FA+
Shop
Recovering from chaos & planning for the road ahead
2 months ago
Every once in a while I make one of these wall of text posts to collect my thoughts. Today I'm sitting here with this Qhala model just one or two work sessions away from being upload ready and I feel....conflicted. Partially because I've been feeling absolutely drained from a completely insane situation I just had to deal with in my life, and partially because that situation has put me in a position where I'm going to have to change how I approach my work in this community. So this is an attempt to take a deep breath, collect those thoughts, and share them with you guys before I start making some major shifts in my output going forward.
So first....the chaos.
The short version is, I just had to deal with a situation where a tenant of mine, who had relapsed into a drug habit, basically tried to take over my house. We're talking finding heroin needles in your toilet after coming home from a root canal and having to move your valuables to a friend's house because you don't know what kind of fucked up situation you're in. There were junkie girlfriends, police raids, smashed furniture, and all kinds of messed up shit. Add on top of that me trying to recover from a pinched nerve and being on disability leave from work, and the fact that all of the residency laws in my state are thoroughly stacked towards tenants, and you get a complete clusterfuck that basically sideswiped my entire life from about early April through the middle of June. And I'm actually incredibly lucky I was able to get him out when I did, because if he had dug his heels in I would still be working on getting rid of him right now.
Now I'm back in the house, locks are changed, I've had some time to decompress and recover mentally, and I'm in the process of rebuilding the strength I lost healing from the cervical impingement. I'm fortunate enough to have a stellar group of people looking out for me and helping me through situations like this, so I'm in very good shape all things considered. But all of this leaves me with another problem which is the reason why I've felt so art blocked the last few weeks.
Keeping this house relies on me making consistent side income alongside my day job. I live in a very expensive part of a country doing everything in it's power to make things even more expensive, and I work in a dish room in a college kitchen. Not exactly making big boy money over here. I was able to keep things in the black last year with the renters income, but being that I'm renting rooms out of a house I'm living in, it made for a somewhat uncomfortable living situation. And this year, both tenants turned out to be major problems; the first tenant had to be asked to leave earlier this year, and now this.
At this point, I am completely over the idea of renting out my living space to anybody that I haven't THOROUGHLY vetted, and have a third party involved who is able to remove them when things get problematic. And honestly, I'm just done with the idea of being a landlord. Because of this, I have two options, as far as I can see it;
1) Sell the house, get a smaller living situation (Condo or apartment), and give up on the one chance I probably have at home ownership.
2) Keep the house, and find some way to make consistent side income.
I really like this house. It's a bit much for me to handle with on my own, but there are ways to deal with that. The problem is I'm going to have to make about an extra $10k-$15 in order to comfortably keep it. I can soften the blow with some belt tightening, but to make this work, I'm going to have to both take more shifts at work, AND find some way to make income with my 3d skill set.
And the latter part is the part that has me unable to pull the trigger on wrapping up Qhala. Because to be honest....I'm not really happy with how that model came out. Neither back in the SFM days, nor now. She badly needs a remesh/retopo/repaint, and my intention was to use this minor update to figure out what I had to do for that process. But if I'm going to commit to what I need to do to grow my audience and start treating this like a profession instead of a hobby, then I'm going to need to put that plan on potentially indefinite hold.
There are other things I'll need to put on hold too that I'm not happy about. Vega and Nika both could use new rigs and some adjustments. Vega I'm particularly frustrated about because I made an entire set of armor for her that I've been keeping in my back pocket, and I still haven't gotten around to figuring out how to properly rig it. Nika also needs more clothing options than just a sports outfit and swimsuit. And my plan for the last few years has been "learn high quality Blender production, update some of my old models, then start figuring out production strategies". Effectively, I'm now cornered into punting on that middle phase of updating Nika/Qhala/Vega and skipping straight to the production grind.
That fucking sucks, and I hate it. I took some time to chew on it and run the numbers, and I keep coming to the same conclusion every time. So I guess....consider this journal me making peace with that and moving forward. At the very least I managed to get Qhala a reasonably functional blender rig, and perhaps I'll find someone to commission to get that Vega armor rigged. And Nika has someone actively maintaining an IK rig for her, so I think she'll be in good hands until I can finally get back to her.
All that said, on to the future. I have some problems to solve and a house to hang on to. lets talk about ways to work out solutions.
