Hey there, Oxdarock here!
We’re almost to the end of the month, but I wanted to give a bit of a heads up on what I’ve been up to. After finishing the last Squish Drive picture, I started working on getting these tip jars organized. I’ll be starting those up sometime soon. Why did it take nearly a week? Half because there was a lot for me to write down and consider, but also because of many distractions. That pretty much defined July for me, so August will be my catch-up month.
On the matter of the Squish Drives, I wanted to address those. First off, thank you so much to everyone who contributed! Didn’t think I’d get so many donations so fast, especially at the start of the Squeeze Bar! I also didn’t think my resident philanthropist would continue to so fervently fund the Walk of Change, but they did and, as a result, I ended up finishing both at the same time (wonder if that was planned?).
So, how did I do money wise in conjunction to the time spent on each picture? To put it simply, I pretty much broke even, little less, actually. If I had to give a reason, it’d probably be attributed to the backgrounds and added panels, for the Squeeze Bar in particular. However, I’m not beat up about it, especially since I was basically funded to draw my own idea, so it was a labor of love as well. That said, if I want to continue to add the storytelling elements of panels and backgrounds, I’ll need to make the milestones higher for future Squish Drives.
Speaking of which, I have to stress again that I had no idea people would achieve each milestone so quickly. So quick, in fact, that it ended up being a distraction in its own right with regards to my Patreon work. That’s why I’ve decided to make the tip jars’ milestones much higher, enough so that there’s no possible way for me to get close in terms of drawing time, nor can it be achieved so quickly (I think). I do feel somewhat conscientious about it, but I see it as a means to “Work smarter, not harder”. Besides, in this era where there’s not a small amount of people who make a comfortable four figure income per month or higher just by turning on a camera and playing video games, reacting to silly videos and clips online, or both, I feel like a tip jar in exchange for technical skill isn’t something I should feel guilty for.
Anyway, back to the Squish Drives themselves, let’s start with the Squeeze Bar. I did actually intend to do a second half of it, as indicated by the first intro comic, but I got drawing fatigue. After drawing 12 pictures of the same characters as cowgirls back to back, I kinda want to move on. I’ll probably get back to the Fruit side of the Squeeze Bar at a later date with new characters. But aside from that, I had fun. I love drawing cowgirls and I was able to put my concept of the four general types of cowgirl TFs on the canvas. I still have to draw up the Thank-You picture (for this and the Walk of Change), but I have something in mind and plan to do so during my catch up month.
As for the Walk of Change, this was much more of a learning curve and I especially appreciate those who funded this, as I made quite a bit of mistakes at the start. The first and worst mistake was the amount I set to add a color, which at the start was $60. Big mistake on my part. Should’ve made it $10 from the start, maybe even $5. At the very least, that would’ve been more approachable. There was also the GTS implications, which I honestly failed to depict well aside from one picture. You really need either a clear view of a detailed background or another person as a size comparison for those to work. The manner of progression was also an issue. I liked the progression of three TFs at a time, but 9 TFs at once for the bonus rounds was a lot more chaotic, thought provoking, and fun overall, so I should’ve did something like that, or done 5 colors at a time over four rounds.
What’s more, I was a bit too restrictive with the growth size. While I like to see a character’s face, if there’s already an established shot of it, I’m a lot more loose in my preference for subsequent pictures. Hell, I even broke my own rule not to go over a certain surface area for breasts a couple of rounds! So that’s another thing be looser on in the future. And lastly were the color options themselves. Most of them were fine, but Yellow was terrible, to the point that, for the last two pages, I actually came up with a whole new set of TFs for the color and got approval from the person who funded the pages to go through with it since they chose the color for the final round. Lo and behold, it won at least once for both girls. But yeah, overall, I learned quite a lot from the Walk of Change and have figured out where I can improve, so I’d love to do it again someday.
But yeah, that’s all from me for now. Doubt anything major will happen in the next five days before August, but I’ll let you know when the next month rolls around!
That’s all for now!
