FAQ (Patreon)

Here are some questions of you and some frequently asked ones answered:

How do your commissions work? I’ve never commissioned from anyone before and want to make sure h know how it works before I make a mistake.

At this very moment we're not offering commissions, but if we do, that's how it works with us (the SFW version):

Outside the stream: You check https://schpogart.carrd.co/ for what you want. You can see an overview on the first side, and for more information you can click on the types directly or scroll down and chose one of the options there.
Once you decided what you want and what fits in your budget (please consider things like several characters, very detailed outfits, background, etc.) you send in a form with all the data we need. You can find the form on our commission site on every page, too, when you click on "order".
Please make sure you read the "Please Read" part here when ordering the first time.
If we're available, we will answer to your form after a few days, telling you the exact price, an estimated waiting time and sending you an invoice. If you agree, you pay the invoice - if you're not happy with the price or the waiting time you can simply ignore it.

Inside the stream: Try to be there as soon as the stream starts. Usually, stream slots can't be reserved, it's first come first served. Upon entering, you can already say that you want a commission to inform us, but it's important that you're there 30-45 minutes after the stream started, because that's when we officially fill the commission slots. Mod Rose/Glasmond will ask people to raise their hand and note everyone who's interested. Since the streaming time is finite, not every commission can be taken. People who never had a commission before come first, then those who haven't had a commission for a long time up to the ones who had one just recently. This way we make sure that new folx or those who can't come often have a good chance.
Then Schpog will start doing the sketches of the commissions, following the queue Rose made. It's important that you note changes as soon as possible to help Schpog with her workflow.
Schpog will do all sketches from everyone first, then scan all the pieces and do as much digital shading as she can. Sometimes, she can't do all of the commissions. In this case, she will do them on the next working day. She sends out all the work once she's done with everything, usually.
If you order a completely traditional colored piece Schpog sometimes does that one fully in stream; but since it's taking a long time it often goes over to her regular (outside stream) commission work.

You can find an overview of all of this on the commission homepage on "How to order", too.

I've been wondering since day one: how do you do it all?! How many hours do you work a day? Are you a wizard? Are there two schpogs?? And most importantly....do you ever find time to take a break to play games, watch tv/movies etc??

Technically, there are two Schpogs, haha. Schpog definitely wouldn't be able to have this much output if she was alone. People often underestimate the work that goes into communication and management, and since Rose is taking care of almost 100% in that regard Schpog can focus completely on drawing. 

But the truth is that we're overworked nevertheless. Usually we can only watch movies once every few weeks, play games once every few months and only watch TV when we're eating or while we're at work. Working ~15h a day is not uncommon for us, even on weekends.

We had to work this much because we both lost our livelihood and it isn't easy to live off your art - especially when two people live off of it. 

But we know that we can't continue like this; Even though we love so much of what we're doing (interacting with fans and customers, seeing how much people like our works, making people happy and inspired, doing what we love, etc.) working so much every day is just not working anymore. So in the future we will probably look for side jobs next to drawing more as a hobby, this Patreon and our online shop. In general, we would like to make more own and original fantasy & sapphic products! (pins, stickers, comics!)

What are some of your favorite character designs to draw, and when you draw a pregnancy what are some details that you like to do/add?

Schpog: I really like drawing wild characters (especially women), chubby characters, diverse characters. I also do like challenges once in a while (when there's no time pressure).  
Of course I love drawing my favorite characters, too! No matter their character designs, when I love a character I love drawing them. 

About the pregnancy details - when drawing small bump, I love making it look very defined. I also like to catch the "weight" of a belly, and the (emotional) impact. Trying to keep it as realistic as possible might be a detail to some, too.

You've siad in the past you had plans for new features for thr patreon such a discord and an archive of posted works. Is that still in the cards or has that bin canceled?

We don't think we could manage a discord currently, as much as we would love to. They add a lot of social pressure and we couldn't be good mods. 

Archive of posted works never was on the table to begin with - we don't know how other artist can maintain that (we only know oft authors and game devs who have archives), but it would be a way too big undertaking to add literally thousands of artworks to an archive and updating it regularly, and there's the big, BIG danger of people just paying some very few coins once, downloading everything and then unpledging. Many of our artist friends take at least 10€ for an art pack with only some few artworks, and if we ever want to sell digital art packs it wouldn't really feel fair that some pay a lot for the stuff they want, while others just simply pay 3,50€ once and download 4000 artworks at once.

This way technically people also have access to thousands of artworks, but they to have to work for it to see them all, which makes it way harder disrespectful art thieves to steal.

In fact, many of our artist friends do it the exact opposite: they don't post any artworks themselves, only links to little archives that they delete at the end of the month. This way people only get what they pay for and can't, say, pledge only once a year and download the whole archive of the missed year.

