BazilRacoondog
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April 2024 Summary
🕑 Added 2024-05-03 15:18:36 +0000 UTCTime to make another summary post. A lot was already said in previous posts so it's gonna be a bit shorter (so I thought but it didn't lmao).
April was a pretty hellish month full of ambitious and time consuming projects. It may seem like I haven't made really much but I spent a lot of time working. In March, I was pretty much obsessed with playing Mega Man games and finished 10 of them but April was completely devoid of any video games at all for the sake of my work.
A big part of it was spent on pixel art which grew a big Commodore64 obsession in me, starting very unexpectedly with a random 4skin Day art idea. It was definitely a nice new turn in my pixel art practice.
Also finally finished the last Legoshi x Jack commission sequence part and two parts of Leroy the Redneck Reindeer WG sequence, what a perfect time to say Merry Christmas lol. Although I'm still thinking about making a bonus part when I deal with my other plans.
And then a big part of the month and a plenty of my energy was spent on making this exhibition piece with Zed Vector. After months of having this big burden of responsibility wearing on my mind I finally have it off my shoulders and can feel myself free for real. It was a big breakthrough in my art but again nothing really special and exclusive for Patreon. However, the feedback I received on Twitter makes it very tempting to make more physical art like this. 
It's only a week since I posted the photo of Zed Vector's bust on Twitter and it already gained 8600 views and 296 likes. Maybe it doesn't surpass my other tweets by the number of likes, but views-wise it's an ultimate record holder among my regular art which receives 2-3k usually. 
The only same popular post is my previous piece posted in comments to a video from a 2023 exhibition but it gained 8600 views in one year while the new one did it in just one week. I can't say anything about old posts made before views counter was added to Twitter though, for example my fat Mr Wolf art received 1000 likes back then so it must be insanely popular and have even more views but it's impossible to see. I also noticed that this new exhibition piece tweet was retweeted by a really big number of popufurs with 5-40k followers which was very unexpected and shocking for me, I usually never receive such an attention and even best works of mine rarely get noticed by big shots like these.
All this makes it very tempting to keep working on physical pieces more if people like them so much, probably for the novelty of something the fandom never saw before, but there's so many obstacles making it difficult. It's very expensive and while these two works were sponsored by an exhibition curator to at least pay off the materials, the next works should be covered by nobody but only myself while my finances are still not enough to make it easy, mainly because I spend way too much money on my Volk collection. And most importantly, it's not something I'm getting paid for. 18+ art is my main specialty, I need time for making commissions and also to provide my patrons with a monthly amount of exclusive content. With physical pieces, no matter how horny and nsfw they will be, there's nothing exclusive I can provide here, I guess just sharing making process details and making it an early excess can't be compared to what my audience got used to see here throughout years of me doing packs of dirty alts. Speaking of being paid, these works could be actually a new way of making money, a lot of people share their desire to buy something like that from me but sadly postal connections with Russia are still closed for political reasons so right now it's not an option. So, I must be very well prepared for making new physical pieces, both financially prepared and also make it well-paced to not waste a whole month on a new work like that by sacrificing my Patreon business. And speaking of which, I also need to get myself better working conditions before getting started. Surely this new piece felt outstanding for people but there's numerous minor mistakes, flaws and imperfections which make me feel bothered, I want a better level of production which means better instruments, at least a proper saw which I don't own and had to cut fiberboard with a stationary knife, also a spray gun for easier and better painting/varnishing my works, a sander for easier sanding the surfaces and making the final look of my works really smooth and perfect and so on. It all costs a lot of money so it will take some time to get really into it.
So, what was made in this month? Some pixel art, last part of Legoshi x Jack comm sequence, the last two parts of Leroy sequence and a big sfw physical art piece. I felt concerned and afraid to lose a plenty of subscribers but thankfully I didn't. 
