VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE: What's going to happen, in short?

I am going to pause commissions, polls and giveaways for at least a year.

What i'm going to do is do a complete, from scratch, re-learning on how to animate and try to pivot into a 100% video-based grind. I will start with some fundamentals, then simple loops, then maybe moving onto more complex videos. Eventually, i also want to learn how to do some proper audio edits to my animations, since sfx add so so much more character! I have so many ideas of neat stuff to work on, but with my current workload, it's just not feasable.

From the near future, i will use the membership pages as a way to document my learning process, post paywalled WIPs and high res versions of the videos i will complete! The pages will still be of a use if you want to support me in this, it's just that the current way of how the tiers operate is gonna change substantially.

Why now? What happened?

Over the last year and a half, i noticed both my drive and rate of work steadily decline and it took me a lot of time to understand why. I think my quality still slowly crept up on most renders, but the sensation of burn-out was either always present even if at low intensity, or just came and went very quickly. At first i thought it was FFXIV and it's annoying worfklow, so i abandoned it.. Maybe it was the frequency of membership rewards, so i spread them out.. Maybe it was just the hyper-themed renders that just bored me, so i started selecting new work a bit more carefully.. After most of '26 being gone now, i can safely say that the way i'm working just isn't sustainable in the long term; both monetarily, but most importantly on my mental. It's just a matter of time before i crash out completely on this job, if i don't do something actually meaningful.

So i took a big long look at myself and what i do and i came to realize that what some might have said at the start of this journey was right: commissions kill the soul out of the hobby. Sure, making good money off of it is great, but since it's a creative thing, i also want to ENJOY the creation part of this. I have nothing bad to say about my commissioners, actually i am super thankful to and for the people i've worked with, because they've all been great interactions and convos (especially when you think about the horror stories some might tell you, both as artists and clients). It's just that working on "someone else's idea" just isn't cutting it for me anymore.

Something i've always wanted to put out more, but never found the chance, is videos. I think i made max one a year recently, but i used to animate a whole lot at the very very starting phases of learning 3d, when i still was in SFM and just doing this as a hobby. A reason for why animation always burned me out, on the rare occasions i tried it, is because i wanted to slot it in-between the regular jobs. That often lead me to feeling guilty for not doing what i was being paid to do, but essentially "fucking around".

So, since i do have some savings and i am at the moment in a situation where my expenses are as low as they can be, i think this is the one and only chance i get if i want to do a meaninful rebranding without having to go out and look for a "normal" job. Might aswell take the bull by the horns.

What happens now?

As of right now, commissions will stay closed until further notice. Community polls also aren't going to be a thing either. I do have still a small handful of commissions i had pre-booked and/or got paid for before i made this announcement, so as a matter of fairness to those clients, i will still finish those. Same exact thing, for the current round of giveaways for the Tier 4 folks (who i have already extensively talked to prior to this post, so they already know what's happening). I will finish that round with the last pair of renders coming out for Dec '26.

I will take this backlog slow as to not burn myself out completely, especially with the clarity of mind that it's going to be the last one for a bit. After that, i'll go back to basics with courses, lessons, playlist and manuals, on how to animate and make lewd video loops.

The membership pages will have their tiers updated, but still online. This will give you access to the early versions of WIP gif's and eventually the high-res versions of my new videos, aswell as a continued access to the complete art archive (which i will need to refresh up-to-date, sorry about the lateness on that); also as a generic way for you to continue to show support to my endevors, if you so choose to do so <3

That being said, i fully expect my current memberships to drop substantially and i hold nothing against you if you do. The change is drastic and i fully get if you want to stop donating for a (for now) half-dead page, so no hard feelings!

In any case, i hope you continue to enjoy my works and thank you all for the support until today! Stay tuned, because hot things are still coming~

Yours truely, Vana3D