Aminirus

Just giving this a bump and here area also some more image examples:

Cool and thanks a lot @Bingo! I normally attend this particular convention every year so I know what normally is sold there and they don't actually have a strict set of rules. Since Pokemon Go came out last year, there was a ton of merch related to it, but the school didn't seem to care so long as it's your work and that you did it or have approval, if the artwork or item was created by another artist. Most of the objects sold are prints, original artwork, and christmas related material like ornaments and cards. The last couple years we had the artists and creators for a couple comics who had their books and merch to sell. There were some authors, and usually the rest of people who do crafty things like make bowls or birdhouses, etc. Really random stuff sometimes.

No updates Hello there, I am Aminirus. I've used facebook for many years now and thus have learned many of its ins and outs when it comes to using one for business endeavors. Facebook and other social media are listed as some of the top sources of helping promote, market, and even inform your clients, members, and players about your business, game, website, or whatever else comes to mind. Before I get started, I'm going to let you know that not everything in this guide may be full proof. The information I offer is from my own personal experience with using Facebook for my game Wild Howlz and for promoting myself as an artist. I also have experience with helping others to create and run Facebook for coaching and writing. Also, I am basing this on a computer standpoint, so things I may say are located in one place may be different between the computer and phones. I personally do not use facebook or social media on my phone because of the fact that it says in their Terms of Service that it gives them the right to take images from your phones gallery, look through and use your contacts and emails, and overall keep track of how you use your phone. No thanks First, when you sign up for Facebook, you're creating a personal account. View as this as like your house. Your personal account is for people in your house and your family and friends. Use this personal account to share information about yourself, the owner. No, you do not need to have a picture of yourself, but it may appear more professional to your members depending on the business. Although, even with my personal account, avoid posting offensive words and images as this could potentially turn people away. Pages vs Groups Facebook has the option of creating a group or page. You can do this by going to the top of the page and click the small downward arrow beside the bubble with the question mark in it. When you click on that, it brings up a small menu and will say create a page and create a group. Before you click either one, review which one is best suited for you. Pages// I had originally started out with creating a page for Wild Howlz. Pages are aimed for more those who want to post mostly marketing ads and promotional offers. You can purchase ads and select a target audience for those ads. However, it also has a huge negative downside. If you're posting just information, only 8-10% (could be lower, so don't quote me this number) will actually see that post. If you add a link to a website or page outside of Facebook, this drops down to a whopping 4%. That means, if you have 1,000 "likes" only about 40 of those people will actually receive the post in their Newsfeed. Newsfeed? In short, Newsfeed is the material, posts, you receive from everyone and everything you watch and like on Facebook. The Newsfeed is like your friends sharing you their daily dose of gossip they heard about that day and its all compiled into one location. So, Pages is really only good for marketing and I personally do not see it worthwhile for those wishing to share information and updates about their business, like your game. Just like the Newsfeed, there is a Page Feed, which can be found on the left side bar near the bottom. However, even myself, I forget about this and thus rarely ever check it, so I do not receive many Page related updates. Groups // In regards to this forum being for games, I would highly recommend Groups as your choice of keeping up to date and in contact with your members. Groups may not have the heavy marketing material that Pages does, but for game owners, you are mostly looking to post information and updates, correct? Occasional links to shops and sales? and overall changes to the game? If you say yes, then Groups is what you want to create as well. When I learned the hard truth about Pages and how so few of the members where actually receiving the information updates, I jumped right over to Groups. All the posts you make in groups will show up in all your member's Newsfeed, so no worries about anyone missing something. Groups also has some different options compared to Pages, including polls and adding files so members can download them. The rest of this content will be how to use Groups for your Business and/or Game Step 1: Follow the prompts and setup for Creating a Group. Keep in mind that if you do not fill out something fully, you will be able to go back and change it later. Step 2: Add a Banner! The banner can be quite important as a visual to show prospective members what your Group is about. I highly recommend adding the title of your business, group, game, etc into the banner. The main reason I say this is because the name only shows up to the left in a not so obvious text. Try to have something that fills up the banner space and easy to look at but still pops a bit. Step 3: Posting // When you create a group, posts are made by you, your