AranaszarSzuur
Member
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Please consider donating to support production of more high effort art:
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Please consider donating to support production of more high effort art:
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Oldhammer Art Ko-Fi
- Thread starter AranaszarSzuur
- Start date
Eric
Administrator
Cool. In that first one is the "gun wielding" figure separate - ie a small figure in front of the larger marine like character or is it part of the one character - ie a mini arm/gun contraption on their waist? Anyhow very reminiscent of some of the weird and wonderful art of old.
symphonicpoet
Moderator
There's some quite nice work in there, even if you don't want to do "edgy" stuff anymore. The first one, dated 2023-10-11, has a nice balance of light and shadow. You have some interesting armor forms. The very last image, the one directly above, does a nice job of making the soldier stand out against the background, even though everything is pretty densely inked. Interesting armor, too. Kind of has an elephant look to it, which is interesting and unusual. Glad to see you back.
AranaszarSzuur
Member
Almost 2 weeks have passed and 100% of the community has decided that I shouldn't work on creating more Oldhammer artworks.
Ok. vox populi, vox dei, I guess.
In the end the hundreds of hours of grinding that went into quest to git gud was a waste of work.
If anyone is interested in my creativity for leisure:
forum.oldhammer.org
Ok. vox populi, vox dei, I guess.
In the end the hundreds of hours of grinding that went into quest to git gud was a waste of work.
If anyone is interested in my creativity for leisure:
My handdrawn Oldhammer slop
It's stuff I draw for my own enjoyment/self-expression outside of work budget. I draw it in less than 10m so that I wouldn't get into the tiresome grind territory. Slop 1 20241012-20241113 Nightmare A hell knight. I don't remember what he's holding in his left hand. Nightmare Hell knights in...
forum.oldhammer.org
symphonicpoet
Moderator
I can't speak for everyone, but I think you should do what makes you happy; what you find fulfilling. I enjoy some of your work. You've got some talent and it's fun to watch it grown. But you also make it sound like drawing makes you miserable, and I don't want that. I don't want you to suffer for what amounts to a hobby for me. Oldhammer is supposed to be a way to blow off steam and get away from stress, not a Sisyphean task that demands endless toil with no hope of fulfillment. Even Pandora got hope at the bottom of the box. If you get joy out of your art, I want you to enjoy that and grow. If you don't, I hope you can find a passion that gives you what I get from Oldhammer. Maybe that'll be music for you. Or dancing. Or fishing. Or sitting on a beach drinking daiquiris. Follow your heart.
AranaszarSzuur
Member
What are talking about? I have clearly stated that I'm only receiving half of a minimum wage of disabilitybux. As it is, I'm supposed to rot in abject poverty for being not fit for work. Not much perspective of joy in that. People supporting my art is the only way I could have a semi-bearable life.
The whole point of having a grindset is getting acclaim and money. Work is suffering. Passion is being ready to suffer for something. I'm passionate about Oldhammer art. "Ad astra per aspera" as the saying goes.
It's just pointless if people don't support my work, if it doesn't give any gain.
In the end the fundamental problem is always ending up surrounded by people who neither give a damn about my life, health or wellbeing nor consider my work to be of any value, even if they claim to love it.
Like essentially, reasonable work ritual cycle looks like this: people supporting my work and replenishing work budget, me acknowledging their support through gratitude artworks, grinding through the work budget and the cycle completing with people replenishing it with donations.
Oldhammer art isn't a hobby it's about making the kind of art that was done by studio illustrators and professional artists in general. It's nothing like painting miniatures just to have them and play games with them. It was my mission for a long time, I would even say since I first saw these illustrations in the rulebook, though I only got real grindset since May, 2019. It's just that people rejected it, among other things because people in general don't value art.
Both in sense of even like donating some money to help buying new batch of gel pens back in 2020/2021 when I still had work in my mother's company/was supported by my mother and for real later.
Like just besides the value of my work, there's a ton of art materials involved. During last year I went through about 30 gel pen fillers, several technical pens and about 10 sketchbooks and it was still a pretty bad year when it came to work budget so I was drawing way below my productive capacity, which historically, looking at 2020, would be about 60h per month, I think the most work budget was about 35h in one month in 2023, but last year it would be like on average 13h per month.
In 2020 I have used about 200 gel pens and 18 100 page sketchbooks and have done about 48h of drawing per month, including on average 14h of drawing exercises per month.
That's besides art textbooks, scanner, tablet, two years of advertisement junior college, etc.
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Eric
Administrator
I'm afraid I suspect the Oldhammer community (especially here) is just too small as a target market for selling "new" art in, although you may have more luck on the busier Facebook community. I'm not a member so I don't know quite what the vibe is over there, but they have 16,000 members and I expect a lot more of those are active, no idea if that would translate to income however 
There are some very large 40k forums that might be a better market, although I don't know if there would be interest in older style art or if the desire would be to see more modern 40k renditions.
I suspect if you feel the aim is financial then alas looking to more commercial art would be more profitable - certainly better if the "miserable grind" generates more income so creating art for websites and magazines and so forth. I expect a lot of the stock art/icon space is quite saturated however. I also fear there is more competition from AI on the basic run of the mill work these days unfortunately. Not to mention other artists. I don't really know the market well unfortunately. Maybe local businesses? - offer to redesign a cafe's menu/window art or something as a way of getting known and see if you can build up a reputation in that field? You've your CAD skills you mention so maybe you could push into shop interior design or something? I know it's not going to be a passion like oldhammer, but maybe it'd pay the bills better. Although I don't know if any of those ideas are even compatible with your pension.
An anonymous donation platform might also appeal more, I don't know if such a thing exists (given money laundering regulations around the world), but that might attract more ad-hoc funding? Sorry hard to know, but I expect getting well known and popular on the old Interweb social media scene requires a lot of effort to put yourself out there over so many different platforms.
