Creative Corner

Hello, I could use some advice, I'm afraid, since it doesn't really work out for me, even though I make a living with art in real life. ;-;
https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/art/3005879
I lowered prices even, maybe it's the €? Or the layout? I'm probably just dumb. ^^°

A Note For Moi: Left advice on Jouska's thread just so they have it all in one place~ ------------ @Tanija - Hi, hello, this is some very nice art! It reminds me of the D&D monster manual, it's a little bit eldritch. When you're dealing with a lack of customers, there's usually more than one factor contributing, and you often need to just kind of try different things until you get your first customer. I can list off a few possible things, though, and you can pick which ones you think are impacting. [quote=Things] - The price sheet is teeny-tiny! On Flight Rising, all our posts and text get squeezed into a much smaller column than on other websites, like Twitter or FA. I know I can make the image bigger by right-clicking, but ultimately, you don't want people to have to click away from your page just to see your art/prices/T&Cs. I would suggest using large pictures with FR text underneath each one. - When I say large, uncropped would also be great! (Especially with the weapon example - would love to see the whole thing and how it fits together!) You have some very nice uncropped examples later in the thread, but maybe consider that the three examples on the sheet are the first everyone sees. - Your price sheet has 453 views on imgur over 23 days, or 19 clicks per day. Unless you were checking in on it, that means you're getting people who are looking at your current sheet and balking. I'd say this is to do with the prices being in euros, personally - nothing makes me run away from a commissions page quite like euros (that or yen), and I'm someone who has to pay in AUD! It's the conversion rate between euros and AUD, I think - it does my head in, that and I can't instantly tell how many gems it is. USD is just easier for me to process, really. - I've also heard that the comma (,) in the price confuses people (they might assume you're asking for something in the realm of 2500 USD when you say 25,00 euros). Not my experience, but I've heard it? - NSFW is not allowed on FR - as in, you're not supposed to offer it on your comm sheet that you have on FR. Just a heads up!! - You don't have any coloured examples, besides the one in the header. On FR, colour is super important - people spend a lot of money on dragons of very specific colours, and losers like moi have spent literal months trying to breed That One Combination. If you're looking to get some dragon commissions from people here, you might like to push the colour option you have a bit more and make it super clear what you mean by colour. - It might not be the best idea to tell people that instead of paying for art, they can have it for free if they do a trade-? At least, it might not be the best idea to say that on your shop! You're sort of tempting people away from buying art, haha. [/quote]

Oh dear, thank you, there's a lot of things I did not think about once. And yes, I should fix that sheet up, haha. I wasn't aware that for you guys the comma means something else than for us. Off to fixing that then.

@Tanija - No worries, haha. Best of luck with it!

@Spooner I'm back with some marketing questions. I'm also still working on improving shading etc, but my main questions are about marketing, pricing, that kind of thing. I know that I don't have a shop banner yet. I'll do it once I figure out what to put on it (maybe my sona {the blue rattlesnake from my old shop link sig image}?) I know that I don't have an image link to my art shop in my signature right now. The old one didn't match my current style and I'm thinking of overhauling my whole signature so. I know that I have no FR dragon portrait examples. I haven't made any I like. So, I've been considering what I can do to make stuff sell better, given that my confidence on anything FR-based other than Banescales is nonexistent. I've come up with the following ideas for other styles I can offer. 1. (no examples yet, sorry) Headshots 150*150 px MSN icon-style headshots of dragons or OCs. Dragon ones might be on the same base if I can make a base I like. Simple gradient backgrounds, possibly eyeblinks or sparkles but no other animations. Would be priced lower than my fullbody sprites/portraits - I'm thinking still "pay what you feel's fair" but dropping the minimum to 100/150g. This would allow me to maybe do more with FR dragons with apparel without having to deal with legs and wings, which are the main thing that trips me up. 2. Whatever I can call these My highest-work, but also highest quality, style, which I've started using more consistently for my own characters. Traditional sketch, resized to 1024 height, pixeled over lines and then colored as usual. Would have a minimum price higher than the sprites/portraits - how much so? Wouldn't offer animation on these. And yes, I know that the human example's hair isn't shaded. The gradients are a fundamental part of her design and I couldn't figure out how to shade that in a way that was consistent with the rest of it. I was thinking this might help as an option for people who don't like "pixel art" (TM) by providing something bigger and that looks more impressive on the example list. [img]https://i.imgur.com/OWgEgOn.png[/img][img]https://i.imgur.com/LBasHVw.png[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/gexDrUu.png[/img] Also, my final question is generally with pricing - right now, I'm doing the "pay what you feel's fair, here's the minimum price" system, but should I maybe not do that? I don't have that big of a sample, but save a couple of people who've generously tipped, most people seem willing to go for 200g for a sprite and something in the 300-400g range for a portrait. Should I just set flat prices? Would that make any appreciable difference? My current plan is to keep the minimum prices, but expand them into categories e.g. "minimum 100g" for a headshot, minimum 200g for a sprite or portrait, minimum 500g for one of the big ones. Also, I may have the capacity to be set up for USD payment in the near future. That'd be pure PWYW because I have no idea how it works in reference to stuff that only exists digitally, but would it even be worth it to offer?

