My favorite are the people that post 10-20 journals in the months and weeks, sometimes days up to their birthday guilt-tripping and STRONGLY hinting that their friends need to buy them gift art. Bonus points if "every year I don't get anything" is somewhere in the journal.

Bonus points if "every year I don't get anything" is somewhere in the journal.

OMG YEA :'D (and then you look up and they actually have)

I cringe every time someone I am watching posts a "In XXX days..." journal with a countdown to their birthday. There's literally no reason to post such things unless you're begging for freebies. I post a journal ON my birthday to thank people who wish me such through Skype, if someone happens to draw for me, awesome, but I never ask and I never hint. Vent concluded. :D

I sneakily camouflaged my free art stream announcement by titling it 'its my birthday' :DDD

This is funny because I did an all day freebie thing for my bday.

Always a bummer when you have 15 people in a normal work stream and 45 in a freebie one. Makes me cringe.

I'm more saddened about the fact that back in several years ago (when I was still relatively shit at drawing too) I had like 25 ppl visiting my almost daily streams and now I'm lucky if I have 5 - but that's cause streaming is now the trend and everyone else does it too so viewers split :'c

Yeah. D: For example for me it often is that when I'm home in late afternoon/evening and have time to watch streams, I might have like 4-5 overlapping stream notices at worst since usually everyone tends to start at the same time - and I may or may not have time for streams during the day.

Then it becomes a game of whose stream, or which two streams, I would rather watch. ^^;

I cringe every time someone I am watching posts a "In XXX days..." journal with a countdown to their birthday. There's literally no reason to post such things unless you're begging for freebies.

Oh god ._.
I totally do countdowns to everything, is this really how people see me. XD

Probably xD

Shut up Tally >.> I know you live for my Christmas, birthday, and just because I freaking feel like it countdowns.

Nope I dont~
I wont even be here this christmas XD

A charming fellow with a high intellect I unfortunately knew a while back went to basically every account he could to leave the shout, "My birthday is on February 24th."

Of course, he got as well as he gave, since his own shoutbox became an inflamed mess of "so what?" and "go fuck yourself." <:3c

The fact you needed a disclaimer! xD

It's just to assure that nobody this selfish got random art drawn of them ;3

Maybe that's the thing to do: when someone is being all whiny about wanting free art, draw their character being all whiny about wanting free art.

Oh my god your a husky fox hybrid with rabbit ears and elephant tail!! Meee too!! Ohmahgawd!!!!! XD gotta love this fuckin fandom

I own that species you will have to pay me $10000000000000000 or I will take you to the UN and they will beat you up

But I said something zany in the comments you should totally draw it!

b-but...it's true, nobody notice me D:

Senpai notices you.

YOU never go unnoticed.......

(it was sarcasm)

(same for me dear)

Gifts are given freely. If they're forced, they're called tribute, but whiners won't get any of those anyway.

Well that's me in my head. I never say it out loud, but I always think it. One goal of mine is to receive fanart of my characters (from someone I'd actually accept it from) without me doing shit like this. It'll probably never happen because I'm a writer and not an artist, but a guy can dream, right?

I'm sure most people secretly hope for random art xD But expecting it and demanding is a different story.

I think it would be a pleasant surprise to get random gift art, if it did happen to me. I think the only instance of it was when my good friend showed me the random doodle of Ulti he did in his tiny, 2-inch tall sketchbook. It was pretty cool, though~

or the kind that ONLY show up to your streams only for when free arts being done and Whine when they dont get picked. /leave when you switch to Comission work/personal art

YES. That's actually how this pic was born xD

Trust me I shared the living cheap out of this when I saw it on Twitter

X3 I dunno how; but I misread that as "The Living Sheep" out of this X3

Oh my, now I really want to get pencils and draw something for you!
[joke]...to get featured in your gallery and become popular of course[/joke]

Drawing for popular ppl in the hopes of also getting a little exposure too is actually a really good way of doing something to get noticed (I mean as long as you put effort into the pic too) :D

It's a great way to hopefully get exposure, but only if you're doing it for that hope and not demanding :<
Once, I got a gift and decided to post a journal about them, and got someone noting me upset about it, because I hadn't done that with the gift they did.

