I like your adoptables, but I'm currently trying to save money where I can. (Just made a big purchase and I have to save up for things ahead this year.)

No worries I understand. Thanks for your previous support. :)

I don't think it's you tbh. I love your style and I've been following for more than a decade I think. It's just that money is tight atm.

Thanks :)

I used to buy a lot of adopts in the past, often spontaneous and impulsively, admittedly.

I am not sure what advice I can give, personally I do not have the spare funds to buy anymore and I have so many characters, I can barely do them all justice as is.

As far as pointing you in certain directions:

 goat-kid
 cherrysdesigns
 alexthebordercollie1

are all adoptable artists I have approached for very different reasons and they have very different appeals, in my opinion.

Maybe some inspiration from them helps you, because honestly, you deserve so much more attention and I am not sure what exactly you are "missing" that is making this so hard for you.

I can only imagine it is the fact you are pretty late to the "game"*, a lot of artists have been at it for years and built a following and you now have to push upwards to get into the spotlight.

If I can help in any way, shape, or form with spreading the word, I will happily do so :)

*Adoptable game, not artist game

It's a game I wish I'd never gotten into : Art. I wish future me could have said 'hey kid, animation's dead. Don't get an art degree, keep it as a hobby only'. Goat's got some neat art. I'll browse their stuff and see if I can't get any ideas. Thanks for your suggestions. :)

I am sorry you feel so harsh about this. I can understand where you are coming from, though. But you are honestly an awesome artist and a great person, as shown by how much you care.

I hope you can find your drive and I will keep in touch with an idea or two for some sketch comms :)

Thanks I appreciate it. :)

Am saving for the furry con in two weeks so i have to be carefull with spending money.
Your art is amazing so i do not think it is your art style.
I think with what is going on and things are getting more expensive and people are carefull with there money

No worries I understand. Thanks for letting me know!

Don't know about adoptables but I do know art and commissions in general do seem to slow down a lot during summer and the Holidays period, the first for the cons, the latter because... well, Christmas and all of that ^^;

Nods but I've never had such a dry spell before and it really sucks. I don't know how i'm gunna pay my bills right now and my CC debt is getting insane.

Do you still do "normal" commission works ? Because if that's the case maybe I can try to help a bit and spread some word, but as far as adoptables go, I only know one person who bought any and right now is not getting new ones.
Perhaps I could suggest a group YCH, maybe based on some popular franchise or something like that ?

I offered up commissions a few days ago and barely got any nibbles. Besides commissions and ych aren't sustainable. I tried ych for years and they just didn't get enough interest.

Well, I can't really afford them. Sorry.

I wish I could give you guidance, but the only thing I DO know is that your artistic skill is really top notch and has been as long as I've known you. So, you need not doubt that, it's only a matter of finding the right niche I think.

Any suggestions on niche besides doing XXX?

Please don't do XXXX

I really don't want to, but at this point it's getting to the what alternatives do I have? I don't want to/ can't do nothing but commissions. It isn't sustainable. I can't find a job around here I can do. I can't move. I can't get disability. I can't get people to buy my original traditional art. I can't go to cons. I don't have a car any more. I'm close to 12,000 in debt now.

Money is never a reason to compromise your morals. Juts hold on. God will see you through

God better get off his arse then and do something because I told him Jesus take the damn wheel years ago and I'm still in the pit of despair. I'm still in pain enough to make me want to not exist and will be for the rest of my days.

Ugh, I'm really sorry to hear that. I do agree, don't do XXX but not because of any moral reason.. Art, is part of Heart, and your Heart has to be in it. It's one of the hardest jobs because of that. I can phone in being a computer guy.. you can't phone in art. I *wish* I had the answer for you. I know you've struggled for years to make this work.

I do have one idea, but it might be one you've done. Branch out. Anime, realistic, general fantasy, landscapes.. look around and see what looks *neat* to you and keep an intellectual eye out when you're looking for *voids* areas where the art should be there, but isn't, areas that are under served. That's what I mean by finding a Niche to fill. XXX is very well filled here in furry (Pun FULLY intended) So don't go there unless you want to, and if you do, have fun.

I do woodcraft as a side gig these days. It's all about finding what folk are looking for that other's aren't already making by the ton.

unfortunately I've tried that too. tried doing pet portraits, i've tried various styles, tried doing t-shirts, or posters, just doesn't get a lot of traction. unfortunately i'm very bad at finding voids in niche areas. I've tried to do things that I enjoyed but chasing 'what people seem to want' hasn't worked well either. I just don't know what else to try at this point.

I can't afford anything.

I try a carefull guess

Most of your adopt look kind of...similar. You know, "just" wolfes with different hair/outfits/colors.
And mostly it's the same pose.
Perhaps a more variety of species, also hybirds? Could be more attractive for different people.