@allidraggy - That's a lotta questions! Must have taken forever to think up all that. It seems like you've identified a lot of things you still need to/want to do, which is great! If you weren't able to think of anything, you'd be in a worse spot.

Regarding the headshots, I can't really say anything given you have no examples and some might be on bases (which go for a much lower price than regular art). They sound good, though, and I like where the idea's going - I agree that headshots may be a way to sort of get around the problem that is FR dragon bodies in general, haha. If you think these headshots would be a viable way of offering FR dragon art in your otherwise not-FR-dragon-art shop, I'd honestly say go for it.

The other thing you have I would call fullbodies, and I would say 300-400g is about right starting off. (I think this is about in line with what the PWYW people have told you, too? If that's right, we're in agreement for once, which is kinda funny.)

Going off all the other posts I've made on it on here... you could say I'm not a big fan of PWYW. ;) Flat prices are just easier for me as a commissioner, but overall, PWYW people tend to lowball because at the end of the day, only you know how much time/effort actually went into the art. I'd honestly say flat price, and flat price with however much you think it's worth.

USD payment is just the same as with taking gem payments (people spend USD on gems anyway), but at these lower prices, I feel like people would be more likely to buy 500g, give you 400g on it, spend the rest on FR stuff and support the site? Maybe I'm wrong because I'm not in the base market, buuuut I've not seen many successful USD art shops in the very, very low USD ranges (as in $1-$5 kinda range). Usually on here, those shops are dealing in treasure or gems.

That's not to say you can't offer it anyway, though! It'd be good practice if nothing else.

@Spooner -
OK, I'll probably make a CC board for some headshots once I get my trade backlog done to get some examples and determine if I need/want to do a base. I'm thinking maybe I'd offer them both with and without a base so I could do them for non-dragon critters? Flat price-wise, how does this look, with mentioning that item payment or tipping is cool and encouraged? All prices would be listed in gems by default since that seems to be the default payment type in these parts.

Headshot - 100g if it's on a base, 150g for non-dragon OCs, linebreaking ancients, apparel, or animation
Sprite - 200g including simple animation. No apparel on dragons.
Portrait - 300g including simple animation. +50g for dragon body apparel (hats and jewelry are fine)
Fullsize (since the sprites and portraits are fullbody and it might be confusing?) - 400g

@Spooner recently developed a couple styles and would love to get any feedback. I have no idea how to really price. My artshop is in my sig and those examples are slightly outdated, so here are some newer ones (however I might keep the style in my shop just for simple purposes): Sketch: [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/743565309918707784/957346245632991292/unknown.png[/img] [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/924518264464375868/957106451007025212/unknown.png[/img] Current WIP: [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/743565309918707784/957465609610887260/unknown.png[/img] And more finished one but still sketchy: [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/700444601848430612/929542899765485588/sketch_2.jpg[/img]

@SpiritFlower - How'd you even find this thread, it's been inactive nearly a year lol

Traditionally, I buy art from around August - February, so right now I'm not part of the scene so much. I can try to quote you, but it won't be the most accurate thing ever as I'm not really shopping for stuff~

If you still want me to try, I think I'd have to know your turnover time, whether you're still going for g/t, and then what kinda art you wanna draw - all busts? Halfbodies with arms/hands in there? Do you want to have extra costs for designing dragon gijinkas from scratch, giant piles of apparel, etc, or do you just want a really minimalist shop with 1-2 price options?

Sounds wild, but pricing often hinges on what your other price options are, therefore why I'm asking this stuff.

(Also, that tiny art shop button is not friends with my large clumsy on-mobile thumb! Just so you know, I guess.)

On that note, thread's open for anyone else who wants to nose in? Should be noted that I'm in my shopping hibernation period, though, so I may not be able to comment on shiny new trends or arguments over how many headshots an Aberration constitutes. ; )