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What I'm planning for the future with my art?
6 years ago
Hello there! :D
I wanted to share with you guys the things that I'm planning for the future with my art, this will be a little long journal but I hope to express myself well and clarify some doubts.
First of all I want to thank all of you my followers here in FA, and other people who manage to read this journal and who are more on other platforms where I publish my art such as Twitter, Instagram and DeviantArt, thank you very much for all the support, for the likes, for the favorites, for the comments, for sharing my work and helping me spread what I do, really thank you very much! it means a lot :D.
Maybe you already know but to clarify I'll make a summary of what I have achieved in this space:
Who am I?
My name is Andrés Alvarez! :) I'm a Venezuelan artist that works exclusively with handmade drawings, pencil and paper or traditional art drawings. I have drawn since childhood, but since 2016 I started publishing my drawings in DeviantArt.
I don't have studies in arts, I've learned little by little researching on my own, practicing, watching videos, watching artists draw, collecting many references, reading tutorials,etc. I have learned on my own, what many people call being a self-taught artist, and I still consider myself a newbie in the world of art and all that it means to be an artist or illustrator on the internet.
At the beginning I only drew for hobby, I drew to pass the time, I never took it seriously but little by little I have turned this into a passion.
I studied programming at the university, and currently I work in a telecommunications company, but although I also like programming and computer science, drawing is another level, and every day I want to be able to dedicate myself to this, no longer at the hobby level, but at the professional level, I would really like to work as an illustrator and character designer.
Sadly, due to my country's problems, I can't leave my job as a programmer, and basically my salary is shit... surely you have already heard the economic problems that my country is going through in the international news :( .
I work from Monday to Friday and basically I can only draw on weekends or when I arrive from work, or if I get up early at 4:00 am and try to draw a couple of hours before going to work.
I say all this, because despite my difficulties, I have been able to publish sketches, practices, lineart, color drawings, gradually improve my skills, draw some request for DA users, do some trade-art with other artists and friends, some personal art, some fanarts, and work with all the people who have trusted my skills and bought me commissions :D .
I'm very, very happy for what I have achieved so far, and I'm very grateful to all who have followed me and followed my work so far.
I would like to be able to draw more, I would like to be faster and I would really like to be able to dedicate myself to this every day, however I can't.
I know that I must work much harder to be able to really become an illustrator and character designer artist on internet, it is one of my goals (another of my goals is to create a comic / manga), and I know that I also need some luck, but I know that if I put a lot of faith in what I do, little by little I'll reach that goal.
However, having a goal also means having a plan to reach that goal, and that is part of what I want to share with you in this journal.
I want to continue drawing and turn this into my work, to achieve that, I plan to keep 3 things that I have done so far, make commissions, make trades, and accept request.
However, I have to add to this my space to work on my own personal art, this means that I must plan very well, because I not only want to make art for other people, I also want to work with my characters, work on my comic and that will take time.
So this is what I plan to do:
About commissions:
I plan to leave them open for the rest of the year, and make offers on some of the types of drawings that I do each month, for example, in November all half-body drawings will be half price.
I have also been recommended to make a document of Terms and Conditions, slightly improve the list of commissions that is a bit difficult to understand or read, and start making some YCH commissions, I'll be working on offering all this in the coming weeks.
About request:
As you know, accepting request is something that is complicated for me right now, but I don't plan to stop doing it either, the difference is that now the requests will be a little more controlled, the requests will be linearts or flat grayscale but not in color since traditional coloring costs me a lot of time, and they will not have priority if I have pending commissions. I planned to work the requests more in DA and FA than in my other social media accounts (Twitter and Instagram).
About trades:
I'll not stop accepting trades, however, like the requests, they will be a little more controlled, and I'll not accept trades if at that time I have too many pending drawings, I treat them as commissions so they will also have more priority than the requests.
About NSFW art:
Many have asked me for private messages and notes that if I'll accept in the future draw and make commissions with NSFW content.
Is a difficult decision that I'll take in the future, yes, I would really like to practice some NSFW art in the future, I respect NSFW art a lot, I don't see it as disgusting or perverted as many people and artists treat this type of work, sex is something very normal and human, in fact I follow and admire a lot the talent of many artists who dedicate themselves completely or occasionally to NSFW art.