Yeaaa.. that's exactly why I said hope for it and not assume. Some ppl seem to forget it's still exposure if the pic gets faved @.@

And, do you think it's good way to get some exposure (and potential watchers) by making random gift art of popular artists characters? Or is it better to directly ask for art exchange even when my art isn't on same level?
I'm asking because of my girlfriend who is really trying, I'd say she draws well, but doesn't seem to be as known as she and her art deserves. And after some thinking, this is only idea that comes to my mind - get somehow into other artist's galleries. But, wouldn't they take her as invader, even while her art can be on lower levels?

An artist faving your art can be a great amount of exposure. Just have to of course make sure the artist is OK with gifts.

However, never do it expecting it, getting your hopes up. You should do the art because you either like the person or the character, or just want to be nice. If you don't, you're going to feel pretty awful if it doesn't help get your art out there. Instead, consider the exposure a bonus.

In my opinion, the main way to get watchers is to post a lot. Taking a quick look, the art posted on her account has a lot of time in between. I've seen absolutely amazing artists have no watchers, simply because they only posted once a month or less. Over all my time here, the main way i got watchers was from people seeing my art on the front page, which goes by really fast.

I feel funny how we're talking about this and you're one of those ppl who I drew for and got a sudden rush of new watchers from it x3

I remember :3 I can't remember if I had posted a journal about it? If I did then ya, lots of exposure! It was such an awesome gift <3

I can't remember either - but faves are also pretty effective when its from ppl who don't fave a lot all the time c:

I see and agree with this, exposure by gift art is just bonus and main reason to draw is feeling of good work and drawing interesting characters. I'm drawing rarely, but I know that warm feeling.

That could be her problem (also, she's mainly active on DeviantART), I was telling her that some years ago, but now my time flows differently than earlier and I...have no idea how often she draws and posts art O.O But it's truth that she wants everything she makes to be perfect - that's why pictures take her so much time and why many great sketches are hidden in her paper notebook, instead of being posted online. But I don't know what to do with it. Maybe just....to catch again my old idea I started and never finished. Idea to take her sketches, make lineart, colors, shades, lights,....and make finished pictures from her sketches she never published. At least I could learn to use colors and by redrawing sketches, maybe I could even learn basic anatomy.

I never thought that front page could bring so many watchers o.o

I got several new watches by posting these funny comic things today :O Assuming they came from the front page.

wow! On other side I'm not surprised, they're really silly :3

Well that's how I've gotten some exposure in the past too, although my primary purpose was to draw art for those who I look up to. Trades are more effective however, and it doesn't hurt to ask (just never get hurt if it's declined, it could be for variety of reasons). Something that could also work is ask to trade not for art in exchange but simply the other person giving them a little feature spotlight somewhere in exchange.

Other methods I've noticed that gives you new watchers is having cool characters and commissioning those from known people - people come in to see more of the character and suddenly they notice your art c:

That and FA adverts used to be effective back in 2010. But getting noticed takes years unless you get supermega lucky.

I see, that makes sense.

Oh, that's very clever O.O
(another one is maybe to draw nsfw art on popular topic, but then you can't stop)

Well, she is drawing for some years and is better every year, so maybe soon it could be her time. And of course, thank you for useful information and tips!
About me...I'm usually without mood to start anything and I rather wait for some initial burst, when I take tablet and stream my "art" since eight at morning to eleven at evening. Sometimes it continues even another day, but then I get tired and...since I stop drawing, I have no will to start again and rather wait for another burst. I must learn to fight with it because this is literary my whole life, but...I still didn't find way to overcome it. Maybe I'm just laaaaaazy dwagon.

Lols!

Getting free art is awesome, though, and it is more awesome when it is from one of your favourite artists.

Yea I almost (accidentally) set the house on fire when that happened. (it was that awesome)

When it happened to me, I was all confused and wondered why and I was all "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" on the inside.

Also, go check out

It definitely was not that artist.