A certain decrease in earnings happened comparing it to March but that was expected, I had no hopes to meet the March level because it was a very rich and lucrative month packed full of extreme kink art with hyping characters from Beastars which caused a very sudden jump. But rapid growth is not normal and it just had to fall down to more average values because, you know, I mostly do obscure shit nobody cares about, it was just a lucky coincidence to work on so many Beastars comms in a row and it can't tempt me to change my views and fall to making more popufur stuff just for the fame instead of what I really want. But hey, it's a good big increase compared to February and that's what I was hoping to see! I'm very thankful to all you my followers for giving me your support and happy to see my Patreon getting better. I can actually feel it, my life started to get better recently as my Patreon income is growing bigger, I feel less dependent on commission art and it becomes more and more just a side income while Patreon funds are almost enough alone to make a living. If it weren't my collection expenses I could easily live a life by making just one commission per month or even none depending on my extra needs. But the real truth is it's not enough by now so I need to keep developing. Maybe by the end of 2024 I'll get really close to the life level I'm reaching for.
Another good thing to say about April is that my new Twitter strategy is working. My Twitter was in a horrible state of stagnation for about 6 months in a row or so. The level of engagement was terrible, the number of followers was jumping between 2110-2120 for months and couldn't cross this goddamn milestone, people followed and unfollowed me constantly. I didn't know what to do and how to help my situation but then I figured it out. There were a lot of talks in past about Twitter's updated algorithms not liking links and mentions of the sites like Patreon and such. But I didn't pay much attention to it which was a mistake. As you probably know, I'm trying to promote my Patreon very thoroughly, every art post on my Twitter has a mention in comments of what alts of a particular work you can see on my Patreon with the link provided. It was a double hit to my popularity as it occurred. One month ago I noticed again how people mention Patreon as Patre0n, π
ΏοΈatreon, P-site and so on, now I realized that people are certainly doing it NOT just for fun but for a really damn serious reason. I used this method and started calling it π
ΏοΈπ
°οΈtre0n in my tweets and also quit providing direct links on my page, I changed the link in my bio to a freshly made Linktree list of my contacts and now I see the results of it. I'm still not the same popular as I was in a pre-Musk era but things are getting much better, followers number is slowly increasing and reached 2200 already and my posts receive a more fair attention. You know, it's not like an antisocial person like me really cares about popularity, attention, all the stupid likes, views, reposts and followers, I do art mainly for my own passion, but popularity is a key to financial gain which means better life conditions for making MORE ART, this is my only main goal and this is why I worry so much about it. So that's why it's a good news for me, hope it will help to get more support this way.
What are my plans for May? Well, right now I'm working on a big pixel animation commission which is very similar to my Chester Cheetah commission, I mean VERY similar, not the same way I meant it with Mark Spothound animation, the work on it started right after finishing the exhibition piece but it's still in progress. I'm sure you're gonna love it!
However, I usually don't like to put off the work in progress but I have to make a little break because my birthday is also very close, it's in May 8 and I wanted to finish one special piece with my fursona for this day without delays, a thing I wanted to do for a long time and birthday feels like a perfect timing. But time is ticking, b-day is getting very close while the commission is still only half-done. So the break has to be done. Also feeling a big craving to do one or two artworks with Decker from Go Go Hypergrind game, really hoping to draw this sexy mf this month.
Despite the exhibition project was finally finished, it's not like I'm done with the exhibition itself so there's gonna be some days of distraction. I have to attend two openings of this exhibition, a vernissage one which is a private opening in May 15 for exhibition organizers, participating artists and some special guests, and then a formal opening for everyone in May 16. Who knows, maybe for me it will be the first time in my life to see IRL furries! It only depends on if they really decide to invite Moscow furries to the opening or not. Curator still thinks it would be good if I tell the visitors about connection between my works and Furry fandom on the opening and wants to arrange a personal lecture for me to tell about it more in detail in June 7 so who knows. I'll ask her about it later, it's a bit early for now as they're still busy with exhibition montage.
That's all I had to say about previous month and my plans for this one! I hope it will be less tiresome and more full of art for you to enjoy.
Comments
RBulwarking
Glad to see things are looking up for you on the Twitter engagement front! Hope it gets even better for you going forward! πͺ
