Wow.
As awful as I sold at otakon, I haven't been as inspired to work hard towards making my own work sustainable as a career in... a long long long long ass time. Somewhere along the line I had almost given up, felt tired, worn down, like even if i tried it wouldn't happen. But I just.. now, I have so many ideas! So many things I can work on! And I have enough extra cash to put towards merchandise expenses like getting tshirts and stickers and pins/buttons printed. I'm hopeful, and energetic, so I'm adding more to Etsy, more active on social gallery sites, and it seems to be paying off. I got 2 etsy sales 2 days in a row. That's never happened before!
And I'm working really hard on improving my work dramatically in terms of realism and structure. For the last week or two I've been working from life as much as possible (drew a lot of butts leaning over the opposite table at otakon, haha) and if not that, at least using stock photo references online. And while at work I've been looking up tutorials. Sometimes just reading the tips for how to better draw noses or hands sticks in my mind and comes out the next time I draw.
Otakon was very inspiring in terms of seeing other's artwork, and it makes me want to go to another con ASAP! but I know I did that in 2007-2008, and that's how I got burned out of cons. I also really like how at anime cons there's much more diversity of people. So many more women/girls! Makes me realize that the majority of furries, at least that I've noticed, are white gay males, haha. Even though most of my acquaintances/favorite artists in the furry fandom are female, at cons I realize they're really the minority. The customer base is guys. Who like to look at guys. And I prefer to draw girls. For girls. So the market isn't really there as much as I wish it was. I still have a Furfright dealer's table in Oct which I will be blinging out and making look super purdy with an adorable kawaii tablecloth and a GOOD display with nice big prints that you can see darn well.
Anyway, I feel really happy about this. Whenever I've tried to stray away from this kind of work - whether it be web design or going back to school for vet tech or whatever - I've felt terrible. But this feels right. I get this image of a happy sunshine garden meadow when I think about it (so weird, I know). This has to happen, I want to improve so badly.
And I'm working really hard on improving my work dramatically in terms of realism and structure. For the last week or two I've been working from life as much as possible (drew a lot of butts leaning over the opposite table at otakon, haha) and if not that, at least using stock photo references online. And while at work I've been looking up tutorials. Sometimes just reading the tips for how to better draw noses or hands sticks in my mind and comes out the next time I draw.
Otakon was very inspiring in terms of seeing other's artwork, and it makes me want to go to another con ASAP! but I know I did that in 2007-2008, and that's how I got burned out of cons. I also really like how at anime cons there's much more diversity of people. So many more women/girls! Makes me realize that the majority of furries, at least that I've noticed, are white gay males, haha. Even though most of my acquaintances/favorite artists in the furry fandom are female, at cons I realize they're really the minority. The customer base is guys. Who like to look at guys. And I prefer to draw girls. For girls. So the market isn't really there as much as I wish it was. I still have a Furfright dealer's table in Oct which I will be blinging out and making look super purdy with an adorable kawaii tablecloth and a GOOD display with nice big prints that you can see darn well.
Anyway, I feel really happy about this. Whenever I've tried to stray away from this kind of work - whether it be web design or going back to school for vet tech or whatever - I've felt terrible. But this feels right. I get this image of a happy sunshine garden meadow when I think about it (so weird, I know). This has to happen, I want to improve so badly.