Important Update on Myself and my Ambitions (Patreon)
Content
Actual Journal:
I'll start by saying I feel much better than I did the other day! Have been doing TONS of sketch studies and not worrying about crap. Will post em when I feel like editing them together... there's a lot.
Before I start to talk about other shit, let's start with something fun. Here's a tour of my Studio! Tell me what you think! https://twitter.com/PunishedKomics/.....70276042035201
The other day I posted a long and rambly venting journal and while almost everyone was very understanding about the stuff I said there was still a bit of confusion about a few parts. While I stand by what I said I was exaggerating and joking about a few parts. I don't believe I mentioned it in that journal but I was having a very, very bad week. I am still recovering from Bronchitis and for several days last week could barely get out of my own bed or even breath for that matter. I can breath this week but the mucus is so bad in me that my left ear got clogged and I could barely hear out of it for a few days. Not to mention I keep having trouble sleeping lately and get only about 5-6 hours a day. And THEN I got extremely stressed for a few days in a row about money and other bullshit. So yes, parts of that last journal were slightly overdramatic and I hope you see why.
When I said I was going to raise my prices and that my current rates were 'highway robbery' compared to my skills and that I was operating at a loss, 'highway robbery' was obviously an exaggeration. I'm only raising things by like $10 in general. If the statement sounds somewhat egotistical to you, that's whatever but I say my art is worth what it is because of the insane amount of energy I put into improving. I think my work and improvement speaks for itself. It does sound a bit less than humble, but there's this thing people do when they're really stressed, physically sick and annoyed and it's called exaggerate lol
And I was talking about getting more money for doing less work. If you somehow missed the entire point of that journal I was saying I want more time to work on improving and my comic project, and the fact that my prices are so damn low means I get swamped with doing quick and easy commissions for like $20 and then because everything is desperate all the time I'd feel like I need to do as much shit as physically possible just to try and save up some sort of money because when all you make is $15 per adopt $20 per flat color, that shit goes by REAL fast and even when I try to save money I will usually get screwed in a few days and some expense comes up to deplete it. I don't generally have big paydays where someone buys something huge, but that's partially my fault and I haven't put up any really detailed YCHs or crap in a while. That'll get fixed soon though- and more adoptables are also on the way
You see, I'm not starting it till my skills are on the level of a professional weekly mangaka because I don't want to start a comic when I'm not already at a pro level. The last time I did that, well... You guys should know what happened. But when I do get things going I'm going to be doing less commissions hopefully. Next year I'll getting a big lump sum of $8,000 but some/most of it is going to be going towards a house most likely.
Something you guys may not know is that I'm really good at marketing. After a year of promoting my webcomic and a year of going from 0 to about 1500 FA watchers, I've studied a lot of the tricks and shit to gain momentum. I haven't fully broken 1500 yet because I've basically stopped marketing my furry art since I started planning this next comic series, because I'm big enough now that I'll grow naturally over time. I've reached a point where selling my work is easy and I find buyers quite quickly with a rare few exceptions.
With this knowledge of marketing, my Editor and I have drafted a very detailed plan on how my comic is going to be monetized, advertized and reach the maximum number of people possible. I won't get into specifics since it wouldn't really make that much sense without 12 paragraphs of detailed analysis, but both of us are very knowledgeable about webcomic marketing, facebook and twitter advertising campaign and the like. I'll eventually write the whole thing out for Patreon sometime, but for now know it's a very well thought out plan compared to the 'let's figure out how this shit works' style of And Once Again which was my first series... The point I'm getting at is I'll need money for three reasons.
1, Advertising and Promoting this comic
2, Living Expenses so I can do less Commissions
3, Possibly Freelancer Help, for detailed 3D model things that I can't pay with just by doing art for
I'm very confident in my upcoming series, so I do believe that it will switch over to my fulltime job with commissions being a once-in-a-while/maybe a couple per week thing. In order to get to that point I'm prepared to do whatever is necessary. In case you're thinking "just do more commissions dumbass stop being lazy", as I already said I don't make that much from commissions and every comm I have to do gives me less time to work on developing my art or writing my series. That puts the starting point/launch date of my comic next year further and further away which is absolutely #1 the thing I want to avoid.
I joked in the last journal about how I wished a rich furry would give me thousands of dollars just to have their character in my comic like that one guy did for Undertale. If you didn't get that was a huge joke then damn mate. But at the same time hell yes I would love it if that happened. It'd make my life so much goddamn easier- and donator/investor or not the thing is here I'm eventually going to need a big sum of money to start my comic. If for some reason you do feel inspired after reading all this shit, you can contribute once here.
But even if I don't get a single person to support me in that way I won't care, I will likely take out a loan as my credit has been improving steadily this whole year. So has Angela's so she can cosign if need be, and with my last loan her mom helped as well since she likes me a lot and it was to help my career with that computer trouble. I have no idea how much I could get for a loan though or whether it'd count as a business loan, but I'm not worried about that until next year. Angela will also be getting a shift in deparments at her job next year which comes along with a promotion so we'll also be doing better off with that as well. Next year will be a great time for me personally I think, as I'm making important strides in my personal life, my dreams, and as long as I put the work in I'm hoping I'll actually start to move closer towards my ultimate dream of making an amazing comic that half the internet reads. A comic people make endless fanart for. A comic that has its own wiki and reddit and fucking podcasts about every time I so much as move my stylus- something big. A huge world that's so open ended anyone can create OCs and Fanfiction about my setting... This world is just full of too much sad, evil and stressinh shit, so I want my future series to be fun and really put a smile on people's faces. That's all I really want...
My comic will be something special, or I'll die trying! As always, you can find more out about my comic at this link!
If you made it this far thanks so much for reading! Truly, you're one of the good ones ~