How profitable would a Patreon be for a TF artist?

[EduartBoudewijn]

Originally Posted by Galyo

When it comes to getting a job, people always say "follow your dreams" but I've been doing so for years and I've been mostly without a job and with very little to scrape by each month. It's depressing and it makes me kind of afraid of what the future will have in store for me... I'd get a 9 to 5 job, but being disabled makes this impossible, and if I do go hunt for such a job I risk losing a large chunk of what little income I have.

...

I'm sorry about my venting. It's more and more difficult for me to enjoy living without having any sense of reward or anything.

I feel like the misconception here is that following your dreams is interpreted as making money through your dreams. Of course it'd be great to be paid for your dreams. However, if it's something you actually love doing, you wouldn't need to be paid for it in order to do it. I love drawing TF art and I've been doing it mostly for free. I started posting around 2007 and it took me up to 2009/2010 before I got anywhere near any regular commissioners (and even then it was mostly because I was laughably underpriced). Even now when I can charge a fair amount for commissions and get some regularly, I often take the time to do some drawings just for myself, because I love just drawing my own ideas and I would keep doing it even if no one ever paid me for it at all.

Getting to a place where your drawings/service/whatever is of high value enough for people to pay attention/money to it takes a lot of time and most importantly a lot of work. Of course I don't know your personal situation, so I can only talk about what I've seen from you online. In the two years you've been on dA and the four years you've been on FA you've uploaded 18 and 25 pieces respectively. You already have 100 watchers on dA and over 200 on FA, but I feel like you stop your audience from growing by having stopped putting out content. A gallery that hasn't been updated in half a year is not very interesting for people to start watching.

Again, I don't know about your personal situation or how much you draw and don't upload to dA/FA; but neither does a random watcher that you're trying to get interested in your commissions/patreon. I can only judge from what I can see and from what you're telling me I can only say that you're not working hard enough to get to where you say you want to be. I'm really not trying to be mean or disrespectful here, just realistic. If you want to be able to support yourself as an artist through patreon or commission you have to put in the work to grow an audience that values your work enough to be willing to pay for it. And if you can't find the interest to work on your art, to grow your audience without being paid for it up front, then maybe that's not where your interests truly lie. And when you say that you're just looking for a way to make money I feel like there are easier ways to get money.

Also, again on a side note, I feel like people are way underestimating the commitment of a Patreon account. Even if you're just gonna be drawing one page a week, like you're saying at the start of this post. Imagine you start your Patreon page and one or two people subscribe. You are then committed to uphold your promise. You have to draw that page every week, because people are paying you for it. And when your audience is not very large yet you will not be making a lot of money from it. So to anyone who's thinking about such a commitment I'd say before you jump into a situation like that just try to live like you have people paying you for it for a month or two. Try to stick to the schedule you're proposing for a Patreon for that amount of time, uploading a page a week without a miss. It sounds easy, but life can get in the way; you'll get sick, you'll have plans, shit happens.

Sorry for the large post, but I feel like this is some very crucial information and I just wanted to get it out there. Again, I'm not trying to be mean or pick on you, I'm just trying to get you a realistic outside perspective on what you're talking about and proposing. No hard feelings?

[Galyo]

Hey, don't worry, I agree with what you wrote.

When it comes to art, I used to do a reasonable amount of commissions until my graphics-tablet died a horrible death. It was beyond repair, and I couldn't (and still cannot) afford a new one. A friend of mine actually gifted me his tablet (which was super kind of him), but unfortunately it's of the really cheap and unresponsive variety. At this point, I'd still rather use the mouse.

The commissions were kind of the only thing that kept me drawing. I know it's a popular saying that an artist should always love the craft first and foremost, but I honestly never felt that way. I hate seeing my art in or around my house or anywhere else, and the only thing I got out of it was to make other people happy. After my tablet died, the few potential commissioners I had left turned very skeptical when I offered them to do a drawing using only the mouse, so that was pretty much the end of that. At that point, I pretty much just stopped drawing at all because I had no more reason to. I do still have a few drawings I would like to finish (probably using the mouse), but that's mostly so I can complete some sort of portfolio.

I agree that doing a Patreon is not a joke, but since I have absolutely no idea how popular TF art is outside of the TF community I thought I would open this topic to find out if such a thing was reasonable. The answer I can take from this would be "not really". :P Thanks for your lengthy reply.