First off, the prospects for making consistent income creating these characters is.....not great. 3d character modeling and rigging in this community has a bit of a value perception problem. To provide a point of reference, here's one of the more consistent Blender tutorial youtubers out there (RoyalSkies) talking about his prices and commission practices;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tm_7UgOWfY
A few key points from the video;
- Industry standard rate for 3d art is 35$ an hour in 2024
- For a set of armor, RoyalSkies charges about $250 per part
- For a *rigging* commission, Royalskies charges about $2000-$4000 for a basic realtime Maya/UE5 rig
- RoyalSkies *avoids* working on faces entirely; They are time consuming to produce and eat lots of resources
So, I'm not RoyalSkies, and I can't just go out and charge his prices. That's not the point here. The point is this; take those bits of info and look at the kind of commission prices people in our community charge for complex 3d character work. RoyalSkies is charging $2k-$4k for just a rig that would be considered basic for what we do with our characters. Many of us are charging a fraction of that for a FULL model/texture/remesh/rig job for characters with expression and genital functionality. Compared to other 3d niches, we charge comparatively bargain basement rates for highly technical work.
If you've ever wondered why it's impossible to find consistent 3d character artists in the furry community with open commissions, this is the problem in a nutshell. Most of the ones that know what it really takes to make these characters avoid commissions like the plague, and the ones that dip their toe in the water get snapped up by a feeding frenzy of starved commissioners. And in that case, it's rare to see someone able to settle into a pricing rate that respects the hours they're putting in.
It's not that I don't want to offer commissions to make characters like Shani for people, it's that right now, I can't. She's the equivalent of a fully custom Rolls Royce built by hand; 9 months of straight R&D on hand rigging with an advanced expression control system. I'm going to need to find a way to take that feature set and mass produce it. Take the handcraft Rolls Royce method and cut it down to a production line Honda Civic method. I'll probably have to charge commission prices that are slightly uncomfortable for people in this community to pay, and I'll need to develop a high quality base body to bring the workload per-character down to something reasonable. I need to output consistently high quality results to make it work. But whatever I do, if I do commission work, I NEED to make sure I'm not cornering myself into a spot where I'm making considerably less money than my $24/hr kitchen work day job. Because at that point I'm probably better off just taking overtime shifts.
So that's the core problem I'll need to adapt my workflows to solve. That said, there are alternative paths that I'll be exploring as well;
- Storefronts like itch.io and Jinxxy seem to be potential alternatives to Gumroad these days, so selling "delux" versions of character models I release for free as well as a few exclusives is a possibility. I would need to figure out what features would be gated to the delux version without gimping the model, but I could probably start with alternate skins, extra clothing, and extra expression controls and branch out from there.
- VRChat seems to have a very healthy marketplace for character content as well. It's tricky for me because being in VRChat kind of gives me the heebie jeebies; the social anxiety goes into overdrive when I realize people are reading my virtual body language. But I could probably find a way to get over that, and I know some people doing solid work in that community, so I have some inroads.
- Render commissions are something I could do almost immediately. I tend to focus on the lighter end of the NSFW stuff, but I do try to provide quality lighting and results. So I might start by offering some pinup commission slots, and branching out from there.
- Down the line, if I develop a stable modeling pipeline that can put out a character or so a month, it might be worth setting up a patreon for it. This is one of the options I'm least enthusiastic about, but if I find a way to do it that delivers consistent results without cornering me into timesink productions, it's an option.
- More piecemeal commission services; rig doctoring, texturing, modeling parts or props, etc.
All of those are ways I could start to dip my toe into making this a side hustle. My hope is to maybe start figuring out what services to offer by September, do a trial run for a couple of months, all while working towards the first character pipeline by early next year.
I'm also going to need to start focusing more on properly building up an audience through consistent render work and more social media posting (the horror). Up until now I occasionally post some renders in short bursts when I'm really in the mood, but I don't have a consistent output or focus and generally stick to my own OCs (or ones I've worked on). That inconsistency needs to change, and I'm going to need to start branching out more and interacting with other people's characters as well. The strategy for that will be leaning harder into Mia and Shani, and trying to flesh those two out a bit more as my own characters instead of letting them exist as blank slates for the general public. Maybe start doing some light worldbuilding around them as I add more characters to the roster and network with other OC owners.
As for something like a Discord server; I don't have a plan to do an "AnnoAD's Discord Server" arrangement just yet, but there is something I have in the works that might eventually evolve into something more interesting. I've got a small R&D server I run for a handful of other artists where I'm figuring out how to teach people Blender. Not just character stuff, but the full package. We're hoping that once we've built up more training material and resources, we'll have enough material in the tank to build a public facing server designed around collaborative learning. I feel like for me, my audience has always been other 3d artists, and there are a lot of people who want to get proficient enough at blender to work with their characters. So actually training people to use the models we make for them seems like a unique way to build that.
