Saturday Ramble #17 (Long one)

Saturday Ramble

On a Wednesday: Big updates, probably the most important ramble of them all!

Also is day of the Death in Mexico :)

(Also as a side note before beginning, this one is barely a ramble, since there were too many stuff to talk about I had to write it in a “StRRucCTuReD WaAy”. Otherwise everything would be way too messy for anyone to understand.)

First of all, thanks everyone who’s been supporting me all the way through this point in my life, lately your help throughout these months have been more and more impactful and at this point I’m really feeling like my ultimate goal is very close to becoming true.

Conventions

Confuror happened and I had a table set up for selling stuff and hung around with some of the furries who (hopefully reciprocally) I appreciate. I had a chance to meet my favorite artist Kenk… I mean Animal Art Crimes, and also the chairman of Anthrocon Uncle Kage (great dude!)

Gulf on the left, Uncle Kage in the middle and Nekeith Fox in the right.

For the first time ever I sold prints and stickers, originally there were going to be shirts and mugs too, but a mix of me being disorganized and my providers being slow at responding , made it impossible; but anyways the prints sold good! And I’m beyond happy about that, I finally can see myself making a living out of this! And that is the main reason why this ramble is so long. I have thought of the steps necessary to realistically make that happen, and we are going to talk about that but first I again have to say that: none of this could have been possible without you guys, I am beyond thankful.

Also I made the mistake of splitting half of my table, the space is too narrow to display everything I was selling, but regardless of that, I did well on sales :3

Illustrations

I’m not here to tell you that I have figured out the twitter algorithm because that would be a blatant lie, but I definitely now know what DOESN’T work on twitter, and that, sadly, is comics.

WAIT. I know there are plenty successful comics out there making numbers on twitter such as Duncan and Eddie or Adam Tots, let me elaborate on this topic because I think I have figured out a little much about comics on twitter:

Twitter is a very low time interaction platform (I’m sure there is a technical term to this), that means that the users scroll pass posts way too fast, so if the post doesn’t catch their eyes almost immediately, people will scroll by it and then it’s very likely that the post is doomed to do small numbers.

The real issue with this is with serialized comics. Sure, people will sometimes stop to read whatever you’re posting, and that works on twitter too, but with serialized comics to read the chapters often require previous context, and It is very hard to ask a random twitter passerby to read the whole thing, since, again, twitter is a low time interaction platform.

It also doesn’t help that Pixeas and Henry is not colored, usually some comics work on twitter because color catches the eye, or super detailed drawing art. none of that is in Pixeas and Henry.

but you know what does work? Illustrations! :D

I’ve noticed most of my engagement comes from full illustration or sometimes even simple drawings, and that’s fine, twitter is a low time interaction and users prefer that type of content. Twitter simply is not made for serialized comics.

Why am I telling you this? Mostly because, even though my ultimate goal is to tell stories and do comics, engagement is something I need in order to be successful with storytelling, that’s the way social media works, attention is very valuable. So I’ll use significantly more of my time doing illustrations, time that otherwise I would spend doing Pixeas and Henry.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing comics.

I WOULD NEVER.

This is just temporary and I will juggle between the two, in the end it’s for the benefit of comics. I've embraced the fact that Pixeas and Henry is THE Rabbit Hole, but in order to make my rabbit hole catch more readers, first I need to make the entrance bigger.

Commissions

I currently work a full time job at tech company, and very fortunately the job is hybrid, that means I can work from home and draw during dead times, but that also means that I need to be at the office whenever it is required, It is a good job and I’m very thankful with the people who gave me the chance to work here, but my ultimate goal is to tell stories, and this job takes some time that I could spend doing comics… Obviously the reason I work here is for the money.

I need money to be able to live.

And I need to live in order to tell stories…  I know, BIG NEWS.

This is why the support from you guys means the world to me, I will never stop saying it.

But the point I’m trying to make here is that, in order to become a storyteller I have to make a consistent flux of income and while Patreon does help me A LOT with that, inevitably, I’ll have to spend some of my time doing commissions. Which is no bother but you know, it’s not storytelling. But it is either that or I stick to my full time job and have even less time to do the art I like to make.

(Current commission I'm working on)

TLDR: I’m opening commissions :D, and people in my patreon will have priority on issuing them.(very soon, not exactly right now).

Have in mind that the pricings have to be balanced to match the time spent/income ratio to overcome my full time job in order for me to become a full time artist. not saying that anyone has complained.