I doubled down on wolves because that was the only thing selling. When I tried other species? no one bought them.

I think the garbage economy is hurting people.

That seems to be the minor consensus I'm getting. :(

I love your adoptables, Cyber, and I always planned to get a female feline version of one of them for my OC's were form, but with this damn inflation I barely have any disposable wage, and have to prioritise...I still hope I can grab one in the future, and I am sure many people are feeling the same currently.

That is part of why I asked, trying to figure out if it's what I'm offering vs what other people are offering vs Inflation. Thanks for your input!

World is on fire right now. But ultimately if you don't expect the same people to keep buying adoptables, you'll logically need to constantly expand your audience in order to keep selling them.

But how? If I draw different things too much it dilutes the 'interest base' but if I keep doing the same themes people aren't interested any more. I can't seem to find the middle ground.

I actually wasn't thinking of changing your art, I mean just getting more eyes in general on them. Marketing, social media, ads and all sorts of stuff I don't understand come to mind.

I'm already on FA, DA, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, Inkblot, Facebook, Pixiv, Weasyl, and pillowfort. I post to around 12 + groups on Da. I tried discords, toyhou.se and even several image boards. I don't know how else I could market or social media harder and still have time to actually draw.

I can't help you there either. But that's what I'm adding up the math to. If you don't expect what you have to keep buying, then you need to add more.

I don't even know why people even buy adoptables.

I don't know how this craze started and I don't know how it kept going for so long. Maybe the market has finally peaked for them.

It could also be because you're doing too much work on them. You could do what Bipleyy does, work from a base to make them in batches while still making them solid character designs.

I'm not sure how or why making one a week is any different than making 4 at once.

If more options are available, someone might be more inclined to pick up at least one of them, and also, if you can do them quickly, you can sell them off for cheaper, which is better than one you spent a lot of work on and didn't sell at all.

But, like I said, I have no idea how the adoptable market worked. I've made two, and only one sold for $30. I certainly don't understand it from a buyer's perspective: I'm not going to spend money on a character's rights if I don't plan to use them, and if there is a character I need or want, I just make one of my own.

It could also be you just don't have the right audience for it. I imagine some audiences are more receptive to adoptables than others.

That's the problem, I Can't do fast and quick. Not any more. It's a struggle to draw what I can because of this stupid arthritus / fibromyalgia. Doing greater quantity isn't somthing I can sustain any more. That's why I've tried to do quality. But if there is a better audience I just wish I knew what that was. I guess this is why most artists do porn. :P

As far as I can tell, high-quality adoptables are a high-effort, low-reward venture. You should probably consider alternative products if you're forced to do that.

Like what? what alternatives do I have? what alternatives are there? I don't want to / can't do nothing but commissions. It isn't sustainable. I can't find a job around here I can do. I can't move. I can't get disability. I can't get people to buy my original traditional art. I can't go to cons. I don't have a car any more. I'm close to 12,000 in debt now.

Okay, so you apparently have considered alternatives.

Maybe do something you always wanted to do but never got around to it because other, supposedly more profitable projects took priority?

There isn't anything else I've wanted to do. All I've ever wanted to do was be an animator. When that was no longer possible I tried to be a comic artist. That alternative was taken away from me both by industry standards and getting sick with Fibro. So I tried being a painting / drawing teacher both online and in rl, not enough interest. I tried doing dog training. Again not enough interest to make it sustainable and fibro also made it too painful to do. I am out of ideas, thus why I'm yelling into the void with pleas for suggestions.

I've been barking up that tree for a couple decades now. If the void had any ideas, it wouldn't be a void.

Well, Megaplex was this past weekend, so likely those htat went didn't see it or couldn't claim because of that con

Possibly, but that's why I was asking and yet no one really has said 'sorry was at the cons'. It's mostly been 'i never bought anything anyway ', which I totally get, understand. I'm in the same boat. I would love to buy other people's art. But I can't. But that doesn't have anything to do with why the people who were buying have stopped or why I'm not getting in new folks despite getting new +watchers frequently.

I also like your adoptables, but I can't really be buying any as I have my own character designs. I'd much rather see original artwork from you though, or commissions

I offered both of those up, and no one's buying the originals, and I barely got any interest in commissions. Besides doing nothing but commissions is half the reason I'm in the position I'm in now.

I guess when I say originals I meant not to buy but just to see what you like to draw, but I understand that doesn't pay the bills. not at first, but I think long term it would help. folks want to commission for what makes you and your artwork unique.

No it doesn't help. Because I can only produce so much. I am not the same healthy able bodied person I was 10 years ago. I just can't pump out content like I did. And when I do commissions it just waters things down more. If you look at my commissions of the past they are all over the place. I'm no one's 'go to' for a specific thing, and there for I'm not 'in demands' I'm just 'affordable option or alternative'.