personal account. Thus, you will see an image of yourself (or whatever you chose as your profile pic) within the posting box and the words "write something..." next to it. When you click on the "write something..." that is where you can type. You will also see a few options pop up. At the bottom, you will see 4 small gray images. A camera, a half person with a + next to them, a smiley face, and an upside down tear drop sort of image. The camera is for attaching an image or photo to the post; thus, when you're done, the image will show up with the text on top when you hit enter. The half person is for "tagging" someone. When you click on it, a new line will show up that will say "With" and give you a space. Here you would type in someone's name. The purpose of this is to make sure that person receives the post within their Notifications. Notifications are located at the very top of the facebook page in the blue header and look like a world. Notifications main purpose is to inform you when another group, page, or friends makes a post. The smiley face is for various emoticons and the tear drop is for putting in your location at the time of the post. Location can come in handy for if you are selling or going to be present at a convention or meeting and want your members to potentially show up. Step 3.2 Posting Gadgets // The other posting options you have are located at the top. Most of them are pretty self explanatory and if you hit the 3 gray dots, you'll see even more posting options. One that I use for Promoting special offers is the Create an Event option. This lets you post an image, start and end date, and links in the description and it'll be sent out to all your members for it they want to participate or not. The other option I really like is Creating a Poll. This comes in handy for asking simple questions or getting votes on what sort of updates your members may prefer. You can't post images for polls, but either way, it can be quite useful. Step 4: Your First Post / Pin It! // I would recommend this for everyone actually. Make a post and attach an image to it related to your business but maybe just say "Welcome to the Group" or something basic like that. Within the post text, welcome all new members to the group and state out some rules you'd like them to follow. The rules I recommend should regard of what sort of content members can post and share and to briefly remind members that content within the group, especially for games, is copyrighted to the company or artist and cannot be sold or redistributed and that the content in shared in good faith that members will respect the content is not theirs for personal usage unless told otherwise. Rules are also important to help prevent at least many trolls from romping around in your group and causing chaos. To "pin" the post, once you have hit enter, go to the top left corner of that post and click on the downward facing gray arrow. A menu will pop up and so just select "Pin Post". Pinned post remain at the top of all the posts you make regardless. You can also use this menu to edit or even delete a post you no longer like. Step 5: Editing and Understanding your Group Settings // First you can find this just beneath your group's banner. Next to "share" you will 3 gray dots. Click on that and another menu will pop up. "Manage Group" will let you see you the activity in a smaller scale between the group's admins and members and you can view other reports there as well. Click on "Edit Group Settings" and here is where you can update information you may not have fully filled out during the initial group creation. Here, I would also recommend scrolling down to "Web and Email Address" and changing it to the name of your group, something that will be easier to type in and share to others. If you don't change this, then it'll remain as a bunch of numbers and letters. Next to look at would be the "Privacy". My own group (based on the time I made this guide) is a Closed Group. Members can still find it, but cannot see the content till they are accepted. Since Wild Howlz is still in development, I don't want to share all content publicly. If you become a member, that means are you accepting the group's rules regarding the posts you'll be seeing. A Secret Group comes in handy for when you want to share content with only a special selection of members. You can send them an invite or share a link and that will be the only way they will be able to find and join the group. Posting Content and Frequency I've heard and many things where people say to post 2 to 3 time a week and sometimes even more. To me, this mainly depends on the target of the group. Though I would still advice to post a little something maybe once every 2 weeks to show you're still alive and kicking to your members. It doesn't have be anything fancy, just could even be a short sentence, but it lets members know you're still doing stuff and not abandoning. Messaging This can be important. You can view all private messages at top of the facebook page in the blue header. It looks like a word bubble with a lightning bolt in it. Click on that and it'll bring up any private conversations you are having. Click on the one you wish to answer to and then type in the text box provided in the box that pops up at the bottom of the screen. Looks like an instant messenger box but it is for a private message. Just type what you want to say and press enter and it'll be sent to the recipient. You can view my own group as an example: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wildhowlz/ Have other questions or want me to add something to this guide? Just leave a comment below and I'll be sure to update the guide for you and others. View full guide