But I also have to plan well what I'll do if in the future I accept to work with this type of content, most likely if I do it I'll create an account dedicated exclusively to that, anyway, I'll let you know when I decide to do this kind of art.
About raffles and giveaway drawings:
As you know recently I opened my twitter account, and to promote what I do there, I opened a raffle to select two winners, the raffle ended recently and I'm already finishing delivering the prizes of that raffle to the winners.
I'm thinking of making the raffles exclusively for twitter and maybe instagram and I'll open them every time I achieve goals like for example, every time I get 50 new followers on that platform, or from time to time, from what I have found out is what the vast majority of artists on twitter do to make themselves known on the platform, and to make myself known is one of the things I should do if I want to work as an illustrator and character designer on internet.
I may do raffles and giveaway drawings on other platforms, but in general twitter and maybe instagram will be the places where I make more raffles.
More participation in DeviantArt and FA:
As you know, I have been a little more active on twitter and instagram, since they are platforms where I interact a little more with the community, however in FA and DA I almost exclusively limit myself to uploading drawings and wip, and I want to change that.
That is why I plan to post more journals and status with content that I would like to share with you guys, talk about topics related to art, community things and other topics in which I would like to interact much more with you such as asking questions, answering questions, sharing opinions, all that and more.
Digital Art? Live streaming?
This is another thing that I would like to be able to do in the future, but first I need to buy a good computer, my current computer is very old, it is what I can afford for now, so I hope to have some luck with the commissions and be able to raise enough money, in order to buy a slightly decent computer.
Once I managed to buy a good computer, then the part of buying a drawing board would come, and everything that implies once I bought it, learn how to use the device, see tutorials, study and practice a lot with the editing programs, and from there I could already offer both traditional and digital drawings, I would love to reach that goal :D.
On live streaming, it would also depend a lot on everything I mentioned before, and I think it's a much farther goal to reach, but if I get the chance and if the internet I have is decent, I would think about it, but right now that's impossible, because I don't have a good pc, or cameras, and most importantly, the internet in Venezuela is a joke ... :(
Ko-fi? Patreon?
I know very well that Ko-fi is a good alternative to help me survive as an artist on internet, and they have recommended it to me a lot, however I still can't open an account with Ko-fi, because I have problems with my Paypal account, I hope to solve the problem soon, but I think I'll be with the problem for a couple of months, I have no problems charging money from commissions, but mostly because I'm using a paypal provided by a family member, once I can safely control a personal paypal account, I can work with Ko-fi and I'll greatly appreciate any donations you can give me on that platform.
About patreon, I really don't want to think about it yet, first because I'm still a nobody, my art is very little seen for now and I prefer to make myself known a little more, and maybe in the future, I managed to open a patreon.
About my personal art and my comic?
As I said before, I want to work and dedicate myself to drawing for other people on the internet, but I also want to dedicate my art to my oc and things that I plan for my comic together with a friend of mine.
Little by little I'll be publishing new drawings of my characters and those of my friend, these characters will be in the comic we are developing, for now I can not give more information because we are still planning things, history, scenarios, characters, plots, designs, and It is still a whole cluster of ideas that are being developed.
In addition our comic has a lot of ambition, we want to develop a long-lasting comic, our inspiration for this work is One Piece by Eichiro Oda, so we have a lot of work.
About Inktober 2019?
You may not know it, but I'll try for the first time to participate in this inktober of 2019 that starts tomorrow and I'll strive to survive the 31 days. I'll be using the official Inktober list, and I'm already planning what to draw on each day, I'll try as much as possible to use a somewhat simpler style that I usually use, something like a cartoon style.
All the drawings will be in pencil and without color, maybe in grayscale and I'll try to draw many of my characters in some of the days, if I can't draw something, I may try to create something new and even new characters can be born in this challenge, I'm anxious and scared at the same time, I hope I can survive the inktober.
I'll try to publish each drawing daily according to the day and the word of the inktober list.
Also as an extra challenge, I'll not close the commissions, so I'll accept commissions during the month of the event, however I'll work them somewhat slower because I want to keep the focus on the challenge.
I hope to greatly improve my skills as a traditional artist this month.
And with this ends the journal.
If you got here, thank you very much for reading!
Without more to say, all this is what I plan to do in the future with my art, again, thank you very much to all! :D greetings and have a good day!
