Shouting into the void

[AyGee]

I suppose where this is coming from is my recent attempt at doing commissions for Extra Life.  I put up a journal over a week ago, tried to signal boost it on here and on Weasyl, asked a friend to signal boost me on twitter, and thus far the response had been a resounding fuck-all.  Not a single comment, request, or even 'I hope you get something soon.'  Just a stark silence.

But this seems to be a regular thing for me.  Maybe I'm just not good enough, but I'm fairly certain only -one- of my own submissions on FA has broken 100 views.  Not faves, views.  And when I ask for help or advice in real life people seem to act like I never spoke up at all.  In average conversation all people will just talk over me like I have nothing to say.  Quite frankly, I'm worried about becoming one of those crazy homeless people who shout slurs and word-salad with a paper bag on their head because they realize they're so ignored that it doesn't matter what they say anyway.

That's where I feel like I am anymore.  It doesn't matter what I say or do because it's all hastily swept under the rug or outright ignored.  It's not like I'm being a complete sulk about it, either; I try to keep up some energy and enthusiasm so I don't scare people away, but it hardly seems to make a difference.  Maybe I'm just in a bad mood and lonely.

[Note from future self: checked my gallery just to confirm, and a handful on submissions do have more than 100 views.  The disheartening part is pretty much all of them have 'inflatable' as a tag.]

[Ginpanther]

Being a content creator in this fandom must be brutal. I'm barely on the periphery (I do photography and don't have a "furry" angle to it, so that's like... two and a half strikes against me getting views on FA or Weasyl) and I think I only receive any faves because there are other photographers who feel ostracized and thus are oddly compelled to +favorite other photographs as some sort of show of solidarity. I try to leave constructive or meaningful comments on pictures, but I never get anything back. Is it a case of "if you can't say something nice?" They don't think there's anything that could be improved (I call shenanigans on that concept)? They don't have time to leave a remark? It's too much commitment? 

If I was in this for any sort of money I think the silence would deafen me.

You've got my sympathies, even if I can't give you any sort of advice on how to turn it around. Best I can do is offer you a "I get where you're coming from." Hope things change for you.

[SirRob]

It's all about advertising. Writing a journal and reposting it in a couple places isn't gonna get much exposure. Maybe as you produce more art, you can write in the description that you are taking commissions. You can also try making a commission picture (showcasing examples of your art and prices), or do free requests to promote your art and set up examples for what you would be offering.

[Phausk]

I feel ya on the being ignored part. I guess most things I say are stupid or unimportant. I'm not really sure how to fix that, sorry man. :\

[AyGee]

Being a content creator in this fandom must be brutal. I'm barely on the periphery (I do photography and don't have a "furry" angle to it, so that's like... two and a half strikes against me getting views on FA or Weasyl) and I think I only receive any faves because there are other photographers who feel ostracized and thus are oddly compelled to +favorite other photographs as some sort of show of solidarity. I try to leave constructive or meaningful comments on pictures, but I never get anything back. Is it a case of "if you can't say something nice?" They don't think there's anything that could be improved (I call shenanigans on that concept)? They don't have time to leave a remark? It's too much commitment? 

If I was in this for any sort of money I think the silence would deafen me.

You've got my sympathies, even if I can't give you any sort of advice on how to turn it around. Best I can do is offer you a "I get where you're coming from." Hope things change for you.

Ogod...  Yah, you sound like you're in a pretty bad way, there.  But I originally hoped to raise $100 dollars for Extra Life, and at this rate I'd feel lucky to break $25 (adding in the $5 from my team leader, and $5 from myself).  Considering artistic pursuits are what I would like to do with my life... well... soul-crushing seems like a pretty accurate adjective, here.  I'm honestly considering just catering to the fetishists just to keep the views up; I'm not a legendary illustrator, and I don't have much of a name in the community, or anywhere else for that matter, so my options are quite limited.

@SirRob:  I guess I did kind of flop on advertising myself, but this was kind of spur of the moment.  Once this current thing falls through, I might see if I can just give my art away for free just to drum up some attention.  And if that gets as much response as my Extra Life thing is getting now, I'll just give up and go back to school for virtually anything else.

[DrGravitas]

It is very tough, but visibility in the community can help a bit. Comment on or fave things you like, journals too. Watch people that you share commonality with.  A small fraction of users notice insightful or interesting comments and follow them to user pages. Joining groups can also help visibility, as does placing those group icons on your user description page (helps people see at a glance whether they might like something in your gallery.) Visibility can also come via collaboration with others. Art trades, commissioning other artists, and doing requests, all of these increase visibility. Be sure to tag your content appropriately and gratuitously; every word used is another search you might show up in.

 

Statistics! I love me some numbers: Of the 364 posts I've made on my FA profile, 9 have gone over 100 (well, 1 was actually 95 views. One also managed to get over 600 somehow.) Most of those are animations and because there are few of those out there, they tend to show up in searches for that close to the top. Granted, only 36 of those are gallery posts and the rest are scraps, so most of them don't have much of a presence. The highest number of faves I've received for a single post is 7. I currently have 41 watchers and am watching 233. I don't follow most of the stuff mentioned above. I don't do commissions or anything like that and, as far as involvement, I mostly just do a bit of comment, fave, and watching.

Edit: I also have to mention that I just noticed I have 1337 pageviews, because I'm a dork. Also, from what I can tell, pageviews will sometimes increase from your own viewing of your user profile, but not post views.

Edited October 21, 2015 by DrGravitas
leet dorkiness

[Conker]

the problem with being an artist/content creator is that we aren't owed views simply because we produce stuff. Pretty much everyone I know that makes things has this problem, getting exposure, and it really boils down to just making stuff for you because you find it fun. You can't will an audience into existence.

