poll between the top 4 for the months you haven't gotten to yet and the one with the least votes can wait for another time. When you do this for 3 months you could have a month where instead of voting for new characters, you focus on the characters that were least voted for.

final_agent

I still say just do at least ONE month where you do a few monochromes, maybe a few more chars than usual and then use the time you save to catch up at least a little. You say you don't wanna disappoint anyone, but honestly, you need a plan to catch up and the longer you go without trying something more concrete, the bigger the gap gets... C'mon man, its not like you're taking a month off even, you could even revisit some chars this way! If anyone else has ideas for catching the backlog up they should suggest it too! We wanna see you suffering less too, if you die, then no one is happy yknow!

ImpSyndrome

I will continue to support you, no matter what you decide...but I cannot say what would be the best thing to do. Perhaps there is some middle ground, where your campaign could change to a pay-what-you-want basis while you get caught up on previous months, but I bet this would still be difficult and confusing for some people. I definitely encourage other patrons to speak up, so more ideas can be heard. If many people cooperate and contribute ideas, I'm sure you can find a solution that will benefit everyone.