#once again i am making fanart for niche fandoms lol

[mintjeru]

when the clock strikes 12, the show begins 🍒 happy 10th anniversary royal scandal!!

open for better quality | no reposts

[owlbites]

Hi all, I wanted to give a quick update on the future of this blog. I love making Owlboy art, but obviously getting into a game and making fan-art for it 5 years too late isn’t going to guarantee interaction. ESPECIALLY cause I tend to make NICHE fanart for a NICHE game lol. Sorta shot myself in the foot there huh. I love hearing and seeing what others have to say about Owlboy and the game itself, and especially if others enjoy my fan-art, but at this point there are so little people in the fandom it’s like throwing art into a void. I don’t know if I want to post here regularly anymore…I’m also the only one on the Owlboy tag half the time 🤣

If you want to see all of the work here plus my original work, I have two instagrams @/Arribaamoeba and @/stellaaoctangula where I post all my art, including my Owlboy art. I am very VERY active there if you’d like to see my stuff.

Heh, Thank you to the 2-3 of you who enjoy my stuff here, and just thank you to all the amazing people who have stopped by since summer 2021. I’m not going on hiatus, I’m just gonna slow things down for a bit until I figure out exactly what I want to do. Once again thank you for the love, and maybe I’ll see you on Instagram. 🦉

[whifferdills]

I feel like fanfic and fanart can be good training for the original marketable stuff a creative might produce after gaining some skills, but original stuff is definitely a way harder sell and fanworks seem to be turning into a shortcut to profit. one could argue we should pay creatives but then again creatives were paid for all of the stuff we're making fanworks of and idk where I'm going with this it's confusing tl;dr stop taking shortcuts fandom.

yeah fandom can be a good way to ease into ‘doing things on schedule and to spec’, if you’re aiming for a blue-collar artist gig. a lot of the marketing is done for you when you work with an established property, the audience already exists, it’s still work obvi but you’re more likely to get eyeballs with a barely-promo’d fanwork than with something original that you busted ass getting out there. plus if it’s a good community the incentive to make is super valuable bc a lot of the effort involved in creative work is just doing the thing often and vigorously enough that you get good at it/people start noticing that you’re good at it.

but like.......iunno, it feels like ‘find a niche and take commissions’ is a more sensible approach both in terms of expected success and like, not having all your shit DMCA’d bc you hosted your disney designs on redbubble, or whatever. do furry art and dnd oc’s, be prepared to run a business, accept that once you start treating your hobby as a business then ppl are under even less obligation to be nice to you or give you free advertising than they normally are

idk where i’m going either lol. this feels like an adjunct to the conversation i need to have irl once a year with someone who thinks they want to open a restaurant (you don’t! spoiler: you will fail. get a cottage food license and sell jam at the farmer’s market or better yet just cook dinner for your friends).

(sidenote: as someone who likes writing and doodling as a hobby, i find the insistence on “fanart leads to profit and if you don’t leave a nice comment on my fic i’ll starve” kinda concept really frustrating and alienating. like i just want to fling my nonsense into a welcoming void from time to time, it’s nice if you look at it and enjoy it! but i am not putting that pressure on myself to be appropriately successful, i’m an adult with a full-time job and video games to play lmao)

[calangkoh]

May I ask what got you into the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom or how you discovered it? I accidentally stumbled across Nina’s death last year in May and that’s how I got into the fandom. How long have you been in the fandom?

