After a long wait, a lot of planning and a lot of "I have no idea what I'm doing", my Ko-Fi supporter membership tiers are finally live! Now I can finally give something back in return any support offered me. If you can, please consider supporting me on Ko-Fi and unlock early access and exclusive content that will only be made available there! https://ko-fi.com/mikedragon

I intend on expanding these tiers as soon as I can, whether it is by adding more tiers or adding more perks (preferably both?), but for now I'm starting small with only three tiers with some stuff that hopefully you will find appealing. Here's a quick rundown of what's available so far at the moment:

Tier 1:
Being the first tier is is naturally the simplest of tiers. For $ 5 monthly, subscribing to this tier will give you:
- Exclusive access to the sketches of various artworks and be able to view their progress as they evolve.
- Exclusive access to the progress sheets of the sketches of various artworks to view their evolution (the "progress sheets" are like backups of the progress on each sketch, all in the same canvas), step-by-step.

The sketches made available through tier 1 will not be uploaded to here or Deviant Art or any other platform. Normally I don't upload those anyway, only rarely have I ever uploaded any sketch here to DA in the past. Most of it you could only see through my art streams on Sundays (the Chill Art Sunday stream, every Sunday at 2 PM EST on Twitch and Picarto). You should still be able to see that as I will still be working on stuff there, but to see/download the actual image files themselves, now only through tier 1 (and up) of my Ko-Fi.

Tier 2:
So far, the mid-tier. For $ 15 monthly, subscribing to this tier will give you:
- Access to the perks of the previous tier.
- Exclusive access to works in progress (post-sketch stage, early Photoshop stage) of artworks before they are finished.
- A 30 days early access (60 days for art uploaded to FA, but I may step that one back and keep it at 30 days as well) to finished artworks, being able to view them in full resolution and high quality soon as they are finished.

In addition to being able to see/download my work in progress sketches, tier 2 (and up) allows you to see the later stages of progress of my art, when I am in the coloring process, "building" the background, etc. Stuff far beyond the simple sketches they start as (except for commissions). Tier 2 will also give you early access to all and any finished art, for as I have announced some time ago, all of my art will now be made available first on Ko-Fi and only some time later, on Deviant Art secondly and some time later, here on FA. Ko-Fi and Deviant Art will both get the full resolution and high quality originals, but not at the same time. Soon as I finish any art, it will be almost immediately uploaded to Ko-Fi for subscribers, then about a month later, I'll upload the same high quality/resolution file for free viewing on Deviant Art. FA will also get these uploads, of course (though I might skip a few for FA. Still under consideration. Maybe not), but only about another month after it is uploaded to Deviant Art and at a lower quality and resolution (I may do FA at 30 days as well though, instead of a total of 60, but the lower quality will remain). As I have explained on the previous Journal, there's two reasons for that, so here's a quick run-down of said reasons for the "inferior" treatment FA will get:

Reason 1: FA has a file size upload limit of only 10 MB. A lot (most) of my art weighs a lot more than that. I don't want to be checking the file size of every single new art before I upload them to see if I have or not have to resize the whole thing, so instead I'll just lower the resolution of everything that'll go to FA by default and save the files as JPG instead of PNG. This lowers the resolution and the quality of the image as JPG introduces many artifacts, but it results in files that are hardly heavier than 1 MB, in average. Therefore, it solves the file size limitation issue;

Reason 2: Deviant Art has been my main and only gallery for almost 20 years. Eclipse may suck, but I am not throwing all of my history on the platform just because of that demonic UI. DA will remain as my main gallery until further notice so as such, I want people visiting it. Plus Ko-Fi now, of course. I want people going there.

So if you wanna see my art sooner, either subscribe to my Ko-Fi for instant access or check it here DA with a delay of about a month after it is uploaded to Ko-Fi. Or just wait about two months for it to hit FA, but at lower quality and resolution.

Tier 3:
So far the highest tier. For $ 25 monthly, subscribing to this tier will give you:
- Access to the perks of both previous tiers.
- Access to exclusive occasional artworks that won't be made available anywhere else (may include old, cancelled projects).
- Exclusive 5% discount on any commission order (one per month).
- Request one full body colored sketch per month.

With tier 3 on top of all the perks from tiers 1 and 2, you'll be able to see new (and maybe also old) art that I won't upload to Deviant Art, FurAffinity or any other platform. These will be exclusive to Ko-Fi and may range from simply alternative versions of arts that I will upload for free on DA/FA/other or actually exclusive art made specifically for Ko-Fi supporters. As of the writing of this Journal, there is one such artwork in there that I only made available to supporters. I may start dropping teasers of those exclusive artworks to try and get people curious. Most artists that work with Ko-Fi, Patreon or other similar platforms do that. It works for them. Regardless, such exclusive pics will only be available through tier 3.

With tier 3 you can also get a discount when ordering any commission from me (up to one discount per month) and once a month you can request a colored sketch from me. I intend on upgrading that to higher quality art soon as possible of course, but for starters I simply need to start with just a colored sketch. Lots of attention and care will be put into it, of course! These should be higher-quality sketches than what I normally draw as part of my art creation process.

I truly hope that I can keep up with these perks/rewards and as soon as possible improve them and add more stuff. But given how things currently are in my life, for the moment these are the best I can do. Well, I can do better, but I cannot afford to commit to anything bigger at the moment. I hope that these, albeit simple (at least I think they are simple), will be enjoyable for ya'll. If this works out and I can not have to stress as much with my finances, I should become more able to offer more and better things through those tiers.

So then... If you can, please consider supporting me on Ko-Fi. And if you can't, then just tell others about my content! That would also help. :) ---> https://ko-fi.com/mikedragon


P.S: I'll be launching my commissions here on FA very soon! And trust me... you might like what I can do. So look forward to that as well!

Oh... and one more thing, somewhat related to commissions... I have a few really old characters from the days when I was using this account: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/poke-yoshi/ I am revamping their designs and soon as they are ready, I intend on putting those characters up for sale here. They're a huge anaconda snake, a Lugia, an orca whale and a dragon. Stay tuned for future announcements about them.