the patreon thread

Ruphuss

may people who use it as artist share some experience

 

 

daz patreon artist :

https://www.patreon.com/TheDynamicUniverse

https://www.patreon.com/elianeck

https://www.patreon.com/shibashake

 

Havos

My guess is that the OP is looking for people's experiences in using Patreon as a means of monetarizing their art work. It's use has become very popular amongst DA artists.

nDelphi

It works best if you already have an audience and your renders are excellent. Traditional type of renders of a simple babe in a bikini done with bad lighting and no depth is not going to help you.

The 3DX producers were among the first there, many of those got their audience from Tumblr.

ChangelingChick

nDelphi said:

It works best if you already have an audience and your renders are excellent. Traditional type of renders of a simple babe in a bikini done with bad lighting and no depth is not going to help you.

The 3DX producers were among the first there, many of those got their audience from Tumblr.

Unless you drop the bikini. A lot of the artists I've seen use patreon as a "treat" for their paying followers to share their NSFW stuff. Those seem to do pretty well.

Ruphuss

i would like to here some stories from people really using it

not just guessing

Havos said:

My guess is that the OP is looking for people's experiences in using Patreon as a means of monetarizing their art work. It's use has become very popular amongst DA artists.

thats right

dreamfarmer

I have a Patreon that makes about $60 a month. My advice is that it is not a way of building up a fanbase, it's a way of letting your existing fanbase give you money. You'll have to build the audience via other means and if you don't have an audience already, you might want to set a timeline of about 3-5 years to do so.

DAZ_ann0314

Honestly the best thing to do would be to come up with an idea on how you choose to use it and try it. You can sell/have people subscribe etc in lots of different ways on Patreon so from one person to another (kinda like being a PA) the results are going to differ as it will depend how people view the benefits of what you offer, how well you advertise yourself, etc. Now I haven't used them to monetize but I know a fair few people that have (and have asked them lots of questions) and I am a "Patron" of a fair few people on there as well. It really will depend on what you are doing and how...whether its giving your artwork or giving tutorials of how you made the artwork (or videos of you making it etc) Sadly though no one will be able to really tell you how you will do...you just have to kinda try it and see Gumroad would also potentially be another route to look into

wolf359

dreamfarmer said:

 I have a Patreon that makes about $60 a month. My advice is that it is not a way of building up a fanbase, it's a way of letting your existing fanbase give you money. You'll have to build the audience via other means and if you don't have an audience already, you might want to set a timeline of about 3-5 years to do so.

Patreon is an excellent way for PROLIFIC online content creators with existing
,loyal fanbases to be funded so they can dedicate more time to creating new content that
thier fan base wants to see.

It  frankly also provides an honest assessment of how much people really want to 
support a creative and who is just paying lip service in the online communities.

For example we have heard, many times ,about Daz/Poser content creators
who listened to the highly vocal bleating in the forums, about needing more
"regular clothing" items or "average looking" people etc.

So the merchant puts in the work on pure speculationand only sells 7 copies of his/her
"highy demanded "item and flees back to the relative safetly of Slut/fetishwear and or beautiful people.

With patreon the merchant can reduce his /her risk by saying "sure
I will produce such & such item if I see X number of new supporters on my patreon
to cover my initial time costs to produce the initial product"

To my mind this is a much more honest & fair way to democratize risk and  have specific  types of content produced
and could lead to more of those "niche" products being made.

Or perhaps even result in a viable sustainable flagship poser native figure  that will actually  be embraced
and  widely adopted for those who use that program.

dragotx

wolf359 said:

Or perhaps even result in a viable sustainable flagship poser native figure  that will actually  be embraced
and  widely adopted for those who use that program.

I know there is a fairly prolific and popular Poser artist over on DA that is actively working on a new figure specifically for Poser.  What has been released about the figure so far looks very promising.

Mistara

i cant even imagine paying to see renders.

the difference in buying content is it's an investment in my art compositions.

dragotx

Mistara said:

i cant even imagine paying to see renders.

the difference in buying content is it's an investment in my art compositions.

Generally speaking it's an artist that the people paying are familiar with, really enjoy their work, are comfortable with the pace they output said work, and want to support the artists in some way.  And for the artists that post exclusive content to Patreon, it's the only way to see all of their work, so that's another reason to subscribe.  

