Here's a quick summary of what's going on if you don't have time to read my post in it's entirety

• I use to have free Photoshop and now I don’t.
• Even if I use a free drawing program, it might interfere will my ability to give some Patreon rewards.
• I can’t spare the money to buy a monthly prescription for Photoshop.
• I no longer have a day job and I’m using my free time to improve upon my skills. With the month I have in the bank, I’ll be able to spend roughly 8 months improving my skills, provided that no unexpected expenses come up.
• I’m willing to eat less food and wake up early in the morning to get what I want.
• I could really use some support through Patreon or Ko-fi or just having my art reach more people.

End up summary. Detailed information below:

As you may know, I mainly use Photoshop to create my artwork. I initially got Photoshop for free due to the school program that I was in. However, today Adobe finally caught up with me and is now keeping me from using Photoshop unless I use a 30-day trial or pay for it.

I thought I’d be able to get around this considering that my school gave me a redemption code for Photoshop roughly around the time I graduated. However, when I tried to redeem the redemption code today, it wouldn’t work. An Adobe support member told me to try again in 24 hours, but I have a feeling that it won’t work.

So here’s the deal; I can use another free software to continue making art (I’m thinking of using Medibang Paint Pro), but I’m not very familiar with other programs so it may effect the quality of my work. Also, I’m not sure if I will be able to offer all the Patreon rewards I currently have if I use another program. So that will be effected as well. I could just pay for Photoshop, but I want to avoid doing that for as long as possible since I am not in the financial position to afford monthly payments for Photoshop.

This leads me to something else I want to mention. Recently I’ve been let go from my day job (I was a temporary worker anyways, so I was expecting this to happen at some point). I didn’t consider this to be a huge problem because I planned on using this time off in order to improve upon my art skills. With the amount of money I have in the bank, I can afford to spend roughly 8 months increasing my talent before I had to find more work. I really need this time to focus on my skills, and I’m hoping that no unexpected expenses come up.

So knowing that, you can imagine why I’m not so quick to spend money on monthly payments for Photoshop any time soon. The more money I spend, the less time I’ll have to focus on my art and improve my skills. The less time I have, the less improvement I’ll make and the less likely it will be for me to land an art job or get enough people to think I’m worth supporting on Patreon.

I am making some life changes to combat this. I have to buy my own food, but I’m willing to spend less money on eating if it means I’ll have more time off. I also usually get up at around 9am - 11am, but I’m going to start getting up at 6am in order to have more time in the day to work on art and improving my skills. But I know all of this isn’t going to be enough.

If you can, please consider supporting me on Patreon or giving me a tip on Ko-fi, or even just sharing your art with others so I can get more recognition out there. Every little bit helps. It really does.