Portfolio and traveling

With the previous topics layed out my portfolio will be about 33% illustrations 33% comics 33% commissions, and I’ll see in the future what works best to make this living rentable.

I’ll fore-seeing that I’ll probably have to focus more on illustrations, since those are the most engaging and I can sell prints of them at conventions, which is the balance of engagement profitability I’m looking for. I am currently researching ways of traveling to other countries’ conventions and selling prints in the same place. I recently bought a big fancy art portfolio thing that apparently works for traveling, so that’s something. I'll update you later with info about this because this is 100% a thing I want to do.

New Tiers

I got a contact that can print me my art in really good quality, and I’ve figured out how to mail it worldwide, so I’m ready to release the Print tier!

I’ll publish the details on it but you can check the tier already in the membership page of the patreon. You will get monthly illustrations right on the step of your door, including two stickers and a personal handmade doodle from me.

I’ve also made a Philanthropist tier, this one was a suggestion from a friend, it’s a pay what you want tier with a ceiling, and it’s there to serve as a tip jar if anyone is willing to support extra than what tiers permit. For the moment there is no added value to that tier, you will still get everything from the previous tier and it’ll be an immense help for me.

I’ll literally kiss you on the lips if you do this.

I know I’ve said this before, but I have to lay it out, I have tons of stories I want to share with the world, since I was very little I would daydream about plenty of stories and today at age of 22, I still do and I’ve found a passion for this, I want to be able to do this full time, I find this fulfilling and I have no other goal in mind, I want to be a storyteller. And it is definitely achievable, I don’t really care much about making tons of money, all I want is to have a stable income, economical independence and do what I like doing.

Patreon October Rewards

So, new month, new patreon rewards! Last month's rewards were stickers and I found those to be adequate for a reward. I feel like doing monthly stickers until you guys get a full sticker pack growing month-to-month, so for October rewards I’ll contact you to arrange the new sticker.

For Print tier I’ll start shipping them at the beginning of the next month (December), the tier already asks to add a delivery address, so I’ll do the rest, dw :3

Streaming

I’m planning on bringing streaming back, one of the reasons why I haven’t done that yet is because my current mic sucks as fuck, so I’m saving to buy a good microphone. I’ve always enjoyed doing streams, but the microphone thing has always been a downer for me.

I’ve also mentioned to stream the patreon week on previous tier, and yeah I didn’t deliver, I just didn’t think too well about my schedule times, I do have the time to do them but usually that free time is after-work hours (otherwise obviously I would get in trouble) and I’m usually pretty tired and it gave me unnecessary anxiety. But now that I’m striving to be a full time artist, that will not be a problem in (hopefully) near future :), I’m really looking forward to this and expect updates about this sooner rather than later.

Minecraft Server

I owe you guys one with this one. So apparently I hadn’t my debit card to be charged automatically monthly for this service, so I forgot to pay it and yeah, the server went down and everything is lost, I’m really really sorry about that, but if you are willing to, we can start a new server with the same provider but this time I’ll automate the charges to my card c:

let me know on the comments or on the discord server.

Discord Roles

The Discord server has been growing ever since it started, and now we are 150+ people in it! So I’m now realizing that moderators will now be needed to keep the chats civilized. not saying that they weren’t before but it is getting to that point that it is really hard to keep track of everything that is said, so I’ll make votes on the server to elect the moderators.

I also was thinking of the idea of making monthly activities, like creative workshops on voice chat or gaming nights. The issue here is that I, Nekeith Fox, am really bad at discord moderating and overall planning in that platform, so I’ll also elect people to come up with ideas (I’ve heard some of you wanted to make dnd sessions which sounds really good for me.)

I’ll post everything regards that on the discord :3

Anxiety Update

And for last to end the mother of all rambles, Anxiety update. I didn’t medicate myself, at least not yet, I started going to the gym (very inconsistently) and it seems to be helping. I am also taking walks outside more oftenly and I feel way better than the last time I talked about this topic, I still feel anxious and I’m still contemplating the possibility of doing meds, but for the time being my anxiety is at least tolerable and I’ll be doing these activities I mentioned to handle it for more time before I do a decision. I read all your comments about this and I have all of them in count, I also appreciate your constant support in this regard and I’ll keep you updated with this as well.

Thanks everyone for reading/supporting me. This one was a long one but also a necessary one. See ya next saturday!