# Becoming a Recognized Artist



## Ty Rufus (Feb 1, 2011)

Sorry if I put this in the wrong place.

I'm curious as to how many furry artist become recognized, particularly on FA?


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## Jw (Feb 1, 2011)

Draw porn.


Seriously, strive to be a good artist by improving. Aspiring to be a popufur is not a respectable goal when showing flexibility will allow you to be a professional quality artist.

Anyway, continue to improve your craft by practicing as your first and greatest step. And there's something to be said about dropping comments and faves for getting a bit of recognition.


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## Fenrari (Feb 1, 2011)

Basically what jwmcd2 said. To be perfectly honest, lots of people make FA accounts just to look at the porn. 

It's not as bad as e321 or ychan but a good quarter to half or more of all submissions on FA are porn.


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## CerbrusNL (Feb 1, 2011)

Fen, 6, not 3


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## Love! (Feb 1, 2011)

Fenrari said:


> It's not as bad as e321 or ychan but a good quarter to half or more of all submissions on FA are porn.


and that's the half people look at
if there's one thing that cannot be stressed enough in life
it's that sex sells


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## Monster. (Feb 1, 2011)

By being a good person and an honest artist. We don't need more stuck-up, holier-than-thou artists all over the site, charging $50 for lineart.


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## Taralack (Feb 1, 2011)

Draw porn. LOTS of it. 

Or have good art and charge dirt cheap.

From what I see of your art, you have lots to improve on. But don't improve because you want to be popular, improve because you want to be better.


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## Ty Rufus (Feb 1, 2011)

Draw porn? Figure I'd hear that response here, too.


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## Monster. (Feb 1, 2011)

Ty Rufus said:


> Draw porn? Figure I'd hear that response here, too.


 
Furries love porn. :V It's inevitable.


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## Smelge (Feb 1, 2011)

Ty Rufus said:


> Draw porn? Figure I'd hear that response here, too.


 
You can become an artist. You can do the best artwork anyone has ever seen. But you won't get a fraction of the views or favourites that a badly drawn bit of porn would. If you want to become known, unfortunately porn is the only way.


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## Ty Rufus (Feb 1, 2011)

Thanks for all the responses, but to be honest, it's a bit sad. But it's all good. I can take the hard route and just get better with what I'm already doing. I do art to improve anyway, not simply to be recognized.


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## Saeto15 (Feb 1, 2011)

If you really want to improve as an artist, go lurk around the Conceptart.org forums.  Be prepared for harsh crits, though.


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## Fay V (Feb 1, 2011)

Be a nice person. drawing porn helps, I won't lie, I drew a slutfox and got 100 watches...but I find that I get far more long lasting attention just being nice, offering free stuff occasionally, trying not to completely screw my commissioners and so on.


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## Willow (Feb 1, 2011)

Drawing porn unfortunately


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## Joeyyy (Feb 1, 2011)

OP I wanna see you get recognized and popular without drawing porn.
Fight those odds, bro.


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## Arshes Nei (Feb 1, 2011)

Saeto15 said:


> If you really want to improve as an artist, go lurk around the Conceptart.org forums.  Be prepared for harsh crits, though.


 
CGhub is another good one.
There's also imaginefx.com and CGsociety (CG society comes off more pro than CA to be honest with you)

Please note that "being a recognized artist" is different than being a "popular furry" This is because a lot of "Recognized artists" (in this fandom) aren't really artists but well...whore out their characters and buy a lot of commissions of said characters. 

Being a good artist tends to come with recognition not in just a "furry community" but many communities. This comes with understanding your foundations and general improvement as an artist. A recognized "furry" seems to be stuck in the same circle and just well ROT. Meaning, those that stay in this community exclusively and not improve in general just are known for some "Troy McClure" gimmick. "I draw fatfurs, or X fetish" "You may know me for my herm lizard with supernips" Other forms of popularity is drawing a lot and for everyone or making yourself known as I said for "McClurism"

So you're asking the right question but to the wrong subculture. Remember these people are here for hobby and simply want their props for what other artists would consider mediocrity. Also note when I say mediocrity, I'm saying these people are comfortable with this level and don't really want to branch out. Even if some may express "well I want to draw different things" they ignore the Nike slogan of "just do it" and complain and bemoan instead of well ... doing it. They just wish.

So being a recognized artist means you're into your craft and diversity. You're not afraid to experiment and fail (which there is no shortcut from failing, you need to fail so you can learn from it). It's after X amount of failures (which vary from person to person) that you'll start seeing success.
I posted as a sticky in another forum "A message of inspiration" look at Mindcandyman's sketchbook on CA and see where he started and where he is now. He's recognized. He's respected. He's not the subject of gossip and image boards. http://forums.furaffinity.net/threa...r-be-good-as-an-artist-Message-of-Inspiration

I hope that answers your question.


