kryat

Patron-only SHIBI Stream tomorrow! September 26, 15:30 BRT (just paste this time on Google and it will convert to your time zone) I'll post the link here and on Patreon when its up.

We're going to create some buildings and see if YouTube streams well with my setup. If not, we can all move the stream to the SHIBI Discord.

See you all tomorrow!

NOTE: You must be Backstage Pass or higher tire to watch

How are you doing, guys?

Everything got back to normal now and I have my equipment back in order and running better than ever!

This time away has given me time to ponder and reflect on how to better deliver content to you guys. The way I work on SHIBI doesn't let me have something interesting to post here until the page is nearly done. So I thought about grabbing the vast majority of my workflow in video to keep up engagement and not give off the impression that nothing is getting done. It just can get too repetitive to show in snapshots.

Right now I am studying if this will work better as a stream or sped up process videos. Maybe both? We'll see!

Pretty soon I'll have news for you all, along with the first stream or process video for BACKSTAGE PASS and up patrons.

Until then and look forward for more SHIBI!

So.... Many of the old posts in this Patreon are no longer accessible to anyone since the complete revamp of the tier system. For this reason, I am preparing two mega packs to make all that legacy content to you again, including some stuff that has never been on Patreon before! The two packs are:

1. HD Remastered Pages [+ Bonus] - Available to all Backstage Pass patrons, it will include every single SHIBI page ever released, remastered in 5K and with a new formatting and style for the text along with a few cosmetic changes, making it consistent with the more recent pages. As a bonus, every single sketch and concept for the story will be included, in the highest possible format they are available.

2. 3D sets and Assets - Exclusively for the Full Access patrons, every single 3D set, assets and templates used on the comic so far will also be made available.

These should all be releasing sometime in the first half of July. I intended them to come out by the end of this month, but some of the items I am packing are in need of some extra work. I am halfway there already, so any time now!

Just because you can see over the buildings, doesn't mean you know where everything is!

This one tool a long time to get done. I didn't know hot to do half the stuff I had to use here and this was a hell of a learning experience for me. The best part is that I now have a ton of reusable city assets to apply to all future pages! WOO!!

Starting now, I will be producing 3-4 SHIBI pages at the same time. This will allow me to better plan assets I'll need and shave off as much time as possible, creating a release buffer that will keep a more steady stream of pages flowing.

All patrons in the Backstage and All-Access tier, hold on to your seats! Because until the end of the week I'll be releasing a complete pack of all SHIBI pages remastered and cleaned up, along with every single 3D file I have ever worked on for SHIBI in .blend and .FBX formats!

In my previous post, I mentioned that I would be closing up shop to pursue a new career opportunity. Thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, that is no longer the case.

In China, the ideogram for "crisis" is the same one that means "opportunity", it all depends on how you look at it. The outbreak has squandered my career opportunity, but it has just given the SHIBI Patreon a new lease in life!

With my country in lockdown and gearing up for full quarantine mode, my services are no longer needed on the market right now. This effectively makes Patreon my primary source of income at this time. For the duration of the quarantine, I will be working on the SHIBI comic as my full-time job, starting this afternoon.

NEW TIER SYSTEM!

I took the time this morning to revise my tier system. I have effectively reduced them down to 3 easy to understand all-encompassing tiers. The rewards have been bundled together based on people's levels of interest in the comic and are now much more fairly priced. You can now get loads of content that were once only available to more expensive tiers for much less!

I hope this will breathe new life into this Patreon and offer you all a greater enjoyment of the comic!

Stay safe and take care!

Today's announcement is a bittersweet one. I have decided to end Patreon support to the SHIBI comic.

On Friday, a great career opportunity has been presented to me, and I find it impossible to refuse. I have given this matter a great deal of thought since then. Unfortunately, keeping up my SHIBI work as it is now would very much get in the way of achieving the necessary requisites to grab this opportunity and take full advantage of it. And to be very clear, I am not cancelling the comic itself, just ending the Patreon service for it.

In retrospect, maybe starting a SHIBI Patreon page wasn't the right move for me from the beginning. While I think my skills are up to the task, my speed is way too low for maintaining a monthly rewards system like Patreon. I've been trying to improve in that area, but I still haven't found a way to speed up satisfactorily. And I don't think it is fair to take Patron money for a project that basically crawls its way through production. This is unprofessional. Patreon allowed me to take the comic more seriously and become more committed to it. Still, it also made my own quality standards with relation to it skyrocket to the stratosphere! I am getting too caught up on small details that probably don't even matter that much, trying to make them look perfect, instead of getting pages out the door faster. This hasn't been healthy for me psychologically, nor for the comic production-wise.