So...that's that. Everything off the chest. The next year is going to be a make or break year due to this shaky financial scenario. Until I know whether I'm able to keep the house or not, my blender efforts are going to be focused on improving output for my audience and streamlining my modeling workflow. Once we're in the clear, I'll get to do my Qhala, Nika, and Vega rebuilds in peace. But for now, it's time to get this Qhala update out the door and get down to the real grind.
So first....the chaos.
The short version is, I just had to deal with a situation where a tenant of mine, who had relapsed into a drug habit, basically tried to take over my house. We're talking finding heroin needles in your toilet after coming home from a root canal and having to move your valuables to a friend's house because you don't know what kind of fucked up situation you're in. There were junkie girlfriends, police raids, smashed furniture, and all kinds of messed up shit. Add on top of that me trying to recover from a pinched nerve and being on disability leave from work, and the fact that all of the residency laws in my state are thoroughly stacked towards tenants, and you get a complete clusterfuck that basically sideswiped my entire life from about early April through the middle of June. And I'm actually incredibly lucky I was able to get him out when I did, because if he had dug his heels in I would still be working on getting rid of him right now.
Now I'm back in the house, locks are changed, I've had some time to decompress and recover mentally, and I'm in the process of rebuilding the strength I lost healing from the cervical impingement. I'm fortunate enough to have a stellar group of people looking out for me and helping me through situations like this, so I'm in very good shape all things considered. But all of this leaves me with another problem which is the reason why I've felt so art blocked the last few weeks.
Keeping this house relies on me making consistent side income alongside my day job. I live in a very expensive part of a country doing everything in it's power to make things even more expensive, and I work in a dish room in a college kitchen. Not exactly making big boy money over here. I was able to keep things in the black last year with the renters income, but being that I'm renting rooms out of a house I'm living in, it made for a somewhat uncomfortable living situation. And this year, both tenants turned out to be major problems; the first tenant had to be asked to leave earlier this year, and now this.
At this point, I am completely over the idea of renting out my living space to anybody that I haven't THOROUGHLY vetted, and have a third party involved who is able to remove them when things get problematic. And honestly, I'm just done with the idea of being a landlord. Because of this, I have two options, as far as I can see it;
1) Sell the house, get a smaller living situation (Condo or apartment), and give up on the one chance I probably have at home ownership.
2) Keep the house, and find some way to make consistent side income.
I really like this house. It's a bit much for me to handle with on my own, but there are ways to deal with that. The problem is I'm going to have to make about an extra $10k-$15 in order to comfortably keep it. I can soften the blow with some belt tightening, but to make this work, I'm going to have to both take more shifts at work, AND find some way to make income with my 3d skill set.
And the latter part is the part that has me unable to pull the trigger on wrapping up Qhala. Because to be honest....I'm not really happy with how that model came out. Neither back in the SFM days, nor now. She badly needs a remesh/retopo/repaint, and my intention was to use this minor update to figure out what I had to do for that process. But if I'm going to commit to what I need to do to grow my audience and start treating this like a profession instead of a hobby, then I'm going to need to put that plan on potentially indefinite hold.
There are other things I'll need to put on hold too that I'm not happy about. Vega and Nika both could use new rigs and some adjustments. Vega I'm particularly frustrated about because I made an entire set of armor for her that I've been keeping in my back pocket, and I still haven't gotten around to figuring out how to properly rig it. Nika also needs more clothing options than just a sports outfit and swimsuit. And my plan for the last few years has been "learn high quality Blender production, update some of my old models, then start figuring out production strategies". Effectively, I'm now cornered into punting on that middle phase of updating Nika/Qhala/Vega and skipping straight to the production grind.
That fucking sucks, and I hate it. I took some time to chew on it and run the numbers, and I keep coming to the same conclusion every time. So I guess....consider this journal me making peace with that and moving forward. At the very least I managed to get Qhala a reasonably functional blender rig, and perhaps I'll find someone to commission to get that Vega armor rigged. And Nika has someone actively maintaining an IK rig for her, so I think she'll be in good hands until I can finally get back to her.
All that said, on to the future. I have some problems to solve and a house to hang on to. lets talk about ways to work out solutions.
First off, the prospects for making consistent income creating these characters is.....not great. 3d character modeling and rigging in this community has a bit of a value perception problem. To provide a point of reference, here's one of the more consistent Blender tutorial youtubers out there (RoyalSkies) talking about his prices and commission practices;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tm_7UgOWfY
A few key points from the video;
- Industry standard rate for 3d art is 35$ an hour in 2024
- For a set of armor, RoyalSkies charges about $250 per part
- For a *rigging* commission, Royalskies charges about $2000-$4000 for a basic realtime Maya/UE5 rig
- RoyalSkies *avoids* working on faces entirely; They are time consuming to produce and eat lots of resources
So, I'm not RoyalSkies, and I can't just go out and charge his prices. That's not the point here. The point is this; take those bits of info and look at the kind of commission prices people in our community charge for complex 3d character work. RoyalSkies is charging $2k-$4k for just a rig that would be considered basic for what we do with our characters. Many of us are charging a fraction of that for a FULL model/texture/remesh/rig job for characters with expression and genital functionality. Compared to other 3d niches, we charge comparatively bargain basement rates for highly technical work.
