kami

Omg I saw you and Choco posting about this on Twitter and I had NO IDEA what it was This makes so much more sense now, haha. Damn, if I had the time! Ugghh looks like so much fun. Shame it's only once a year ;o;

Imgur is basically my go-to now. I've also used tinypic as well, but Imgur is much more organized and nicer to use.

I was kind of joking Just seems like it's been...well, this might be the first time ever that Neo has opened up communication, haha. Back in my day (shakes cane) it seemed like whenever a critical thread came up, they closed it down. Can't have people complaining about shitty service, now can we? (It we can't see it, it doesn't exist ) That's awesome! I really hope so!

It's definitely not like it was in its hay day, and I'd surely be sitting in the 400s still if I hadn't figured out the strategies I did. That's awesome that FA works so well for you Ah thanks for the offer! I've purchased some of what I've needed already, it's mostly just some Copic inks I need now. Though if you're ever up to just getting rid of stuff, I'll happily go through what you don't want.

DA is the only place I've found to get followers.

I'm shocked it didn't fill up faster, tbh. 'Bout time they started actually talking to the users. I hope this makes a difference and they do really listen. I'm sure the constant buying and selling of Neopets' IP doesn't look super great, so they'll need to really assure their userbase that this is a positive change and things will improve moving forward. With a start of communication, that does seem a bit promising, but then again, I'm not longer active on Neopets anymore, so I'm not really in the loop as far as the community goes. But I'm crossing my fingers!

That explains a lot x'D God damn. They used to be my go-to years ago too, but then they made their site unuseable and ads were just everywhere. Guess they wanted to try and find a way to make it worse LOL

Oh I am not surprised. She's quoted me on one of her videos before back when VPL was still around. Figured I'd share her channel on here in case no one knew about her.

If you guys haven't already subscribed to her YT channel, I highly recommend it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf01d3LdEjuTlVYskfEf9Mg She covers quite a few sites (with a bit of sass) and it's rather entertaining ;) Could also be good for those looking to market their game, she's reviewed sites in the past that approached her.

Bumping this up!

Understand the social media platform you're using. Every single one is different and caters differently for different audiences. What works on Twitter won't work on Facebook, for example. Doing the research on what platform is right for you (as you'll want to be actively using it and engaging others on it, so if you hate the social media page, don't use it!) is important, as is looking up other people's tips and advice on marketing on that platform. As an example, I'm extremely familiar with Deviantart, I am fairly comfortable with the ins and outs, and you'll see that easily as that's where I have my biggest following. I wrote up a blog post about how I did it a while back that's still relevant: http://ringoyan.deviantart.com/journal/How-I-Market-Myself-541789004 Though for other social sites, I tend to be weaker in my knowledge. I'm still working those out, but for what I've gathered thus far: Facebook: join groups. Be sure to read the rules, make sure you follow them, and ideally give back a little and comment or like other people's posts. YouTube: it's all about interaction. Actively comment on other related people's channels. If you're doing time lapse videos, like what I do, find other channels that do time lapse videos. What can help across platforms as well is cross promotion or collaborations. Find someone of a similar size following and interest, see if they're up to collaborating or maybe doing a trade of some kind, and follow through. You can help give each other a boost that way. Be active AND interactive. RESPOND to people. (So often I see artists NOT doing this and I DON'T KNOW WHY.) Followers LOVE to get replied to. If you get loads of messages a day, just reply when and where you can. It really makes a difference and helps your followers feel closer to you and more engaged. They're more likely to have a positive opinion and be active in your community. In general, being active in the art community and not just self-posting everywhere helps a lot, plus it spreads some smiles around as I would think most everyone loves getting positive comments. Hope that's helpful.

@Nate You should probably mark that massive spoiler x'D But yes, I rooted for Light too @Corsair I thought of another example of rooting for the villain: badly written books in general. Dean Koontz is this for me. His protagonists weren't really badly written, it was just the rest of his story/plot/everything that I hated so much, I was hoping the villain would win so the book would end x'D So it's not necessarily badly written protagonists, is my point, haha.

