My sympathies regarding the state of your health. Many artists around here find great joy and satisfaction in being full-time creators, but no one relishes being forced to take commissions as the only means of survival, with their livelihood becoming tied to the fickle whims of the oversaturated furry art market.

I have looked around your galleries, and it turns out you are incredibly difficult to advise, for you are unimaginably perfect: your technique is magnificent, your versatility with scenes and palettes is great, you have built up a massive portfolio of high quality works (that meme picture is right on the money), you are not afraid of tackling sprawling multi-character pictures with extravagantly detailed landscapes and backgrounds, your style is distinctive, and your works also breathe a uniquely tender and peaceful atmosphere.

Your account formatting is very professional-looking, and you are doing the right thing by reaching out for advice if you feel that something is not working.

That in mind, my advice will be extremely generalized.

See if it's possible to adjust your style to maximal efficiency: seek out techniques that save you time, and take the strain from your wrists and from your eyes. I'm sure you've already learned many such tricks of the trade -- now is the time to use them to publish more pictures while preventing burnout.

Sacrifice some quality if necessary -- large, complex, finely polished and narratively enriched drawings will win you a cult following, but not the steady flow of customers. But you have mentioned considering this already.

Reaching out to your audience is great, but you will get a much better advice from other artists, especially popular ones. You won't have to emulate them at the cost of your stylistic individuality, or listen to everything they say, but try to get a general idea of what are they doing, art-wise and business-wise, that's gets them the customers.

You could set aside a few hours each week for working on free fanart for the big name artists you admire, as an investment in promoting your works, and community-building.

It's a bit of witchcraft-powered option, but you could try matching your uploads with the time of day that your audience would be more likely to be awake, and resting at home, as opposed to sleeping or working. The largest and the best-paying customer base will probably be in the U.S., followed by the European countries, Canada, etc..
You will have to ask someone who knows how to analyze site traffic if you want to go that route. There are some sites that will do it for you, like this one, but it would still require a lot of deciphering.

None of that is very helpful, sorry. Even less helpful will be my parting words: don't think you're doing something wrong because of the low customer demand (although, again -- it is good to reach out). I have seen immensely talented artists be looked over in favor of decent, but mediocre creators. This thing is too massive and unpredictable to comprehend its rules -- you can only guess, and hope for the best.

And understand how hollow that sounds to someone who *has* to make their art career pay for their life.

Wishing you the best! May the damned war be over soon.

Thank you very much for such a comprehensive review! I'll try to take note of some of the things you mentioned. Thank you for stopping by and taking the time for me!

You might try increasing your presence on e621. FA is good for following specific artists but by being much more obsessive about tagging e6 is better for searching for specific subjects i.e. female dragons, sergals, etc. Also unlike so called social media, you aren't relying on some ass holes AI to have good taste.

A quick look at your commision info shows that you do different styles but you haven't gotten around to posting your updated prices yet.

Working as a truck driver in the US I have first hand knowledge that the cost of everything is going up much faster in cities and densely populated states than it is in rural areas. Sadly most of your customers are going to be city dwellers. I offset my cost of living somewhat by keeping a small refrigerator in my trucks sleeper. You might look into relocating somewhere with a better cost of living. I know that may sound like a tall order, but it may be the best thing that you can do for yourself. With the treaties that kept the world using the Petrodollar broken, customers in the United States or who participate in economies that rely heavily on the US Dollar may be royally screwed in the long run.

Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Regarding the price list, yes, my bad.. it is very difficult to find time to do everything perfectly.

Relocation is not just difficult, it is impossible in my case for the next few years for sure. I won't go into details why.
Also, in order to relocate, you need to be aware that you will either have to look for a local job (Maybe I have more or less enough money to live here, due to the exchange rate, this does not mean that I will have enough money in another country. Do not forget about the stress of moving and foreign language and culture..) And in order to find a local job, you first need to be able to overcome not only local competition, but also immigrant competition. You think too highly of me if you think I'm a capable person for this :D

About crises and a piece of politics. I'm not good at this really. But I know for sure that all crises are temporary. Until recently, I suffered a lot because of the bad exchange rate. But now everything is back to normal, to some extent. In the long term, NO ONE knows how things will be. Even people who are professionally engaged in analytics and so on. There is nothing left but to wait and hope for the best x3