Okay story time! (Warning for BH salt and overall bitternss sprinkled in since it’s part of my personal viewing experience)I followed viria and burdge for their percy jackson fanart starting around age 14, and had seen them draw fma characters in crossovers with pj/hoo characters (such as leo valdez, a mechanic/engineer type, geeking out over ed’s automail). i broke down and looked up the synopsis and thought it sounded interesting. idk if this part happened before or after i looked up the synopsis, but either way i was hella confused by alphonse (either just him in general or because i assumed that the elric brothers described in the synopsis i read on yahoo answers were older) in a clip i was linked to on a totally unrelated incident (pretty sure it was loz related...ed looked like link to me in a fanart and then i saw his name and decided to look him up) where i watched a “ed’s funniest moments” compilation on youtube (and it was really just from like, two episodes total in the 03 series) and once i saw the clip of al screaming “jerk! I hate you youre not even human!” over a cat, despite clearly not being a human, i was sold (my love of irony was apparently just as strong when i was about 15/16).so then i looked up which series i should watch first, got all the pros and cons from different sources (some thought 03 was trash, others thought bh was trash) and i decided “screw this im making my own opinion,” and went with 03 because i figured if it came first then i wouldnt be lost (which i was correct in, because if i watched bh first id have been confused).i got halfway through 03 before my brother catches me watching it says something like “i liked both. i know i liked brotherhood’s ending better. this one’s ending is weird”so i looked up the 03 ending (lol) and happened across a person with the “03 is trash” viewpoint, which unfortunately got me to switch to brotherhood mid-seriesso now im watchig brotherhood and im actually appreciating it speed through the plots of the episodes i just watched, but i felt very disappointed, like “if this is the remake, why is it...not as good?” because the speeding through the episodes was getting rid of all the emotional and character build up and i felt cheated. i also realized halfway through bh that i didn’t care for ANY of the core cast. like, at ALL. still, the plot and feeling of “whats gonna happen” kept me watching, even though by the Briggs arc and beyond I was bored out of my mind.By the end of BH i felt hyped up and rode those feelings for a while until i realized...i actually DIDN’T like BH that much. Yes, there were aspects i absolutely loved and moments that would make me go from “this is boring and dull and all just action and masculinity and poorly timed/balanced humor” to “WAIT i AM enjoying this.”but...i felt kinda hollow after finishing the series, and decided to go back to 03. And that was when i was reminded of the characters i fell in love with, the tone, the humor, the drama, the trauma and emotion...all my love of fma was from 03, and had i not started with 03, i would not have connected to the core cast in bh at all. So i watched 03 all the way through and i actually loved the ending. I felt “this is weird but i love it” but i could see why it got a lot of heat. overall i felt “this series is imperfect but i really love it and can see why it was so popular” then eventually, after a break, i rewatched bh, going into it with a fresh mind of “ok pretend this is entirely new thing and forget 03” (because i thought my lack of connection to characters/emotional scenes was due to my mind being in 03 mode as a consequence of jumping between series in the middle) and thats when i just felt “wow i dont like this series that much” and it was such a chore to finish. i found even the unique characters i liked on my first watch (ling, mei, lan fan, fu, this version of greed, etc) i felt still got the short end of the stick in terms of writing. I thought all the characters were shallow, stereotypical, and dull. Again, there were things i really appreciated about bh, but in contrast to saying “this is imperfect but i love it” about 03, i was saying “this has some good things and is popular for good reasons but i just cant stand it” and after some incubating my thoughts on the two series and reading some awesome 03 meta and realizing 03 got unnecessary hate while people just kinda blindly loved bh because it’s widely regarded as the best thing ever (which imo, wont age well. in years to come people who get told “fmab is the greatest anime and show” and watch fmab will be disappointed) i decided to make my own 03 appreciation blog (especially after a few of my angry rants about brotherhood got notes on my main...anger which has subsided over time into but was strong when it was fresh with betrayal). i also found a niche group of people who felt the same as me which inspired me to keep going with the blog. i had always followed fandoms since i was around 8 (with loz and winx club lol) but never got INTO fandoms because they stressed me out. having a niche group of people made me feel less pressure and it was a good starting point to just run my blog the way i wanted and enjoy things the way i wanted. i learned more about the fma fandom and filtered out what stressed me out to make a blog i just enjoy running, that other people happen to enjoy too! And that in turn makes me happy as well.and then i watched 03 like two more times because it was on my laptop and id watch it in place of netflix for a good year and now im hereand that’s my detailed story of this blog and my entrance into the fma fandom

[yukipri]

I never experienced art theft until one of my works became unexpectedly popular- since then, I've found my work reposted, redrawn, and used as reference for cosplays. It's been exhausting, both seeing it, and not knowing WHERE I should stand on the issue. I've let redraws slide (with credit), but I plan on not allowing future ones from occurring. How do you deal with art theft? How do you continue drawing without thinking about the disrespect thrown at you during bad/failed confrontations?

I am so, so incredibly sorry this happened to you, and empathize very strongly with you. Art theft SUCKS, few things can be quite as demotivating as a creator than having something you’ve worked your ass off on swiped by someone else. And unfortunately, given the current internet culture, if you continue as an online artist it’s inevitable that it’ll happen at one point or another.

Because sure, of course part of the reason why we create is because we want to, but a large part of the motivation for sharing it is to hopefully get some response that people like it, whether it be in the form of likes, reblogs, comments, asks, tags, or anything else. That is the tangible PROOF that our work touched someone, and for someone who put in zero effort and has no idea how we felt while creating to receive all of that instead of us…sucks.

I think where you stand on the issue is up to you, and it’s okay for it to change. YOU always have the right to decide how you’re comfortable with people sharing your art, and your feelings are valid regardless of how they change.

Ironically enough, I just had another art theft on Instagram (my Anniversary post) super recently, so I was like HAH when I got this orz

This rant got a bit long, so the rest beneath cut but here’s a rundown about how my feelings towards art theft have evolved over the years.

For example, over the years I’ve gotten much, MUCH stricter. My earliest online art, I just put it up, no url, oftentimes no signature, no warnings in the comments or my blog bio. Admittedly I was starting out and didn’t have much viewers anyway, but the point was I still had Trust at the time.

Then the art thefts began. I started adding my url to all my illustrations, even if it was just small in the corner, as this’d let people at least find my website. Most people are too lazy to type out a url though, and I’ve seen people asking “Who drew this??” on art theft comments EVEN WHEN THE URL IS LITERALLY RIGHT THERE…

And then people started cropping my watermarks. I made my url bigger, and started adding an additional “DO NOT REPOST” to the image itself. I used to allow reposts with credits on platforms I’m not on, like fb, until I realized that people were then reposting from THOSE communities without credit and putting them into their videos and fics and I just…decided it wasn’t worth it.