 

Something else I've seen become very popular, and even quite successful in some cases, are the newer independent video game designers.  People making smaller, more focused games of all genres.  I've actually got my eye on that market right now, if I can ever get off my backside and learn the programming language.

dreamfarmer

There's definitely a difference between 'paying to see renders' and 'supporting an artist whose work you love'.

dragotx

dreamfarmer said:

There's definitely a difference between 'paying to see renders' and 'supporting an artist whose work you love'.

This is very true.  And if you don't pay the artist to see the work, by default you're not supporting them.  And that's why I don't pay to see renders that are not from artists whose work I love and want to support.  

For myself, personally, I don't really like the idea of locking my work up behind a paywall, but I also really like having extra money, so I'm still on the fence about how to go about running a Patreon (assuming I ever get enough followers willing to support me to make it worthwhile, which I do not assume, at all.  At least not for my artwork.  If I get the game going, that'll be a different thing entirely).  What I would probably do for myself is have the supporters that pay to support me get an exclusive private comission for their support.  But I'm nowhere near to the point with my art to have a big enough following to support something like that.

Ruphuss

would it be against the forum rules that people that are on patreon show there link here ?

maybe enhancing the traffic a bit

i would copy them to the first post

Griffin Avid

https://www.patreon.com/TheDynamicUniverse

Ruphuss

avxp said:

https://www.patreon.com/TheDynamicUniverse

 

looks really cool what you are doing there

 

N-RArts

dreamfarmer said:

There's definitely a difference between 'paying to see renders' and 'supporting an artist whose work you love'.

+1

In personal experience, most of my popular renders are "a little naughty... wink wink ". 

I wanted to get back into drawing, but a lot of tutorials on DA are only accessible if you subscribe to their Patreon accounts. Which I find really unfair. I thought art was for everyone.

I'd love to have a Patreon account, but most of the people who follow me on DA, just do it to build up the amount of watchers that they have. They don't bother with anything that I've posted (Deviations, Journals, status posts etc). Some don't even follow back. Plus, I've started to become pretty disillusioned with DA. 

 

 

Griffin Avid

Thanks, this is a great idea- specially if this thread keeps growing and we get a circle of support going.

Ruphuss

so people come on

do not be shy

show your patreon links

let the community grow

Ruphuss

for people that do not know whats it all about

https://www.patreon.com/

i am on my way creating an account

wolf359

Ruphuss said:

 

i am on my way creating an account

 what kinds of content are you offering??

 

I only ask because typically the people who get the most out of patreon are people
who provide often daily ,but at the very least ,weekly  NEW content for their
supporters.
This is why patreon is so widely used by prolific youtubers.

ebergerly

I tend to agree with Mistara. What I call the "internet culture" is one where EVERYTHING is free, and therefore we EXPECT everything to be free. Even the most amazing software, which used to cost $1,000s, is now free. Tutorials are free. Videos are free. Images are free. And if we don't like something, with just a couple of clicks we have something else to look at. And people actually get upset if someone dares to charge for their content. 

So practically, I think that IF you have some awesome stuff (and I mean really awesome, not just what everyone loosely refers to as "awesome" to make others feel good), and you can keep people interested, and most importantly you can find people who are actually willing to give you money for your stuff, as opposed to just clicking and going elsewhere, then maybe  you can get some reasonable income. 

Personally, I can't imagine paying for images and videos, unless it was REALLY something special. Only once did I contribute to a Youtuber, because I thought he was producing much better stuff than his peers, and seemed to me to be honest, and deserved some support. So I gave him $100. And got not even a thank you in return.

So that's probably the last time I support anyone on the internet who isn't giving me some real value.

That being said, good luck with Patreon or whatever.   

Serene Night

 I don't use patreon. Something about it bugs me that I can't put my finger on.  I understand lots of people like it though and there are some great artists there.... but it is not for me. 

Griffin Avid

 

i cant even imagine paying to see renders.

the difference in buying content is it's an investment in my art compositions.

I think he's saying AS AN ARTIST....he'd only buy more supplies or stuff to aid his artistic endeavors.

I don't think the goal is to have a support body made up of nothing but other artists. 

Probably why they don't sell paintings at the art store and don't sell art supplies in museums.

----------------------

If he's saying that a render (a subtle swipe at Daz/3D artists to call their ART a RENDER) is by its very nature not worth buying.....

Well, that would be his opinion and I think everyone is cool with someone NOT wanting to buy/support/value/respect whatever.

