/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>3892129
i saw this in person

activated my almonds, it did

>>3892129
>paintings with cows and hens collect dust
>while paintings with bulls and roosters sell
e621 seems to be pretty even

>>3892129
So how do you market yourself? I made these posts on the dead Patreon thread
>>3892122
>>3892131
All I heard so far is
>fanart / trendhopping
I don't think I can use fandoms to my advantage
>be "funny" / use your "personality" / be a girl meme
which I suspect only works if you want to draw in children ala Pewdiepie
>porn
that's an entirely different market
>"networking"
what does this mean? if I talk to other artists on social media they reply to me like I'm a fan (of course), so I'm just a fan, I'm not "networking". Even mildly popular artists won't even consider you if you don't have a fanbase of your own that can cross over. It makes no sense.
>be professional, regular updates, etc.
fair enough but many popular artists didn't follow this at all and still got popular, and being 100% consistent right now for me would still mean completely zero views because I'm isolated from the search algorithms and my art may as well not exist on the platforms.
>be ultra amazing at drawing and get by with sheer quality
I would do this if I could

Is there anything that an industry professional learns on the field that I am not even thinking about? How much of it is related to actual drawing? I honestly doubt that getting better at drawing, even a whole lot better, will have an effect.

>>3892129
>>3861769

>>3892132
Turns out it's art!

>>3892163
oh hey, just got started on this for you, it's going to take a lot of typing.

>>3892122
I'd have to look at your current setup and position but otherwise this will just be general best practices. Marketing is an art in and of itself, it's vague like you say and makes no sense. All best practices will do is boost the signal of what is already there. Caveat emptor. I'm going to focus on the major failings I see among amateurs and contrast them with basic theory and practice.

First, most artists fail to identify their audience. I don't care what they think but it isn't "who besides me is this vile shit for?". Usually they don't have a strong voice or narrative because they aren't thinking conceptually or just don't have anything to say through their art. I honestly believe the art is mostly irrelevant as long as it's passable and you have a clear guiding principle that informs it. Look at niche products like hacker gear that does one fucking thing or fetish art. It can be shitty and overpriced but as long as it provides a single valuable feature that works well, you can charge whatever you want within reason. This is actually a long winded philosophical topic among academics and fine artists crossfaded on gallery wine and blow.

This segues nicely into knowing the market. You have to know where you exist in your corner of the universe and who you compare to in order to meet the minimum service requirements. Most businesses and apps fail because they may have novel features but fucking fail at everything else, cf. the phone market once the iphone set a new paradigm. In art this is more about meeting not only a minimum standard of quality but also having something that makes you stand out. You don't have to be great, just as good and more interesting than the competition. I see artists fail here because they are like every roadster that isn't the mx-5; they're vastly better in many ways but completely shit the bed at one thing that the workhorses don't.

>>3892129
How do I get noticed on Twitter and Insta besides fan art?
I don't do lewd.

>>3892176
It's important not to get an e-following mixed up with success, but having the former helps. If you know your theorical audience and who else they follow, you follow those people because they're also cultured gentlemen with exquisite taste such as yourself. Even token interactions and reblogs expand your audience and shift the algorithm in your favor. I would team up with the waffle house and the devil hisself if drunk satanists happened to be a considerable part of my audience I didn't plan on.

Gaming the algorithm is a huge topic.

>>3892186
Good crops and thumbnails. Maybe some humor if you have it in you. Look at what you click on and follow.

>>3892163
>be "funny" / use your "personality" /
https://youtu.be/t2AB7YqmmxU?t=90
>which I suspect only works if you want to draw in children ala Pewdiepie
You can make judgements as to their character but it's a broader demographic than you're thinking it is. Val Salia is the only content creator I specifically like because he's genuinely funny and seems to have my sense of humor (be forewarned: furry). Plague of Gripes same reason. I vaguely like Cadmiumtea because the idea of furry eroticism is novel and his bio reads like a mad libs page.
>be a girl meme
that only works if you can use sex appeal to get an emotional connection, they'd have to be 12 at least. It's also reductive- other minorities also work, ones you don't want to bone.