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## Zydala (Feb 1, 2011)

I think Arshes said a lot of things I wanted to say, and also other great things that should be considered. Absolutely there is a major difference between someone that is popular for niches, and not their craft, and this should be distinguished more often.


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## Aaros (Feb 1, 2011)

This is what I've observed:
1) Number one thing that helps is to be good at art. Whatever you do, if you do it well enough there will be people who watch you. For example, this artist: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/whiteraven90/
...joined only almost two weeks ago but has already gotten more watches than me in my two years on the site, just because she draws extremely good art and I draw bad art.
2) draw for other people. I got a sudden surge in my watches when I gave some art to a popular fur I was getting to know. People find out about artists by seeing artists they already watch have trades, commissions, giftart, etc. with other artists.
3) porn helps. everyone said this already.
4) Making lots of art helps to. The more pieces you have, the higher chance there is that people will find you.

Anyhow. I'm not a recognized artist myself, but I've seen better artists rise to fame and noticed patterns in how it happens.


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## Heimdal (Feb 1, 2011)

Gaz said:


> By being a good person and an honest artist. We don't need more stuck-up, holier-than-thou artists all over the site, *charging $50 for lineart.*


 
I understand the economic side of requiring low-priced commissions, but I don't get how higher prices make the artist a bad person.

People commonly pay a lot more to commission others to do all kinds of work that they could do on their own. It's convenience. Art, on the other hand, is usually bought because the commissioner can't touch what that artist can accomplish.

Particularly in the furry community, drawing skill is so loved but barely worth a damn hamburger. It's not an artist's fault that furries are so cheap.


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## Monster. (Feb 1, 2011)

Heimdal said:


> I understand the economic side of requiring low-priced commissions, but I don't get how higher prices make the artist a bad person.
> 
> People commonly pay a lot more to commission others to do all kinds of work that they could do on their own. It's convenience. Art, on the other hand, is usually bought because the commissioner can't touch what that artist can accomplish.
> 
> Particularly in the furry community, drawing skill is so loved but barely worth a damn hamburger. It's not an artist's fault that furries are so cheap.


 
While you make a good point, it's ridiculous to have high prices for something as simple as lineart. I suppose I should have specified and said the stuck-up artists who get nothing but asspats do this most of the time. My bad! I always forget to specify.


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## Heimdal (Feb 1, 2011)

Gaz said:


> While you make a good point, it's ridiculous to have high prices for something as simple as lineart. I suppose I should have specified and said the stuck-up artists who get nothing but asspats do this most of the time. My bad! I always forget to specify.


 
S'alright. I've just seen people complain about high commission prices before, and it's a pet-peeve of confusion to me.

I've been commissioned to design ads to be placed in a university newspaper I worked with. Each time was less than an hour of work for $100, and they were always quite happy with the result. If I was open for character drawing commissions, I would definitely go way way lower price for individuals. What bothers me to see, though, is when those people feel entitled to many more hours of work from the artist for way less pay.


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## Monster. (Feb 1, 2011)

Heimdal said:


> S'alright. I've just seen people complain about high commission prices before, and it's a pet-peeve of confusion to me.


Sorry 'bout that; I don't care that people charge so high. It bothers me when they do it based on their popularity.



> I've been commissioned to design ads to be placed in a university newspaper I worked with. Each time was less than an hour of work for $100, and they were always quite happy with the result. If I was open for character drawing commissions, I would definitely go way way lower price for individuals. What bothers me to see, though, is when those people feel entitled to many more hours of work from the artist for way less pay.


As long as you're not a pretentious dick about your art, I don't see the harm in charging $100 to design an ad. For characters, however, I imagine that a couple days' work would go into a piece being commissioned for $100. That I can handle. But like I said; I hate pretentious fuckheads who increase their prices because of how oh-so-fucking-popular they are. Increasing for demand is one thing; doing it to look cooler is just wrong, imo.


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## Zydala (Feb 1, 2011)

Gaz said:


> While you make a good point, it's ridiculous to have high prices for something as simple as lineart. I suppose I should have specified and said the stuck-up artists who get nothing but asspats do this most of the time. My bad! I always forget to specify.


 
Supply and demand! Can't do much about that. 

But really he has a point, the furry community doesn't charge nearly as much as more professional work environments. "simple lineart" really would be marked up much much more if it was used for something else - even something as simple as a paid magazine illustration. It doesn't matter if they're "stuck-up" or not.

EDIT: ehhh didn't post fast enough. Still I'm not of the opinion that attitude should have much to do with any of it. Hell, history books say Da Vinci was one of the biggest dicks around and didn't even touch half the things commissioned from him (his workshop did all the work). Didn't make his stuff less expensive.


