Apologies for sounding like a broken record...

[Guest]

I know we're sounding like a broken record here, but where's the Manila folio? In a previous strip you said it should be out EARLY July, and it's now the middle of August. I don't mean to be a jack-ass but we all are a little on the edge of our seats, being VERY patient. But like all things, it has it's limits.

[Guest]

Why are you suprised that furries, known for such things, have dropped the ball on another project they likely got bored with? I wouldn't be at all surprised if the art was done months ago, but some friend of a friend of a friend layabout gamer just "oops, forgot to format and get it together" or some other excuse.

When do furries EVER meet deadlines, seriously?

[Skunkworks]

I know we're sounding like a broken record here, but where's the Manila folio? In a previous strip you said it should be out EARLY July, and it's now the middle of August. I don't mean to be a jack-ass but we all are a little on the edge of our seats, being VERY patient. But like all things, it has it's limits.

We decided to debut the folio at MFM at the end of this month/start of September. I am currently scanning in all the pages and doing clean-up work on the images. Jim should receive the files later this coming week.

[Skunkworks]

Why are you suprised that furries, known for such things, have dropped the ball on another project they likely got bored with? I wouldn't be at all surprised if the art was done months ago, but some friend of a friend of a friend layabout gamer just "oops, forgot to format and get it together" or some other excuse.

When do furries EVER meet deadlines, seriously?

Nope, I'm the only person working on the folio. I handle the artwork, the layouts, the colors, the scans and clean-ups, yadda yadda yadda. Jim doesn't even know what's in the folio since he hasn't seen the entire thing! As for it taking awhile to complete, you ARE aware that I only draw anthro stuff in my spare time, right? I work as an artist for a living, and sometimes little side projects take longer to complete as a result. (Case in point: I've only completed 2 full-color pictures of my own anthro artwork in the past year. I used to churn out 50-75 pictures per year). The folio will be available at MFM in a couple weeks.

[Guest]

Nope, I'm the only person working on the folio. I handle the artwork, the layouts, the colors, the scans and clean-ups, yadda yadda yadda. Jim doesn't even know what's in the folio since he hasn't seen the entire thing! As for it taking awhile to complete, you ARE aware that I only draw anthro stuff in my spare time, right? I work as an artist for a living, and sometimes little side projects take longer to complete as a result. (Case in point: I've only completed 2 full-color pictures of my own anthro artwork in the past year. I used to churn out 50-75 pictures per year). The folio will be available at MFM in a couple weeks.

You might work as an artist, but you're certainly not adept at marketing.

First rule of that is that making promises and release dates you can't keep (by half a year) pisses off potential customers and loses sales.

And if you can't meet a deadline? COMMUNICATE. There was an utter failure of communication here, just repeated "Coming soon, coming soon, coming next month" since May.

I think you've lost a lot of sales, since you've lost all the original excitement people had for the folio.

The idea of selling a product you've generated hype about is to strike while the iron is hot. Not after the iron is cold, been stored in the attic for years and sold to an antique store.

And honestly, your sales at a con are going to be a pittance. With the current market, if you launched the digital download on the same day the physical one was released, announced that it would be released on that day AND met that deadline, even a few hundred people buying the download is about $3000. If you've announced it ahead of time, the first-day sales will make up for the inevitable piracy a couple of days later. If you don't get the digital up quickly, someone who buys it at the con will scan it and put it up on one of the Russian sites, and then nobody will buy the download. Opportunity totally lost.

Nobody I know buys paper anymore, everyone wants digital, it wastes less space and it's more discreet.

This could be quite profitable for you if you reasonably meet the deadlines and court the larger audience with digital downloads. But you have to either meet deadlines or communicate with your customers.

[Skunkworks]

You might work as an artist, but you're certainly not adept at marketing.

First rule of that is that making promises and release dates you can't keep (by half a year) pisses off potential customers and loses sales.

And if you can't meet a deadline? COMMUNICATE. There was an utter failure of communication here, just repeated "Coming soon, coming soon, coming next month) since May.

I think you've lost a lot of sales, since you've lost all the original excitement people had for the folio.

The idea of selling a product you've generated hype about is to strike while the iron is hot. Not after the iron is cold, been stored in the attic for years and sold to an antique store.

And honestly, your sales at a con are going to be a pittance. With the current market, if you launched the digital download on the same day the physical one was released, announced that it would be released on that day AND met that deadline, even a few hundred people buying the download is about $3000. If you've announced it ahead of time, the first-day sales will make up for the inevitable piracy a couple of days later.

