#it’s fun work!!! I want to do more commissions

[3liza]

everyone arguing with material analysis/assertion about how art is a "luxury" has rarely if ever spent rent or food money on art, if they even pay rent or buy their own food, and if they did that would be considered extremely dysfunctional, and thats what i/we mean. artists are not providing a necessary service.

our plane crashes in the Andes and you are not particularly excited about my "can draw that Playboy centerfold of Marge Simpson from memory" like that is not an essential survival skill. lots of extremely skilled workers work in luxury artisan and craft jobs, it's not an insult to say even a very famous and very talented and influential artist is not producing a commodity necessary for the furtherance of human life. none of us are doing that, no matter how we stretch and strain the definitions of "essential" or even things like "morale" or "group identity". i will burn my copy of Finnegan's Wake to stay warm and thats what it comes down to.

i get foamy crazy snarling and biting about the idolization and obfuscation of what artists actually do because it is a labor issue! the public conception of artists as people possessed of a divine talent they dont consciously work to develop like any other skill, and the public idea that we are simply pleased and privileged to make art all day and "not work", something people say to my face every time i get asked "what i do", is largely responsible for the absolute dogshit reality of how subsistence and working class artists have to survive. we usually dont have health insurance unless we're so poor we qualify for medicaid AND live in a state that will enroll us. most of us are too disabled or crazy to go to a real job every day. most of us have tried, over and over, to enter the normal workforce, and have failed, and been forced to develop alternate skills that allow us to make rent in the ten hours per month we're actually functional. many of the artists i know work from bed because standing up is dicey. this has been turned into a charming eccentricity of famous artists and writers instead of people wondering why a person would need to stay in bed all day and take the enormous bother of bringing their stupid pens and paper and writing board or typewriter or whatever to their bed instead of just getting up and getting dressed and going to work. ive done this, i spilled ink in my sheets. its a huge hassle.

and artists play along with this mystique because people dont want to buy paintings from sadlords! they want to buy paintings and books and marge simpson nudes from cool guys who get a lot of chicks and wear rockstar outfits and party a lot, because of the transitive properties! of course!!! this is basic marketing!!!!! and if the artist doesnt play along they turn into Sad Story Artist where they're doing emergency commissions and posting about how sick they are all the time. this is not cool or fun or sexy. it's a sand trap and its very hard to recover from. im struggling with this right now!

famous and successful artists and writers are constantly ending up 60-90 years old with cancer and multiple sclerosis and dementia, being the subject of some sort of public, last-ditch, humiliating GoFundMe because painting paperback covers fr 60 years means you dont get a pension, you often dont even have kids who can take care of you, you dont have life insurance, you dont have health insurance. 'died penniless and alone' is one of the stereotypical artist endings for a reason, that is not fiction. this happened to more artists than i can list on two hands. look up what happened to Peter S. beagle, the guy who wrote The Last Unicorn. you write a book like that you should be set for life, right? NO. thats not how it works

i'm not saying 'all artists are disabled and working class or poor' because that isnt true, observably. nepo babies and trust fund artists exist, obviously. but they take an outsized portion of the spotlight when the public thinks of the concept of "artist". they are not actually the norm. the average artist is probably making under 40k and living in extremely precarious circumstances and has had periods of homelessness, illness, extreme debt and/or bankruptcy.

this is true even for the 'successful' artists. having one or two or ten good projects and being a household name does not save you from just not having the safety net provided by a normal career path. i was very close with a major, famous 2000s network television creator and team that you have heard of. they won awards, they changed culture entirely, they were a big deal. one of them was turned down for a half dozen projects by the same network that made millions or bilions on their franchise over several years (each pitch is completely unpaid btw, imagine carefully preparing a PowerPoint for morons for months at a time for no reimbursement and thent he morons ask you if you can put a teenage witch looking for her lost cat in the alps in it and you're like, haha, well, it's a 4 part hard sci fi miniseries set on Europa and takes place entirely inside a pressurized lander settlement, i mean Ridley Scot said he was interested already and he pitched a bottle episode about a carbon monoxide poisoning, soooooo....and the executives look at each other and they're like "it's jst not really what we're looking for right now, thanks for coming in" and you go to coffee bean and tea leaf and kill yourself and thats sort of what its like. i made that example up it didn't actually happen i'm using an illustrative example), worked on a canceled film, and just. gradually ran out of money. thats what happens. that guy ended up slowly selling off all his belongings, getting roommates in a one bedroom apartment, and then eventually having to just live on a friend's couch for years. famous guy. you probably know his name. another major member of that same team ended up in GoFundMe/commission hell for years (might still be there) because they had to take care of their two dying, dementia patient parents by themselves. these are people who go to GenCon and sign autographs for four hours at a time. THE PUBLIC IS NOT AWARE OF THIS SHIT and i'm sick of it. im sick of going to a gallery opening night ("vernissage") and drinking bad wine and having a guy with an email job that pays six figures and benefits tell me being able to push "undo" on the computer is cheating. that's a real example, that has actually happened to me. more than once.