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## Monster. (Feb 1, 2011)

Zydala said:


> Supply and demand! Can't do much about that.
> 
> But really he has a point, the furry community doesn't charge nearly as much as more professional work environments. "simple lineart" really would be marked up much much more if it was used for something else - even something as simple as a paid magazine illustration. It doesn't matter if they're "stuck-up" or not.


True, and yeah, supply and demand can't be controlled. But I can happily agree to disagree, since I just don't feel that it's right to charge that much. Then again, I've only ever bought one commission in my entire life, so I guess that's just me being cheap or something. I like to keep my prices at least reasonable. To each their own, right?


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## Zydala (Feb 1, 2011)

Gaz said:


> True, and yeah, supply and demand can't be controlled. But I can happily agree to disagree, since I just don't feel that it's right to charge that much.


 
I guess if people want to undersell themselves that's fine, but if people want to charge more and others are willing, there's not much to judge imho.


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## Heimdal (Feb 1, 2011)

Gaz said:


> As long as you're not a pretentious dick about your art, I don't see the harm in charging $100 to design an ad. For characters, however, I imagine that a couple days' work would go into a piece being commissioned for $100. That I can handle. But like I said; I hate pretentious fuckheads who increase their prices because of how oh-so-fucking-popular they are. Increasing for demand is one thing; doing it to look cooler is just wrong, imo.


 
Well, I didn't charge $100. It was the rate they gave me, even knowing it was the first paid work I've done of that kind. With that in mind, doing furry art commissions is a total waste of time/effort unless you're doing it primarily out of enjoyment.

I'm not sure where I stand on popularity-based prices. On one hand, it's largely how the art world has always functioned. On the other hand, the fandom has some really fucked up ideas about popularity.


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## Monster. (Feb 1, 2011)

Heimdal said:


> Well, I didn't charge $100. It was the rate they gave me, even knowing it was the first paid work I've done of that kind. With that in mind, doing furry art commissions is a total waste of time/effort unless you're doing it primarily out of enjoyment.


Good on ya, then. Shows you're damn good at what you do. The furry art commissions, for me, is just enjoyment; but some use it as a means of getting money because they can't find another job.



> I'm not sure where I stand on popularity-based prices. On one hand, it's largely how the art world has always functioned. On the other hand, the fandom has some really fucked up ideas about popularity.


This is very, very true. I guess it just depends on the people willing to buy art.


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## Zydala (Feb 1, 2011)

Heimdal said:


> I'm not sure where I stand on popularity-based prices. On one hand, it's largely how the art world has always functioned. On the other hand, the fandom has some really fucked up ideas about popularity.


 
I think we can establish that furry popularity is kind of shallow in general, but one man's trash etc etc. Ya just don't pay for what you don't think is worth anything personally, be it artwork or movies or fancy restaurants.


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## Spatel (Feb 2, 2011)

you don't need to draw porn

....on deviantart. you'll get views, faves, and recognition for non-porn stuff.

on FA I don't know. not like I care because I planned on porning up my stuff anyway.


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## Arshes Nei (Feb 2, 2011)

Gaz said:


> While you make a good point, it's ridiculous to have high prices for something as simple as lineart. I suppose I should have specified and said the stuck-up artists who get nothing but asspats do this most of the time. My bad! I always forget to specify.


 
Lineart is rarely "Simple" and certainly not in its creation. It's made to look clean and "simple" but most people are ignorant in how much time is actually in its creation. If anything lineart is actually more of a pain because of its need to be precise vs painting out a character.


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## Iudicium_86 (Feb 2, 2011)

I'm in the same boat as well. These guys do have great tips though. Too bad I'm not an exclusive smut artist though. I only rarely draw something adult... and they're the most popular things in my gallery >.> kinda annoying at times when I'm trying to be an _artist_, not a pornographer.


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## Deleted member 3615 (Feb 2, 2011)

Hang around and talk to artists you want to learn from. Get inspiration from them too. Basically, have a little community inside of the whole website's community. If you're not aiming for views and favorites (which I don't think you are) then the best route is to just hang out, submit stuff every now and then, and make friends.

Extra: My gallery gets around 20 views on average if the art is a simple character. I sometimes enjoy drawing characters in scenes that show off their hind-paws, which gets around 40-ish. Besides porn, there are clean little quirks that can attract viewers I suppose.


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## Ty Rufus (Feb 6, 2011)

*since someone mentioned lineart*
Yeah, I'mma start to move away from the bold, 2D-ish lineart; it's sticking out too much. =p XD


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## Monster. (Feb 6, 2011)

Arshes Nei said:


> Lineart is rarely "Simple" and certainly not  in its creation. It's made to look clean and "simple" but most people  are ignorant in how much time is actually in its creation. If anything  lineart is actually more of a pain because of its need to be precise vs  painting out a character.


