So, I launched a kickstarter project

General Discussion
1

Hey guys, as the title says, I submitted a project to Kickstarter and it went live a couple of days ago.

I am trying to create as many pieces of art as I can to start building a solid portfolio. I started drawing when I was very young and I kept doing it all my life, I learned how to paint with acrylics and I tried several different styles for traditional art. I started experimenting with digital art for the first time like 4 or 5 months ago. I always made it as a hobby, but after trying other career options all I can say is that I hated all of them, my passion was always art, I made the mistake of listening to people when they told me that it was a bad choice, I’m trying to change that.

I use Sketchbook Pro and a small Wacom Intuos, it was very awkward at first because I was not used to drawing on my Wacom and having to look at the screen to see what I was doing. Eventually I started becoming better and I am at a point now where I am practicing a LOT and my art is starting to look good, not perfect, but I am satisfied with my progress.

I came up with the idea of creating custom artworks. I like to push myself out of my comfort zone when it comes to art, so I thought it would be a good idea to let people challenge me into painting something epic coming from their imagination. I also offered some rewards in which people can send me their pictures and I would make some artwork of them, either by making a cartoon portrait or transforming them into heroes, villains, monsters, whatever they want. I can even kill you in one of my artworks.

I submitted my project, verified my identity and now it’s online. Kickstarter suggested that I should start with friends and family, which I did without any success, some of them even said that I shouldn’t charge them money because we are “friends”. It’s been two days and my project isn’t even getting noticed. I decided to run for 15 days because apparently there is a higher chance of people taking you serious if you show confidence, and I am confident about it but I don’t want to miss my chance because the days went by and nobody even noticed that I was there, I think it is something cool to give people the chance to get a custom artwork of whatever fantasy creature or character they want, while making a portfolio for myself.

I am not really asking you to go there and back me up (although that would be great), but if you can help me by sharing it on social networks so that other people can know that my project exists, that would be really awesome. I just want to get noticed, at least that gives me a chance of making it. I am offering a very unique experience for my backers, it’s not like I will go into mass production of something, each one of those pieces is going to consume several hours of my time and all of them will be very different from eachother, the best part is that you get something that started from your own idea.

I will keep painting everyday and making my pieces of art, I will post them online for free so that everyone can download them, but I am broke right now and I could really use the money. In the kickstarter website I showed a little bit of my progress with digital art, especially over this past few weeks, you can see that I try to make every piece better than the last one, I know that with more practice I will be able to catch up with my digital art and make some impressive stuff.

I posted it here because Shoryuken and Smashboards are the websites where I spend most of my time. I know that the FGC can be very supportive with stuff like this, so I am taking a leap of faith.

Sorry for the long post, if you read all the way, thank you very much. I am a noob at this, so any constructive feedback will be appreciated,

2

Why not take commissions on DeviantArt/Tumblr/Etc or something? You could probably get more attention by spreading it around those sites.

3

Because first I need to get noticed, that is easier said than done. I don’t really think that there’s a quick way to get noticed on DeviantArt, you really just have to comment on people’s artworks, watch them so they will watch you back, give badges, submit artwork over a long period of time, things like that. Probably the easiest way to get noticed fast is paying Facebook so that they can promote your page. Problem is, I don’t have that money to spare right now.

Thanks for the suggestion, I actually looked into those options but when I found out that there wasn’t a quick way to promote it, I decided that kickstarter was the way to go.

Also, I just enjoy the challenge, it’s free and if done right, it can become pretty big. I already launched the project, so changing to a different plan isn’t an option. I don’t like to quit, so I will just put all the effort in order to make it succesful.

Like some guy said “You’re already in pain, get a reward from it”.

Edit: Forgot to mention the fact that I am already on DeviantArt, you can find me as SnakeVonDust

4

Ok, some cold-hearted honest POV:

  1. If something is fun then people wanna do it for free, so it doesn’t going to pay well. Obviously all the jobs that pay enough for you to not starve are not something you’ll ever do as a hobby for fun. People always fantasize about those who “play videogames for a living” etc. but only a small fraction of these people can somehow sustain themselves in a market full of free volunteers and it involves a lot of unknown, uncontrollable factors so you can’t really guarantee results.

  2. You should probably keep it as a hobby until it can stand on its own 2 feet. If you need to e-beg then it’s clearly not there yet. Having a portfolio is something you should take care of yourself before you even consider getting paid. Consider changing your goal to a part time job alongside a more secure job unless you see some golden opportunity.

  3. After you have a good portfolio, look for small businesses who could use this sort of thing. For example some shitty retro indie platformer made by 2 people in their basement still needs a good looking picture to put in digital stores and advertizing. They may also be poor as shit but they could probably still pay you minimum wage for the several hours it takes to do one picture.

5

You’re probably better off going on tumblr and just posting a bunch of art, and trying to get connected with the other artists on tumblr/deviantart since they’ll probably name drop you to their followers n shit.

Could also join a fandom and just post fan art chances are it’ll help you out more than a kickstarter would at this point.

Could also find indie developers and offer to be the artist. Even if the pay is shit if it makes it to the market then it would help you get noticed.

Also find a job that you can stomach doing for possibly the rest of your life in case the art thing doesnt pan out. Do art on the side to get you some extra cash and if it does pan out to where you can do it for a living then do it, but always have something to fall back on.

6

Thanks for the feedback. I have almost 2 weeks so I’ll see what I can do, but I know that I can’t switch to art as a full time thing without making it profitable enough. I am just trying to create the opportunity.

All points taken, as I said, I will continue doing it on my own for free, regardless of how the project goes, I hope it succeeds, but if it doesn’t, that’s not going to stop me from doing it.

7

If you aren’t an asian tranny good luck getting help on srk

8

Oh well, at least I tried haha.

9

Advertising your services for art commissions is not e-begging.

Good luck bro!

10

Thanks man, you are absolutely right.