How can I create interest in my art? Please help!

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

Hello all, I was wondering if I could get a bit of advice on drumming up commissions, or anything else that you think might help.

Basically, I've had a personal art website up for a couple months now, and my art's been on Elfwood for years as well. And I just can't seem to get any interest in my art. :/ I have had a few commissions with friends and people I know personally in the past, and I have sold a few small, cheap ink pictures on Furbid (I'm Fen :P), so I know at least SOME people like my art -- but as for the online world as a whole, the fish aren't biting. I'm no newb to art (at least I don't consider myself one), moreso to the online commission community at large. I don't know if the problem is if my asking prices are too high, or if my website doesn't seem professional enough, or if my style isn't "commercially friendly"... I'd really appreciate any advice anyone could give me, feel free to be harsh as necessary. I can take it!

My website is here. My prices and info for (hypothetical) commissions are on this page. (Tad long, prices are at the bottom if you just want to skim.)

Also, I simply must say hello to Chell. ;) Thanks again guys, ANY help is welcome!

Comments

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Hmm, your art looks great and your rates are cheap.
Only problem I can think of is a lack of exposure?

I don't think there's many people on Elfwood looking for commissions, you might want to look for more archives you can join (FurAffinity also accepts non-furry art for example (http://www.furaffinity.net/)) in order to get more exposure.
Auction sites are good too and I think there's some LJ communities where you can advertise the fact you're accepting commissions.

Good luck :)

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

I never knew FurAffinity wasn't only for furry art. o_o Thank you, I've gone and gotten myself a gallery there already. Good advice!

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Gimme the link so I can watch you.

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

Here I am: Click! (http://www.furaffinity.net/user/leahtaur)

Thanks for the interest. :)

[thaily.livejournal.com]

No thanks needed, I love your colouring.

Also...

I'm the goddamn Batman. (http://www.funkytowel.net/retarded.jpg)

;P

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

XD! Batman owns. And thanks. :)

[kareizel.livejournal.com]

I think you charge pretty reasonably for traditional work, as for CG... I can't judge on that.

As for interest, you just have to approach the right people. What I know right now is that a certain... slightly stereotyped group goes for the very anime-ish style (you get what I mean >_>), while another for the furry ones. Sad to say, realism just isn't all that popular as before unless you have really remarkable skills.

And also, just a side opinion - you might want to do up your site a little more. People tend to like stylish and easy-to-navigate sites.

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

I'm new to html and website design and this is my first site. I guess it shows more than I thought. :/ Ah well, back to the drawing board I guess. And you're right about realism being an underappreciated style, everything I see now is either anime or furry. Not that there's anything wrong with that! It'll just require me to change things up a bit.

Thanks for your help, by the way!

[chlorophyta.livejournal.com]

I agree with kareizel, make your site more snazzy and easier to look at more art with less effort. I think I only actually clicked on one or two things to actually load up and look at. Make your thumbnails slightly larger, and make those big square things leading to the different galleries smaller.

Another reason you probably aren't getting many commissions in the fur community? You don't really have much fur art! Maybe if you had a section on your page specifically for fur art, people would be able to look at that and get an idea of how you draw animals and stuff. People generally aren't going to commission you if they don't know what they're going to get, and even if you do have SOME fur art on your page, no one is going to want to root through all your other stuff to find it.

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

Darn, I just shrinked my thumbnails down yesterday because they were too big. Now they're too small. XD Guess I'll go for the middle ground.

To be honest, I'm looking for commissions in any genre, not just fur art. Furries are just something I picked up doing, literally, a month or two ago. In fact, given the choice, I think I'd rather focus on humans/fantasy (the subject I'm most proficient in) -- although I wouldn't turn down a fur commission if I got one. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have no desire to become an "only furry" artist, at most I'd like it to have equal placing with my other subjects. Thank you for your feedback though, it's appreciated.

[neongryphon.livejournal.com]

Hey Leahtaur.

I have to agree with the above commenters: it’s all about spreading your name around. The net’s a big place with its little niches and fandoms. If you want to get commissioned, you need to be haunting the right places, targeting the right audience. On Furbid-SF, you’ll need to a have a lot of anthro to fantasy/SF examples to do your pimping with. Try setting up an attractive auction page that offers samples (and don’t forget your ‘ME’ page.

Don’t expect auctions to get bids first time around. Just keep posting to keep your name out there, and a buyer will soon come along who sees your art for the quality and great prices. Joining some webrings and taking part in a banner exchange is also a decent way to get people moving through your site.