artists currently have zero labor protections whatsoever. all of us are undercutting each other in an unregulated market and relying on welfare and private insurance and not having families or buying houses. zero security until we get so old all our illnesses and dysfunction finally ground us permanently and then we get turned into a charity case by fans (humiliating) or just fade away into ghosts and die

whats my punchline? idk i dont have one. it's possible and likely that any given artist you meet is permanently in precarity and will be until they die, even the famous ones. the culture of selling art demands that artists do not admit to this in public unless shit gets really really bad. i guess my point is you should know this, as a person who looks at or listens to or reads things that people have made for your amusement, not for your survival

[monstersflashlight]

Hey i wanted to ask a question? How do you manage your Patreon account and money? (I’m thinking about investing one in the future for a comic series) and it’s also for a friend of mine that tried to use Patreon but before but it didn’t work? They are a writer too

Hi there! I'm not sure what you mean by managing, but I'm gonna explain a bit how I set it up and if you have more doubts send me a DM :)

How I set it up: I looked to other authors who had stuff similar to mine and specially other book authors to see their pricing and rewards and decided to have three tiers. The hardest part was to figure out how much money I should charge, because at the end of the day this is a hobby but if I'm earning money I should treat it as such, so it was important to set a good work/money ratio and I think the one I have works pretty well. After that, it was promoting it and waiting to see if people were interested. Truth be told, I had over 5000 followers when I started Patreon so I already knew at least some people would be interessted because I did some polls beforehand.

What I post: I post at least 6 stories a week (which is insane I know), five that are later going to be public here on Tumblr (tier 1 gets the content about 3 days before) and all the extra ones are exclusive for tier 2 and 3. All the stories and extras get published at similar times (usually 16:30 CET), so I'd say an schedule is a big thing because it helps you with organizing and also people know what to expect and when. Consistency is a big pro because people are more likely to be interested if they know you are updating regularly (doesn't need to be so frequent as I do, it could be one story a week).

How do I manage the money: Patreon sends your earnings thru PayPal once a month normally, but you can take it earlier if you need it. As per further taxes and non-fun stuff, I hired someone to do that for me because there's nothing I hate more than paperwork.

So, I started the Patreon without really much expectations, the same as when I started doing commissions. I didn't think nobody would like my stuff enough to pay for it, but I decided to take the leap and it worked (yay! super happy about it). My main goal was to pay for my therapy sessions and after I passed that I was just amazed that people kept suscribing and I'm super happy about it, like I can't even describe how happy it makes me. I would have never thought that someday I could tell my friends: "today's work task is a fisting scene" (true thing that happened), and it's fucking phenomenal. I hope your Patreon (if you decide so) works well, it's really amazing to earn money doing something you love. That said, don't be discouraged if it takes a while to take off, I aknowledge I'm super lucky and everything worked super nicely for me, but that's not always the case, so I don't want you to think you are failing just because it takes longer for you. And even if it doesn't work at all, you are still great as an artist/writer. :)

Hope that helped.

[koifrog]

My family’s craft sale is finished and I’ve got like $250 to pick up from my stepmom!! ALSO got money in the mail from a sales rep as thanks for helping with the account!!! ALSO ALSO got a promotion today!!! 🥹🥹🥹

[wyvernity]

been thinking about the sinnohtrio lately......plus misc other stuff

also, casual ko-fi drop!! get something in this sketchy style starting at $10 woop woop

[flockoff]

They are--Kind of helping. LAST 50 MINUTES TO VOTE FOR VERGIL FOR ROUND 5 OF THE MOST TRAGIC CHARACTER TOURNAMENT!