I like your adoptables and all your art, but I don't have a lot of spare cash so I have to be really selective with my fun budget.

No worries I understand.

When I buy adopts (which is actually considerably often) it's because I'm looking for characters to fill out my stories and when I see them, something will click. I just haven't seen anything from you that would fit into anything I got going on in my head. I do consider them, though. It's NOT your art style or anything you're doing wrong, imo.

Do you think that's generally what folks who buy adoptables do? The art fits a need in a person's established stories? Rather than seeing a char and then creating a story around it? What makes something more easy to fit into an established 'head cannon'? More generic? Less generic? No clothes / weapons?

*thinks* Well, for me, and it's really only me I can talk about, there's this fine line between an adopt being too 'established' looking so that they seem to have their own story and something I look at to say "Oh I can do something with that!". Like, the wolf gal you posted with the green hair bulb/tips, I could see her being in one of my stories but I couldn't place her even when I was trying, though. I did consider her! She didn't have so much going on that she seemed out of place, I had just already plugged in other adopts where she might fit in. Mostly for her, me not nabbing her up has been about the fact I just bought a puppy and all my money got tied up in that. None of the other adopts so far I had that same "hey maybe" feeling with.

I don't know how others work, though, because I have seen some people buy adopts and then just show it off on FB going "I just bought this cool adopt, what should I name it?" and those same people when they need money will be like "I have all these adopts I didn't use for anything."

I also like 'crafting' characters from adopts. I wonder if I have an example. Oh here, Athena, who became a main character for me: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/26918337/ you can see her adopt up in the corner (I believe it was Stray who made her) and I turned her into this: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37891729/ . I wish I had more examples online. Most of my adopts turn into characters that vaguely resemble what they start off as.

I feel like I'm very poorly explaining what I look for. Sorry about that. I'm going to think on this and see if maybe I can explain it better.

No that's very helpful :) and congrats on your new puppy!

i do that same thing as farllmoon. the one I got from us did the something she was adopted to fit in to a story I have going

Cool thank you! What are things that make a char less likely to work in your ideas? Clothing style? would doing the adopts with a clothing version and no clothing version help with that?

this is my personally view in this. I say that the no clothing style works the best for me, in the sense that if it is to be adopted into a story there is now pre-set style in the character. {I hope I worded that right.} this is just me. I mean no disrespect to you as the creator of them or in your talents.

No worries, it helps me to understand what it is folks like. My own likes and perspectives seem very different from what's 'common' so it really helps me to learn about what others like and their priorities.

Adoptables are just not my thing personally, but that has nothing to do with you or the quality of your work, which I love. (I've never bought one from any artist.)

I think a lot of people are REALLY watching their spending; I'm looking for work right now and I can tell you that based on what I'm seeing with job posting trends, things are looking a lot uglier right now than they were even a few months ago (I work in high tech).

I'm really sorry that you're struggling to get traction. I have loved your work for over 15 years (since before you were GoH at FurFright).

What you've described about polling viewers and then not having any buyers is consistent with what I've seen with other artists; people say they'll buy something, then once that thing is available, all you get are crickets. This is definitely not just you.

It seems harder to get attention these days since people are scattered across many sites and there seems to be some general social media fatigue. A lot of the fandom flocked to Twitter some years ago, but Twitter is terrible as a gallery and it's been gradually falling out of favor for the last several years, as well.

I know you already post tutorials on YouTube. Keep that up (general art topics that reach beyond furry or fantasy art seem to do best) and you'll continue to attract people. Perhaps you can use tutorial videos as leverage to sell other things.

Have you ever explored the idea of art lessons, if you're comfortable teaching others 1 on 1? You can teach anyone in the world from where you are, if you're set up for it, and charge hourly.

Unfortunately Youtube cut me off. I was not able to post often enough, so I'm no longer making any revenue from it. Making videos is really energy demanding and I just couldn't find a way to do it consistently. And yup I tried multiple times to offer 1 on 1 or group teaching over the last 5 years and I never got more than one or two people interested. There are so many free resources now days, that it seemed like no one was willing to pay when they could just google up a tutorial.

Wallet being emptied by everything but my paycheck going up.

I'm glad to hear it is. I hope it keeps ya afloat!

Punctuation matters! I mean everything, but my paycheck, is going up..

Ah, I was trying to err on the side of hopeful. Sorry to hear that. ;(

I saw and it's always greatly appreciated Ketrava ! I know adopts aren't everyone's cup of tea, but when I look around at what other artists are doing it gets frustrating to not see what the major difference is between what I'm doing and what they are doing, when they get consistent sales and higher prices. I don't want to clone what they do, so i'm trying to figure out if it's style or content or whatever.

