Ok, I think it's pretty clear that I've developed a disdain for YCH offers, mainly because of the spam and constant "reminders" and all. Granted, that problem has been waning a bit as of late, but... I'm still not too keen on it all. The reality is that I like the idea of YCH, I just don't like the ugly industry it's become. As a search term, "YCH" is pretty useless.
See, I've been mulling about the specific terminology I need to use to find what I want. What I'm looking for are essentially bases other people have drawn of their characters, which includes a YCH slot where you can draw your character. So, instead of buying a YCH from the artist, it's actually a collaboration.
I've been looking for a way to kick my muse in the ass, and making original works isn't cutting it. I've had some success using bases, and I'm always up to pairing Tawny with some random dudes because... well, I don't think I need to explain it. 8)
Alas, searching for these kinds of things is difficult. A search for "YCH" just gives you a deluge of sketches from people trying to make money. If I search for a "base", I usually get a template for a single character that has been directly traced over an existing work by a more popular artist. When it comes to Sonic style, for example, most bases are just traces of works by BBMBBF and so on. On principle, I can't use those. A search for "collab" is sometimes more helpful, but of course that implies a fully completed work, not a base. A search for "free to use" just gives you more bases, with the usual problem that they are just traces of other artists' works. "Raffle" and "offer" are apparently just synonyms for "YCH". I don't want a prize, I just want to have some fun. It's disappointing.
Is there a specific term for a base where you offer up your character for other artists to use with their characters? I used to do a thing I called "drive-by fanart" where I'd just draw pictures for random people for no reason. It was kinda fun and I got a lot of positive reactions, but it's just too hard for me to create new works from scratch. My compositional abilities are garbage and art is too time consuming. Collaborative efforts work out much better, but I can't commit to requests or trades or anything like that. I need to work at my own pace.
So, if I were in the mood to do more stuff like this, what do you call that? We don't seem to have a term for "here's a base where we can share our characters", so... maybe we should create one? Perhaps the term "OCH" for "Our Characters Here?"
The furry art scene is just too damn commercial these days. I just want to have some random fun, like we all did on the oekaki boards 20 years ago. I remember when we had the great oekaki battles, where we'd draw our characters murdering each other with chainsaws and shovels for no apparent reason. That was a blast.
Anyway, I just finished up on a big coding project and have a bit more free time, so I'll try... once again... to get off my lazy butt and do some damn art.
PS - I consider it distasteful to ask for free stuff, but I would like to point out that Tawny is always available for a bit of collaborative action, if you know what I mean. I love surprises and don't offend easily. I've collected a handful of bases for this purpose, but like I said, I really don't like working with bases that have been traced from other peoples' works, and I keep finding out that the bases I have are almost always ripoffs. I'd like to see some new, original bases specifically for sharing characters. Bonus points for various body types, size differences, etc.
i've considered doing YCH's but they felt too easy... more so if you allow people into multiple of the same offering =l. you basically already finish a picture, then decide 'wait i could sell this spot'. i find posing and positioning the hardest part of a picture... feels unethical to sell it after the work is basically done.
and yeah the YCH spam is crazy annoying! lol
i've considered doing YCH's but they felt too easy... more so if you allow people into multiple of t
A long time ago, YCH offerings were really cheap, since the artist could do [mostly] what they wanted rather than what the customer wanted. For some idiotic reason, YCH prices skyrocketed, with many artists saying that since you had a preview of the art before it was finished, it demanded a premium. What a load of bunk. When the YCH spam started hitting really hard (much more on FA than on here), I just lost interest in all commissions entirely. I still get dozens of "reminder" journals a day and I really wish I could just shut off journal notifications entirely.
After the pandemic, it seems everybody has more than tripled their commission prices, and now the new trend is adoptables going north of $100. Yeah, everyone is getting lazy. You don't get paid to be lazy, and now that the spam is starting to go down, I think artists are slowly starting to realize this.
A long time ago, YCH offerings were really cheap, since the artist could do [mostly] what they wante
As someone who just finished a YCH whose sketch part was thr slot that was sold, I can say all my YCH sketches have been sketches for commissions that a commissioner didn't want. That's why I don't make reminders but if ever offered to have done a collaborative piece I would have done it, but no one ever offered, so I figured that since I finished the background of the image that was no longer wanted I should at least be compensated for my time, which I got, thankfully.
For what its worth its commercialized because for a lot of people this is their only form of income and they need to either be on top of all new trends and pumps something out all the time or be able to sell the same pose a thousand times.
