WB, take your time.

That's all fine...I think the only thing that would bother anyone is the fact you kept your Patreon active, which unless specified by you the artist, takes money from your supporters every month. This means that during the entire time you've been inactive on here and there, you've been making money from people without providing anything of what you've promised. Normally I would assume that the site Patreon is to blame, but I am aware that artists are able to essentially "freeze" their Patreon so it won't take money out. The fact you didn't do this makes me doubt your professionalism, and makes me less likely than I already was to ever support you via a service like Patreon. What adds to this is your vague explanation of why you've been inactive, thus leaving us all in the dark about what's happened, and further making it clear that not only do I have a barrier between me and you, but you yourself have a barrier with everyone that follows you. The (as of the time of me typing this comment) lack of any sort of new post to your Patreon indicating you may have explained to your supporters even privately what's gone on, suggest you even have a barrier up around them. If I were supporting you on Patreon for any length of this time I would feel used and taken advantage of by you, and lose a level of respect and faith in you.

Now i know that what might have happened with your family and friends could be incredibly personal and thus we as casual viewers and maybe even your Patreon supporters don't have any right to hear the full story. But the way things are currently presented to us, for me, casts doubts on why i should trust you on any level.

I say all this because I know a lot of people won't and you may get surrounded by "yes" men who never tell you about any potential mistakes you have made on any level. Because I've seen it happen far too often with artists who get far too many pats on the back, even as some of them rob people blind (not an accusation just a general observation of other artists I've seen go "absent" for a time). I should add that I can only express my own view on such matters and my view isn't absolute, so I may be making an error in judgement here, which I can only apologise for. Regardless I'd rather say something with the hope it helps you do better tomorrow, even if it results in me being added to a personal blacklist (again not an accusation just an observation coupled with some past experiences) of yours, because without criticism (professional or not) one can't improve and become the best they can be.

With that said I wish you luck in your future endeavours and hope to be able to commission your someday, albeit with a more guarded approach than I normally would. Welcome back fasttrack37d.

I think a lot of what you've said here would have been better suited for private notes or email, rather than posting this in the public. Obviously he's going through a lot, and I think for now we need to be more supportive than demanding. While I don't disagree about his vague description of what happened and why he's been gone, I don't think now's a good time to arbitrarily criticize him.

Well the journal is relatively vaguely written, so it could be absolutely everything. I am with Haru_Totetsu in that one, but you aren't far of too.
We don't know what caused Fasttrack's absence, so speculations could run wild, and dependent on peoples experience this could lead to assumptions like Haru's.

Also, while it's not very comfortable to deal with criticism openly, it's definitely a sign of a strong character to be able to keep it an open discussion, despite circumstances.

I've had an artist use the fact I conversed with them privately used against me to spread lies to others to justify their own negligence, of what they have agreed to do for others. While fasttrack27d might not be the artist in question, the fact I've had to deal with it and have conversed with others that have had to deal with it means for me, all artist have lost the privileged of me saying such things privately with them. While this might be unfair towards fasttrack27d, it's actually worth noting that because of how volatile I've seen artists react to statements I've made in the past (including thanking them for their continued efforts) I am generally more likely not to say anything. So the fact that I did means I have more faith in fasttrack27d's character than I do in other artists. All that remains now is to see how fasttrack27d responds to my comment or how he deals with it, after all blocking me won't make my points any less relevant.

Also I do give fasttrack27d some benefit of the doubt, hence why I end my original comment on a positive note. If you read professional critics own criticism of people's work, if they're negative they don't about it they don't have something positive added or even tacked on at the end. And simply take a look at this journal...I'm the only one being remotely critical of his absence, even though his last post on Patreon was in May, and his last post on here was in July (as of me posting this comment).

Again I want him to do well, and for everything to be resolved. I want to commission him in the future. But I'm not going to not criticise him if I think he's messed up, because the act of remaining silent and just wishing him well, means he can't improve how he does his business, how he handles public relations, how he runs his Patreon and how he grows as an artist. I'd rather say something in the hope he gets better than say nothing and leave him to make the same mistakes in the future.

I think you're overthinking this, and trying too hard to get crude answers out of him. You should really give him some space man, for all we know, something terrible happened. No matter what you do, you still have to give the artist some level of trust, and right now, this is a good example. I'd let it go for now.

I think you're reading too much into my comment so that it means what you think it means. I gave him criticism of something, if he didn't want the possibility of hearing anything negative, fasttrack37d had the option of disabling comments. If he had I and many others wouldn't have said anything, positive or negative.

Just to make things clear my comments in response to yours, are directed at you, not fatstrack37d, sorry for not making that clearer. If you have any suggestion son how I can do that then feel free to suggest them. So if you feel they look like I'm grasping at straws to make fasttrack37d the bad guy then I'm sorry to disappoint since they were merely an attempt to explain myself and my views to you since you seem to find fault with them. Trust me if I wanted to truly chastise him I'd be far less blunt and much more rude., both to him and you.

