I think its mainly that you make YCH with your ideas and if they hold up as succesfull, you continue them
If it has low popularity, what I saw was popping journal with possible YCH ideas and trying to do the one that was most requested
And sometimes its way better to have your own character in there, its more fun :)

I wasn't thinking about YCH's specifically but any 'paid for' content in general and what characters & content an artist might do on their own if they weren't being paid to created art based on characters and ideas of other people. I know a lot of artists depend on income from commissions, adoptables and YCH's but that wasn't a factor in my speculation.

In my speculation, if you pay for any of the content, that is what you want to see, not what the artist would create if money weren't a factor. That defeats the purpose of what I was wondering about.

Oh, I would think that if artists worked on nothing but their own ideas, we'd have a lot less artwork, and a lot more artists would go hungry. It's a source of revenue for them to do what they love.

A number have original characters and ideas that seem to get buried in the stacks of commissions or other art they do to get paid for because of economic pressures. My speculation is a 'what if' scenario that imagines what an artist, any artist, might be capable of if they didn't have to do art for money - if they were free to choose any and all subjects they would desire to do so. It's only speculation though since I know economic reality won't allow for such a thing to happen.

Many of then stagnated and devolved into cesspools of the most horrific fetishes that are just a disgusting reflection on their own pitiful life as opposed to exploring the joy art can give you.

Um, I'm not sure I understand what point you're trying to make here. What I was speculating about was what an artist might create on their own for themselves if money weren't a factor. Whether it's fetish-related or not that they would enjoy would be entirely up to the artist themselves, rather than someone paying for it.

Was referring to some of te more popular people who have done their own thing.

However, the lesser known people have done very interesting things.

 meandraco is amazing.

 ramul is another favorite.

Like you said, interesting stuff. I've watched both of them. I'm guessing it's not to everyone's taste but I keep hearing that makes things interesting.

I don't know if you consider fan art - or art of characters in "other people's universes" - in the same bucket.

Most of the art I'm doing at the moment, stuff I do because I feel like doing it, is Dragonriders of Pern stuff. Most of the other art I am currently doing is for myself in one way or another.

But I'll tell you one thing. It sure doesn't pay the bills doing it that way, and it's a good thing I don't need it to, unlike the artists that are doing it for a living or to bring their income from 9-to-5 jobs up to a living wage. If I did need to do it as an income, there'd be a lot less Pern and a lot more commissions and/or YCH pieces, because that's what people actually pay for.

If an artist chose to do fan art, then I would consider that their, or in this case, your choice. You're making the decision to do it rather than someone choosing the subject for you with money involved, so if I understand correctly, you're doing exactly what I was speculating about.

I know that doesn't pay the bills for a lot of people and that they are doing because they need the money. I was just wondering what they might do if money wasn't necessary. You've chosen Pern art which is good. I was just wondering what others might do if they had a choice too.

I do think the "people who do it for a living" would very much like to have the time and the freedom to do art in their own universes - or in the universes of characters they chose to draw because they liked them.

I know that my art has been simultaneously less stressful (because it's "I'm doing what I wanna do on my own schedule") and ... significantly less overall ... in this particular period of "I'm not doing commissioned work right now or actively pursuing getting commissions for my own reasons" - that when I don't have the financial incentive to do "lots of art of other people's stuff" I also do "less art of my own stuff, because there's other stuff to do too."

I have noticed that you haven't posted much in the past few years. I figured if you were still doing work, you were posting it somewhere else, though it sounds like you're not doing much art in general if I read you correctly. Oddly enough, these days when my time when I'm not at work is pretty much my own, it feels like I have less than the days when I was caring for my grandmother and posting daily sketches.

I can think of two artists that I know who don't do commissions and YCHs. I'm not sure about adoptables, though. Those two are Style Wager (Dela the Hooda, Brave New World, etc.) and Tom Fischbach (TwoKinds). While I have seen Tom do a couple of drawings using other people's characters, Mihari for example, he doesn't actually advertise as doing a YCH. In fact, he'll tell you in no uncertain terms that he doesn't do YCH. I've never seen any of Style's drawings with any character but his own. I know that Eric Schwartz will, on occasion, do a drawing that has someone else's character in it but only as a background or cameo appearance. (My Amanda was in one of his comics as a cameo.)

This really isn't about using other peoples' characters per se, it's about an artist determining what the would do if money weren't a factor in the decision process. Dragonsintheattic is able to determine that for themselves and has chosen fan art of the Dragonriders of Pern series, which is working with someone else's characters or at least in a literary universe created by someone else.

Oh, okay. I misunderstood your statement. I thought you were asking if any artists only did drawings of their own characters or if every artist did commissions, YCHs or adoptables. My mistake.

It's okay. I don't think I made my original point/idle question very clearly. It was early in the moring, very likely too early.

I wonder if its one of those good artists create, great artists steal? If someone draws a version of, or fanart of a character, it may get them inspired by that character to draw something original of their own, but if they don't get a commission to draw a fanart piece, with a pose, scenario etc they wouldn't get the idea themselves at that time.

What I was trying to ponder was just what art any given artist, who is usually buried in commissions or other art need to make money, might do if they didn't need money, whatever form their art might take and wherever they might be inspired from.

Well, I noticed there are artists that have a cushy income, yet do YCH and such.

Okay, for example  miles-df has a patreon going where he makes some rather good money. He used to have it set to "per artwork" but now has it set per month, and he has nearly 600 patrons. From what I can see, that means on average he probably makes something between 2000-3000 bucks a month, maybe more, and since he lives in Russia, and USD he earns is worth more in the native currency.

Yet he pushes out YCH after YCH, and they are pretty pricey, like...100 bucks per slot pricey. And people still buy these, so he probably isnt hurting too bad for money. And hes just one example but I know a few artists like that.

Of course there are a lot of artists who do art for the art, and once their patreon is opened they just draw what they like, maybe taking suggestions and polls now and then. Probably these make up the majority, yet you still see many artists being in art for the sake of money, taking on commissions, YCH's and their patreon, and not necessarily because they need to or are hurting, but because they are getting rich from it. Art for the sake of money a, not for the sake of art.

Yes, I've noticed Miles-DF's work and pricing and that people pay it. In looking at his work though, I'm not sure I've seen any characters he's created. I guess he's one of those that would prefer commissions and YCH's to what I was thinking of.

Yeah. I get what you mean, and I guess Artists like Vader-San, Demi-Coeur and maybe Scappo are what you mean?

True, DC and Scappo do commissions and such now and then, but most of their Patreon projects and such are just them drawing what they want to draw and people paying for that via their patronage.