Then one day someone on reddit posts a thing you did and it has a fuckload of views for 24 hours for no reason other than blind luck. Then you go back to normal because none of those people followed you.

The internet is strange and big and, as you said, a void.

A friend of mine did buy some adspace on some small WoW podcasts for his Warcraft webcomic, and that helped, so I guess if you're willing to throw money at adverts, that can help. It might not though.

[Kaizy]

Basically to get recognition in this fandom, you have a few options:

1. You have an incredibly unique art style that causes people just gravitate to you like moths to a lightbulb

2. You do a fuckton of porn, so much that your style is well recognized

3. You produce art for a specific fandom within the furry fandom (ex: Pokemon, MLP, ect.) and meet one of the above requirements

4. You commission art of your OC from a lot of popular artists, so much so that your OC becomes instantly recognizable and people slowly begin to follow you

If you don't meet one of those, you're going to remain obscure and keep a small group of friends and followers, which is ideal for some people. You can also get some recognition by occasionally commenting on artist submissions and joining streams. There's an artist I admire on FA and about a month ago I had started frequenting their streams and just chatting, and now I'm making friends with the group of people I met in the stream, including the artist. There's plenty of ways to get yourself out there in the fandom, whether or not you take the artistic approach.

Honestly, IMO, the easiest way I found to get some quick recognition in the fandom is to do fanart for either whatever is the most recently popular thing with animal characters, or just do fanart for OCs of artists you admire, most of them are usually really flattered to get stuff like that.

Edited October 21, 2015 by Kaizy

[AyGee]

Oh geez....

Basically to get recognition in this fandom, you have a few options:

1. You have an incredibly unique art style that causes people just gravitate to you like moths to a lightbulb

2. You do a fuckton of porn, so much that your style is well recognized

3. You produce art for a specific fandom within the furry fandom (ex: Pokemon, MLP, ect.) and meet one of the above requirements

4. You commission art of your OC from a lot of popular artists, so much so that your OC becomes instantly recognizable and people slowly begin to follow you

If you don't meet one of those, you're going to remain obscure and keep a small group of friends and followers, which is ideal for some people. You can also get some recognition by occasionally commenting on artist submissions and joining streams. There's an artist I admire on FA and about a month ago I had started frequenting their streams and just chatting, and now I'm making friends with the group of people I met in the stream, including the artist. There's plenty of ways to get yourself out there in the fandom, whether or not you take the artistic approach.

Honestly, IMO, the easiest way I found to get some quick recognition in the fandom is to do fanart for either whatever is the most recently popular thing with animal characters, or just do fanart for OCs of artists you admire, most of them are usually really flattered to get stuff like that.

1. Considering I don't already have a bunch of views, that's gonna be a 'no.'

2. Not something I'm willing to delve into.  I know it sells, and I know it works, but I'd like to at least pretend I could get by doing something a little more highbrow than straight up porn.  That's to say nothing of the fact that my style probably wouldn't work for it, anyway.  I've seen people who didn't have the right style try to do porn to garner more attention; it's kind of sad.

3. I foam at the mouth a little at the mere thought of drawing someone's ponysona, because I just KNOW by posting one single pony pic that I will get nothing but requests for MLP stuff for the rest of my life.  I'd rather fall back on the porn than do palette-swaps on a template.

4. This is almost a thing already.  I've commissioned a few drawings of Sofi, and those are easily the most consistently popular pics in my gallery.  But if that's how I choose to gain followers, then I'm basically paying for favorites on something of a bait-and-switch.

Fanart of other people's OC's though?  I kinda-sorta did that a little bit, though we were both still kind of obscure.  Kind of a shame I don't know any popular artists well enough to just randomly draw their character's.  I can't help but feel that such would come across as a bit creepy unless they were stupidly popufur.

Shit, who -do- I know?  I'm such a lurker that I haven't really connected with any other artists, yet.

[Clove Darkwave]

Continue to shout into the void OP, for the void is where we live and it encompasses all things.

[Ansitru]

I get where you're coming from. It's especially disheartening when you do try to advertise as much as you can, put your art out there and create a steady stream of art.... only to get feedback only when you're offering freebies. 

Like. Hell, I know my commissions may not be the cheapest ones around, but even when I offer tiered auctions, I don't get many replies either. And if you ask for feedback, you either get replies that say "Do it for free", or you get a deafening silence. And it's discouraging.

So, tl;dr: I get it and wish I knew a solution.

Edited October 22, 2015 by Ansitru

[Derin Darkpaw]

If you ever want to just actually scream in to the void there is a website for that http://screamintothevoid.com/.

As for the actual topic I don't have much personal experience in the matter, but I did remember reading this little mini comic that has some good advice.  Now its more talking about comics specifically and how to make a living doing them professionally, but I think some of the advice it gives might still be relevant to this situation.

http://spikedrewthis.tumblr.com/post/64136324548/this-is-everything-i-know-a-24-hour-comic-about

 

[Toshabi]

You need a niche or something stand out about you and your work. Honestly, you don't got that. Just keep drawing away till you find it. You aren't owed a penny, so it's up to you to find the right angle. (Hint, it's 90 degrees)

[AyGee]

You need a niche or something stand out about you and your work. Honestly, you don't got that. Just keep drawing away till you find it. You aren't owed a penny, so it's up to you to find the right angle. (Hint, it's 90 degrees)

Shit... I feel like such a bland an uninteresting person, now.  I'm nearly 30 and I still haven't found a niche.

Guess I could try going for a comic just to develop a body of work and tell a story like I've always wanted, but I'm honestly wondering if I've got the chops for it.  Maybe I'll feel better once this Extra Life fiasco is over and put behind me.