Hello everyone, it's been over four years since my last journal entry here 🤯 In that time, I got extremely behind posting artwork, but successfully graduated from Boise State University with my BFA in Illustration and Japanese Studies, then I got caught up posting artwork, and have all the while been working steadily on my creative career! What I want to talk about today is even more recent than all of that, though. I'd like to announce my first dA subscription tiers!
It was important for me to ensure a subscription here wasn't quite the same as on Patreon or Twitch. There are some similarities though:
💜 Discord Access: I think it's actually great that this is shared among all support channels. That way, no matter what your preferred platform, you can join the exclusive Studio Mikarts server and become a part of our awesome group! I post updates there that don't go anywhere else, and I highly encourage members to share their art, too!
🤍 Coloring Pages: This reward is shared between Patreon and deviantART. Both platforms are set up so that pages are free for members and can be purchased a la carte by non-members. I'd love for you to share your colored pages in the Discord!
❤️ Custom Emoji/Emotes: These are available to anyone in the Discord server. If you have Discord Nitro, you can use them in other servers! They are also available to Twitch subscribers, usable on any Twitch channel.
The rewards that make a dA subscription unique are part of the second and third tiers: Chibi caricatures! If you become my Jolly Friend, I will draw a chibi caricature for you every year! If you choose to become my Best Friend, I will draw one every quarter!! And if you aren't sure what is meant by a chibi caricature, here are a few examples:
Rewards aside, joining Studio Mikarts will mean you're helping an artist make her dreams come true 🥰 You'll be providing funds to keep the studio running--things like art supplies and hardware upgrades--and you'll be supporting me psychologically, by letting me know you really believe in what I do and would like me to continue 💖 Art doesn't happen in a vacuum. It can't exist without a community of suppliers, creatives, and viewers. Like most artists, more than anything else, I want to reach people with my work! Thank you for becoming one of my dA Friends and making that happen!!!
I am SO FAR BEHIND on submitting my artwork here! I'd like to blame it on returning to university, which has indeed had a major impact on my online activity, but I started getting behind last fall, months before school started, so that's definitely not the only factor.
Whatever the reason, I'm very behind and I'd like to get caught up before the new year turns. DeviantArt (I'm training myself to use the new brand capitalization; I really prefer the old version though...) has been my art repository for 16 years and counting so I don't want to skip anything that I might like to look back on as part of the overall progression of my craft. STILL! That means I have a lot of work to do. I have work from 2018 that I want to submit, plus everything I made this year, which is quite a bit!
I resubscribed as a Core Member today. There were two reasons. One, I was finally ready to let go of my previous username and move on to the name I use everywhere else. I've been animegirlmika, then AnimeGirlMika, for my entire tenure here. From now on, however, I'll be known by my studio name, StudioMikarts! I'm in line with all of my social media pages, my blog, online shops, and even my business cards, at last!
The second reason I returned to being a Core Member was to regain the ability to schedule posts. I'm the kind of person who works best in long, concentrated spans, rather than smaller, regular intervals, but my preferred work style normally results in a huge pile of notifications for my watchers. Now that I can schedule posts, I can still get everything submitted all at once, but set it up to release one deviation per day. Gentle snowflakes, not a roaring avalanche 😆
I'm not making any promises, but now that I'm paying for DeviantArt, I'd like to make it a habit to post my work here as soon as it's done. I may just be too busy when school is in session, so failing the above, I'll at least make sure to post my work during winter and summer break! Please look forward to it ❤️