Nobody I know buys paper anymore, everyone wants digital, it wastes less space and it's more discreet.

This could be quite profitable for you if you reasonable meet the deadlines and court the larger audience with digital downloads. But you have to either meet deadlines or communicate with your customers.

I understand the issue with the delay; the folio was announced when there were only a couple pictures drawn for it at the time. Unfortunately, all anthro work I do takes a back seat to my mainstream artwork (one of the reasons I am no longer bothering with producing any new folios or prints of my own stuff). If I have a few mainstream jobs to do, then everything else, unfortunately, has to wait. I hadn't planned on it taking this long, but as the saying goes, even the best laid plans can go awry. I believe Jim is going to set up digital downloads in time for the convention. He stated he wanted higher-resolution versions for a few printed hard-copy versions as well, so I am complying with those wishes. I understand, and agree completely, with your assessment of hard-copy sales. The last portfolio I produced for hard-copy sales was back in 2008, I believe. Another folio ("Spoofworks") was never released in hard-copy format, and only low-res altered versions exist online. Other folios ("Team Player", "Raven", "Onika", etc.) were all canceled shortly after due to the simple fact I no longer have the time to draw anthro stuff like I used to. In a sense, the "Manila" folio is technically my last portfolio (and it'll be my first new digital folio)! I've already told Jim I will be Fed-Exing the folio files to him this week. All he'll have to do is burn them to CD or set them up for digital download.

[Guest]

In a sense, the "Manila" folio is technically my last portfolio (and it'll be my first new digital folio)!

Damn I really hoped that you would do some more CnC-folios in the far future. But of course I understand that you have other things to do, also I´m still very happy that you draw the comic

[Guest]

*Schooling in patince needed.*

Well I don't really want to state what should be common knowledge, hence stir up a pointless discussion, stating my dislikes for how everything has to be a top-tuned managed business. How people should do a crappy job just for the satisfaction of meeting a fictive/imaginary deadline, or competing with prices of underpaid workforces, who doesn't know better, but who're just happy to have a job...

...But.

Good products take a little time. Especially when it's a spare time-project, and one has to make a living with a day job, which can be hard enough with the job-market being as it is at he moment. Then throw in time for family, friends, other interests (like living and breathing). Then making a page for CnC 'bout once a week, maybe even some off-time for doing absolutely nothing (but living and breathing that is... also known as that funny foreign concept you might have heard of... called "vacation").

What I'm saying is: we should be thankful for the time Jim puts in making such beautiful art for us each week (and now also a new portfolio, Yay!), he's not an electronic printer who just cranks out page after page of stuff a second.
Art takes ideas, planing/composing, sketching, drawing, redrawing (redrawing, redrawing and redrawing), inking, scanning, (sometimes) coloring etc. It's hard work and is in this case a one-man-spare-time-activity (not a job).

Everyone who've seen Jim's art, knows it's worth waiting for, worth buying, worth hanging in your f***ing living room (only to be taken down on the rare occasion of prude visitors).

So what if it may loose a few costumers (and I don't want text-book answer on sales-and-marketing, commercial-value-estimating, time-to-market-calculations etc. this is a hobby-project, not a full-time job), those who knows what good art is and what it takes for being produced, will wait for it and will buy it.
Everyone who does not... well it's just their loss.

Show a little patience and appreciation for a hardworking artist.

Damn! I meddled and ranted, even though I really didn't want to stir up trouble.
Well I could just avoid hitting the "submit reply"-button and then no harm is.... whooopsy.

[Guest]

...

Amen to that! There´s absolutely nothing more to add.

[Guest]

Well I don't really want to state what should be common knowledge, hence stir up a pointless discussion, stating my dislikes for how everything has to be a top-tuned managed business. How people should do a crappy job just for the satisfaction of meeting a fictive/imaginary deadline, or competing with prices of underpaid workforces, who doesn't know better, but who're just happy to have a job...

...But.

Good products take a little time. Especially when it's a spare time-project, and one has to make a living with a day job, which can be hard enough with the job-market being as it is at he moment. Then throw in time for family, friends, other interests (like living and breathing). Then making a page for CnC 'bout once a week, maybe even some off-time for doing absolutely nothing (but living and breathing that is... also known as that funny foreign concept you might have heard of... called "vacation").

What I'm saying is: we should be thankful for the time Jim puts in making such beautiful art for us each week (and now also a new portfolio, Yay!), he's not an electronic printer who just cranks out page after page of stuff a second.
Art takes ideas, planing/composing, sketching, drawing, redrawing (redrawing, redrawing and redrawing), inking, scanning, (sometimes) coloring etc. It's hard work and is in this case a one-man-spare-time-activity (not a job).