@Bingo speaking of conventions, there is thing my college holds every year and as an alumni, it's free for me to set up a booth so long as I sign up on time. I would really like to do one, but at this time, am not sure what to sell. It's held in November so majority of people like to sell christmas cards, shirts, knitted things, glassware, and so on. I always wanted to try it out, but other than making cards and some photo prints (since I also do nature photography), I'm not sure what else I could sell. I thought about enamel pins and stickers, but I don't know. I also thought about this artwork card collection thing with realistic pokemon. Like one side would have the realistic pokemon image and the other side would have some info and variations of that pokemon if found in other regions or locations. The only other thing that ever came to mind was shirts and a coloring book. Maybe some one of a kind traditional work and then offer business cards for pet portraits? Would that be interesting?

I actually regularly work in both. Majority of the work I do is digital, but there are some comics I work on that are just pen and paper. Sometimes I'll merge the two, like with comics, I may add in the word bubbles and text digitally to keep it looking clean since my penmanship isn't always the greatest. Recently I've been trying to delve back into some traditional works. For me, the better I can understand things on a traditional basis, the better I can replicate and make it even better digitally.

I agree @kami. I'll take a look. I do own a DA that I've had for 9 years, though I don't have a massive following on there but it does come in handy once in awhile. Thanks

All you guys @Hare @kami @Onyx and @Cadence Thank you for your advice. I'll be reading through them more carefully and trying some different strategies. I would like to sell my traditional work as well, but I need to figure out where I can do that. I recently moved so still getting a bit used to the new surroundings and trying to figure out where stuff is at. The only thing I did find out was that only art groups in this town is 1 for a small group of grandmas and 2 groups for middle and high school and the college.... nothing for just people my age. Surprises me a bit since my last town had 2 different art based groups where people of various ages could work together, gather, talk, and learn and at least I wasn't the only one my age there. I'll have to dig better for Facebook. I've tried a few different things there, but I'll have to consider your guys' advice and words and see if I can adjust my strategy. You all are amazing and I can't thank you enough for the help. If you have advice for any other media selling tips on other sites other than Facebook, I'd love to hear what you have to say too! BRING IT ON!! C:

Hello, so I was hoping for some ideas in this as I struggle here the most. As an artist who wants to make art their career, its hard to find ways to sell commissions, where to go, and what to do. I've tried numerous methods and sites, but seem to fall short. I'm actually extremely lucky if I get even a $5.00 usd commission in a month, but no one can obviously live off of that. I also have loans and other bills to pay. I've been doing odd jobs here and there to make ends meet, but even that's falling short now too. I feel like I'm missing something something when it comes to selling commissions online, but do not know what it is. How do you guys do it? How do you sell your art online? Are there specific sites you go to or certain methods you have to take? I've tried all kinds of things. I've made artwork for games, books, animals, fantasy, pets, creatures, adoptables, anthros, and even on extremely rare occasions, nsfw things. I usually come and go on the forums, but tend to reply when I can try to show off my work where ever I can. Do I need to try and do more traditional things instead of digital? Or am I just a bad sales person? I really don't know and thus I'm asking for help and advice. Thank you in advance.

I actually enjoyed the community college I went to for a couple years. I find the atmosphere between community colleges and universities to be quite different. Goods and bads to both

I've been out of a school for a few years now, and it has its ups and downs. I may not miss high school at all, but I do actually miss parts of my university. The diversity of people and art was always fantastic and there was always ways to get inspired. Personally, I feel an artist can really blossom and grow the more time they spend with other artists. Just in my first year alone I went through a huge shift in my artwork because I felt that others were challenging me... not literally okay, but mentally it feels like... so it gave me more fighting spirit to learn more and better my artwork. Though the loans they smack you with at the end... >.> no one looks forward to those.