(I just saw this, what the hell) In no  way do I mean to sound ignorant; for me, it's not that hard. But I do  respect that others take more time than me (probably shows how juvenile  my art is, if lineart doesn't take me a massive amount of time) and have every reason to charge a higher amount. It's just not my cup of tea, is all.


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## Willow (Feb 6, 2011)

Gaz said:


> (I just saw this, what the hell) In no  way do I mean to sound ignorant; for me, it's not that hard. But I do  respect that others take more time than me (probably shows how juvenile  my art is, if lineart doesn't take me a massive amount of time) and have every reason to charge a higher amount. It's just not my cup of tea, is all.


 I hate doing my lineart in pencil first but I think it makes my lines come out better when I go to do the digital versions. They both take a few hours to do though. If I'm doing them without any sort of pre-sketched stuff they take a little longer and a few extra layers.


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## Monster. (Feb 6, 2011)

Willow said:


> I hate doing my lineart in pencil first but I think it makes my lines come out better when I go to do the digital versions. They both take a few hours to do though. If I'm doing them without any sort of pre-sketched stuff they take a little longer and a few extra layers.


My scanner broke, but before it did, I used to do traditional art in pen, lineart in felt pen, and go over that digitally before coloring. In all, it didn't take that long still. I must be doing something wrong. :/


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## maria-mar (Feb 7, 2011)

Gaz, you're not doing something wrong, different furs just have different ways to do stuff. 
Some of us feel more confortable linning, some coloring, some working on backgrounds... a good sketch may take me half an hour, then another hour to come up with a clean digital lineart. So i have to charge enough to make that time worth it.


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## FireFeathers (Feb 7, 2011)

You can be popular and not draw a single thing of porn. It can be done.  Just be responsive to comments, be friendly, helpful and have fun and that attention comes your way. Good art helps as well.

As the topic for expensive commissions usually you'll go to a rate where it's per-hour, and most of my commission-taking pals aim for 10-12 dollars an hour.  Nice, clean lineart is a bitch to do; so really elaborate 50 dollar line-art is reasonable.


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## Aaros (Feb 8, 2011)

FireFeathers said:


> Good art helps as well.


 ^This is the single most important thing, as far as I can see.
Artists who draw porn get lots of views and watches from all of the masses of people who just make accounts here for the porn and get some commissions just for the porn they draw, but the artists who just produce a lot of truly high-quality good art are the ones who can get as many commissions as someone drawing porn and they can make a lot off of it.
While I tend to draw porn from time to time, I always focus my time on my "normal" pieces (which aren't porn) and spend more time on those than any mature art I draw, because I've seen artists get perfectly popular without porn. You might not have as many thousands of watches as the high-tier porn artists do, but that's just because you don't have watches from all the people who are just here for the porn, and don't really appreciate art or really care about you as an artist.


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## Kayla (Feb 21, 2011)

Get a good sense of anatomy, how to color, and draw a bunch of gay porn. That will grab people's attention quick. lol


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## RailRide (Feb 21, 2011)

Iudicium_86 said:


> I'm in the same boat as well. These guys do have great tips though. Too bad I'm not an exclusive smut artist though. I only rarely draw something adult... and they're the most popular things in my gallery >.> kinda annoying at times when I'm trying to be an _artist_, not a pornographer.


 
Start with a community that prohibits adult artwork, that's pretty much the best way to get recognition for work that omits "the dangly bits".

---PCJ


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## KristynLioness (Feb 21, 2011)

Despite what many people here are saying, you do not have to draw porn to get noticed. Look at Likeshine. She's an insanely popular artist and has said she doesn't draw porn. You just have to have eye-pleasing well-executed art and creative ideas. Buying ad space helps you get noticed more as well.


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## ChapperIce (Feb 21, 2011)

Saeto15 said:


> If you really want to improve as an artist, go lurk around the Conceptart.org forums.  Be prepared for harsh crits, though.


 I disagree with this, actually. Unless you are already a pretty good artist, conceptart is likely to ignore you.

That said I think I'm slightly known because I'm nice :'D


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## sushy (Feb 22, 2011)

if you cannot draw well, the porn you will draw will look pathetic and you will only embarrass yourself.
People will recognize good things after some time.

And draw what you want to draw, I guess that is the most important.


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## Aaros (Feb 23, 2011)

ChapperIce said:


> I disagree with this, actually. Unless you are already a pretty good artist, conceptart is likely to ignore you.
> 
> That said I think I'm slightly known because I'm nice :'D


 

^That's what I found too.
Conceptart ignored me. ),:


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