Now, you can measure of value of this 'render' for the supporter(s).

Your 'render' is their...

wallpaper

book cover

album cover

RPG insert

avatar

tumbler content

blog image

video game inspiration

imaginary partner (yeah, you read that right)

poetry illustration

facebook cover photo

instagram content

----------------

And you, as the creator might be simply a cool MOFO that's worth giving a dollar a month to...

And you might think that what they make is worth a dollar a month to keep them making your FREE stuff.

A dollar won't kill them and they are not asking for life changes to come from a render.

There are plenty of free Memes for single-image-self-therapy.

 

DustRider

devilsatdusk15 said:

dreamfarmer said:

There's definitely a difference between 'paying to see renders' and 'supporting an artist whose work you love'.

+1

In personal experience, most of my popular renders are "a little naughty... wink wink ". 

I wanted to get back into drawing, but a lot of tutorials on DA are only accessible if you subscribe to their Patreon accounts. Which I find really unfair. I thought art was for everyone.

I'd love to have a Patreon account, but most of the people who follow me on DA, just do it to build up the amount of watchers that they have. They don't bother with anything that I've posted (Deviations, Journals, status posts etc). Some don't even follow back. Plus, I've started to become pretty disillusioned with DA. 

 

 

Interesting, that is what I would expect, but counter to my experience. My most popular renders on Renderosity tend to be NSFW (though the one with the most likes since the new gallery system is actually a PG image), but the 3 most popular on DA are actually posted here as well (2 are a little "cheeky", and the third is in a bikini). Several of my NSFW images are quite popular, but aren't in the top 3 the most favorited or viewed images ..... not sure what that means . (could you share a link to your DA account, I couldn't find it)

Like the OP, I would like to hear more first hand experiences with Patreon., and see more links to users Patreon pages. I know elianeck who is an outstanding artist, and long time Poser/Carrara/DAZ user (and a PA) has a Patreon page https://www.patreon.com/elianeck, as well as a donation set up at DA (it looks like DA may be better for her). Shibashake also has a Patreon page https://www.patreon.com/shibashake.

As a side note, yes, people do pay for rendered images, even those that aren't NSFW. But as has been mentioned above, they have to be more than simple load/pose/render images.

Ruphuss

first

this not a thread discussing patreon per se but for users (artists) sharing experience

and links to their site

second

for Wolf359

i first have to work with all the logistic of this site

my goal are animations combined with my work as composer/musician

and

its just a goal no matter if successfull or not

i have something to create art for

Ruphuss

now a question for users

i would love to embed videos through vimeo but that does not work for me with my base vimeo account

i do not like to use youtube

i did this often before but they change there politics so often i do not like to follow

what other solutions you have good experience with for embedding videos ?

Ruphuss

@Dustrider

thank you for the links

i put them into first post

Ruphuss

dreamfarmer said:

I have a Patreon that makes about $60 a month. My advice is that it is not a way of building up a fanbase, it's a way of letting your existing fanbase give you money. You'll have to build the audience via other means and if you don't have an audience already, you might want to set a timeline of about 3-5 years to do so.

may you share a link ?

wolf359

"I'm sure Smith Micro evaluated the 
offer from DAZ3D to license the 
Genesis tech and didn't see a significant 
chance of financial benefit from doing so."

 

 

They Did evaluate  using the freely available DSON tech
and decided (wisely IMHO) not to embark on a fanciful  flight 
of chasing the unicorn.

Former Product manager Steve Cooper explained ,in a blog post, that SM did  NOT want
to commit their program to a figure they did not control.

This is the correct course because every time DAZ makes a wild left turn
with the genesis tech( Extra twist bones, face rig etc) SM will have to update poser and
and try to convince people to buy the update to keep the latest figure working.
As Daz users we have the luxury of merely installing the latest FREE version of studio
 to use some new  face control panel for example.
 poser users would have to pay for upgrade on a time table being dictated by a third party
on a schedule decided by that third party and not Smith Micro.

I personally would advise Ero to start a Patreon Account if he has not already 
and ask the poser users support him develop steady content for the latest  20  something ,naked white girl
figure entering a market already replete with 20 something, naked white girls.

ebergerly

Well, if Poser was a money maker, then probably SM wouldn't be in the situation it's in. And then why would anyone want to buy it if it's not a money maker? Maybe they'll sell the rest of their business and keep Poser, but I'd be amazed.