Announcement! (Patreon)

Howdy!

I have decided to go on a hiatus starting from June, until about halfway through July (depending on the state of modding tools etc.).
May will still continue as normal (temporarily without YAB as previously announced).

Tl;dr of my reasoning:
1) I'm burnt out,
2) haven't had a single break from modding in over 2 years,
3) nobody is interested in clothing mods this close to DT launch,
4) my mental health is not doing so well rn, and pushing myself to mod despite burnout is a huge contributor.

Once I'm back, I will fix all of my paid / early access content to work with DT (if that'll even be needed - it seems like clothing mods might actually work without intervention, but we'll see - if they do need fixing, rest assured I will do that!). When everything is fixed, I'll resume releases as usual, so hopefully by August everything will be 100% back to normal.

Knowing this, please make sure you cancel your sub in June (unless you want to support me anyway, which would be ofc much appreciated). I know that's still a month away, but I wanted to make sure y'all know in advance, so you can budget and whatnot. I will post another reminder nearer the time. Again, I'll still be releasing mods in May.

Now, with all the relevant info you need to know out of the way, I'm gonna elaborate for those of you who enjoy reading my unnecessarily long melties!

I've been making 5 outfit mods every month for 2+ years without a break. It might not sound like a lot, but this is my full time job - I work on average 35+ hours a week, but it's usually more, depending on the mods I make (more complex mods can take me over a week to complete). In comparison, in other standard full time jobs with the same amount of hours, you're typically entitled to more or less 6 weeks of annual leave (basing it off where I live). I haven't had any time off.

I'm not trying to play a victim or garner sympathy here. I know despite everything, this job is in a lot of ways a huge blessing. I get to work from home, doing something I enjoy. I'm in a far better situation than I ever thought I could be. So I don't want to come across like I'm whining and complaining. That being said, doing something for so long with no breaks has not been easy lately.

I admit, I haven't been enjoying it. Modding used to super fun for me. I'd happily spend 10+ hours every day just making stuff, and I'd go to sleep excited about doing it again the next day. But because I pushed and pushed so much, doing nothing but modding all the time, it's become a chore. Now, I wake up everyday dreading having to open Blender. And yes, I realise that that's how most people feel about their jobs... I feel guilty that I feel this way... But it is what it is. I want to try and get some of that joy back. I think I need to take a step back and re-evaluate how to make that happen.

To top it all off, most of my recent releases have been flops. Which I think is because everyone is either just hyped for DT and not interested in mods, or worried said mods will break and won't be fixed (again, as previously mentioned, IF my mods break I will fix them). I mean, it could also be that people just don't like these mods, but the reason I don't think that's the case, is that every one of the flopped mods garnered a lot of excited reactions when I shared WIPs. In any case - because of this, it feels like the right time to take a break, since I won't be missed as much!

Lastly... I have let some negaitivty get to me lately. And before I get into that - yes, I do also get A LOT of love from you all, and I truly appreciate every single tiniest bit of it! I'm not trying to imply that I get nothing but hate thrown my way, since that's simply not the case.
Despite that, i'd be lying if I said that I haven't seen a lot of bad stuff said about me, or about modders in general. And I know - why should I care? Of course there are ignorant, hateful people out there. I should focus on the good and ignore those who I know to be objectively wrong. But... I dunno, I've always been the kind of person who will notice 1 negative thing in a sea of 100 positive things. And now, because my IRL mental health is kinda in shambles, I can't help but focus on that even more. So I really just need to step away from the whole modding community for a bit, clear my head, fix my shit, and hopefully come back with a better outlook. I know the bad apples will still be out there, but my hope is that by then I'll be in a better headspace, which will prepare me to handle it better mentally.

Phew! I think that's everything I wanted to say. If you got this far - thank you for taking the time to read this stream of conciousness, I hope it wasn't too much of a pain LMAO. I appreciate the heck out of all the support you all have given me thus far, and I hope this isn't too huge of a disappointment.

When I'm back, I'll make sure to shower y'all with bangers like never before!

Cheers!!