>"networking"
>what does this mean?
I don't know, figure out why people hate nepotism. Otherwise, an art trade.

>>3892186
what the other guy said but I specifically noticed I will click on anything with a speech balloon, because whatever is in it will completely change the context of the drawing in a way that isn't visible just by scrolling past

>light colours
dark paintings don't look good on white walls, everyone who buys art have white walls with massive sky lights
>typical artsy things
people have no taste, they want what looks like good art, not what they actually think is good art
>cow and hens
wtf this is too vague

>>3892176
I think voice and narrative are the main points about my art. I don't really get a bump in likes when I make a storytelling piece. I just make niche stuff, and if I post on social media my drawing is seen by 100 people because of the jacked algorithm. Since 1 in 1000 people likes what I do I need to make 10 illustrations to get a follower this way, which isn't viable because I might die of old age.
>>3892197
>Good crops and thumbnails.
Sure minmaxing your art so that it pops more helps a little but it's in no way the key. I see artists constantly break all these guidelines, they post art that is badly cropped by Twitter, they post sketches, they post lineart without colors, they post busy drawings, they post dark drawings, they post characters just standing there doing nothing or maybe emoting spastically for no reason, or they rarely post art at all. Sure if you're a girl artist who posts cute characters for girls then you're expected to use a girly color palette, but other than that I don't really see this as the ultimate key to visibility online.

Maybe it's just my content that simply doesn't work and I'm doomed to fail, but I can't believe this or I would have to give up.

>>3892205
>check Val Salia
>some weird fetish shit
>check Plague of Gripes
>first video I see is badly animated pokemon with tits + Bloodborne memes, absolutely no trace of original content
>check Cadmiumtea
>hideous art, but it's super gross furry porn. Can't even tell if it's fat preggo or something in between.
welp

>madonna and child
>paintings with cows and hens collect dust
>while paintings with bulls and roosters sell

that moment when you realize the patriarchy is what we all secrety like

How long does it even take to make a following without porn? I see most of the smaller artists in the 5k - 8k follower range have been around for more than 10 years.
This is the thing that scares me the most, I don't have 10 years.

>>3892277
And they're alll meeting more success than you. Personality.

>>3892163
ffs all of you fuckers who don't know how to network, listen up. Networking requires you to leave your house. You need to create connections with people locally. Sure, you can cold call all your favorite artists out there, but do you seriously think they should give you the time of day? Fuck no. Leave your house, find a local group (life drawing group, plein air groups, digital art meetups, w/e) and start communicating with people who aren't famous but possibly connected. Networking isn't about getting friendly with an idol. It's finding people you wouldn't mind being friends with who just so happen to know friends who've made it already.

>>3893538
>It's finding people you wouldn't mind being friends with who just so happen to know friends who've made it already.
That sounds like a great idea, I'll just go out and - oh what I'm in some bumfuck city in Shitstainistan

>>3892263
Your art is probably just bad or boring in some way and you haven't seen it yet. I've seen a lot of not-quite-there artists turn it around and make something once they figure out the problem and bust ass to reach a new plateau. Internet culture leads a lot of people to come out the gate undercooked technically or in the ugly adolescent phase of their style.

>>3893588
It's probably boring, I don't see quality being the issue.

>>3893709
Then it's easier to fix than bad.

>>3893764
Actually it's much worse. This is what I love doing. Quality of art can be improved, I can't change what I like.

It is heartbreaking when you see generally good art on social media with maybe 10 likes while some guy who somehow has 1500+ followers posts art that times worse and it gets 300+likes.
Like what do those guys with 10 likes do wrong that they can't get any traction.
They need to heavy rely on fandoms and using hashtags because they have no fanbase and no one gives a shit about their original ideas if they don't have a big follow group already.

I sincerely starting to believe this is all because nowdays general public became too used to good art that it now considers only the best to be good and the art that is good is now mediocre to them. People who are popular nowdays just started when it was easier to impress people and 'like' culture was a novelty to them so they used to like and subscribe to anyone mildly interesting to them while nowdays they can allow themselves to cherry-pick the stuff. It's kind of a bummer honestly.