It's definitely an interesting idea. I always love game with wolves in them, which is why I'm creating my own. It's different than what I've played in some other wolf games and different than my own, which is good. I mostly like the idea of being part of a team, like you don't know which players you might be paired with, but it would interesting to see how it went anyways. It sounds like it would be a challenge. Though if a pack does consist of various members' wolves, just keep in mind that if fights have to be won for dominance that it is fair to the players that may be from different time zones. As in, I just won the alpha spot, went to bed, and then woke up just to find out that I lost it and had no way to defend it. If you need or have the ability to hire an artist, I would love to help out since wolf art is quite a forte of mine, and I'm sure I'd be able to create some neat things :3

Well, as Wild Howlz is still in development, I'm mostly working on written aspects and information. A lot of it will be just gathering and putting together images and figuring out what still needs to be done for first explorable region. I also have a battle system to rework and write out the details for that for @Anoua . I love doing the artwork and the creative process, but main, writing up information, documents, and organizing things so that way it can be better used for the future is exhausting. It's surely not my favorite thing, but I know that it needs to be done. I've been gone for quite a bit, on and off, for various reasons, but it's time to crack the whip and get the boring stuff out of the way.

Are the ads just a still image or are they like a clickable link to either the game or where ever?

UPDATE as of August 1st, 2017 Now that I'm back from a combination of real life things, I'm happy to present that Wild Howlz is now working on its Explore feature. This feature lets you travel to different continents found on the Wild Howlz world. Each continent has their own regions to explore, providing members with a more exciting explore options that goes beyond the the boring "click and go". It'll take us a bit to work out all the artwork and coding for even 1 region due to how much we want players to experience and go beyond point and click. I will be sure to update on some of the items that will be found Region 1, but for now, you can enjoy some of the wildlife you may encounter and do battle with as you explore the region, take on quests, and try to grow strong enough to defeat the region's boss. Even region will feature a boss fight, where the boss will reward you with special items and skills if you can defeat them. Defeating bosses will also help secure your ability to travel to new regions and unlock higher levels for your wolves. Some regions that may belong to other continents can only be explored by wolves who have reached certain levels. Region 1 is meant to be easy and we do have Region 2 being planned out as well so we hope to provide members with something new to look forward to when they complete region 1. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we're making good progress and can't wait till it's ready enough for the public to come and test it out. Here are some of the creatures you'll encounter in Region 1 while you explore:

This is my current large image project. It's due by the 18th and I still have a long way to go, but plan to make big headway on it this coming weekend:

Hello there everyone, I know it's been awhile since I've been online here, but thought I would start by letting you all know that I do creatures and items in various styles for anyone who is interested. These items are created exclusively for your purposes so when done, you get them all and even the PSD files if you need/want them. I'll probably save the images for portfolio purposes but otherwise, they are all yours :3 You can contact me at: [email protected] or right here through a Private Message! Which ever works best for you. Items in general range from $2.00 to $5.00 based on detail requested and creatures range from $7.00 to $12.00 (sometimes more) depending on the detail requested. Please feel free to visit my portfolio for more works: http://hayleydubay.artworkfolio.com/ And also check out my Deviantart page: http://aminirus.deviantart.com/gallery/ And even my ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/artist/aminirus

Most welcome, it was my pleasure to create some new beasties :3

It is a rather simple minded game, not one I would ever put money into... but I don't know. It sorta helps me when I need to take my mind off of something else, then I go poke my magikarps. I started naming mine after food so now I'm at Lv 28 with Gen 34 karp named Biscuit. Normally I don't play such games, but when you're used to quite a few strategy based games or racking your brain on information all day long, playing something that doesn't require brain power can be... refreshing I guess Either that or I'm just too easily amused, lol

Burn

Hey there @Thorn and welcome to TGL! Hope you enjoy your time here with us :3

I actually want to play this game so bad but I don't own a PS4... and one of personal rules is not to spend money on something you'll use for only one thing because then when it finally ends... what you gonna do? I do have the xbox one, but its not mine... just allowed to use it. We use it for multiple things so it comes in handy quite often. I've seen a friend of mine play Horizon Zero Dawn and love the ideology behind it and the graphics look pretty sweet. Don't know what the story to the game is or anything, but I do overall like what I see in it. I can only hope they'll consider putting it on a different consul other than PS4

Yes, so cool. I really like the golden version :3

Oh wow. The different colors look amazing :3

What an adorable style! I'm sure you'll sell these. They are so cute :3

Welcome @xEJx to TGL! Hope you enjoy your time here with us :3