:DDD

I sometimes draw random surprise arts to completely random ppl who have listed me as their fav artist on FA - it gets nice diverse reactions out of people hehe :DDD

That is so nice of you! It sure makes people x913734973764673 times more happy, and as you said, could end up accidentally put their house in flames xD

I don't have such a list, because the list would be too big. :P

hahahaha accurate

Google+ has quite a number of these.
One of them even became pissed off when I said I wouldn't "gift" them a picture of their fursona.

need to include the "my request shouldn't be too much to ask" "you can do it on your down time"

that's the evolved form when they become demandy!

stage 2 of art begging.

All these whines...

...and they completely miss the 'Gift' part of Gift art...

...Cuz damn...

Receiving it is amazing; and so uplifting... mostly because it comes out of the blue...


....oh, then there's the "Well, you did (something) for me before..."... and the self-annihilating "(super-criticism/no praise/love of said giftart)" <.<

"I did this really fast thing for you cause I thought it'd be fun" "well that look ok but my fur colour isn't that bright" ;m;;

3rd person: "hey could you quickly add me in too that'd be funny!" ;A;;

"Hey i really liked the art you made for me and my friend liked it too and wanted you to draw them too"
-- person i randomly did a freebie for (they didnt ask for it)

"well you did freebies for so-n-so, so why cant i get one too?"
-- person way back when, when i used to do art before payments :/

D':

Thank god ignore/block lists exist

Eh, as much as it would be awesome to have fanart of any of my characters, I don't go around expecting it from artists for free; that's what commission are for. XD

But yeah, it's okay to dream. ^^

I could imagine a whole set of comics like this.

Please make more of these comic shorts: PLEASE!

Lol you forgot to add hurr durr in there

The best way of getting gift art indeed. :D I especially don't understand when people become so salty about it in streams that the artist (or their mods) have to tell them to knock it off or be kickbanned, do they really think someone who owes them nothing is going to be receptive to that kind of behaviour? :o

A version of this is the reason why I always feel twitchy about including anyone else in the commissions which I commission for myself, since I always feel that there would be someone more deserving of it, or someone "more deserving" might notice and start the uliuli themselves. ^^;

KILL IT WITH FIRE

People like this give me all sorts of heartburn.

FFS, about as endearing as going into artists' streams and going "oh by the way it's my birthday!" then hanging around just long enough to see if you'll get a handout.

Oh this speaks to me on a spiritual level, I get asked at least twice a week if I do free requests

nope.jpg

Oh my god wheres the reblog/retweet button? Holy MACARONI these people @_@, you hit the nail on the head!

https://twitter.com/Neothetaa/statu.....41227471396865 you can do it here :DDDDDDD

> beggar messages artist for free art *specific request or comic* (sometimes wants artist to pay THEM)
> artist kindly rejects, or explains carefully that they only do commissions or there are limits to what they can do
> beggar explodes and insults artist like an 8-year-old ("fuck you, your art is shit anyway") and even goes so far as to call them disrespectful

Holy fuck, the irony. This is the kind of stuff that really pisses me off, but I must say you've really summed up this situation quite accurately. Kudos.

that only works with some weaker minded ppl and kids with their parents or cases where they cant get rid of you xP

This made my night!!! Ahaha

People actually do this?

Well lots that do this are almost always 12 to 15, like when one in a stream once faked being 19 badly to get free nsfw art. While the rest can't draw to save themselves so they beg as a plan b.

This triggered the shit out of me. Brb, blocking you and spamming tumbler/twitter/artist beware about you..

(Take my money in return for arts tho pls?) :3

Other sure-fire methods to not get free art:

• Call the artist an elitist asshole if they don't immediately agree to draw for you, or remind you of their commission rates.
• Tell them there are totally other artists that are way better than them giving away art (though don't presume to answer who these artists are, or why you didn't ask them for art instead).
• Lots and lots of name-calling, empty threats, accusations of triggering them.
• Go immediately from begging to snorting that you're doing the artist a favour by demanding free art, and the artist will regret missing this golden opportunity ("paid in exposure," etc.)
• And remember: bonus points if your request would take hours of work, and then provide no suitable reason why you should get this for free when anyone else would need to commission it!

That's the evolved form. The uliuli can still evolve into a nice understanding person or go even more extreme - it still has a little hope!