If you've ever wondered why it's impossible to find consistent 3d character artists in the furry community with open commissions, this is the problem in a nutshell. Most of the ones that know what it really takes to make these characters avoid commissions like the plague, and the ones that dip their toe in the water get snapped up by a feeding frenzy of starved commissioners. And in that case, it's rare to see someone able to settle into a pricing rate that respects the hours they're putting in.
It's not that I don't want to offer commissions to make characters like Shani for people, it's that right now, I can't. She's the equivalent of a fully custom Rolls Royce built by hand; 9 months of straight R&D on hand rigging with an advanced expression control system. I'm going to need to find a way to take that feature set and mass produce it. Take the handcraft Rolls Royce method and cut it down to a production line Honda Civic method. I'll probably have to charge commission prices that are slightly uncomfortable for people in this community to pay, and I'll need to develop a high quality base body to bring the workload per-character down to something reasonable. I need to output consistently high quality results to make it work. But whatever I do, if I do commission work, I NEED to make sure I'm not cornering myself into a spot where I'm making considerably less money than my $24/hr kitchen work day job. Because at that point I'm probably better off just taking overtime shifts.
So that's the core problem I'll need to adapt my workflows to solve. That said, there are alternative paths that I'll be exploring as well;
- Storefronts like itch.io and Jinxxy seem to be potential alternatives to Gumroad these days, so selling "delux" versions of character models I release for free as well as a few exclusives is a possibility. I would need to figure out what features would be gated to the delux version without gimping the model, but I could probably start with alternate skins, extra clothing, and extra expression controls and branch out from there.
- VRChat seems to have a very healthy marketplace for character content as well. It's tricky for me because being in VRChat kind of gives me the heebie jeebies; the social anxiety goes into overdrive when I realize people are reading my virtual body language. But I could probably find a way to get over that, and I know some people doing solid work in that community, so I have some inroads.
- Render commissions are something I could do almost immediately. I tend to focus on the lighter end of the NSFW stuff, but I do try to provide quality lighting and results. So I might start by offering some pinup commission slots, and branching out from there.
- Down the line, if I develop a stable modeling pipeline that can put out a character or so a month, it might be worth setting up a patreon for it. This is one of the options I'm least enthusiastic about, but if I find a way to do it that delivers consistent results without cornering me into timesink productions, it's an option.
- More piecemeal commission services; rig doctoring, texturing, modeling parts or props, etc.
All of those are ways I could start to dip my toe into making this a side hustle. My hope is to maybe start figuring out what services to offer by September, do a trial run for a couple of months, all while working towards the first character pipeline by early next year.
I'm also going to need to start focusing more on properly building up an audience through consistent render work and more social media posting (the horror). Up until now I occasionally post some renders in short bursts when I'm really in the mood, but I don't have a consistent output or focus and generally stick to my own OCs (or ones I've worked on). That inconsistency needs to change, and I'm going to need to start branching out more and interacting with other people's characters as well. The strategy for that will be leaning harder into Mia and Shani, and trying to flesh those two out a bit more as my own characters instead of letting them exist as blank slates for the general public. Maybe start doing some light worldbuilding around them as I add more characters to the roster and network with other OC owners.
As for something like a Discord server; I don't have a plan to do an "AnnoAD's Discord Server" arrangement just yet, but there is something I have in the works that might eventually evolve into something more interesting. I've got a small R&D server I run for a handful of other artists where I'm figuring out how to teach people Blender. Not just character stuff, but the full package. We're hoping that once we've built up more training material and resources, we'll have enough material in the tank to build a public facing server designed around collaborative learning. I feel like for me, my audience has always been other 3d artists, and there are a lot of people who want to get proficient enough at blender to work with their characters. So actually training people to use the models we make for them seems like a unique way to build that.
So...that's that. Everything off the chest. The next year is going to be a make or break year due to this shaky financial scenario. Until I know whether I'm able to keep the house or not, my blender efforts are going to be focused on improving output for my audience and streamlining my modeling workflow. Once we're in the clear, I'll get to do my Qhala, Nika, and Vega rebuilds in peace. But for now, it's time to get this Qhala update out the door and get down to the real grind.