Everyone who've seen Jim's art, knows it's worth waiting for, worth buying, worth hanging in your f***ing living room (only to be taken down on the rare occasion of prude visitors).

So what if it may loose a few costumers (and I don't want text-book answer on sales-and-marketing, commercial-value-estimating, time-to-market-calculations etc. this is a hobby-project, not a full-time job), those who knows what good art is and what it takes for being produced, will wait for it and will buy it.
Everyone who does not... well it's just their loss.

Show a little patience and appreciation for a hardworking artist.

Damn! I meddled and ranted, even though I really didn't want to stir up trouble.
Well I could just avoid hitting the "submit reply"-button and then no harm is.... whooopsy.

I believe you've just answered for yourself why almost all creators of anthro art work "day jobs" for not much money instead of having the drive to be successful entrepreneurs with their creativity.

[Cheetah]

I believe you've just answered for yourself why almost all creators of anthro art work "day jobs" for not much money instead of having the drive to be successful entrepreneurs with their creativity.

And you've answered for yourself , why most don't really have a desire to share their creativity with people such as yourself. You're feeling as if any artist in the world owes you anything, or that you as a "fan" deserve more then what you already receive due to some drastic misconception of who owes anyone anything, nothing anyone does will ever satisfy you, so why should you even expect it?

[Guest]

Everybody forget this coversation. All it did was cause trouble. My greatest apologies to both Jim's, I never expected this to turn into a digital brawl like this. There is no need to continue this any further.

[Skunkworks]

Everybody forget this coversation. All it did was cause trouble. My greatest apologies to both Jim's, I never expected this to turn into a digital brawl like this. There is no need to continue this any further.

Don't sweat it, man. Stuff like this (manufactured drama) doesn't faze me a bit. I just figured I'd answer your original question; others decided to use it as some sort of soapbox. It's all cool.

[Skunkworks]

I believe you've just answered for yourself why almost all creators of anthro art work "day jobs" for not much money instead of having the drive to be successful entrepreneurs with their creativity.

I think "Protoon" was referring to the fact that there are likely numerous artists who only draw anthro stuff as a hobby. I used to draw it full-time, and making $8K at a 3-day convention was pretty much standard fare; I used to attend 2-3 cons a year. However, as the online agenda became more popular, and piracy began making its presence known, I suspect a lot of artists began feeling the crunch from folks who felt they shouldn't have to pay for stuff simply because they wanted it. Despite what certain people think ("The artist didn't lose money if the person wasn't going to buy it anyway"), it does have a negative effect on sales.

As such, rather than waste my time with a market such as that, I decided to focus my attention and skills on mainstream material. To date, I've drawn and sold numerous originals and prints of landscapes, portraits, and other "normal" artwork, and have also had the good fortune to have many of these jobs branch off into interesting, and sometimes lucrative, side-jobs. These include designing and producing custom work for motorcycles, businesses (logos) and commission portrait work. I've also produced artwork for one of a series of seven children's books, obviously done under a pseudonym since this fandom is rife with unsavory individuals who imagine they have an axe to grind.

Apparently, I decided to branch out and do something a bit more productive than anthropomorphic work, contrary to your statement. Not all artists may be driven to step outside the bounds of their hobbies, but then, there aren't a whole lot of "furry" artists whom I've seen capable of drawing backgrounds, animals, humans, and other such things without relying upon Photoshop filters, Google images, and "reference photos".

I suppose if they actually decided to better themselves as artists, they too could continue to do what they enjoy, and make a living off of it. It just depends on whether or not they are willing to put the time and effort into it. Too many like the attention they gather by producing low-quality work in a fandom which seems to focus almost exclusively on porn. Sadly, this sort of behavior is what is holding them back from doing more with their talents and abilities.

TL;DR version - If anthro artists would cease focusing on porn and various absurdities, and decided to challenge themselves as artists rather than rely upon lazy tricks to fill in the parts of pictures they cannot draw, they would have a good head start on doing something more profitable and long-term with their talents. Some artists do, but the vast majority do not.

Just my two cents on the matter, man.

[Guest]

Unlike some people, we both now the financial cards. It takes time to do something the correct way instead of just rushing it a doing a poor job. Like restoration, it's better to pospone the client and sell him a good structure than to throw a couple of tacks, paint it, and sell it a unsave vehicle. I had an employee that way, he only lasted a couple days. Point is, things don't always meet the preferred deadline so you just have to work with it. I should've fiqured that before I posted the thread.