vizguru
patreon
An update
🕑 Added 2022-04-23 09:30:41 +0000 UTCHey fellas.
Hope you're all doing well and I want to thank you dearly for your patience.
So I've kept my Patreon paused for a few months. Not because I've been sick or anything, but because I had to dedicate my time to StageGlass. It all got a bit overwhelming. Now I'm however not working with StageGlass anymore and I can happily dedicate my time to my own projects again. Not going to get into details but the short version is that as a tech start-up, it's natural that the company has to adapt and change directions. In this case, they switched focus in a direction that's simply not my expertise.
So working there sadly became a waste of their money as well as a waste of my time.
So what will happen with Patreon?
One part of me has wanted to shut Patreon down and I'm sure that doesn't come as a surprise to anyone given that the content became more and more scarce lately. When I started Patreon the content came naturally. I had a quest; to teach interior rendering. But it feels like that quest has been more or less fulfilled over the years and it's been getting harder and harder to come up with content that's worth uploading to Patreon. I haven't cared for the money it generates, money is never a good motivator. The only real motivator is knowing that the content I upload is useful and helpful for fellow artists and I reached a point where I didn't feel I was doing that anymore.
Another part of me doesn't want to ruin what we've built here and shutting Patreon down would feel like a huge waste. You are a whole bunch of loyal, fantastic Patrons whom I appreciate dearly and I would be insane to throw that away. If there's still content I can produce that fills a valuable purpose for you, I want to keep going.
So what's next?
Well, I have a plan... sort of. Actually, I should say "we". I won't go into details since the strategy isn't fully thought out yet, but in short, I currently have no income. I could get back to freelancing but I'm not ready to dive into that hamster wheel again, at least not yet.
Instead, I'm doing what I really should've done years ago; Focus on Texture.Supply. The idea of Texture.Supply was born in 2018 when Martin and I were spending the summer in San Francisco working for a client. Since then we've made loads of progress: We built a huge scanner machine, and (mostly Martin) spent countless hours figuring out a process and overcoming all the (very many) problems involved in creating high-quality textures.
But we never really focused on it. We needed an income and client projects ruined our schedule constantly. We got caught in a Catch 22 loop where we needed money to continue our development, and to make money we needed to do client work so we never had time for development. And taking on new client work now would just end up the same way. So it's now or never: Go big or go home.
From now on Texture.Supply has our full attention. We're working on getting investments, and we have several ideas ready for new scanning solutions, one of which we're starting to build next week.
...so, Patreon?
I'm not really sure, as the strategy behind it isn't completely clear yet. But the focus will change a little, but of course still involve video tutorials and such. Just with a bit more focus and a higher goal in mind with strong ties to the Texture.Supply development. The tiers will get an overhaul too, as well as the tags, etc.
It may take a while though, and in the meantime I'll, from now on, start uploading content again pretty much like before. In the next few days, I'll also reupload everything that was previously time-limited, like the scene files.
As always, I appreciate you being here and I'm very much looking forward to the near future.
