Please god yes

Depends... for animations yes that's a solid idea though a lot of artists are using Patreon for all the wrong reasons : /

My concern is that the contributors might get frustrated with the progress, since animation is quite slow :/ probably a couple seconds worth a month... though more if it winds up being successful

Thats really hard to market that with patreons structure. You can either have it a monthly thing or episodic thing, but you need to produce something measurable in that time. Your your situation that would be extremely difficult unless you could get at bare minimum one animation out per month or you had plenty of other art and things you were throwing in as well.

Just as a note, if you do it as an episodic thing, you arent paid over time, you're paid by the content, so you would be setting a price per animation. For pricing you would need to have a good idea of how many people would be willing to patronize you. I find that a lot of furries who have lots of money want results now. (Hence $850 YCH auctions). Those who don't mind how long it takes are generally more frugal with their cash, so you wont have as many people throwing money at you to balance that out. You might find that "a couple seconds worth a month" is going to leave you with very very few patrons, and remember that your pricing would have to make (Whole Cost / # of Patrons) a reasonable number for people to swallow. With few patrons that gets really difficult to market something like $100 per person per animation thats only a couple seconds, especially when its a democracy on what gets animated and they have less control than an actual commission.

Episodic is probably the best option, since its kind of impossible to consistently deliver, unless I quit my job :).. As far as who votes on whats next, its jsut an initial thought, maybe there could be a list of things and they just choose whats next, Sadly a few seconds a month is all I can do, without cutting quality, unless I somehow get a team of people.

Oh yeah I understand and I'm certainly not criticizing you (your art is gospel), I'm just trying to throw some gotchyas out there that others have dealt with so that you can make a more informed decision :3

P.S.: <3

To be fair, the "wrong reasons" is kinda subjective. With that said, it seems ideal for what HammyToy wants to use it for - a way to distribute content to folks who wanna chip in a few extra bucks and get a little something, not an amazing omg deal but something, in return for it.

Yes, Patreon is meant to fund projects and ideas. It is not however meant to be a glorified subscription to pay people to keep doing the things they always do :p

Thanks, yea streaming is one possible perk id considered, and timing charts are an oddity on their way out so they probably are fun for people to see :)

Thank you for making that point so eloquently.

It's very much a point needing to be seen more often, and you did so wonderfully.

This particular community is so deeply wired to the concept of personal commissions and custom-tailored artwork delivered to a buyer's specifications, that sometimes people forget that not everyone is happy being someone else's brain-printer ALL the time. Some people would like to be able to use their ability making things from their own head, and some others would happily contribute to help them do just that. And nobody is a villain in that exchange.

Some people try to paint it as a greedy, scamming artist deceiving people into giving them money for nothing and a stupid gullible fanboy throwing their money away for no reason. The only difference between patronage and a standard commission 'I pay you X, you draw me Y' situation is that the buyer is an artist's whole audience, and what they're buying is whatever the artist thinks up on their own. The problem, what gets so many people crying 'foul,' is that an artist is generally more inclined to want to work on their own ideas, and an audience is more likely to be able to afford higher rates than the artist would ever ask for on their own. It's why auctions, YCHs, things that let the market set the value of the offered goods, typically go for so much more than the artist's standard rates: the market determines something's actual value to the audience, it's not overvaluing, it's illuminating how severely undervalued most artists hold their work. Which doesn't sit well with people who like having the broadest range of options to get made-to-order artwork at bargain-bin, impulse-buy prices.

One person says "this is what I'd like to do," and others say "I'd like to see you do that," and help make it happen. The fact that people want to present that as something ugly and wrong is just beyond baffling to me.

Didnt think of this at the time.. but a reasonable point against that the attitude of "Why should I pay for something that doesnt feature MY character" is... I have to wonder how many of them went to go see "Guardians of the galaxy" at $15 a pop.. that movie certainly did not feature any of their OCs :)

Precisely! ^_^

Seems like it'd be perfect for what you're proposing! Most success I've seen with Patreon is exactly that - "here's some extra stuff you wouldn't see otherwise as a general 'thank you' for chipping in some extra cash."

There are two ways to set up a Patreon page:

Paid per upload: just what it says. You mark things you upload as "paid" ad then your patrons get charged for them.

Paid per month: Patrons pledge a certain ammout for each month that they remain your patrons - this lets you use the page more as a tip-jar, since it doesn't matter if you ever actually upload anything to their site.

Per upload sounds like a good way to do it. especially with sparse content.

I don't have a lot to pledge, but I would make sure to pledge something. Would absolutely love to see more work from you!

aawe ^_^
Hehe well I dont know if I can structure it in a way that makes sense, AND! It seems patreon pisses people off too, I wasnt expecting that. so who knows.

I think Patreon just pisses people off when it's an artist that has people pay them money to do what they already have been doing. If you feel that a solid source of income will help you dedicate your time more to your projects, I think you should go for it! And also, whenever any artist finds a new convenient business model, lots of people are gonna get pissed off for no good reason. Though, in your case, with the quality of smut you produce, I don't think anyone could ever get upset with you.

In my case Im currently doing animation commissions, I LOVE doing this animated stuff, the FA people seem to like the animations too,.. But I can only afford the time because Im being paid.
So once that work dries up my choice is either figure out how to get funded or just give them up, to the outside observer I would look like a person whos just asking for money to do the same thing :)

I don't know how close your attitude towards taking commissions is with mine, but getting paid to do your own stuff rather than getting paid to do other peoples' stuff sounds so much more appealing to me. Again, if this is something that sounds enticing enough to you to go through with it, you have my support 100%!

I would agree %100.. Though at the moment, these commissions happen to be right up my alley so id happily do them forever :)

Given the slow production rate of animation, you'd be better off doing a per month model. The better it does, the more you're freed to do, etc.