I really appreciated when you drew star for me out of the blue XD I wasn't even expecting it, now look at me i am drawing her half decently myself, not quite as good as you but i am getting there.

Quick question, where do you announce your streams? do you still post about them on FA?

I usually post my streams to twitter - since I typically forget to remove the announcement later at FA xD
Longer streams I post on FA too tho

and I personally love to draw free art and see the reactions :D (but not for whiny ones)

I really need to get my twitter and all the social things setup for my youtube thing, did you know i started a gaming youtube channel? XD It's so much fun, anyway i hope to catch one of your streams soon :D

Nothing gets art quite like a good sob story.

My dog has no legs, can you draw me riding him into battle like the noble steed he once was?

Someone once said they have cancer and only a few days more to live and asked for free art :v

I'm sure if that was really the case they'd be doing something completely different (or be spending their last moneys on a commission if art is really what they wanted)

I do remember one person saying exactly that to me one week after I did free art for him! xD
The situation was hilarious

Thank you, I enjoyed the hell out of this.

For the love of god.
Although, I am not popular at all I get daily notes about new watchers prying for free art.
They even avoid that little free art corner of my profile. xD
Or adopts.

Then they go super specific and demanding of gift art based on their characters.

Actually, I've noticed that there's a phase in the artist's life where they get ALOT of these. It's where you're starting to draw decently but have yet to gain a lot of followers. Then as you get more known and busy they'll switch to easier targets - and then later they return to start the 'popularity' whining.

What I find rude about this situation is when they unwatch whenever they do not get the free art.
So far, I've only sold two, and the rest I've done have been volunteered gift art, not requests.

Back in the shoutout journal days, I got a watcher a day, and well, y'know, we do our best to get our art known even if it's not that good. Most left when they saw I do not put that much effort to strictly make their free sonas out of the blue. So, I left for a month and lost almost my every watcher, and I came back to a lot of hate mail and blackmail, mostly because I did not made them free art or they didn't won raffles.

And now, I make free adopts that do not get adopted unless I personally show people, haha!
Barely anyone's interested in them, due to them being designs I've created, chibi-ish, and not their own.

I've always thought getting art done to you is quite exciting, but I've never accepted free art without giving something in exchange. I know drawing is a struggle and generous artists deserve appreciation. Then again, I don't even dare ask for a trade, haha! Spooky. So, I always note whoever I feel that deserves a doodle, and I ask them if they would like a little something.

I haven't ever had anyone ask me for freebies but when people don't understand how much really goes into art of any type and just expect something free. It's ridiculous.

beautiful <3

Just tell them to draw their own art.

Ooohohohoo xDDD If you do that you'll have to prepare for an hours long rant about it :D

But.. but.. they can't draw! Artistic talent is an inherent gift from god, it's our duty as artists to provide digital porn to the unfortunate! I mean come on its not like you can learn to draw by practicing!

You'd be surprised how many people think they can't draw and won't put in the effort to even see if they can.

I wish someone would make ME a random peanut butter and banana sandwich! But I guess I'll have to fly to Kansas City anyway... -Elvis Presley.

There are places where you could very much get free art in all forms. I know it, there was a phase where most of my received art was free. Even my very first art was free.

As you move on, the world of commissions really opens up - and as long as you're nice about it and comply with the artist, you'll get what you dream of.

Being nice, helpful and having an awesome character is very helpful x3

Indeed it is. If there was a character to represent me, it'll still be Curus.

Now, THAT... Is really damn funny XD

This is so true it hurts.

Ulinaa!

But yeah these people are the ones you wish would wise up and shut up.

Best one was:

"Dude look at this game"

"This looks so awesome"

"You can buy it for me"

Also need a RIDICULOUSLY Picky four page description with only a poorly drawn ref that someone else did, they posted and then critiqued it to death as if GETTING that one piece was an insult to their freakishly hard character.

Bonus points for having a prominently featured and REQUIRED characteristic that squicks you to no end AND ignoring that you have it listed as a no-go on your commissions info.

Double bonus if they ignore that you're NOT taking requests.

Wow I love you