Flash’s Little Corner

How to balance working on commissions Vs personal work and fanart?

The key here is to treat commissions like any regular job (Like an office job but without annoying coworkers!) I work monday-friday and maintain a schedule and set deadlines to follow.

Some people don't work well under pressure but in my case it pushes me to take action. Knowing I promised a client progress or a finished work by a certain date gets me going no matter how burned out I'm feeling. Also keeping a public queue helps this as well as it motivates me to visible update everyone on what I'm doing.

Discipline is very needed, not because you're your own boss means it's easier. People are paying you their hard earned money and it's your responsibility to deliver quality work for them in the promised time.

It's not just drawing, it's social media management, self promoting, bank account checks, regular updates and keeping a good streak of happy customer to spread the word for you!

I draw personal work on my free time on weekends. And sometimes in between when I get particularly itchy about an idea. But I always prioritise commission and I will always make sure to have at least reached my daily goal of work before I start goofing around drawing blorbo art.

It's taken years of adulting, to finally find a rhythm I'm comfortable with, where I can work and still keep my fandom self well fed. So do not despair, I felt helpless at 21 trying to sell a $5 commission but now I'm making $100+ with one single purchase!

TLDR: Treat commissions like a job separate of your hobby. Take weekends free, use your time responsibly 👍👍

How to build an audience

I don't know lol. It sort of happened to me. My main target was always furries (I am a furry) On my first 3 years of 'career' I never reached over 400 followers on my most popular social media, but my income was steady since a random streamer decided that I'd be her artist for everything, so I was able to survive more or less.

On the side I was working on my own OCs which I was lucky enough for randos to find appealing enough to warrant a follow! (Alois here getting pretty popular).

Parted ways with the streamer after hoarding me for 2 years and started drawing fanart which brought followers to me in waves. I'd get into a super obscure fandom (Solatorobo for example) draw a ton of stuff for it, bringing a wave of new followers thirsty of content and then stay because they like furries too.

And rinse and repeat and I got hundreds of people perceiving me (thank you) and even more people eager to commission me (thank you harder)

Important to note: People on different socials have different interests. Example: Twitter has been very friendly with original content but flops certain fanarts. Tumblr hypes up fan content a lot more enthusiastically but original content doesn't get very far.

TLDR: mostly takes good rng, but having a loud social media presence and a steady amount of new content to keep interest is a step on the right direction.

Last... What about burnout and frustration? What do you do?

TAKE A BREAK! TOUCH GRASS, separate yourself from the screen and breathe a moment. Then you come back and join Artfight.

Artfight is freedom! It's a chance to freely experiment with any character that catches your eye. You can try things that you wouldn't do during commissions, a different brush, different layer modes, angles, poses, etc. AND put enough effort on it that would make the receiver very happy 💖 and by posting this experimental work on socials, it got a lot of attention. Most did really great, a few flopped too, but it was overall extremely positive.

Without noticing, you find new paths, new techniques, you realize you can draw better and faster, and when you come back to work when the month is over, it shows!