You’ve also got quite a few LJ communities, like artistsunited to advertise your work. And keeping an art LJ lets people have easy access to you, your details, and your commission openings. There’s also ArtWanted.com and Epilogue - and ebay is a good place to throw up random auctions for any genre. And update all your galleries regularly.

As for the website. It’s a good start, but I think something needs to be done with the gallery layout. The most popular monitor resolution is 1024 x 768 so try to make your pages fit. People don’t like scrolling down/sideways or reading small print that is hard to see against busy backgrounds. If you can fit the choice of sub-galleries onto one screen and make all the choices appear right there for the viewer, it holds their interest much better; and it also looks more professional than just pictures slapped onto a wallpaper background. If you need a little help, give me a mail sometime, and I’ll make a template page for you at some point.

Also, I recommend http://statcounter.com/ for all your website research needs. Including how people find your gallery, who linked you and visitor length etc.
I hope that all helps. Good luck with the ‘missions.
Chell x

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

Hey Chell!

Speaking of banner exchanges, thanks again for doing one with me. ;) I have asked a few other artists who do link exchanges to do one with me, I think they just haven't gotten around to updating their links. *shrug* I'll just have to do more, as you said.

For some reason it never occurred to me to look for other LJ communities that might be able to pimp my art, thank you for letting me know. I've shied away from Ebay simply because I thought my art would get lost and go unnoticed amongst all the other auctions -- have you sold much successfully on there, getting decent prices? It may be worth a try. As for Epilogue I think I'll wait until I get a really stellar piece to try entering. I don't think I'd be accepted the way my art is now. ^-^'

I really do need to just bite the bullet and start working all the time in 1024 x 768 resolution. I'm so used to my 1440 x 900 that anything smaller looks bad (to me.) But I guess my site must look bad to everyone with a smaller resolution, lol. Wallpaper's going down, I've gotten enough comments about it to realize that people don't like it. And I'll see what I can do with invisible tables to spruce up the layout. And thanks for the offer of the template -- I'll see if I can't figure it out on my own first so as not to bug you, but I may end up taking you up on that. >_>

Rydia.net does provide a decent statcounter -- for instance, most of my hits from the last day are coming from people who belong to this community. ^-^

Thank you for all the advice, Chell. :)
--Leahtaur

I know how to create interest.

[sorethumb.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, you may have to sell your soul to create ultimate interest at one point.

The idea behind marketing, or running a business, is that you can either have one of 3 business strategies, and market yourself as such:

1. Be the cost leader, and have the 'best' goods for the price


2. Try to differentiate yourself and make yourself look different from all other competitors,


3. Promote and target certain groups with the services/products you can provide (eg: promoting yourself to hippies for hippies)

Here, I attempt to persuade you of #3. Since you posted this here to a furry group, I'm assuming you want furry commissions, and so I am going to tell you how to focus on the furry community.

---

You need to have a web presence for more than 'a couple months', regardless of Elfwood, because I've heard of very few people who look around Elfwood for "furry".. Doug Winger, though he draws, porn, has had a web presence for 11 years now. 11 years where somebody can go see his porn, And you know why? See 2.


• You need to have your art up on furry websites and be listed and linked to as a furry website. VCL is the only one that springs to mind, as I'm not sure if Yerf is accepting anybody or even if they're around. Aside from that, FurAffinity is a great place for people to notice you, but you have to socialize anywhere. You have to leave comments, leave "favorites", and you have to establish "watches"... the idea is that you attract like-minded artists towards you and so you'll exist on a network of fans who will go towards the stuff you liked, then go towards you.



• The tough part: Establishing something for people to pay you money to do more of. If you don't show signs of 'activity' and being alive 'on the internet', people won't reach you for commissions.. So to speak, they have to see if the pot's boiling before they stick their food in it. You have to update regularly so you stay in people's minds, and you have to draw more of what you want to be commissioned to draw. Once people see you're updating all the time, friends will tell friends about cool stuff they've seen: your new art. .. sometimes being topical and funny works. This gets you the attention you want from people who think it might be cool to have you draw them work.



• Porn. I'm not saying you have to, but I have barely seen many commissions of 'normal art' go to people with sub "incredibly amazing artist" talent... IE: Me. ;p

All in all, this is all the advice I can give you after 5 hours sleep at 9:30 in the Morning. Anybody: please leave a comment saying if you liked this or hate me and think I'm an awful person. :p

Damn

[sorethumb.livejournal.com]

1. Stupid failed HTML list, damn :(
2. in the final thing about Porn, I'm calling myself a sub-"incredibly amazing artist" ... Don't want to sound egotistical about the wrong things here. ;3

Re: I know how to create interest.