Bye!
I wanted to share with you guys the things that I'm planning for the future with my art, this will be a little long journal but I hope to express myself well and clarify some doubts.
First of all I want to thank all of you my followers here in FA, and other people who manage to read this journal and who are more on other platforms where I publish my art such as Twitter, Instagram and DeviantArt, thank you very much for all the support, for the likes, for the favorites, for the comments, for sharing my work and helping me spread what I do, really thank you very much! it means a lot :D.
Maybe you already know but to clarify I'll make a summary of what I have achieved in this space:
Who am I?
My name is Andrés Alvarez! :) I'm a Venezuelan artist that works exclusively with handmade drawings, pencil and paper or traditional art drawings. I have drawn since childhood, but since 2016 I started publishing my drawings in DeviantArt.
I don't have studies in arts, I've learned little by little researching on my own, practicing, watching videos, watching artists draw, collecting many references, reading tutorials,etc. I have learned on my own, what many people call being a self-taught artist, and I still consider myself a newbie in the world of art and all that it means to be an artist or illustrator on the internet.
At the beginning I only drew for hobby, I drew to pass the time, I never took it seriously but little by little I have turned this into a passion.
I studied programming at the university, and currently I work in a telecommunications company, but although I also like programming and computer science, drawing is another level, and every day I want to be able to dedicate myself to this, no longer at the hobby level, but at the professional level, I would really like to work as an illustrator and character designer.
Sadly, due to my country's problems, I can't leave my job as a programmer, and basically my salary is shit... surely you have already heard the economic problems that my country is going through in the international news :( .
I work from Monday to Friday and basically I can only draw on weekends or when I arrive from work, or if I get up early at 4:00 am and try to draw a couple of hours before going to work.
I say all this, because despite my difficulties, I have been able to publish sketches, practices, lineart, color drawings, gradually improve my skills, draw some request for DA users, do some trade-art with other artists and friends, some personal art, some fanarts, and work with all the people who have trusted my skills and bought me commissions :D .
I'm very, very happy for what I have achieved so far, and I'm very grateful to all who have followed me and followed my work so far.
I would like to be able to draw more, I would like to be faster and I would really like to be able to dedicate myself to this every day, however I can't.
I know that I must work much harder to be able to really become an illustrator and character designer artist on internet, it is one of my goals (another of my goals is to create a comic / manga), and I know that I also need some luck, but I know that if I put a lot of faith in what I do, little by little I'll reach that goal.
However, having a goal also means having a plan to reach that goal, and that is part of what I want to share with you in this journal.
I want to continue drawing and turn this into my work, to achieve that, I plan to keep 3 things that I have done so far, make commissions, make trades, and accept request.
However, I have to add to this my space to work on my own personal art, this means that I must plan very well, because I not only want to make art for other people, I also want to work with my characters, work on my comic and that will take time.
So this is what I plan to do:
About commissions:
I plan to leave them open for the rest of the year, and make offers on some of the types of drawings that I do each month, for example, in November all half-body drawings will be half price.
I have also been recommended to make a document of Terms and Conditions, slightly improve the list of commissions that is a bit difficult to understand or read, and start making some YCH commissions, I'll be working on offering all this in the coming weeks.
About request:
As you know, accepting request is something that is complicated for me right now, but I don't plan to stop doing it either, the difference is that now the requests will be a little more controlled, the requests will be linearts or flat grayscale but not in color since traditional coloring costs me a lot of time, and they will not have priority if I have pending commissions. I planned to work the requests more in DA and FA than in my other social media accounts (Twitter and Instagram).
About trades:
I'll not stop accepting trades, however, like the requests, they will be a little more controlled, and I'll not accept trades if at that time I have too many pending drawings, I treat them as commissions so they will also have more priority than the requests.
About NSFW art:
Many have asked me for private messages and notes that if I'll accept in the future draw and make commissions with NSFW content.
Is a difficult decision that I'll take in the future, yes, I would really like to practice some NSFW art in the future, I respect NSFW art a lot, I don't see it as disgusting or perverted as many people and artists treat this type of work, sex is something very normal and human, in fact I follow and admire a lot the talent of many artists who dedicate themselves completely or occasionally to NSFW art.
