Onwards to 2023 + Ice mom first slice pre-save folder (Patreon)

Hey all, got a big read here if you have the time! 

TL;DR pre-save folder and plans/approach for 2023.

First off: The holiday season put a wedge in working times and VA scheduling so unfortunately all of the animations I wanted for a 'big hoorah' December didn't work out - sorry for that! I hope the extras this month made things more even.

If you subbed exclusively for the first slice of ice mom being released, you can bookmark your pre-save folder here to keep your reward for the month, though I hope you'll stick around for the new year! Ideally that slice of the animation will make it to you in January. :)

Secondly: I wanted to take this moment to thank everyone for your support this past year and believing in the quality of the content being put out, whether it came out on time, much later than anticipated, or still taking their sweet time (I see you ice mom lovers). 

There's still lots to learn and improve in my workflow so I want to make 2023 a much more organized and orderly year for project output if possible. There's a lot to wrestle when you do nearly all aspects of production by yourself.

Evaluating 2022 Performance: A pretty good year for releases overall, though not everything made it out of the production process or drafting phase in time as I would have liked. VR support made a monumental push and future-proofing past and future releases for 4K 60fps also made headway. A lot of ideas may have been way too ambitious for their own good so that's something to rethink, haha.

I noticed I unintentionally created the opposite effect of when Aegis x You was being developed. In 2020 all sights were set on that project, but as a result those months were dry on animation releases aside from work in progress footage. In 2022 it was now monthly content being prioritized, which meant long-term videos like ice mom received far less progress to try satisfying that target.

This is an approach I talked about earlier in 2022 although I wasn't sure if Melony was going to follow the same release format: Instead of waiting for one big release, long term movie-like projects in 2023 will be released in scene slices in an effort to balance finishing monthly content and publishing longer videos. This will make rendering and VR side development much easier as a bonus.

2023 Goals Summary:

• Organization and consistency. Folder restructure, to-do lists, schedules.
• Further exploring physics in the workflow to save time and enhance motion. Progress on this front has been steady but with an occasional bump on the road.
• More push for longer term projects. Ice mom, Aegis x You 2, some of the FE3H s-rank animations, a certain athletic water gym leader, etc. Again these will be released in parts as they finish.
• Slowly integrate mocap and reference assistance to certain animations. There's a lot of conflicting technical factors still being sorted with the hardware.
• Making all past Patreon animations available in 4K 60fps for future proofing, as well as supporting VR for every major release past and future.
• Hold some themed polls again since they were pretty fun. The approach will be a little different.
• Finally get summer-themed content delivered in the summer!!
• And maybe animate some of the characters I've been sitting on for a while, depends how things go. A few of my initial 2020/2021 plans never came to fruition because I lacked resources that prevented project completion (game environments, props, etc)

And if you've made it this far, thanks! There's still a lot I want to create so I hope you'll join me for 2023. Have a wonderful New Year. :)