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

I had NO idea this was a furry group. O_O I mean, I knew many of the members liked furries, but it doesn't say anything in the rules about this being a solely furry group, does it...? I'm so confused.

I just set up a FurAffinity account this morning and I can see what you mean; it seems very social, far more active than other sites like Elfwood. I'll take your advice and try to make a network.

I update my site regularly, often even, but you're right. My Elfwood's a bit dormant at the moment. I'll change that and try to keep all my sites active.

Lol, I actually do draw furry porn now and then, but it hasn't sold (only my general audience stuff has) and I can't show anything adult on my website. Partly because my server won't allow it and partly because my mom goes there. XD But I'll keep that in mind and keep trying, at least I can put some of it up on FurAffinity now.

Thank you for the in-depth advice, it'll help a lot. :)

Ooh, sorry @_@

[sorethumb.livejournal.com]

I guess technically this group really isn't that furry, but almost all I've seen is furry posts.. So excuse me for a few. ^^;;

In any case, there are plenty of other art sites that, if you post frequently and over a course of a year or more, you will get attention.. just that like I said, my advice was to focus. ;3

There are other things you could do... provide cheap commissions, or show how different you are from other artists. :o

Re: Ooh, sorry @_@

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

No problem, I was just confused there for a second. ;)

I may end up offering bargain commissions soon -- I'll have to or I won't have any at all, lol. At least then my name'll be out there and I can always raise prices back to what they are now later. Thanks for your help. :)

Re: Ooh, sorry @_@

[go--banana.livejournal.com]

When making artists_beware, I didn't intend for it to be strictly furry. However most of its publicity was between furries and the fandom, so... yeah.

There are a few anime artists here and there, and I noticed a couple traditional fantasy artists that recently joined. (By recent I mean since the beginning of the year.)

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

I'd LOVE to do a link exchange, thank you. :)

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

Seeing as I am a student AND an artist, I’m pretty much strapped for cash either way…

Delete that. It's basically 'too much information'.. also I think that page is a bit TOO long, maybe condense it somehow? Short and sweet or people never get down to the prices. Prices up top, explination down under it?

I would also suggest a color change.. I could hardly read the text on the brown without highlighting it.. I'd make it a lighter color because right now it's too similar (I've got bad eyes.)

........
and now for some more detailing >.>

- look into forms for ordering commissions. I use email, but I have a business only email address

- change prices into a table.

http://artoftheempath.com/hire_the_artist.html
I'd look at that page.. it's a very good example of short and sweet (check out the character info section for an example of what I mean by a table)
http://artoftheempath.com/rpg_hire_orders.html
example of an order form...

the less work for the commissioner (reading a lot of text included in that 'less work'), the higher the chance they might commission on a whim.

This is the order I suggest for your page:

Art Usage / Copyright together
Art Commission Prices - table it, cut out extra words. I'd put in a "For insurance on shipping, please include an extra $XX (usually it's about 7 dollars to cover $75 dollar painting)" and cut out that 'damaged' section.
Art Commission Talk/examples of work
Material - most people that aren't artists will think all the names etc is just 'greek' and won't bother reading it. I'd nix it completely and make it 'line-art w/pen' etc.

In the future I am thinking of adding Prismacolour markers, oils, conte/pastel and charcoal to this list – at this moment I am not proficient enough in these media to use them for commissions. I will definitely be adding CG to this list as soon as I find a good location to get prints made, or my own photo quality printer.

Don't add that.
"at this time, I am unable to work in __,__,__,__, etc"
No explination needed.

Print sites I've used:
http://photoworks.com
http://mpix.com

deviant art also has a printing thing, but you pay a one time fee of 25$ to set it up. print quality's good, though.

There will be times when I will simply be so busy with schoolwork, other commissions or other duties that I can’t in good faith take your commission on. Don’t despair! Just try again in a week or three and in all likelihood I’ll be available again."

I would keep at the time "Commissions Closed for the time being -- Busy with School work" and a "Commissioned are open!" kind of thing.


Style


Unless otherwise requested, I will work in my own personal style – the style you see in most of the pictures in my gallery, simply because that’s the style I work best and fastest in. BUT, if you would like a specific style or have a source you’d like me to emulate (for example, anime, furry, a specific cartoon’s style, Art Nouveau, photo-realism, etc.), I’d be happy to do my best to make your piece with that style.
mmm... I'd probably reword that too..I use: "Please familiarize yourself with my style of figure work", etc, etc...

http://fallenlights.net/commission.html <-- is how I've finally settled on for my own work.


