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The Way to Popularity
7 years ago
ROOS. Yes, Roos. The more roos the better. Thicktails galore.
Who are you?
With so many new people coming into the fandom, the Big Names have come and gone. So many of us 'greymuzzles' were known names of years past, but the new people coming in have no idea who we are. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is harsh case of humility to acknowledge you aren't what you once were. You can't rely on your name or even reputation to carry you on. It's a case of nice knowing you did nice art that was popular in the past, but what have you done lately?
So many new artists in the genre that are fantastic. I mean so good I could never hope to get to that level, but that's good too. I have my own thing and people like it. Unfortunately a lot of the new people in the fandom have no idea who any of use greymuzzles are. I'm active! I have over 4,000 pictures here on FA. I've done comics, been at cons, run conventions, been guest of honor at two even. But ask the average current fan and they would have no idea who Flinters is.
Now this can actually *harm* you as a professional or veteran artist and dealer. Conventions now judge the applications and they look for people that will match the needs of their attendees. You need name recognition, lots of followers, active art being posted, and just lots and lots of eyeballs knowing who you are. Those conventions might recognize you, but more often a new dealer coordinator has no idea about you and they simply aren't going to take the time to investigate every application. Marketing yourself is important. While I actively stream art on Tigerdile, it's the same dozen or so people that watch. They know who I am, but few others do.
So how do you fix this? Getting rejected by conventions with generic table declined emails stating you should work on improving your art skills, better display, etc, is disheartening, especially for someone whom has been doing dealer rooms for 20 years now. I can't get upset at cons with new coordinators that just don't know you. They fill the room with the names they know, the people they know, friends and so on. So you need to find a way to get noticed.
NAME RECOGNITION.
Sadly, it may be time to start advertising with banner ads. I don't need more business- I mean I like it, but I'm not lacking a steady stream of business when I want it. But that's a limited group of customers and does nothing to improve name recognition. I need to get my name out there more and more so that people have a clue whom Flinters is. Banner ads on FA, silly things that tell a story or something. Get the name and character out there. Might have to put in some art for convention program guides, but even I don't bother looking at those either at the con or afterwards.
Where do you go to get your name seen? FA ads are about all that I can think of at the moment.
Also, I like mint.
With so many new people coming into the fandom, the Big Names have come and gone. So many of us 'greymuzzles' were known names of years past, but the new people coming in have no idea who we are. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is harsh case of humility to acknowledge you aren't what you once were. You can't rely on your name or even reputation to carry you on. It's a case of nice knowing you did nice art that was popular in the past, but what have you done lately?
So many new artists in the genre that are fantastic. I mean so good I could never hope to get to that level, but that's good too. I have my own thing and people like it. Unfortunately a lot of the new people in the fandom have no idea who any of use greymuzzles are. I'm active! I have over 4,000 pictures here on FA. I've done comics, been at cons, run conventions, been guest of honor at two even. But ask the average current fan and they would have no idea who Flinters is.
Now this can actually *harm* you as a professional or veteran artist and dealer. Conventions now judge the applications and they look for people that will match the needs of their attendees. You need name recognition, lots of followers, active art being posted, and just lots and lots of eyeballs knowing who you are. Those conventions might recognize you, but more often a new dealer coordinator has no idea about you and they simply aren't going to take the time to investigate every application. Marketing yourself is important. While I actively stream art on Tigerdile, it's the same dozen or so people that watch. They know who I am, but few others do.
So how do you fix this? Getting rejected by conventions with generic table declined emails stating you should work on improving your art skills, better display, etc, is disheartening, especially for someone whom has been doing dealer rooms for 20 years now. I can't get upset at cons with new coordinators that just don't know you. They fill the room with the names they know, the people they know, friends and so on. So you need to find a way to get noticed.
NAME RECOGNITION.
Sadly, it may be time to start advertising with banner ads. I don't need more business- I mean I like it, but I'm not lacking a steady stream of business when I want it. But that's a limited group of customers and does nothing to improve name recognition. I need to get my name out there more and more so that people have a clue whom Flinters is. Banner ads on FA, silly things that tell a story or something. Get the name and character out there. Might have to put in some art for convention program guides, but even I don't bother looking at those either at the con or afterwards.
Where do you go to get your name seen? FA ads are about all that I can think of at the moment.