>>3893523
Plague spent years dickriding Two Best Friends for relevance and furry porn artists will inevitably make bank off of furries. Never assume your biological mistake ass appreciates anything for a respectable reason.

>>3892197
>Good crops and thumbnails
Pretty much all boils down to this.

>>3894145
It used to be so easy to game Tumblr years ago. So much of the art had the same style or color palette and wonky illustrative composition that you could take anything with a good sillouette and value structure and edit the levels to get more views. It was like a hawaiian shirt in a sea of blue button downs. It's not so easy now but I still think it would work if you could figure out how your work is found and presented and what with.

I think using the principles of design and composition not only in your work but also with its relative position in the feed is a powerful tool. It's already being done on insta, which is why you see the trends you do like photos of sketches with the pens laying on it.

Heuristics that determine attitude are a huge part of it. People like what they already like plus "new" things with n differences. n is generally 1 or 2. I have a hunch based on market research and the psychology of grocery stores that unsuccessful art is too divergent from the pattern.

>>3894188
Like, say you're a moebius clone. Your art is going to stand out in a feed full of photos (it's entirely novel but still recognizably similar w/r/t composition and human figures), get no interest amidst concept art (too many differences, not what the audience is looking for), and have to have one or two key differences to stand out among other moebius clones. This is before you even get to content. I'm extrapolating a lot of this from viewcounts for pieces within a single artist's gallery, the one dark composition in a sea of high key skittles usually gets significantly more views.

All this goes out the window once you're established into the aggregator. Then it becomes a matter of familiarity, people see your shit over time before they ever click on it and are acclimated to it when they do.

Is it better to start sooner with bad art (mid-high-/beg/, with traces of public appeal) or try to get "decent enough" first and start indefinitely later?

>>3894215
even if you are shit you better start as soon as possible.
Befriend other aspiring shit artists first to form sort of support group where you would like their stuff and they would in turn like and retweet yours.
This way you will start to develop your fanbase early even if it will be really small at first and for a long time.
Because even if you will get better first and only then start to do art it will take a while to gain traction because Social networks AI would constantly ignore you.

>>3894215
I don't like bad art clogging up my shit. Have some self respect and don't post until you're on par with an artist you respect and follow. It doesn't have to be great, just consistent and what you want to make. I like it when artists come out a little undercooked and appear to improve quickly. It also gives you better leverage with other artists, we love rough but good more than /beg/ and trying to get attention for garbo. It also keeps you from forcing yourself into a "style" and stagnating.

Anon is right that it's better to start early and find other artists at your level to network and grow with, I just think there's a point where the artists and whatever fanbase you get aren't helpful. Unless you do niche fetish porn.

>>3894188
I made a Tumblr account a month ago and posted everything I posted on Twitter, I got absolutely zero notes on anything. No idea if it's just a jacked algorithm.

>>3894196
That's always assuming your art shows up in their feed. I'm basically fucked on Twitter because none of my art shows up in tags for some reason, so people just don't see it in the first place.

Does anyone have a clue about Mastodon? Is it worth it? Is it just for porn?

>>3897008
It got a lot of users on the pixiv offshot because of the porn bans on twitter. You be the judge if you want to deal with hundreds of user moderated servers.

>>3897030
>You be the judge if you want to deal with hundreds of user moderated servers.
Yikes.
Are there even any sfw servers?

>>3893764
>>3893709
>>3893588
>>3892263
>>3892197
>>3892186
>>3894145

How does one tell whether your own work is boring, though?

>>3899622
does it appeal to queer tweens with ADD who only want to ship the characters?
is it a ripoff of a currently popular (popular, not beloved. people say they love things they don't actually like because they want to look intelligent) thing?
if not it's boring

>>3899622
Imagine yourself as a complete stranger going through your post on their timeline. Would you skip past it? Like the post? Follow the artist? Or get mad to the point of blocking this random account?

>>3894128
Sounds like some can't network