Art thieves forced our artist friends to act this way.

We thought the way we do it is a good middle ground. It doesn't make it too easy for disrespectful people and fans do have to opportunity to go through past posts and look for their favorite tags and fandoms.

I really want to ask how you got to where you are with your art? Specifically anatomy! Your artstyle is adorable and just gorgeous 😍  Have you used anatomy books for character art to learn, or maybe drawing from life?

Schpog: Thank you so much! I could - and will - tell you some things that helped me a little, but the absolute biggest part is practice and motivation to understand the things you draw. I was drawing a lot since kindergarten and drawing almost daily since I'm 13, even back then it was several hours a day.

I went to an specific type of high school (Fachhochschule) for arts where you can work with many different kinds of media. (woodcarving, photography, bookbinding, sculpting, sewing, flash animations, glas, etc.) I went there because I loved so many aspects of art but couldn't decide which way to go and hope this would help me. Especially since I thought that I won't come far with illustration or comics in Germany.  It was a great time but also very frustrating because I still couldn't make up your mind about the other stuff. Do I want to build to build props at the theatre? Be  a photograph? Graphic designer? Work on Videogames?   I really had a terrible crisis for a long time. Everything was nice but nothing was "it".
Anyways, I didn't manage to finish that school but because of my skills I was introduced to a special artist promotion sort of project where I went to France for 3 months, got in contact with the art scene there which was very inspiring and uplifting! The project continued in Germany after that for 2 years. I wouldn't call it "school" but we had access to specialists in many fields of art again, materials and created exhibitions together. For my luck, we even had a comic artist as one of the mentors there and I gained my confidence to "decide" that I want to focus on illustration and comics again.  
I'm really grateful for that.
I think it's good that I was able to work in so many fields and it's also important to never get stuck just in one way to create art. But to finally know that I am "allowed" to do something whack as being an illustrator was a good feel haha.

After that I haven't had and other apprenticeship anymore, but I did go to life drawing now and then. (I did do that before, too, and it really helped a lot! I would definitely recommend artists to at least try it at least once in their life.)

I studied a lot in private, "involuntarily", so to speak. Every time I liked a fandom a lot I drew all the content I wished there was. It wasn't so much "studying" as it was "damn I love this so character much, I want to explore more of it ". This way I learned drawing women and diversity (when I was into MLP and tried to draw the characters humanized and diverse), dynamics (by being in the Kill La Kill fandom), cartoonish styles (by being in the Wander over Yonder fandom), turning real characters into an artstyle (Star Trek), drawing comics (I drew a 200 page doujinshi to Tales of Symphonia when I was 14) and so on. Hyperfixations made me dive deep into different fandoms, artstyles and characters.

Though sometimes I try to copy a specific artwork to understand the style and dynamics.

Color wise I started to draw with colored pencils first, then watercolor pencils, then I switched over to watercolor completely. I never really learned anything here, all I know was learning by doing, and it's by FAR my most used and favorite color medium. I'm actually not that good in color theory (and it really shows when I draw digitally, thankfully Rose is very good that that and we complement each other in that regard!), but somehow, with watercolors, it works well for me.  Sometimes I'm a little irritated when people praise me for my watercolor skills since I actually don't exactly know what I do. I just do what looks good and interesting to me and probably working and experimenting with it for so many years gave me just a good feel for it. But of course it's nice that people like the thing I like doing the most and feel at home. Maybe it is that "unfinished"/"imperfect" aspect that people like about it.


If you look for life drawing videos for free + tipps:
CroquisCafe
Love Life Drawing

Book wise I can recommend: 
-"How to think when you draw" books by from Lorenzo Etherington  -Amazing books. new approach to drawing things many books or teachers didn't tell you. Much different content from "angry exxpressions" to "massive trees" to "robots" to "horns". Simple and on point.

-"Masters of Anatomy" - not body diverse but good if you need some inpiration for poses

-"Making Comics" by Scott Mc Cloud - GREAT guide to understand comics and use them as a storytelling medium. MUCH references to other artists to show examples. (all with credit of course.) I love this thing.

(-"Will Eisners Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative" + "Will Eisners Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative" - actually what the titles say! I love to see how the classic comic artists worked. Good if you want to explore the more "classic comic" way.
Just a bit much to take in, much text to read. Nothing if you just want to look up something quick. Also some things didn't age well, jsyk!)

-("Framed Ink"- nice for storytelling through composition! personally I just find it a bit hard to understand it sometimes, also the artstyle is a bit to "distracting" for my taste?)

I hope that helped!

If you have any more questions you can add them here in the comments! We will edit/update the post then.