Unfortunately I am unable to afford any right now, but your designs are nice!

No worries I understand. But it helps to know that the economy / inflation is indeed a factor.

So I've read through a lot of posts and what I've broken it down to is:

Economy
Conventions
Little to no funds
Adopt related (Character design, Species, Style, etc.)
Advertising (Social Media, alternative websites, videos, etc.)

This seems to be the trend currently, but also what I'm starting to see
are newer artist's coming around. And what I mean by newer, is the next
generation of furries coming into the fandom. It's tough as well, because a lot
of them already have been using the large and popular Social Media sites.
Since they have a lot of followers, (friends, furry friends, etc.) they're getting
noticed heavily. Artist of your generation are becoming overlooked sadly, and
I don't like it either because your generation of artist's are the backbone of
what started making this fandom (art wise) larger.

The other thing I have heard time and time again, is sadly, adult work.
"Sex sells" as the saying goes. (Excuse me for saying that.)
But this is the other part I had noticed in one of the posts above.
There is "tasteful nudity" that might get some attention, though I
wouldn't do something you're not comfortable with Cybercat.

Apologies for this long post, but I just figured I'd break it down a bit to give you
a possible, (and deeper) understanding of the issue with why your work is being
overlooked. We are currently in a new era of the fandom, and it's getting a little
tougher for the "SFW" artist's out there. Especially for the older generation.

Thank ya, sorry for late reply, just been trying to focus on working. But yeah so much competition not enough dollars to go around.

I love your art style. I wanted to buy a commission from you but, unfortunately life has gotten in the way of buying adopts. There are 3 of your adopts of yours I would like to purchase.

You've done plenty hon and I greatly appreciate it. I don't expect the same 4 or 5 people to buy every thing, I'm just trying to figure out how to build an audience that consistently is interested in my original art and isn't just wanting commissions of their characters.

I'm mostly interested in commissions these days (I already have 50 characters on the roster, don't need much more. I do like getting more art for these characters, though! ), but I think I can offer a suggestion.

Looking through the last bunch of adoptables, they are all big, muscular, bulky creatures. On top of that, they all seem to be large predators, with an occasional pony thrown in.

Maybe consider shaking the roster up a little bit? Design a small, cuddly character? Maybe a small cat or a bunny? Maybe go for a tall but very slender one, like a gazelle?


Another possible tack would be to mash two, three species together. The only few YCHs that I just mashed buy on were all chimeras. Checking out Wysdrem 's gallery might be worth for ideas.

well I double down on those things because those were the ones consistently selling. When I went outside of that they didn't sell. I am just trying to find something that can consistently sell so I can experiment more after I've managed to pay my bills. Also when I've done species meshes, they utterly fail.

I love your art style. It's easily some of the best I've seen. I'm just not an adoptables buyer. I have a few characters, only some of which are furry, and that's enough for me. I also use my characters mainly on Second Life, aside from this one.
I woudl like to commission you in the future, however, if you do what I'm looking for.

Thank you very much. I totally understand. :)

I generally love your style.
Not an adoptable fan, but I'm a bit too financially chaotic to commission you on the regular.
I do intend to eventually do some more business with you again, it's just been a rocky year due to the ongoing crisis.

No worries I understand not everyone is into adoptables. I'm trying to expand out from them but finding a way to do so has been challenging.

As an adopt buyer, I’m trying to buy less adopts cuz I want to save money and force myself to use the bunch of designs I have. I feel guilt for not using my designs and buying more is gonna make that guilt go up. Unless a design that screams “you can write a bio on this one” comes along.Also prices can be a big thing for me since I’m trying to save. It’s the constant struggle of being like “this artist deserves every penny” and “got damn I’m broke”

I appreciate that totally. I see so many wonderful art out there, if I ever win the lotto I'm totally going on a spending spree. Still as some one who does or has bought adopts, your insight is incredibly valuable to me. So any suggestions on how to make my adoptables more appealing would be fantastic. Anything from more details, or less, or how I design the char sheet.

Hmm, I think maybe making more dramatic poses for characters to add more personality if that makes sense? Like maybe having a character have a slight scowl and flexing their claws as an example. Also adding accessories to a character makes them more appealing in my opinion. If I see a character that carries a scepter or a potion my writing urge just kicks in and it makes me want to adopt the design. Sometimes adding your own story can give others ideas and want to adopt the character even more. Either way I think you’re a great artist and these ideas are just what I personally like.

I'm looking into ways to slightly altering my bases so they aren't so the same. I'll add emotions to the list of things to try :D

I love em just can't afford w husband just diagnosed w cancer. And putting off my surgery to due to funds

Oh no I'm so sorry to hear that. I wish you both good luck and that he has a swift recovery!

Thank you