Heck, I'd support you with that sort of thing, if you decide to do it. You know I'm a big fan of photo manips and they should have their share of recognition.

I couldn't be a steady donee but I'd be willing to pitch in every now and then.

I've considered doing the Patreon thing myself, though I really didn't know what I'd offer as rewards. I'd definitely be willing to chip in a few bucks for yours, though. (And while we're on the subject, since I haven't managed to scrape together any better stock, how about we change my manip in your queue to an orca manip with creative freedom to do whatever you want with it)

1. When a piece of art is directed personally to you, it becomes much more valuable. It's funny because even though the final product has little resemblance to the original photo, there's enough of that "personal touch" left for it to feel as if the tf *really happened*.
2. The way i could see this working would be if all supporters get to make contributions to a pool of stock photos. Price ought to be much lower than a standard commission, but you'd be getting a chance to have your photo picked for the next manip like a lottery. Then again, i'm curious how many would be willing to just support you as an artist without expecting anything in return.

That is an interesting thought; in fact, it has never crossed my mind that someone would be interested in photomanips other than as a form of TF art.

Photomanipulation is able to capture something that is very difficult or very expensive to do from scratch: offer a hyper-realistic representation of a person partway between human and animal. For many artists, that sort of realism is beyond their ability or their time constraints to do it. The ones who can afford such realism tend to make the most of it, and offer very dramatic lighting scenarios or contexts that would require very specialized stock photos to achieve through photo editing. Most people, anyways, seem happy to sacrifice a little realism for a little readability, or for a more idealized stylization. And besides, something that aims for realism requires a great deal of expertise to satisfy people's expectations, and there are plenty of furry photomanips which have failed that test, and given it a big stigma to casual viewers.

Thus, the only people who really view photomanips, sad to say, are the people who actually want to view them, and realistic transformations are the one thing that photomanips can offer to people that other artwork cannot.

As for Patreon, if I had any money to support any of the fantastic artists who use Patreon, you would assuredly be among my top picks. Especially if it goes towards exploring photomanips as a medium.