Hey there I've admired your work quietly for a while and wondered if you have any advice on how to gain followers :) thank you
Hey! As I was thinking of how to answer this, my response kept growing, so I figured I’d make a big post since it’s related to something I’ve been thinking about recently.
Ok, how to gain followers (the basics):
1. A big deal of luck is involved! You can’t really predict which post will be popular or who will reblog it, but there are some things you have control over so let’s focus on those.
2. Time and hard work! This is an obvious one. As an artist you have to keep making stuff and improving yourself. Better technical skills usually help with more people wanting to follow you, and it takes years to grow your audience, BUT I think there’s something more important to help with that and that’s what I’m going to talk about for the rest of the post.
ok, the following observations are based on things I’ve noticed over the years on my tumblr and might be totally irrelevant to other artists or on other platforms but here we go.
(I’m resetting my list numbers because I’m bad at making lists)
None of these next things have anything to do with artistic skill, but skill and practice help you get your ideas across more clearly
1. concept. This is the idea behind your work. Pretty straightforward. If your art has an interesting concept, it may intrigue and resonate w/ more people. (concept could also include the technique/style you use. very broad)
This deer was my first “breakout” post. I could draw it better now, but the idea is still there. A cute deer with a unique color scheme and flowers for spots.
The next one is a magical girl who was inspired by the lit walkways around my apartment at night. I think this one did really well because it hints at a possible narrative. Why is she collecting lights? Is she filled w/ light? idk! But I think your work can resonate with more people if you can suggest a story with it. It invites the viewer to wonder and become more invested in the work. I think of this as giving your concept “depth”.
Once you have an interesting concept or theme, build on it! Create a series of illustrations with a similar concept, but done in different ways. When you expand on an idea, it makes all of the work in a series feel part of a bigger whole. When your art seems part of something larger, people might be more interested in seeing what’s next.
So you have a concept, you’ve made it into a series. What next?
Gather that art together and put in in a larger post!
When someone looks at a group of images together, it helps them to see the shared commonalities between them, and the concept becomes much clearer and stronger. The stronger the concept, the more likely it will be that people will want to share it. For example, my tea spirit illustrations did much better as a collection than individually, because the concept of “animals inspired by tea!” is strengthened by multiple pieces
http://happydorid.tumblr.com/post/88172475960/tea-spirit-prints-are-now-available
And lastly, this one is related to “depth” but goes further by actually creating a world and telling a story (also the most difficult). For example, if I took that magical lantern girl and made a comic with it, people wouldn’t have to wonder what the story is, they would be invited in and allowed to inhabit that space for a while. This is not the same as having OCs and drawing them all the time. I wish it were that easy, but no one is going to care about your characters (;-;) until you start telling stories with them OR they have interesting concepts OR you hint at their story. See, it all comes full circle….
It’s the difference between this:
and the actual comic (coming next year sometime….*sweat*)
Anyways, This was quite long and rambly! Hope that was helpful to some people!
tangentwithtanner
origamiaround
stormborns
blakekathryn
germansingergirl
pixelskylines