Also, I like mint.
I love roos. Gotta respect the pouch.
And there's that whole lil' mint addiction thing...
https://www.hersheys.com/en_us/prod.....ounce-bar.html
It's not an easy balance to work out.
And it is inconceivable any con would turn you down. I hope I get to see you at another con. I have purchased many a mint with you in mind.
But then most of the stuff I get done these days is fetish porn, so I've been actively staying away from commissioning you because I wouldn't want to awkwardly associate my more eclectic tastes with your work. If you remember someone tipping you at BLFC and damn near running away when you started to sketch, well, now you know why.
I can think of a few options that might help:
A comic or comic series. By far the hardest option. Tons of work, but creates a world folks want to see their characters portrayed within, makes your characters iconic within that world, and can have a long-lasting effect on notability within the fandom.
A series of similar works for a broad range of customers - you see these a lot with badges and icons but anything you can produce en masse works. Badges in particular can get your art in front of the con crowd, if con cred is what you're after, but the idea is just to get something onto a lot of pages.
Multistreaming. Find other folks who stream, stream alongside them, pool your customer bases and see what happens. I see this a lot and don't really understand the logistics behind it - but I do see it a lot and there must be some reason for that, yeah?
Networking Stuff - tumblr, patreon, discord, all that jazz. These are fussy for the artist to set up, but each adds their own potential clientelle or revenue stream and increases your visiblity.
Hope those ideas help!
Oh, on a past machine, I once had Norton. Whatever was going on, it was becoming less and less responsive and the computer was getting super slow. In desperation, I tried a new program that I heard was light weight and still great named Avast. Well, over the many weeks, Norton seemed to continue dying of some kind of virtual stroke, taking the computer with it. Until...in almost comical form, Avast set the pirate flag upon Norton and outright screamed it was a virus. *chuckles* A moment later, Norton was no more and that computer's health improved, immensely.
In fact, I feel that protection software has become such a cursed necessity, all PC's should come with a secondary CPU that is pre-designated to operate just for those types of programs.
But I think sheer volume of art and artists is the main thing.
I find folks through icons, ads, and favourites of folks who watch me or favourite my stuff (since if they like that, they probably like others who create similar stuff)
For my part, I pretty much totally ignore the banner ads on FA. The rare few I've clicked on inevitably disappointing either by being out of date (such as for ended Kickstarters or advertising commissions that have been closed for months), leading to artists who are rather inactive, or just not being very representative of the artist.
These days I mostly find new artists from browsing people's favourites or e621. I find the extensive keyword tagging on e621 makes it easier to find things I'm interested in and the source links will often lead me back to artists accounts.
but I know what you mean. it's hard to find audience for simple sketches at a con these days, they either seem to be after the current big names, or coloured work... or prints.
There's a visual artist discord group that has places to share your streams, art, social media, etc if that interests you. Lemme know and i'll send a link!
brightly colored blinking lights
Banner ads here are good. I just ran a campaign, I think it's still running here, I keep seeing traffic. XD (Bedwarming Eve, if you like smexy anthro ponies)
Also keep posting art everywhere you can, that helps. :)
Tumblr is good, Twitter too, lots of furries on both.
I'm afraid I'll be zero help when it comes to finding popularity, since I'm not exactly a household name myself. I don't know how up on social media you are, but Twitter is becoming an increasingly popular platform for furry artists.
Best of luck to you
One old guy to another.
I find it a bit surprising that some don't know you, but maybe I'm biased because I was introduced to you via Transfur for your TF work.
Anyway, i consider you a veteran, among a handful of other artists I've been watching since I joined this fandom.
This is year 20 in the fandom for myself, and so I remember Flinthoof, Burned Furs, Furbid, the old VCL (the one that was at vcl.ctrl-c.liu.se, that is), Yerf!, and a handful of other things.
There's a lot of new, young talent, but also a lot of same-y looking things.
People are forgetting about traditional media, because now they can draw on a screen and send it instantly.
I'm not certain what to suggest to keep people aware of the old guard, so to speak, because I can't quite figure out what they want.
It's a puzzle that I don't have a solution key for, and doubt anyone does, really. :/
Your artwork reminds distinct even today and anyone who hasn't yet seen your work is doing themselves a disservice.