Now, regarding my career opportunity, I can't talk openly about it without the risk of voiding it. But I can say that to get it, I will very likely be screened and have my online presence turned upside down, and SHIBI might turn out to be more a liability than an asset. Because of that, I will be completely disassociating my name from the project. Which means I will be deleting all posts from this Patreon page. I will give you all ample time to save all the things you like, though. Don't worry. You have until April 30th to backup all of your favourite posts. Roughly two months.

The SHIBI Discord will be maintained, but will no longer be associated with this Patreon page. The comic will continue in my own pace and without the pressure of having to continually report on its progress.

This Patreon page will not be unpublished, however. If you believe in and enjoy my work, and would like to continue to support me monetarily, I will keep this Patreon running. It just won't be about SHIBI anymore, but rather my general professional work and hobby projects, on which you will be able to get exclusive behind-the-scenes insights through a single-tier donation of the amount of your choice, starting from $3. This will be a very loose and commitment-free thing, whenever I have something to show, you will get to see! Exclusively.

I hope you guys will stick around for what comes next, but if this is where we part ways... I want to express my deepest gratitude for your support during this time we've been together. SHIBI has been dramatically improved upon thanks to your contributions to it.

All the best!

-Kryat

Looks like Alex got himself in a pinch! (Literally XD)

And thus begins Alex's life as a macro supervisor! Best of luck to you, my boy!

The pack with all the content from last month's Discord updates, along with all the assets used to make them, will become available for you all to download later this month, together with the release of the new SHIBI page. So just hang in there a little longer.

If you want to be in the loop of everything that is going on with the comic as it happens, join our growing community on Discord!

Just click on this link and follow the instructions: https://discord.gg/nK2GNwt

Hello, Patrons!

As part of the SHIBI Patreon 2.0 overhaul, we now offer access to our very own Discord server for all $5+ Patrons. That server is where all comic updates will be published along with most of the rewards. This is to keep the Patreon feed more presentable for newcomers and to keep things tidier in general over here.

But you won't miss out on your rewards if you don't join the SHIBI Discord, as I will post a pack here at the end of each month with all the Discord content inside.

It has come to my attention, however, that not everyone is getting access to the server or, if they did get in, they don't have access to their rewards in the secret Patron area. If this is you, then please send me a message, and I will help guide you through the steps on how to fix it. It is quite easy and straightforward, but Patreon doesn't make it very clear and might be a little obscure for people to figure out on their own...

I hope you're all having a great December so far. I am eager to see you all in the server for loads of fun!

Take care!

Dear Patrons, the time is NOW!

I have just taken down the old reward tiers and uploaded the newly remodelled ones. As of right now, while your contribution amounts are maintained, you are no longer subscribed to any tiers. Please, take your time to review what the new tiers have to offer and pick the rewards that most interest you! You will only get charged for the new rewards on December 30, so no hurry.

The new tiers were revised and rearranged to put all the focus on the production of the comic itself, with the exciting addition of the official SHIBI Discord! This will give room to a Patreon stream that looks cleaner and contains only finished pages, assets and polished rewards. Meanwhile, all WIPs, sketches and smaller updates will be exclusively shared over on Discord. At the end of each month, all Discord material listed as rewards will get uploaded as a pack here on Patreon. So don't worry about missing out on those rewards if you can't or don't want to be a part of our Discord community.

The Discord also gives us the chance of facilitating communication between us. Since not only you can get a more detailed report on the progress of the comic but also interact with me more directly.

This is all I have to say for now. I hope to see you guys soon in December when we resume page production and get this comic back on track!

-Kryat

Quick progress update and speak peek into the next SHIBI page. Just what the heck is Jackie thinking about.... O_O Full page WIP coming soon for Patrons only.

October hasn't been an easy month. It was likely the craziest and busiest of the year. Things got really short handed on the work side of things, with a few people no longer being a part of the team and forcing the rest of us to pull double the productivity. But that's all part of the game when you're self employed and I am still kinda new at all this.

The output of new SHIBI pages has been a bumpy ride since it started, but it needs to do better in the coming months in order to be a viable source of entertainment. And plans have been made for that to happen...

Coming November a completely revised set of tiers will be unveiled and current benefits will be redistributed in order to produce a good balance between rewards and page production. Because of this, there will be NO CHARGE for November. This is so you all can have the time to revise which tier you would like to be in and get exactly the content you are looking for!

November will also mark the official launch of the SHIBI official Discord server. A place to talk about the SHIBI universe, meet up with other fans and also a way to interact with the creator directly. The Discord server will also feature a lot more minor updates on the state of the comic, as Patreon will become the home of only major updates and rewards.

Hope you all like the changes and that they may facilitate a better production rhythm and get more pages done faster in a timely manner.

See you all in November!

-Kryat

Due to personal issues, I have fallen behind on work and won't be able to keep my schedule for this month. So to make it fair... NOBODY WILL BE CHARGED ON OCTOBER 1st!!

