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Regular itoril arts with Patreon
6 years ago
Hey folks,
I'm currently working on a commission. My biggest ever. It's a couple of scenes long, and each scene is pretty complex. My very generous (and very patient!) commissioner will receive production stills soon. As usual, I'll post the animation once it's completed.
Although I'm enjoying animating this commission, such a long project has felt like a bit of a drag. This is a lot of work for one person, as most of my animations are. An auteur needs to wear many hats.
The thing that I don't like about such long projects is that the time in between posting art is so long. I would prefer to release art more frequently. As I spend a lot of time and effort on my animations, I struggle to find enough time to produce enough work that it's usually commissions that I have to take to keep myself going. We haven't reached a social utopia yet.
Compounding this is the fact that commissions are few and far between, understandably because such a great financial burden is placed on one person. Again, understandably, commissioners tend to want to see their own characters featured in their animations. The problem with this is that it takes a disproportionate amount of time to create a character in 3D compared to animating them. So I feel like I'm constantly modelling and skinning and texturing and rigging and morph targeting and.... you get the idea. There's a lot less scope for me to actually bring the characters to life.
What I would love to do is create a stable of recurring characters, and animate them regularly. Long before the days of Patreon, before I'd heard of the word "crowd funding" , I wondered if it would be possible to have some kind of system where several people joint commissioned me to spread the financial load. I think I called it a "commission pool". It seems to have been a decent idea because we have things like Kickstarter and Patreon now.
So basically I want to transition from infrequent commissions to frequent, patron backed art. Over the years I've come up with a bunch of characters in my head that I've scarcely realised. I've moaned about not being able to bring these characters to life to my friends for years. If I'm sick of it, think how they might feel! Numerous factors have conspired to stop me from taking the plunge. I feel like I'm almost ready though.
I'm looking for opinions and guidance on how such a Patreon campaign would take shape. I've already done a lot of research on the commercial aspects, but I want input from my fans about what sort of content I would produce and how I'd deliver it. If I started producing art regularly, what would I make and how would my Patreon be laid out?
I'm currently working on a commission. My biggest ever. It's a couple of scenes long, and each scene is pretty complex. My very generous (and very patient!) commissioner will receive production stills soon. As usual, I'll post the animation once it's completed.
Although I'm enjoying animating this commission, such a long project has felt like a bit of a drag. This is a lot of work for one person, as most of my animations are. An auteur needs to wear many hats.
The thing that I don't like about such long projects is that the time in between posting art is so long. I would prefer to release art more frequently. As I spend a lot of time and effort on my animations, I struggle to find enough time to produce enough work that it's usually commissions that I have to take to keep myself going. We haven't reached a social utopia yet.
Compounding this is the fact that commissions are few and far between, understandably because such a great financial burden is placed on one person. Again, understandably, commissioners tend to want to see their own characters featured in their animations. The problem with this is that it takes a disproportionate amount of time to create a character in 3D compared to animating them. So I feel like I'm constantly modelling and skinning and texturing and rigging and morph targeting and.... you get the idea. There's a lot less scope for me to actually bring the characters to life.
What I would love to do is create a stable of recurring characters, and animate them regularly. Long before the days of Patreon, before I'd heard of the word "crowd funding" , I wondered if it would be possible to have some kind of system where several people joint commissioned me to spread the financial load. I think I called it a "commission pool". It seems to have been a decent idea because we have things like Kickstarter and Patreon now.
So basically I want to transition from infrequent commissions to frequent, patron backed art. Over the years I've come up with a bunch of characters in my head that I've scarcely realised. I've moaned about not being able to bring these characters to life to my friends for years. If I'm sick of it, think how they might feel! Numerous factors have conspired to stop me from taking the plunge. I feel like I'm almost ready though.
I'm looking for opinions and guidance on how such a Patreon campaign would take shape. I've already done a lot of research on the commercial aspects, but I want input from my fans about what sort of content I would produce and how I'd deliver it. If I started producing art regularly, what would I make and how would my Patreon be laid out?
I think, for you, since you've been (no offense) a little bit absent for the last while, I'd say start low and build something like $1 $5 tiers and see if you have any hits. You can always adjust prices later if you'd like to.
Also, a Patreon campaign won't go very far without others knowing about it. So, I would recommend at least offering up some freebies or previews around here to get the ball rolling. Get that reputation back up to being a regular producer again because there are a lot of other furs out there that are already making a name for themselves with large projects. Some people may remember your works from earlier years, so snowballing this might be a little easier for you then others. No way of knowing for sure until you are actually doing this, though.
I don't know if that helps you at all, but those are a few strategies I can see for someone in your position at this stage.
I've read most of the resources out there that generally describe how to run a Patreon campaign successfully, at least as Patreon themselves would have it. It's more about special considerations I might need to look at based on the kind of content I'm creating. Do fans of NSFW art, or furry art, or even NSFW furry art feel differently than the norm? And thus are there different expectations because of this? Or are we the norm on Patreon? Their policy of using procedurally generated fox avatars for default is suspicious to the point where it seems like they're pandering. It seems Patreon knows which side its bread is buttered on!
Thank you very much for your time and consideration, by the way.