[dianagj-art]

Me: wow I have a lot of files on my wip folder, and so many more drawings I want to work on

My brain: Okay, I hear you, but what if... we start another animation about this thing you just saw

[cold-neon-ocean]

🌐 ɪɴ ᴛʜɪs sɪᴍᴜʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴ 🔻

Commission for the always wonderful Pisq <3

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hello! I was wondering if you’d be willing to take commissions someday 👀. No pressure tho! I just love your art so much

The short answer: "not at the moment, but it is very possible in the future'!

The slightly longer answer: I would have to figure out a good pricing and payment system! PD-MDZS is also where most of my free time goes, so until my life settles down a bit, I would be on the slow side to complete them.

[densewentz]

DenseWentz’s End of '23 Commission Information

Alrighty guys!! Ol' Dense has to pay some dental bills so lo and behold my ever-rare commissions are opening back up!

I am open to drawing both fandom and oc content. You can check out my art tag here or my instagram for more examples of my work.

For full commission and contact information check here

Notable Terms

All prices are USD and all payments are through Paypal Invoice only

If order total is under $50, full payment is due up front, otherwise 50% of payment is due upfront, and remaining 50% is due after initial sketches are sent

Commissions are being opened with limited slots available 

I reserve the right to turn down commissions for any reason

All artwork delivered is for Personal Use Only and any use/affiliation with any sort of AI program is absolutely prohibited

Commission slots are limited and will close again in a few weeks so if you’re interested be sure to contact me with your concept and your references!

If you’ve got questions or want to pitch a commissions please feel free to message me here, email me at densewentz@gmail.com or add me on Discord as densewentz

Let's make some art!

[ciderjacks]

Can we kill the whole “no attention on artwork is sad and means it was a waste of time” thing? Like Seriously can we kill it. I put a fuckton of effort into my art and it usually gets like, 10 likes, and that doesn’t really matter to me bc I love making it. I’m grateful for nice comments, but I’m gonna keep making the stuff I make regardless.

Like ok I’m not trying to sound all holier than thou here, but the amount of artists online who say stuff like “this artwork was a flop, so I’m feeling really discouraged” is making me go crazy. Is that all it is for you guys? Content? When you’re making artwork are you just making content for an audience? No offence but I feel like that’s a huge fucking waste of time, way more than making art you like and getting minimal attention on it.

[red-dyed-sarumane]

having been to vomas & comiket & now oe2 im wondering like. even if i dont have that big of an audience i wonder if anyone would be interested in my art as keychains or stickers or pins. shikishi too i love doing shikishi but those are one of kind by nature.

[piierrote]

ive been doing so much work NOT related to my interests atm and its slowly making me go CRAZY. ive been itching to draw dunmeshi and ace attorney stuff and like EVERYTHING ELSE!!!! AOUGH

[xkzy8]

Updates!

CONGRATS AGNI AND SOMA LOVERS your boys are next!!!

fjdahsdk I wanted to apologize for the lack of Saying So but some of you may have noticed my shop was closed for the past few days- some sickness happened! but it's better now! shop's re-opened! and we have a fresh supply of Five More Snakes!!

(additional supply of the other guys should be coming in soon 😎)

I also thought I should say here that shop's going to be closed from the 15th to 23rd as we'll be out of town -- which will also slow progress on making the besties batch, but!! I'm so hyped to make them >:3

but uhh that's all for now I think! ty!!

[elektroyu]

If you have leftovers from making gyoza as well as from making 2 different barbecue salads... throw them together and get a perfectly yummy meal out of it 🌚✌️

Still have most of the cabbage left though so I'm going to make sauerkraut 🤤 none of the store bought brands beats home made sauerkraut. It'll take some time, but it's well worth it. I've even used it as gifts before and people are always happy to get some XD

[1327-1]

nothing gets me more giddy than eating a shit ton of mango and then smoking and then watching mc vids

[hoiist]

What sort of commissions would be your preference? Curious as to what sort of work you'd be doing if you could do anything? I'm not fishing to get anything commissioned right now, but as a commissioner I've always got all sorts of things I'd like drawn and I'm curious to know what artists' preferences are. I hope your new year is going well and your mental health stays manageable. Stay safe!

Honestly

I would love to do like ttrpg character designs/sheets, busts too. Like get out of my comfort zone a bit and go into fantasy but like, I love star wars ocs and aliens.

I also had insane fun with friends and commissions in the past design character from pintrest boards (and from simple adoptables)m

I guess I would just like to do fun things.

Im going to borrow a few friends characters and make up ttrpg sheets swtor character sheets because it would be fun (even tho there isn't a market for them wtm)