Yeah, i agree. Clerian, I think most people are looking more same type of art like you did with your "Kobold’s love and passion I & II" for example.

What is on patreon is the same as what is on my FA, I don't do paywalls or stuff like that.
I only ask for help as an artist who does not do scams like the others.

I think part of it boils down to there having been some artists out there who have used Patreon as a sort of pay wall so that only those who can support themselves financially to pay for a tier from said artist can do so.

Unfortunately, this has resulted in some artists of that particular group to abuse how Patreon was initially envisioned, which was just another income source; some artists I followed (I don't follow them anymore due to at least one reason I am about to share) basically closed down their commission availability on this site, used Patreon as a way to commission them, shuttering their availability to a greater audience, and granting their commissioners bonuses such as greater chances to win an auction, and ability to make private commissions =>whenever<= they wanted, even if the artist was closed (not all the artists who had this system did this, this is merely an example).

I think that because of this, this has resulted in leaving a very sour taste and horrible first impression on most people's mouths.

And that's exactly what I don't want to do: Scam people with false ideas of exclusivity. 'Cause that's what those artists do sadly.
My commissions are available to everyone, I have even made commissions to people who are new and needed an original fursona.
But my work model of a good artist plus good person is not working for me financially.
Although I have no plans of using dirty tactics, so I don’t know what to do.

With regards to Patreon the unfortunate reality is that because your work is also publicly available on FA 90 % people aren’t willing to pay extra for it on Patreon.

Perhaps you might entice people to subscribe with Patreon exclusive pieces instead of paywalling your main gallery?

But yeah… Patreon artists paywall because it’s an effective way of making money. Like it or not.

I always thought that becoming a good artist and being ethical would lead me to success. And in part it has happened because many love my art and praise the fact that I'm correct with everyone, but it is not working financially for me, because people still choose to give all their money to scam artists even if they hate those models.
The problem is that I am not able to implement the scammy ideas of the other artists, because I would hate myself for destroying my principles.
So I find myself in a dilemma where being bad is terrible and being good makes me poor.

It is difficult for me to offer free drawings on patreon, because my art is of high value and even if I only offered linearts, that part of the process is the most labor intensive part for me, so I would waste a lot of energy doing something that would give me almost nothing.

Ah, correction. Regarding the exclusive art: technically I already do it and sometimes months in advance, and I even offer things like lineart, shading and high res exclusive versions but they still don't want it.
It's like they asking me to rip them off like the other artists, but it's not something I want to do.
I don't understand why people throw money at what they hate but don't support the artists that sustain the community in a healthier way.

I know. It is very frustrating.

The truth of the mater is that many people do not understand the effort and time that go into artwork and as such don't understand the value of it. As such they undercut artist, hence why people believe in 'your pries are to high' asking for commission high rendered works in the for less then you would earn at a 9 to5 job.

Even in my small audience, I was forced to put myself into the subscription (people that join pay when they do) Rather then after a cycle because I had people join and cancel same day just to get what I offer on FA bigger(as that is at current cause of my small size, the only thing I offer).

And man many many folks in the fandom try and buy relationships with artist or people that get a lot of work (I've seen folks with no artist talent of there own have popular pateron cause there character is and people want to buy into getting with them...) and if you don't have a certain about of clout a lot of folks will write you off whole sale even if you are doing things better then many others.

Then we add to the fact that funds are tight for people giving wage stagnation and inflation...

way too many people prefer to give money to these popular but hated artists like danze, jasonafex among many others. And itis because these people create literal cults of their person and take advantage of everything toxic that exists.
it always seems like furries wish for everything they hate and then complain about it later :/

Yeah, that's something I've noticed since I joined the community. And it's something that hasn't improved in 15 years. In fact it's gotten worse than before, furries hate those artists but become dependent on their content, and those artists prey on their needs.
The problem is that good, correct, hard-working artists are left behind because the community throws money at the wrong people.

people usually sign up for patreon for the deals in it + wanting to support the artist

like those who only allow those who are in their patreon to commission them
or those who have patreon exclusive content, alt version of the art (Different clothes or nude versions)
or early access to the stuff

people also do wanna support you am sure but they also want to get something out of it at the same time.

is all i can think of now im not really good with these things

I have a good deal of 15% discount on any commission. And about supporting me, yes, those who are on patreon want to help me from the bottom of their hearts, but it is not enough to have a calm life. I have an incredibly small patreon compared to the number of people who follow me.
I don't like the idea of forced paywalls, they're like stupid microtransactions or like those games with 150 DLCs to "have the real gaming experience".
I always thought that being good and ethical would be enough for the community but it seems that is not the case.

