Making art process video tutorials?

Julia

@xin-li I heard it is very difficult to make a living out of Patreon. A friend tried and it was as costly to maintain (giving rewards) as profitable. Unless you are already very big on social media and attract a crowd with your name!

What works best for him is the digital brushes he sells. His marketing is only through IG (a link in his profile) as he has gained thousands of followers over the past years and many of them are now buying his brushes.

I do watch videos of painting process from time to time (mainly oil painting and pastels) but rarely more than a few by artists on youtube. It is inequally interesting (depending on the artist, topic, technic, etc) and mostly time-consuming. It requires time to invest. Therefore I think it is a good avenue to explore to bring additional revenue but I don't think it will be substential enough unless you already have a large fan base.
That said, I encourage you to try! I might be totally wrong

A niche that is currently little (or not at all?) explored is a series of different processes : ex : concept, character design, choosing colors, etc. until the final real-time painting.
I would be quite interested to buy a whole pack from the same artist showing how to build an image from scratch to the final painting and painting process itself.

Good luck!

xin li

@Julia thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I think maybe the most realistic way to start this journey is to start a youtube channel to document my process and see if there is any traction. I am considering doing something with traditional media, getting myself outside of my comfort zone - it would be more of a documentation of my learning process rather than a tutorial in the beginning before I figure out how to paint traditionally myself :-).

Nyrryl Cadiz

@xin-li Skillshare is also a good option

carlianne

@xin-li I think that's a super interesting idea! I have had a lot of success growing my instagram by doing tutorials, and a friend of mine who does watercolor started posting process videos on Instagram of his water colors and grew to over 100k in a year. I would recommend also promoting your youtube on your instagram as you can encourage your followers there to check out your channel as well.

Personally, I don't think I would sell the tutorial videos by themselves, I don't think I've ever bought one, but I would buy a class or a course from someone. I've also had people suggest "udemy" as a place to do that.

I also just started a youtube channel with tutorials, and my plan was to put the full process videos on my patreon, but gumroad is an interesting idea. I think ideally though if you could sell them yourself on shopify or something so that you could also get their emails and grow an email list, that is probably the ultimate ideal solution.

xin li

@carlianne Great input. Thank you so much. your suggestions give me a lot to think about

carolinebautista

I wonder if any small groups of illustrators have done something like a printshop collective? I think digital products are a great way to go of course, but wonder at the real cost of selling prints and whether that would be easier to share.

RioSim1

@xin-li Hi, I think this is a great idea! And, there is an audience for every artist. Your voice is important! There are multiple to ways to monetize this - a YouTube channel will make money with enough subscribers. You don't always have to sell the "art object." Good luck on your exciting journey!

xin li

@carolinebautista I think it is a really good idea. But I think it might be much easier to organise such things with your local artists in the same city. At least the accountant and tax side of the thing would be a bit easier to grasp with a collective business :-).

I used to rent studio from a collective. The owner of the collective run an online shop which sell everyone's prints. Customers can also come to the collective to pick up prints themselves. But that was the time before covid, now I am working from home like most of the artists I knew of.

xin li

@RioSim1 thanks for the encouragement.

carolinebautista

@xin-li so far the idea had only been interesting to me as a version of a publisher business model that would deal with international artists, not sure why except as a sort of publisher of standalone images, something that is never the focus of picture book makers. But the idea of a local collective sounds really fun the way you describe it. If this pandemic would ever end...