Happy Hearth’s Warming + A Little Announcement about Cover Designs · 4:10am Dec 26th, 2016

Merry Christmas and Happy Hearth’s Warming to one and all.

I hope all of you have had a simply lovely holiday. It’s been a bit of a mixed bag for me. I, for one, am rather glad it’s over. However, this means that it’s back to work for Gardens of Equestria’s first convention appearance at Pacific PonyCon on January 6-8, 2017!

But first, let’s talk a bit about Hearth’s Warming Eve. Even better, listen to someone else talk about it!

Why you ask? Because I did the YouTube Cover Design and the Cover Art Design for the story! Pretty sweet huh? You can check out the story itself on FimFiction! It’s Dinkin’ Donuts by Pascoite.

That leads to my little announcement.

I’ve done a fair amount of covers as of late and a few people have asked about compensation or stuff like that. Now, I’m just a designer and an author. I (most of the time) don’t create original assets for the covers I do. Those are by other artists and I want them to get the credit (which is why I credit everyone I use for my own story covers every time).

However, it’s been brought up that while I may not be spending my time creating the art, I am spending my time using my design skills. And a few people have commented that they’d like to support me in that.

So, after a lot of internal debate—and a lot of external financial pressure—I’ve decided to open up a Patreon and a PayPal Tip Jar.

First and most critical, these are nothing more than tip jars. I’m not doing any sort of reward for giving certain amounts of money. Unless you want to do a Q&A thing… but honestly, I’m pretty open about responding to comments and questions. I still intend to randomly do cover designs for people on the fly. I won’t be asking for any sort of tip for the unsolicited designs I do. That would be just silly. I still intend to do requests (though that may change if demand gets too high). However, if you do make a request, at least consider throwing a buck or something in the jar, but you are not expected, required or obligated to actually do it at all.

Second of all, these have nothing to do with Gardens of Equestria. Gardens of Equestria and The Manehattan Project are still not accepting any donations. If you want to support GoE, the most you can do is spread the word about the project or maybe even help us out with art, models or other cool assets. We’re always on the lookout for new talent.

Third, all assets used in these must be credited to their original artists. As I said, this is for my design skills, not my artistic skills. Might seem like splitting hairs, but there’s a difference and I want to be sure all artists get credit. They are the real stars here and they deserve every penny.

Finally, I am not taking commissions under any circumstances. Requests where you decide to donate are not commissions. You give if you want to, and if you want to, you give whatever you want to.

The proceeds from this will be used to help pay rent, pay off credit cards, buy groceries, and maybe occasionally take Painted Heart out for a movie. That’s it. Maybe someday I’ll invest in a Wacom Tablet and learn how to draw for real. But that day is a long way off.

Heck, one of my first announcements of this was “hey, this is here, you can donate if you want to” and I then proceed to spend two paragraphs telling the person “please don’t donate.”

The Patreon is for subscribers (though you could easily just subscribe for a month and then cancel.). PayPal is for one-time donations. And you should only donate after you get a cover. Don’t do it before. I don’t want it before.

TL;DR: This is a tip jar for my designs and stories. This isn’t for GoE. And you should be paying the real artists way more than anything you give me. This also isn’t for rewards, so only do it if you really, really want to. If you feel obligated to do it, don’t.

Okay. I’ll stop rambling about this. I could go on for days. Here’s the links.

(And by the way, I may decide to kill this outright if it causes issues.)

Let’s move on.

So you’re probably wondering about stories, eh?

Well, I’ve got the next week off from work. I’m hoping to spend most of that time preparing for Pacific PonyCon. I will hopefully still be able to get Bards of the Badlands out to you next week, however, there’s a fair chance that might get pushed back one or maybe two weeks. I really overscheduled myself for January and I’ve been suffering severe panic attacks because of it.

I still haven’t decided if Bards is coming out all in one go or if it’s going to come out in parts. You’ll have to wait and see.

And I think that’s all for today. You’ll have to forgive me. It’s been an extremely long last few days. I’m exhausted beyond measure and I still have a lot of work left to do before I can sleep tonight.

So go check out that story up there! Oh! And I want to show off a few stories that have new designs!