I agree with what Inderezzed said.

That said, for myself and a good number of friends that I've brought the subject of patreon up with in the past, we don't do it even for our favorite artists that have one. The reasons usually being not having a lot of money to spare, or from the feeling that if we support even one, it'll open up the floodgates of "well one more won't hurt"... then we sub to another... and another... and from there it just spirals out of control.

I could be wrong, but I have a feeling there's probably a lot of others who also feel this way

It seems to me that people tend to subscribe to Patreon and Subscribestar pages for one of two reasons:
1) To receive exclusive rewards, e.g., paywalled content, Patreon raffles, Patreon-exclusive commission slots, or personalised sketches for patrons.
2) The patron feels their support is directly enabling the content creator to work on a project they would not be working on otherwise.

You don't want to go for the first option, it sounds like, so I'll focus on the second option.

People like to support Patreon pages where their funds go directly towards a project of sorts. For instance, a pair of eSports casters run a Patreon which funds them to translate and cast Korean StarCraft games: https://www.patreon.com/ASLenglish . For another example, MC RugerMasta runs a Patreon which funds his development of an RPG game:https://www.patreon.com/MCRugerMasta . I could go on, but many of the successful Patreon pages I see fund specific projects, like an ongoing comic, development of a video game, or similar. In all of these cases, the funds go directly towards supporting a specific project which the patrons feel personally invested in.

This contrasts with Patreon pages where it appears that the page is acting as a general tip jar. Having looked through your recent posts on Patreon, it looks like you post primarily commission files to it. While this is nice, I know that for me, I get more excited by the thought of supporting the development of something I really care than the thought of providing additional money while an artist works on commissions.

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To summarise my feedback here, I have noted that Patreon pages tend to succeed either when they offer exclusive benefits or when they offer the opportunity for an audience to fund a project the audience is passionate about. Since you do not want your Patreon to turn into a pay wall of sorts, I would suggest that the best way to grow your Patreon is to communicate more frequently about the personal projects you get to work on thanks to the help of your Patreon supporters. If there's an ongoing project which has really resonated with your audience, make it clear to us that Patreon support is what helps you to work on this project, and more support means you can spend less time on commissions and more time working on this crowd-funded project.

The reason why his Patreon only shows commissions is because Clerian removes old posts to avoid content scraping (Patreons can ask for any drawing directly through DMs if they wish). Since May 2022 he has been doing commisions almost exclusively due to our situation so it became a vicious cycle. Then take into account that a drawing of his takes a month or more to be made....so yeah.

Before that, EVERY drawing he made was a passion project with utmost care taken into account, even its lore. So we do not really understand how a project could be more passionate than creating a cohesive world with characters, species and stories to be honest. All of this was shared in Patreon with the whole process. As a result, Clerian was perplexed as to why the support on Patreon was sometimes lukewarm when he was even sharing the source files so that people could see how he did his work. Also, the audience at FA seemed very supportive of these projects and nothing seemed "wrong" thus making things even more confusing. Then the economic problems came and he needed to start with commisions, he makes them with the same care and dedication as his personal projects nevertheless and that is why his clients have a good experience. So what is really different?

You refer to projects like comics, but they are also known to become sometimes into cash cows as they become stretched too thin to maximize page count so that the lifetime of the project is larger. So sadly things are very gray on this regard and it is really confusing sometimes.

I understand what you are saying. I hope nonetheless that my feedback can be helpful. If I've gotten the wrong impression about anything -- say, the amount of content that's been released on Patreon because older posts are regularly removed -- then that means I'm probably not the only one getting the wrong impression.

You should Launch a Subscriber Star Page for sure, that would definitley help.