Announcemet

Hello everyone,
this is CloudLou.

I would like to make announcement regarding our current situation and future activities.

For those who don't want to read the long story, you can skip by scrolling down below the most bottom part. We put the summary in bolded texts. This post will be pinned too, until the next more detailed information replaced this one.

== ## ==

First, I'm really sorry to all of our March Patrons for our late delivery. It was the worst one we ever had compared to prior months. And then not only for March, but I'm  really sorry for have been late delivering on these past few months.

I need to clear that it's not because I'm doing anything else much or oppositely been lacking on working, in fact I have been completely doing nothing but doing my real job and making these arts. Ever since after my surgery, every single day has always been going to work at day then going home and right away doing arts. It went to a point where I couldn't even afford to do anything else, even barely getting enough sleep. The reason is because I have to follow up with all the things I missed due to getting hospitalized for 2 long months, both on my real job and here Patreon too. Work -> Art -> Sleep -> Work -> Art -> Sleep, this went for months since after I recovered from surgery.

Eventually this has caused my health to drop worse, both physically and mentally. It really is not a good thing considered I just recovered from my previous illness and surgery. When I was trying to catch up with March rewards delivery, I had a pass out. This event caused me to realize how bad my health is, and how it can be seriously dangerous if I keep it up this way. I took surgery last year in effort to become more healthy, but ironically I went straight worsening my health right after. I just realized how foolish that was.

So when I was finishing March rewards, it could have get done and delivered around April 9 or 10 at longest if I keep overwork myself, but I decided to take my time and work it slower as to maintain my health. I had 2 options, which was either to finish it fast but with bad art quality, or take it slow but with as optimum quality as I could. I thought that I was already late enough so if I'm being late while also delivering bad art quality, that doesn't sound good at all. When I was late on couple previous months, what I did was to sacrifice quality of one of the 4 arts. If you take a look at Lisa Sumeru, that was one which I sacrificed. The result was bad and I regret couldn't able to make better Lisa art, but I had no choice since otherwise it's going to take much longer to work. That's why I decided for March I'm not going to sacrifice any. Though I did a little, which is on Implacable's eye variations. If you compare to how the other arts have more distinct eye variations, I only did small changes on Implacable, I originally planned to do more.

I must say my art quality got improved over time, like how now I do motion effects and more distinctive variations overall. But with it, comes bigger time consumption. So it's not about being harder to do, but taking more time to work on. Combined with the story above with how it has been busy since after surgery, it also has been much more time consuming to produce better arts. And that's how we ended up being late these past few months.

== ## ==

Then I was thinking, I want to fix everything, both my health and my art service for you guys here too. I had 3 options. Either to take hiatus for 1 month, which might fix our delivery back to the 5th on the month after but this might not fix my health issue. Second is to take hiatus for several months, which might fix both problems but probably on for short term, because if I keep doing things this way then eventually the same problems will happen again in the future.

So I take the last option, which is to change my Patreon/Fanbox planning. As you might have known, we have been doing these monthly 4 art rewards every single month ever since our debut. Every month there has to be 4 arts with many variations, delivered by the 5th of upcoming month, then repeat. Full fledged arts, with so many variations, and full background too. Other artists usually only do around 5 variations and the variation changes are only on the face expression, no clothes or body part changes at all. Some others even not doing background and rather put gradient back. Now that I re-think again on my works, I have been doing too much. Considering that I also do have real job too, unlike other artists who are purely full time artists. Making that too many things while also doing real job taking a lot of time that I barely doing anything else, not even able to be taking care of my health too, which the root of problems I mentioned above. Hence I took this option as decision.

== xx ==

So what is this change?

From next month, May 2023, onwards I will be changing our Patreon plan from delivering monthly rewards to your Direct Message, into posting the arts right away on the Patreon page for every single art done. For example if May first art is Nilou then once I finished Nilou's art I will post it, no longer waiting to finish all other arts or doing them all concurrently. This also means that the arts will be permanently available on our page, no longer restricted to monthly limited.

Due to these changes, new Patrons will be charged upon entering. For those who didn't know, we have been not charging any of you newcomers right away when you entered. You would be charged at the month shifts which is on the 1st day of the next month from when you're entering, example if you join on March then your charge for March will be at April 1 and you didn't get charged at all before that. From May onwards, you will be charged when joining our Patreon and able to enjoy any of our contents available as posts on our page.

We're no longer providing download links, you can grab and save the images on your own as they're available on the posts. I might still provide download links, but with some requirements like maybe you need to have supported for 6 months and you have to ask me for the link using DM. Voting sessions will be still held every month as usual. We might not posting previews anymore because there's no need for it as we post the full finished arts anyway. For older Patrons, everything else are just not any different than what we usually do, so don't worry. Please don't worry about getting charged twice too, you will be charged as usual as if nothing changes. Other than delivery method which will be changed from DM to posts, nothing else siginificantly changing for you existing Patrons. These changes affect more on new Patrons, or those who leave and rejoin again.

In addition, I will open more tiers, but, they will be support-based. Before anyone thinking we're separating rewards by tiers, no we will not. All rewards are available for anyone on our usual $5 tier just like what we have always been for 3 years now. There is not even a single difference from all tiers other than how much you want to support us. The new tiers are opened only for those who want to support me more either because you wholesomely want me too keep going or just simply out of pity, whichever it is I will really appreciate it if anyone join it, otherwise it's fine as I also don't put expectations for anyone to join. So feel free to be on usual $5 tier, or support more if you feel like to.

Please take a note that these changes will be starting to applied next month, May 2023. Not this month, when I posted this. The reason is because we have to wait until date 1, and also we're nearing the end of this month anyway. So this month we will still do the usual delivery service to April Patrons, it will be the last before the changes. We have already applied these changes on Fanbox starting this month because we don't need to wait until May 1 there.

>>> == xx == <<<

>>> == xx == <<<

Thank you so much for anyone who read all those information above. Now here is summary for above:

- Patreon plan will be changed from monthly delivery into available posts starting on May 2023
- Rewards will be available as posts directly on our Patreon page and no longer delivered using download links through DM
- Any other benefits such as Voting will be as usual
- Payment charges will be changed into up-front charging/new Patrons will be charged upon joining
- Current Patrons will be charged as usual and no need to worry about getting charged twice unless you're leaving (you will get charged again when rejoining)
- There will be more tiers but support-based, no difference in rewards but just open for those who are willing to support us more
- These changes will be applied starting on MAY 1 2023

I hope you can understand our situation and wish for your continued support. Voting session will be held soon to decide characters for April arts. Please look forward to our creations from now on too.