But yeah I dunno what the thing you're looking for is called, the whole "collab with me" thing but I too miss when things were fun and playing art tag with others was a fun thing to do, I remember being part of a tail chain group collab where an artist started it by having their OC hang by a bar and had others grab its tail, and then the next grabbed that person's tail so on and so forth, it was fun seeing everyone's styles mixed together and seeing a conga-line of tail grabs.
But good luck finding a not stolen/traced base for collabs
Edit: a clarification on the YCH thing from me, when talking to a commissioner I will send a sketch, and if they don't want it depending on the level of completion it is, depends on if I will sell it as a YCH, because I put in all that work, and I don't want it to be a waste, sometimes I turn it into a personal drawing as well, it depends on if I need/want something and don't have the spare funds for it.
Hope this gives you a new perspective but on the whole I try to just sell the ones I feel are worthwhile and tend to cut them off at 1-3-5 slots, with no reminders or spam, its posted once and if people want it then so be it, if not then its free game to turn into a collab or for me to finish later on :D
As someone who just finished a YCH whose sketch part was thr slot that was sold, I can say all my YC
I understand what you're saying, but I was thinking more of those artists that ONLY post YCH sketches all day long. That's obviously not a situation where the artist is trying to recoup losses from a customer who bailed out. They are just cranking out this stuff.
One or two here or there is a nice thing, but when I do a keyword search and literally every piece of recent art that shows up is a YCH sketch, it gets really annoying.
I understand what you're saying, but I was thinking more of those artists that ONLY post YCH sketche
Ah content farming using ych as their main form of anything without producing anything else, I get you. It actually is worse because some artists made a bunch of base packs (a lot of it looks traced from actual irl porn) and sold those to people who don't "draw" but instead just recolor the bases and they in turn sell them for cheap, I know a few people who sell the recolored poses for like $5 a pop after they bought the base pack for like $200, its like a doll maker that people can color.
Its a sad state of affairs, and sorry I thought you meant all YCH things, not just the annoying only YCH never any other art with an every 30 minutes on the 30 minutes reminder about the latest 20-something unsold YCHs they pumped out with no effort or skill tbh.
You've actually inspired me to want to do some "draw your OC here" stuff and I have a few unposted sketches that could work, of course its not gonna be super detailed (nor is it gonna be porn because I got a nosey toddler running around disturbing my nsfw work flow) but it will still be fun to see any takers :3
Ah content farming using ych as their main form of anything without producing anything else, I get y
Oh, man... lately I've really been into crocodilians, and I regularly search for gators and crocs. There's this one person on FA who was making literally 15 recolors of the same base every freakin' day, and they were totally dominating the search results. That effectively renders the search tool useless.
Yeah, there's ways for me to massage the keywords to try to filter that stuff out, but it would be nicer if the damned admins would just do their jobs and enforce the site rules. But, hey, I spent 2 years trying to get on the dev staff, and I have personal experience with how Draggoguy and his cohorts behave. Fat chance anything will ever improve.
Oh, man... lately I've really been into crocodilians, and I regularly search for gators and crocs.
i like to get commissions and occasionally a YCH if i like the pose but unless the character your getting the YCH for is overly complicated the price for a YCH should be at least i 3rd of what an artist asks for a regular commission not full price, especially if they are a artist that deem them self way above the cut and charge or auction a YCH for over $700 a pop or if they are a artist that take a regular commission and then do YCH/wing-its for 6+ months straight with out touching the commission ignoring someone who paid for a more pricey image
i like to get commissions and occasionally a YCH if i like the pose but unless the character your ge
I guess YCH is a shortcut. I can't blame people trying to make some money, but for me, the hardest part of a commission (and one of the reasons I rarely do them) is getting the pose and situation the client wants to see drawn. When I draw a commission for someone, I get stressed out over not being good enough to make the customer's character justice. I can't stop thinking I didn't interpret the request right and the commissioner will be disappointed.
YCH art skips that part. The artist already decides the pose, the situation, and even the kink he wants to draw, and then all he needs to do is insert the customer's character in there. It also shortens the communication needed between client and artist.
I'm also annoyed by constant, repetitive journals advertising a raffle or a YCH, sometimes containing a daily countdown to a date. I understand artists need to make a living, but my advice is not to go over the top with the announcements.
I guess YCH is a shortcut. I can't blame people trying to make some money, but for me, the hardest p
I find it depressing how the FA admins will ban your account in a heartbeat for posting boobs too small, but will happily allow you to have 8 different accounts and post multiple YCH reminders every day on each one. Yes, I reported someone for abusing duplicate accounts, which is clearly against the site rules, and it took a whole month for an admin just to reply to my trouble ticket. They don't seem to care about the spam over there.
Probably also explains why they have eight ads per page view even if you pay for a subscription. It's so sad how lazy and greedy everyone has gotten, and they don't care that this kind of stuff is killing the scene. I miss when the fandom was actually fun.
