And that's a year, and now on to the next!

Hey y'all, I hope you had a wonderful holiday and wish you a happy and safe New Year in a few days here!

So as mentioned I wanted to just take a little time and look back at some of the things we did this year and chat a little about things I would like to attempt with the patreon in the new year to come.

This year I launched the TeeKetch shirt club which was probably the biggest change and it was a lot of fun. Huge thanks to the folks who took a chance on it with me and signed up for the tier. It wasn't always the easiest thing to come up with new designs but in the end I think we got some fun shirts made and with the last of the year, the first year has come to a close and we'll have to see what comes of it next year. As with all the things we do here I hope you found it worth it and enjoyable as we went through the year.

Another Thing that I started to do more of this year was experiment with the types of art I make and other creative outlets, mainly games and thinking about them and their design and working out my own ideas within them. This is something I've come to be very passionate about and honestly all the support I get from you folks allows me the space to play with these ideas, take them down the road a bit and see if something is working or not or if something is worth the time. My first card game DRAW is a great example of how your support can help me without being a direct line from the patreon. It was an idea I had and mapped out pretty roughly but since have streamed work on it, chatted with folks from our community here to improve it, run playtests with patrons online  and now have a version up and running inside of Tabletop Simulator that I would love to get some more folks in for testing after the holidays pass.

Outside of these types of game stuff I have been thinking of just the format of the monthly prints and what I can do with them. I have some different ideas that bring some interactivity to them and who knows how they'll turn out or if I will even actually be able to make it happen but I hope to bring more fun and interesting things to you all in the new year.

Outside of the prints and games I also have been experimenting with making the stickers myself with a new printer and cutter that I picked up earlier this month. Now right up front they will be a bit different from what we've had in the past as they will be done with consumer/at home level stuff and not massive printers with rolls of films and laminates etc. That said I won't ever try and make a change that has an adverse dip in quality that I find just isn't acceptable for the benefits it grants in return. I have spent the last couple of weeks searching for different vinyl papers and laminates to see what I can do. I think I've gotten to a pretty nice quality, though as of right now the stickers are glossy laminate (this is a film applied on top of the printed vinyl sticker to help further weather proof them) and while this isn't an issue for a lot of people I am in my heart a matte enthusiast so I will continue my search for a matte laminate in the interim. Now why would I do this? Well a couple of reasons, one it allows me more freedom with the stickers themselves, I am more able to offer different types of sticker designs and also take a little more time in thinking about the designs or not having to plan so far ahead since they will be handled myself and I won't have to wait for them to be printed and shipped to me to then package and mail out to you all. Second, it cuts down on excess. I have so many extra stickers and prints as I always like to have a small buffer for ones that may get lost or damaged in the mail but after doing this for a few years now it's just too much extra piling up lol. Lastly, cost. Now this is sort of the ugly truth of it but print costs for the postcards have gone up a bit over the last year and while it isn't enough to realy impede me from offering them for the price I do, if I can find a way to help offset that increase a bit by handling the stickers myself than it just helps us all. It's a bit more labor with setting them up and such but I think it'll be fin.

Now a bonus to the sticker changes is that if I can get to a level I am comfortable with, much like the shirt club we may finally be able to offer the Sticker Club reward tier that we've long dreamed about. I don't know how this would work or what sort of shape it would take but this opens the door for it more realistically than anything else we've done before. So yeah, hopefully this just leads to much cooler stuff I can make for all of you, we'll see!

*Quick cell phone photo of the latest test prints I've done.

So with this all said I would just like to once again thank you all for another incredible year of support for the art mail and my work in general. In the new year I'm hoping to do even more and in new ways find how to keep pushing forward within my art and my life as a working artist. I hope to bring more Knight Light stuff out for folks, work on more game ideas, have fun with the postcard format and just keep trying my best to make this patreon something that you are happy and proud to be a part of. This small community means so much to me and my creative health and I truly appreciate you all. Have a happy New Year and as always, be good to each other.

- Teeg