There are some very large 40k forums that might be a better market, although I don't know if there would be interest in older style art or if the desire would be to see more modern 40k renditions.I suspect if you feel the aim is financial then alas looking to more commercial art would be more profitable - certainly better if the "miserable grind" generates more income so creating art for websites and magazines and so forth. I expect a lot of the stock art/icon space is quite saturated however. I also fear there is more competition from AI on the basic run of the mill work these days unfortunately. Not to mention other artists. I don't really know the market well unfortunately. Maybe local businesses? - offer to redesign a cafe's menu/window art or something as a way of getting known and see if you can build up a reputation in that field? You've your CAD skills you mention so maybe you could push into shop interior design or something? I know it's not going to be a passion like oldhammer, but maybe it'd pay the bills better. Although I don't know if any of those ideas are even compatible with your pension.
An anonymous donation platform might also appeal more, I don't know if such a thing exists (given money laundering regulations around the world), but that might attract more ad-hoc funding? Sorry hard to know, but I expect getting well known and popular on the old Interweb social media scene requires a lot of effort to put yourself out there over so many different platforms.
Eric
Administrator
Following up on my own thoughts. I was told the other day by a client that https://buymeacoffee.com can apparently do anonymous (at least between the donor and recipient) donations, not a platform I've used myself, but could be worth investigating?
AranaszarSzuur
Member
I'm not monetizing GW ip. I'm making original art. Also, I'm not selling anything. I'm not on stage where I can afford to start a business. I was looking into selling art and for selling online one basically needs to fulfill the same stuff as a full-scale online store - store policy and GDPR, 14 days for returns.I'm afraid I suspect the Oldhammer community (especially here) is just too small as a target market for selling "new" art in, although you may have more luck on the busier Facebook community. I'm not a member so I don't know quite what the vibe is over there, but they have 16,000 members and I expect a lot more of those are active, no idea if that would translate to income however
I would have to visit a lawyer and order writing documents and consultation on all that stuff. So, I had to abandon the idea.
Then all sales are taxable income and I would have to report it to appropriate authorities and pay taxes from it. When it comes to donations, they'd have to cross certain threshold per individual and in general to count as taxable income. I'm, like, 10k Euro of donations away from it being a concern.
It's not the pension that is the problem. I can make 350% of the disability pension per month before it gets reduced to 70% and 655% per month before it gets suspended. Though it could be a problem with housing benefit if it's not much higher than it. It's mostly a question of the disability and specific talents involved.
Designers are completely different breed of artists with a completely different skillset and talents. I'm able to do expressive art with expressive/moody/chaotic linework. Even when it comes to oldhammer art, I can't draw with mechanical precision like Wil Rees, Ian Miller and Tony Hough because of motor dysgraphia.
Thing about fine art is that it's much more subjective than other fields of art.
One thing is that generally, it's something I'm attracted to doing. The miserable grind part is about taking it to the next level, but the basic drive is already here.
Like I have something meaningful I want to express and proceed to draw it.
On the other hand, I find all the design art stuff alien and repulsive. There's plenty of people out there who are passionate about that stuff who have massive advantage. I tried to get into web design before but I wasn't able to get anywhere with it.
Like generally, my field of involvement in arts is very narrow - because I'm more of someone whose main are of attraction is meaning that expresses it through art, than an artist in general. I have much more aptitude for stuff like psychology, ethics, than for technical stuff.
I was using a cheap CAD program that almost nobody uses and I was basically just redrawing plans from sketches I received:
All that stuff was very basic and when there was most of it, I was working, like 2 hours per day. From what I understand, the industry standard is Autocad and interior designers also use 3d graphics for visualisation.
Most of that stuff requires being a technical person and being a quick communicator and I'm neither. Like, obviously, if I could do anything on competitive professional level, I would be doing it long time ago.
I'm pretty sure paypal is way more popular than anonymous payment methods. I don't think such things even exists anywhere outside of darkweb. Also, anonymous payments can't legally count as donations.
Ko-fi has a non-public option when supporting as guest:
Bong0_clive
Member
I dunno dude, aggressively telling people they suck because they don't want to give you money is not the approach I'd take.
There are some wonderfully kind people in the Oldhammer community.
There are some wonderfully kind people in the Oldhammer community.
Fimm McCool
Member
I can imagine how frustrating your position is, my wife is an artist and struggles both with an injury which means she can only work for short periods and with not being able to break into selling pieces. The art world is tough and elitist. Ultimately though, she does it because the creative process gives her satisfaction. It would be nice if she earned from it, but that's not the motivation. If it were then as Eric says there are more commercially salable things she could be painting.
If people aren't giving maybe ask yourself why. As Bongo Clive says there are very generous people in this community, but it is small. Perhaps enough people aren't seeing your work and you need to use free social media platforms to extend your reach. Perhaps Ko-Fi isn't a platform people trust. Perhaps people don't perceive value in your work. People are most likely to be supportive of someone they like and can see the struggle, maybe use your blogging platform to document the daily difficulties and your own life a bit more? Help people know you better. Blaming the community here for your situation isn't going to win their hearts and minds.
If people aren't giving maybe ask yourself why. As Bongo Clive says there are very generous people in this community, but it is small. Perhaps enough people aren't seeing your work and you need to use free social media platforms to extend your reach. Perhaps Ko-Fi isn't a platform people trust. Perhaps people don't perceive value in your work. People are most likely to be supportive of someone they like and can see the struggle, maybe use your blogging platform to document the daily difficulties and your own life a bit more? Help people know you better. Blaming the community here for your situation isn't going to win their hearts and minds.