I switched to no reposts PERIOD. I have lengthy disclaimers on all of my art that leads to an even lengthier FAQ post that, should people wish to look, leads to even an even more detailed post about WHY art theft sucks, as I’m explaining now.

(EDIT: ALSO, reduce the quality of the images you upload, and NEVER upload the full resolution, and try to keep you unmerged original files. This is for several reasons: no matter how much an art thief reposts your work, they’ll never have access to the higher resolution, and if they ever decide to try to print to sell for profit it’ll be shitty quality compared to anything you make with the original. ALSO, you having the maximum resolution with no watermarking with additional unmerged psd files will be proof that you are the true creator should you need to prove it, which I’ve heard is sometimes necessary to show when your art is stolen at say, an artist alley)

I also used to bother trying to talk to art reposters. I’d comment on the post, try to send messages, etc. It’s fucking exhausting, and while there are some exceptions, the VAST majority of art thiefs will feel attacked and immediately get rude and defensive. (the failed confrontations and disrespect you mentioned orz) If it’s a large community, they may even try to gang up on you. I’ve unfortunately experienced this most frequently in communities centered around other languages (mainly Spanish) because of different mainstream attitudes towards art reposting etiquette combined with a language barrier.

You will, and no doubt already have, encountered people who will argue with you, like the people I describe above. “You should be grateful for the bigger audience!” “We just want to appreciate your art, how can you be so horrible?” “We’re all fans together!” “This is fanart and doesn’t belong to you anyway!” Etc. etc. etc. It’s exhausting, it’s repetitive, it’s neverending, and you already felt awful before it even began and the stress just continues to build.

So I personally have just begun reporting people, if the service allows it. Use DMCA takedown request forms (and YES, even if it’s fanart it’s still yours if you drew it). This is stressful too because it sends your real name + info to the reposter (and wow I clearly can’t trust these people to begin with, why would I want them to have that???) but most sites (facebook, instagram, certainly tumblr, twitter) are very efficient and responsive, and in the end the relief of receiving that email that the art has been taken down is worth it. Especially with facebook, they also send a scary official warning email to the reposters which I sincerely hope will help educate them and discourage future art thefts.

I try to avoid posting public urls because yes I’m aware how mob mentality Tumblr can get, but sometimes it’s just too much. There’s no convenient form of getting my content removed (perhaps bc it’s in a compilation with a ton of other content), or for some reason my attempts to communicate have failed. In those times I have occasionally asked my followers to help, with a reminder to PLEASE always be polite and respectful, regardless of the offense. Y’all have been amazing, and this has saved me many nights of crying in the past.

I will sometimes also write lengthy posts (like this one!) to help educate. Because I do feel that art theft will continue so long as people don’t understand what it does to artists, and it’s up to the community as a whole to make that change, which also depends heavily on the consumers not just creators. A lot of art theft really isn’t intentionally meant to harm, but IS super ignorant.

But in the end, all I’ve ranted about so far is how I’ve dealt with actually removing/dealing with the shit. But the emotional pain, it builds. Sometimes, when it’s too frequent and the stolen art gets way more attention than my original that I worked my ass off on that basically flunked on my own platforms, I feel a bit of me break.

And in the end, it’s up to you what that threshold is, where posting art and feeling good about it is overwhelmed by the pain, fear, and anxiety of art theft. I’ve crossed my own threshold too many times, and once had to take an art hiatus because of it (fandom was BH6). This lead to a break in my productivity and motivation and my eventual complete departure form the fandom. I’ve seen many other artists just stop posting art entirely or moving everything to private. It’s terrible, but my feelings are with these artists, and I feel so, so sorry that they were hurt so much to the extent they had to do this.

With my current fandom and followers, I feel that regardless of how niche an audience my content tends to be geared for, I have a community that is really satisfying for me to create for, one that is responsive to me and gives me tons of feedback. This is the number one reason why i continue to feel motivated to post a ton of online content despite the risks.

The takeaway form this long meandering post: Posting online is a hobby, it’s for fun, and I don’t make any money off my public audience (unless they come to Patreon! LOL!), so I’m a firm believer that once the anxiety + misery starts outweighing anything positive you personally may get from sharing online, which for me heavily depends on my audience and their responsiveness, there’s no reason to subject yourself to that anymore and you are in no way obligated to stay. There are various methods to more efficiently get rid of art thefts without dealing with them in person which is stressful AF, and also ways of marking up your content in ways that may look less aesthetically pleasing, but will hopefully discourage art thefts, and at the very least give them very little leg to stand on should they do it anyway. How forgiving you are in art thefts also depends on you, but the more forgiving you are, the more it can get away from you. And in the end, YOU as a human are more important than any complaints about art looking less pleasing or the feelings of art thefts who don’t get to do what they want with YOUR hard work.

Sorry this was so disjointed and literally just me spewing at you, but I hope some of it was helpful ^ ^; Please let me know if I can give you any other advice, and I’m sorry again that you have to deal with this ;_;

(and to respond to your second ask, I do try to respond to most of my asks, but sometimes it takes a while (sometimes even months orz), especially if it’s one that requires a lengthy detailed answer like this one ^ ^; thank you for your patience!)