Right now fasttrack37d still has my trust. Not as much as he did, but he still has it. I just felt it was best to express that my trust in him was lessened and to explain why, in the hopes it helps him do better when he's dealt with...whatever he's dealing with. Just like I felt it best to express why i wouldn't support his attempts to remake the Quick Dip comic when he announced it, since not doing so means that whatever issue I had (in Quick Dip's case it's because the original version wasn't simply a rape comic, but one that suggested the rapist wouldn't have to face any consequences for it) would possibly be a continual repeat and thus lock me and others like me out of ever feeling comfortable supporting fasttrack27d

Personally I much prefer to keep interactions between me and artists as professional as I can. Doing otherwise has proven harmful for me, on several levels.

Honestly there are problems that could be over every day, leading to a mindset like "tomorrow i'll be back at drawing." But that tomorrow is never free, and so you are cheating yourself out of options you should have taken in the first place, like freezing Patreon for example. Others don't even know these options exist.

Overall let's give him the benefit of a doubt, since it's the first month that happend (?), or there are still things to learn on both sites.

It is entirely possible that he doesn't know that Patreon allows you to essentially "freeze" it somehow. Even though I've seen artists do so I'm not even sure how they do it. But if I hadn't said anything he'd still not have learnt about it. Though i'll add that his last post to Patreon was in May (as of me posting this comment) meaning he's had 4 months and several days to do something. Regardless of what happened the fact he can "freeze" his Patreon and didn't is something to criticise him on.

But I'll happily admit I don't even know what people mean by "freeze their Patreon" other than it stops it taking money from supporters. Not knowing about a feature might be understandable, but it doesn't excuse the fact he's essentially taken money each month for nothing, because as you yourself can read (as of me posting this comment) he hasn't offered to give any of it back. Not to mention he was on here in August, and still didn't tell us anything. So I feel my criticism now is justified because of the fact he'd already taken money for 2 months, then posted a journal with no thing to say about his absence other than he "wants to commission someone" and then disappears for another full month.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt since no one really uses Patreon and such factors well, as Patreon itself offers no real guidance and most other artists using it can't figure out how they should or shouldn't use it, but that doesn't excuse any negligence on his part to keep his followers, and more importantly his supporters informed. The only suggestion I could give him is to tell him to convert his Patreon to charge by post, and then post once with at least 5 pages of the comic up as that would make up for lost time since he at least owes his supporters 5 pages of the comic if we count this month.

Honestly all of this is something that needed to be said either way, and in a public space. People need to not just try and protect someone because they're popular and people are being "mean" to that person. Because if he's been collecting money from patreon this whole time then there's really no excuse for that and the account should be at least deleted at this point.

Thank you.

I think what bothers me most right now is that he's posted several commissions here on FA but there still hasn't been an update on his Patreon account. To me this suggests he hasn't got much respect for the people that have been and still are supporting him financially. The lack of any update for them, since not all of them are guaranteed to have an FA account, or follow him on Twitter.

Though to his credit he hasn't blocked me for being "mean" and such, which is a rarity these days.

This is one of those situations where I wouldn't try thinking too far into it. Otherwise you can come up with pretty much any reason as to why it's been going on. I know I tend to think the worst of situations, but I know that's not always the case. Granted instances like this are why I really don't like things like Patreon. Because you could say he's completely to blame for not freezing his Patreon, but at the same time if people didn't want to pay close enough attention to where their money was going and if they were getting anything from it then it's their fault too. But then that also just goes to how people will throw money at popular people for one reason or another. Either way it's a sticky situation.

Geeze, someone had an earfull for you. Welcome back, my friend. Help me annoy Bae for more daily Affirmations.

I'm glad you're back, I've missed your work a great deal!

Can’t wait to see you resume commissions down the road

Glad to have you back mate. You started to worry me. Hit me up some time when you got a minute.

Im glad youre ok :D

As much as I am glad that you're okay, @fasttrack37d, and feel bad that you had personal problems plague you, I feel I must make a suggestion to you, as weird as it might seem. This idea is that during the amount of time that you were away and collecting money on Patreon and being unable to deliver on your own pledge, is to refund the money you got during the time you were away. It is the right thing to do, I think, and it doesn't look good that you didn't freeze your Patreon account. Just a suggestion, my guy.

Get well soon,

Michael

Glad to hear you're doing alright! Happy to continue waiting, get yourself back into the swing of things!

Glad to see your return. Any chance we'll see more of Scott?

Hello, i have a question have you a quere that we can see a comission status and i had send you a note about a medical emergency can you please repeat.

thx

Trust is very important, So whenever you can not do any work for whatever reason then best thing to do is to freeze your Patreon account. It is not right to keep collecting money for doing nothing. People give you there money for your art.

I will happy to suppose you again,Once you start to become more active.

Right now only 99 people support you. That will go down more and more. It is important to show to people that you will keep your word. Trust is important. Why have you not posted anyting on your pateron account explaining why you have not been active in a really long time. You explain here, But you did not tell any of your pateron supporters.

I don't think he's going to get anything either. I have been waiting for a paid sketch since February 2018.
4 times I wrote to him, twice he read the messages and didn't answer and the other two times he didn't read at all anymore.

I'm not the only customer who paid and has been ignored ever since.

Right now he has lost 10 people support on pateron. Only 90 people support him now.

You have to keep everyone up to date about what you are doing. So far by the looks of it. You are doing nothing.

Why are they supporting him if he just up and left I wonder? He is also probably still taking money without putting content out.

Fasttrack has not put anything else out since last year. I stop supporting him into he gets his act together.

Now only 88 people support him right now. It will keep shrinking at this rate.