I think it's fair to root for villains even with well written protagonists. The first example that comes to mind is Supernatural. Loads of fans love BOTH the good guys and the bad guys. Star Trek is another nice example, especially with strong episodes. Khan is a well known example, but TNG has its fair share of excellent villains too. There also might be times where there is purpose in making the viewer root for the villain. Horror films are infamous for this. They butcher their "heroes" to the point where we /want/ the mass murderer to succeed. While not 100% related, you might find this interesting:

The fact that you owe people money, one of which going on two+ years, just reads as extremely unprofessional to me, something never seen in the working world. I don't know what you have going on in your personal life, but work is work, and personal life is not an excuse. If you have outstanding payments, you need to properly budget your money, any expenses, and perhaps even take up a minimum wage job to help raise the funds to pay people back.

Patreon promotes a reward system as that system tends to get you the best return, but you are entirely allowed to have a no-reward tier (as you're required to have a tier listed but you can state that it's just a tip jar and all they're really getting is the good-feels). Just make sure what they're getting (or not getting) is clear, and you should be fine. I put my art on as many products as I typically can since I have that option. I avoid some if I don't think it'll look good or if I don't want to sell prints (as I like to sell my own prints). For sizes, bigger = better, but at least for RB, they allow repeating patterns, so if you upload something small, you can set the option to repeat the image. (They have two options to choose from, aligned and unaligned.) TBH I'd use both sites so you can hit a wider audience.

I've seen a lot of people use Patreon as just a tip jar with no real rewards apart from furthering the creator's ability to work/generally support the creator. Keep in mind, without a following to start, you're most likely going to see little to no success with it. Not trying to bring you down, just speaking from experience in both myself and what I've seen of others. You'll have to be pretty knowledgeable and skilled with marketing to build a successful page. If you're looking to make some side cash without any compromises, I'd recommend sites like Teepublic or Redbubble. I do almost no marketing on my shops and tend to sell one or two items a month at least. It's easy and involves little effort apart from just making the initial designs/artwork. (I mean, you can use artwork you've already made too. Just throw stuff up, trust me, it could sell. I have had some junky designs sell and ones I've put loads of effort in tank, you just never know what people want.) Ko-fi is another popular site going around that works like a tip jar as well. One time donations of 3$ that you can post on your socials. Here's mine as an example: https://ko-fi.com/1606WVCCVV4L5 Good luck though!

Echoing this I think I'd be fine with the forum branching out to like-minded games, like Tamagotchi or other pet care games. If it fits the theme, I think it could work. Plus I'd be totally open to hearing about pet care phone apps

W3Schools, Codeacademy, and Coursera are probably nice places to start. The fun thing about HTML, CSS, and JS is that you don't need a server to test stuff out, you can do it all in Notepad and opening up the file in your browser.

Drawing with a mouse is 100% possible and you can do a TON with it. That said, if you want to make things easier on yourself, that's why tablets were invented. You won't magically be a genius with digital art after getting a tablet (as soooo many beginner artists believe), but it'll make things easier for you in the long run.

Congrats again! Fun contest, thanks for hosting it

Congrats

Lack of funds, lack of planning, lack of time, lost passion, lack of organization, staff dropping. Probably the ultimate one would be lack of planning. That's essentially the core cause of all the sites I've been a part of failing.

Appreciate the clarification (Sorry for my attitude, my patience for that crowd is all but gone nowadays x'D) I'd try Deviantart's forums. I can't guarantee the person would stay on, but you might find some people nostalgic for the idea. That's really the only place I can think of.

I'm sure you could find artists like that, most likely either very young or very passionate about your project, but for the rest of us, what we hear is you essentially asking for free work and we'd just turn you down. I can't help but shivver when reading this. In all respect to you, take the time to raise/save up money, and show that same respect to us. Art is a job deserving to be paid just as much as programming.