Just be honest with people. You want to do more of something you can't afford to do on your own without diverting time currently needed doing something that produces money to live on. What you want to do isn't something that can be reasonably expected to have individual commissioners pay for more than once in a blue moon, and even when that happens, it's not likely to be 'do whatever you feel like.'

State what you hope to be able to do, give realistic estimations of what you'll deliver, and if you can think of extras to use as incentives to reward particularly generous contributions, then add those too. Nothing says you can't start small and cautious at first and then offer larger incentives and more certain/structured/regularly-released rewards if/when it becomes clear you'll be able to deliver them. If you're doing animation commissions, then (provided the commissioners are okay with it) have the progress updates on those as the initial rewards. As you're freed to do more of your own animations, you get to have more to offer as rewards, and more incentive for people to join your patrons.

I sat on mine for months fretting over all of this, and it really is much simpler and manageable than you might think. Had I simply jumped in, I may have been better prepared for an unexpected rough patch that, as it happened, I only managed to barely get through because of Patreon.

Life's unpredictable, and there's no sense in passing up an opportunity to improve your position AND increase your freedom to explore and develop your craft. Just go for it. :3

Im glad it is working out for you, I think I may give it a shot once the current commissions are done sometime in the next 10 years or so. Also considering the possibility of still releasing them for everyone to see, I know it may cost some support but I dont want to be exclusionary.. maybe I could figure out some reasonable perks to make it more appealing to supporters.. like 1080p versions, things like that.

Doing anything at all that you aren't just giving away to the world for free is exclusionary, to people who want to make anything less than that look like evil mean bad guy stuff.

I've seen people doing full color $20 commissions still get accused of 'leaving out' people who can't afford $20 for a commission.

Whatever you could possibly come up with to offer as a way to give something back to those who support you; somewhere, someone who isn't supporting you will cry foul and accuse you of leaving out everyone who likes your art but isn't giving you money. The people who really do support you and enjoy your art are the ones who are happy to see more of it, even if they aren't contributing a dime and aren't the subject of the work.

Giving early access to supporters, giving higher quality files, anything at all, will get you accused of being exclusionary because whatever you're giving your patrons, you're not giving to everyone else. Even if you ARE giving it to everyone else, albeit a few weeks later.

Even if your patreon is launched stating a purpose of just helping you complete commissioned animation work sooner, I am sure you'll still find support. Again, people will cry foul. They'll say you're getting paid for work that was already paid for. But if people want to help you cut that 10 year estimate a bit shorter, to get to see whatever you've been commissioned for sooner, and to see you sooner freed to work on your own projects, then that's their choice. So long as you are honest with what you are doing, don't let people discourage you with terms like 'exclusionary' and other criticisms that are going to be thrown at anyone not "doing it just for the joy of art" and somehow pulling rent money out of thin air.

Oh I know that will happen no matter what I do, its not really about calming that down, people like their harumphing. :)
Truth is I would rather share it with everyone anyway, just want to figure out a way to do that while keeping it fair for contributors. Realistically it would all wind up reposted somewhere anyway.

Well animation does take a fair bit of money, and lots of furries want animation, especially when it's as good as yours. It'd be a pretty great idea for what you're going to be doing, although given the long process I'd recommend the monthly model rather then a weekly one.
As far as rewards go that can get a bit more tricky. On one hand you want to give something really great to the people who are willing to back you, on the other hand you don't want to hide content behind a pay wall and disappoint your fans who can't afford it. About the only thing I could think of for decent backer rewards is offering more frequent progress updates to backers, those with larger donations can make suggestions, and if somebody is particularly generous, perhaps offer them a sketch or art piece every so often on the side.

Sites like Patreon seem perfectly suited for bigger projects like animations. The way I see it, there are very few people who could afford to commission an entire animation for themselves, but many people who might be willing to chip in some 5 bucks, to help make it happen.

To keep people interested, you could post updates every two weeks or so, if not with new animation material, then with sketches/ roughs and so on. And for higher supporter tiers, you could offer little stream animation workshops, where people can watch as you work on your animation and you could explain some basic animation techniques and such to them. I'd say it's worth a shot.

what is paygates?

Wasn't necessarily planning that, still very much in the mulling it over phase.

People are going to have their black and white views on things. One person sees it as a price tag on something that 'should be free' and other people see it as an opportunity to support an artist they like so that the artist can make things they want to see and feel like they (the patron) were a part of helping to make a reality.

In my opinion (and based on the reception I've seen for various patreons), the patreons that have the largest likelihood of success are the ones that offer the end-results of their labors for free to everyone, with exclusives such as sneak peeks and influence of content for those who are patrons. That way the people who can't afford to pay into it aren't left out of the eventual product, and those who can are given the opportunity to do what they've said they wanted to do the whole time, but at a 'price' that works for everyone.

Also, you can charge per update rather than per completed project. Just state up front that what you'll be offering is sneak peek updates to the patrons behind the scenes, and then just post a new clip or what-have-you when you have something worth sharing. If they like the progress, they'll have no problem with continuing to pay into it, and your effort will pretty much pay for itself. Just remember that patreons aren't easily something to live on. You're basically working to convince a group of people to continue to pay you X number of dollars to keep working. If they suddenly need to cut costs or they lose interest, that will affect your bottom line. It's a good idea to treat it as a supplemental income.

Just my two cents. =)

Yeah I was thinking jsut that, keeping things exclusive isnt really for me so at this point its thinking of ways to add little bonuses for people as you said. As for a per update basis... maybe per a set number of seconds or something.. per scene would vary quite a bit. And yeah no way im quitting the day job hehe, Jsut a way to keep doing these animations once the commissions dry up.