But I also have to plan well what I'll do if in the future I accept to work with this type of content, most likely if I do it I'll create an account dedicated exclusively to that, anyway, I'll let you know when I decide to do this kind of art.
About raffles and giveaway drawings:
As you know recently I opened my twitter account, and to promote what I do there, I opened a raffle to select two winners, the raffle ended recently and I'm already finishing delivering the prizes of that raffle to the winners.
I'm thinking of making the raffles exclusively for twitter and maybe instagram and I'll open them every time I achieve goals like for example, every time I get 50 new followers on that platform, or from time to time, from what I have found out is what the vast majority of artists on twitter do to make themselves known on the platform, and to make myself known is one of the things I should do if I want to work as an illustrator and character designer on internet.
I may do raffles and giveaway drawings on other platforms, but in general twitter and maybe instagram will be the places where I make more raffles.
More participation in DeviantArt and FA:
As you know, I have been a little more active on twitter and instagram, since they are platforms where I interact a little more with the community, however in FA and DA I almost exclusively limit myself to uploading drawings and wip, and I want to change that.
That is why I plan to post more journals and status with content that I would like to share with you guys, talk about topics related to art, community things and other topics in which I would like to interact much more with you such as asking questions, answering questions, sharing opinions, all that and more.
Digital Art? Live streaming?
This is another thing that I would like to be able to do in the future, but first I need to buy a good computer, my current computer is very old, it is what I can afford for now, so I hope to have some luck with the commissions and be able to raise enough money, in order to buy a slightly decent computer.
Once I managed to buy a good computer, then the part of buying a drawing board would come, and everything that implies once I bought it, learn how to use the device, see tutorials, study and practice a lot with the editing programs, and from there I could already offer both traditional and digital drawings, I would love to reach that goal :D.
On live streaming, it would also depend a lot on everything I mentioned before, and I think it's a much farther goal to reach, but if I get the chance and if the internet I have is decent, I would think about it, but right now that's impossible, because I don't have a good pc, or cameras, and most importantly, the internet in Venezuela is a joke ... :(
Ko-fi? Patreon?
I know very well that Ko-fi is a good alternative to help me survive as an artist on internet, and they have recommended it to me a lot, however I still can't open an account with Ko-fi, because I have problems with my Paypal account, I hope to solve the problem soon, but I think I'll be with the problem for a couple of months, I have no problems charging money from commissions, but mostly because I'm using a paypal provided by a family member, once I can safely control a personal paypal account, I can work with Ko-fi and I'll greatly appreciate any donations you can give me on that platform.
About patreon, I really don't want to think about it yet, first because I'm still a nobody, my art is very little seen for now and I prefer to make myself known a little more, and maybe in the future, I managed to open a patreon.
About my personal art and my comic?
As I said before, I want to work and dedicate myself to drawing for other people on the internet, but I also want to dedicate my art to my oc and things that I plan for my comic together with a friend of mine.
Little by little I'll be publishing new drawings of my characters and those of my friend, these characters will be in the comic we are developing, for now I can not give more information because we are still planning things, history, scenarios, characters, plots, designs, and It is still a whole cluster of ideas that are being developed.
In addition our comic has a lot of ambition, we want to develop a long-lasting comic, our inspiration for this work is One Piece by Eichiro Oda, so we have a lot of work.
About Inktober 2019?
You may not know it, but I'll try for the first time to participate in this inktober of 2019 that starts tomorrow and I'll strive to survive the 31 days. I'll be using the official Inktober list, and I'm already planning what to draw on each day, I'll try as much as possible to use a somewhat simpler style that I usually use, something like a cartoon style.
All the drawings will be in pencil and without color, maybe in grayscale and I'll try to draw many of my characters in some of the days, if I can't draw something, I may try to create something new and even new characters can be born in this challenge, I'm anxious and scared at the same time, I hope I can survive the inktober.
I'll try to publish each drawing daily according to the day and the word of the inktober list.
Also as an extra challenge, I'll not close the commissions, so I'll accept commissions during the month of the event, however I'll work them somewhat slower because I want to keep the focus on the challenge.
I hope to greatly improve my skills as a traditional artist this month.
And with this ends the journal.
If you got here, thank you very much for reading!
Without more to say, all this is what I plan to do in the future with my art, again, thank you very much to all! :D greetings and have a good day!
Bye!