Sorry, I babbled too much >.>

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

oh, forgot to add:

for making prints of CG commissions, be sure to raise the price if they want a print of the piece, just to at least cover the shipping (usually pricey shipping cost from print site to you or commissoner) and cost of print.

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

ps. I have a few things you could join:
http://imagine.fallenlights.net
http://fallenlights.net/artistic/ones.html
http://fallenlights.net/chimera/

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

I like your commissions page, concise and to the point. I see what you mean now, my own is too wordy and could scare people off with a few things that need to be reworded. I'll rearrange it like you said, that alone should help.

As for prints, I really was planning on buying my own photo-quality printer since I intend to do a lot when I'm able. But perhaps I'll try deviant's in the meantime, I've heard good things about their print quality from others as well. (The rampant art theft there is kind of a turn-off but maybe I'll just have to risk it.)

And no, you didn't babble at all, that's a lot of good, helpful info you just provided me with. :)

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

eh. there's not really that much rampant art theft, at least no more than there is with you putting your work up online. it'll happen everywhere, just make sure your name/signature is on everything you make :)

i've gotten a few prints from other artists from DA and their prints are well done :)

one day I'll get a printer myself, but the ones I like are really pricey :/

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

aaand one more thing (I'm at work, so I keep having to walk off to do stuff >.>)

http://artpromote.com

there's a link there somewhere that has a 'free links' that lists places that you can add your link too :)

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thanks again for all the helpful links you've just given me. I'm so glad I asked for help here. :)

[caishide.livejournal.com]

the thing is, ALOT of people on elfwood are either younger kids with little to no money that they'd spend on commissions, or are just there with secondary acocunts, or really aren't interested in having originals. i tried the whole exposure thing over there and (at the time i sucked so i'm not really referring to my OWN business) noticed few people are interested in commissions.

the two sites i've seen good business deals come from have been vcl (but that's all furry art) and deviant art. also, over at deviantart you can go to the forums and announce you're open for commissions and drum up busines that way.

i guess what i'm saying is open a few more galleries to reach more people at different sites, and pimp your website as much as possible

i wish you all the luck in the world, your art is quite snazzy

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

I'm still a bit leery of Deviantart, there's just SO much theft there... but I think I'll just have to take the risk and join there anyway, hopefully the pros outweigh the cons.

And thank you for your advice. :)

[caishide.livejournal.com]

if you niw how to handle the theft, it really isn't as huge of a deal. as long as you don't confront the theif and just report the image, admins are pretty good about taking stuff down. there has been alot of flap about their tracing policy, but look at it this way;
if someone's going to trace your image, they're going to do it whether you're on the site or not. BUT if you're on the site you a) have access to the admins and b) will have a fanbase that will be more likely to recognize the work and either defend you, or even just by being there discourage the theif.

i hope you don't have to deal with any of that unpleasantness should you choose to join

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

When you put it that way, I guess it won't be THAT bad. Plus I believe there's an LJ community somewhere (can't remember the name of it right now) specifically for routing art thieves from deviantart. That's it, I'm definitely joining. :)

[skulldog.livejournal.com]

Conventions. I hate to say it, but the best way to make money is to spend it.
Go to cons, set up shop in Artist Alley, sell art. Meeting people offline puts a face to a facless internet user. Getting your name isn't all about spamming that you have open commissions. Some folks might read that as "I just want money". Get your name out as someone who helps otehr artists, someone who does some nice gift art. Be more than "I have art for sale".

Commission other artists. I get a lot of traffice from trade pictures I've done for folks over the years. Enter contests. The more people see your art, the more it gets around.

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

I think cons will be something to consider for me once I have some prints to sell as well as originals. I've always wanted to go to one. And I've been meaning to do more giftart lately anyway... good advice, thank you Skulldog. :)

[knifesmile.livejournal.com]

This is way late I know, but, damn. I wanna do an art trade with you sometime. Totally dig the WC of the geese on your site. That caught my eye more than anything else... I often feel really alone in the fur art world for my preferred media. No one else has even *heard* of a watercolour pencil, and I depend on those. It's kind of culture-shocky.

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

I'd love to do an art trade with you! ...but unfortunately I've got three other art trades on the go at the moment, so looks like it might be a while. Let me drop you a note when I'm clear again, okay? It sounds like fun, I love watercolour. Although I've never used watercolour pencils -- what brand would you recommend?