Classic tragedy of the commons. I find it depressing how the FA admins will ban your account in a h
I admit i dont remember a time where bases weren't mostly just traced stuff at least back in the DeviantArt days. Though i think even if there were more original bases for stuff like you mentioned, it wouldn't be as popular because there is a huge stigma around tracing stuff, which is warranted when there's so tracers monetizing their stuff, hell, i've seen people sell bases (Not YCH, just paying for the right to draw over a base). The times where we were mostly just kids and adult hobbyist fucking around and having fun are gone, with the increasing need of monetizing our hobbies, and social media companies turning us into content brained folks that have to go viral and make money all the time, there's just been a huge shift in how we approach hobbies, in and out of the furry fandom.
Every once in a while on twitter i do see people put up these kind of collabs you're talking about, though not as much with a base, but just a empty canvas for an artist to draw over the picture, i've seen in the form of a character putting their dick on a glory hole, and other people drawing the other side of the glory hole, or just a open camp with their OC in it, and other people add their own, and it just becomes a huge collab between people, those are fun! Though i think a lot of people have a lot of anxiety to start this kind of stuff, worrying others will see it as some sort of clout chasing thing, some times warranted because there has been a huge increase in petty people out there, hell, i'm one with that kind of anxiety on how people perceive me, and i am jealous of people who aren't afraid of going all out with it lol
For YCH themselves, i used to not mind them, there were a lot more YCH's that were orgies and each person buys a spot, i used to enjoy putting my characters in these orgies when it was possible, like some kind of 'blind date' situation, nowadays though it looks like some content mill, just very generic art styles and multiple basic pinups, and i dont know what's the fun in that
I admit i dont remember a time where bases weren't mostly just traced stuff at least back in the Dev
Yeah, I'm really sick of this nonsense that people can make money from social media, YouTube, Patreon, and so on. It's not sustainable. Sooner or later people will need to understand that monetizing hobbies doesn't work. The gig economy is a lie, and everyone needs to get a "real" job.
For example, if someone becomes a true commercial artist, it's expected that they will sell the copyright to their work, and the buyer will be able to use that work to make more money, such as in an advertisement or a book cover or something. Then the art has real value. People pay for value, and you'll be able to fetch $500-$1000 for that kind of stuff.
If an artist only draws furry smut, then it is nothing more than a temporary ego boost that won't be used for anything, and buyers don't pay much for that. Nobody can make a living selling art for $15 a pop, and people just won't pay $500 for non-commercial art. Hobbies are what you do after you come home from work. 8)
Yeah, I'm really sick of this nonsense that people can make money from social media, YouTube, Patreo
In all honesty, i dont even wanna knock down on folks who do commissions and Patreon for a living, because some times having a 'real job', creative or not, just doesn't cut it either lol Jobs always cutting on staff for more profit, living becoming increasingly more expensive, not to mention it gets much different when including other countries, and dont even get me started in how every creative industry out there is constantly fucking up their workers.
And I also dont blame much when artists increase their value, either because they see their skill improving, or just trying to avoid people who abuse of low prices
I will stay a hater of lazy YCH's and Adopts with very little outliers, and other forms of really fucked up monetization, like, your perception of reality really changes when you realize twitter checkmarks can get you paid to tweet, and making rage baiting posts and using AI to automate the process is a viable strategy
In all honesty, i dont even wanna knock down on folks who do commissions and Patreon for a living, b
Artists can increase their prices, but that doesn't mean they increase their value. That style of running a business is called, "The Banker's Solution", and life doesn't really work that way. It doesn't matter how much you think you deserve. If customers are only willing to pay $15 a pop, that's what the market can sustain and that's all you get.
I don't knock people for their lifestyle choices, but they do need to be reminded that some lifestyle choices are not economically viable, let alone socially constructive. It's nice if you can be a freelancer and make it work, but not if that means spamming a web site with 100 "reminders" every day and being a jerk to the community as a whole. There simply isn't enough room in the market for a thousand artists constantly nagging me to support them on Partron and throwing cheap, lazy YCH drawings in my face all day.
So, yeah, some people really need to be told to STFU and get a real job, and I don't care if they get offended by it. 8)
Artists can increase their prices, but that doesn't mean they increase their value. That style of r
I don't blame them. It because the money and cost has occupy their time. I guess they rather do a ych spam than waiting for a miracle happens. They rather do that than taking a calculus, organic chemistry or stem major class for a improvement. They just want instant profit without a patience. I guess it better to silent drop them and focus in goals to be after for.
I don't blame them. It because the money and cost has occupy their time. I guess they rather do a yc