That's right! Content will still be made and posted as usual, but there will be no charge this month. Enjoy!

Page updates coming soon and hopefully some sketch goodies!

Can a tiny cat wake up a 50 m/164 ft rabbit?

Let's find out.......

[please download attachment for full quality]

I don't know who was it that just brought in so many new patrons here, but that fresh injection of support was enough for me to lay off work time on my end so THANK YOU SO MUCH, whoever you are!!

Lots of exciting content coming up tomorrow and on the following days! This includes the new strip, new 3D sets and new files and fonts.

See you all then!

I have completed the sketching for exclusive mini-strip but couldn't get it done for today, one of the panels took way more time than I anticipated. Only line art remains to be done. But since I teased it for today, I would like you to tell me what would you like me to do...

Attached is a preview of the current state...

This one will be black and white only and will feature a huge macro trope we haven't explored yet! Stay tuned!

Only Patrons will be able to read this one!

Come join if you can!

https://picarto.tv/Kryat

END OF STREAM RESULTS

Streaming directly from my laptop has yielded poor results. Everything slows down to the point where it becomes almost impossible to work. I will try to see if there are other ways to do this. So long as my computer is only processing the stream, it should be fine. I will look into a solution soon....

The new SHIBI page has been hitting some bumps in the road, mainly due to my ineptitude when it comes to anatomy. Some poses are really tough to get right. But I finally managed to sort that problem out this last Sunday and I think things can move forward again. I still have my eyes set on delivering two pages this month!

Some of you Patrons on the Lead Researcher ($10) tier are probably wondering about the streams I promised in the tier description. Well, I think we're almost there! I will be making an attempt to stream either Wednesday or Thursday evening and see how that goes....

I stopped streaming for a while because my computer started lagging during streams and preventing me from being able to neither stream nor be able to work. I think I may have found a way around that, but I won't know for sure until I try. The first stream will be free for everyone to join, as it is just a test to see if this works, and all subsequent streams will be private for $10+ patrons ONLY.

Hope to see you all there!

When we reach strip #8, there will be the first multiple choice quiz where YOU can decide what course the story will take. Everyone pledging on $10+ tiers will get the right to vote!

Have fun!

Hello guys!

SHIBI #6 was supposed to have come out last week, but due to the change from Cycles to EEVEE in the way I render my backgrounds, I needed a bit more time to adapt to the new workflow.

The next strip will come out by the end of this week exclusively here on Patreon! (and one week later on other platforms)

Sorry to keep you waiting, but I hope the new system will speed up my workflow and lead to pages getting done sooner!

Peace!

Hello, my dear patrons!

Since I am having trouble with my internet provider lately, it will be impossible for me to host a stream at this time and we are so CLOSE to reaching out first milestone!

So slight change of plans... Instead of a stream party, I will hold a FREE REQUEST CONTEST! You can ask me to draw anything you want with any character or theme you want. (just remember to keep it SFW, because part of my fans are minors). Then, I will make a poll with all the ideas and we will vote on the best ones! Two winners will be made!

The two drawings will be full colour!

NOW LET'S REACH THAT MILESTONE, GUYS!!! Get your friends to join in and help support the comic!

So this is what I have been working on for the past week.... learning how to use Blender's brand new render engine.

With the new version of Blender, a new render engine came with it called EEVEE (its basically a custom version of Unreal Engine 4 tweaked for offline rendering). EEVEE is a very powerful renderer that is capable of generating lightning fast realistic looking results. But it sacrifices physically correct lighting in favour of speed. It's a game engine, after all....

However, I don't need physically accurate lighting. My comic is a cartoon and, after making this test, I feel that EEVEE produces a much more comic-like feel than Cycles does and is MUCH FASTER to render the final image! The image above features the same scene under the same lighting conditions (different settings though).

What do you guys think? Should I stay with Cycles or dive head first into EEVEE?

I am gonna take some time off from working on the next strip this weekend, so I can finish uploading to Patreon all the previous strip content from SHIBI. So there might be a little flooding to your inbox, but this will happen just this once.

As soon as I am done, its back to work and getting the new strip ready!

Have fun with the rewards from the old content! There will be a few never-before-seen exclusive stuff in the middle of the pack.

I got the message loud and clear from the last poll, you guys clearly don't want to interfere in the creative process of SHIBI (Thanks for trusting in my creative vision, by the way). Still, I want to do something nice to celebrate our $50 goal when we reach it!

What do you guys want to do to celebrate?

If they don't make alarm clocks your size, you improvise!

[Download attachment for uncompressed file]

Concept sketch for a future strip.

Alex is still learning about how the hierarchy works at the SHIBI institute. He's a slow learner...

Only 1/5 of all SHIBI sketches are public. The others are for TITAN employees and investors ONLY! Sign up to the SHIBI Patreon to unlock them all!