Like it says on the tin. :) I’m opening a limited number of discounted commission slots for October. It doesn’t have to be a seasonal-themed commission if you don’t want that, of course, it’s just a prompt to give you ideas. :)

One of my Patreon subscribers grabbed the first slot already, so that leaves five as of this morning. Hop on!

EDIT: All slots taken! Thanks, all!

-The Gneech

Find the post here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37567551/

Lhexa has very generously sponsored a two-person fully rendered commission for… somebody! It could be you! :D The theme is “Hijinks.”

HOW IT WORKS: Comment below thanking Lhexa and saying you’d like to enter the raffle. On Saturday morning I will pick a random winner! Simple, eh?

If you have ideas for what sort of hijinks you’d like to be pulling, I’ll happily take suggestions. Otherwise I’ll just come up with something! My general list of “will/won’t draw” stuff can be found here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9540159

Let’s have some fun!

D&D Portrait Commission for Mooncat! Speaking of, commissions are open: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/36111580/

Following up on Monday’s post, I’ve been taking stock of where I am in my art and writing career, and it’s clear that I need to attend to some things. Not the least of which is re-building my audience! I have a small-but-tight core of people who have been following my work forever through thick and thin (❤️ Jungloids!) and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. That doesn’t alter the fact that in terms of treating my work as a proper business, there are times when I need to look at it as a numbers game. Even with the crazy high ratio of followers-to-financial supporters that I have, the actual number of followers is tiny.

So, for an example, another artist I follow on Twitter posted a rough little sketch of a character they were noodling around with. It was a cute little drawing, nothing that exciting, but it still got something like 800 likes. I looked at that and blinked for several seconds—I get excited when a post of any kind, much less a doodle, gets over 20 likes. So I looked at their follower count, and discovered it was something like 12,000—compared to mine, which is currently hovering around 1,600.

Well, I mean, no friggin’ wonder.

Before people hop in with “Followers aren’t everything!” I want to make it clear that I don’t attach a personal meaning to have a low follower count on Twitter (or any other platform for that matter), I’m diagnosing a business problem here. :) Even if every one of those Twitter followers was converted to a $1 Patreon subscriber for instance (which isn’t going to happen, but bear with me), that still wouldn’t be enough for me to put food on the table.

I must grow my audience in order to succeed.

So my priority for a while is going to be doing that—but the truth is I have no idea how. O.o

I’m open to suggestions, and I’d love any help I can get. I’ve started posting art to Instagram to expand my horizons, and I am making it a priority to post at least twice a week there and other places, even if it’s just a little sketch-a-day piece. I also started up a fanart sketch request Ko-Fi, although I haven’t had any takers there yet.

So I’m curious! If you follow my work and don’t mind telling me, why do you? What attracted you and made you want to stick around? Do you have suggestions on how I can grow my audience? How do you do promotion? I’m eager to learn!

Inspired by LizardBeth, I’ve decided to do semi-daily sketches, primarily fan art, but not necessarily so. The recent post of Shady and Silma was the first one I did; here’s another one, inspired by the series finale of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. I don’t expect to post them all here—gotta do some quality control after all—but I really liked how this one came out and besides, it’s Catra. There’s never a day that wasn’t made better by having Catra in it. <3 I've opened up a fanart sketch request Ko-Fi as a source of prompts. Tell me what you want, world! :)

-The Gneech

Shady considers combat something of a failure state– making wisecracks at somebody who’s dead isn’t half as much fun– but if she has to fight, she’ll straight up murder you. >.>

She employs an acrobatic, free-wheeling dual-cutlass combat style that emphasizes wild leaps and flashy, unpredictable moves… you’re never quite sure if she’s attacking, she’s running away, or you’ve just bled to death from a million tiny cuts.

(Can’t believe I forgot to post this here! My online presence needs a cleanup, I think…)

Christmas presents are on Shady this year.

…Also, the kobold king called, he wants Santa to put her on the “Naughty” list.

So yeah, this is Shade-Of-the-Candle, or “Shady” to her friends. I had already been noodling around with this idea for my next D&D character, and Catra from the new She-Ra series inspired me to go ahead and flesh her out some. She’s a chaotic neutral swashbuckler, an adrenalin junkie with no fucks to give, whose motivation basically boils down to doing all the things people keep telling her not to. (Of course, I am not a jerk player, so her CN alignment etc. are not excuses to wreck the game, merely descriptors.)

I love my little problem child. <3