Lloxie

Lloxie

@Lloxie

That weird phasefoxie thing

Hello everyone! I'm Lloxie. I'm a furry writer, and I draw occasionally as well. And I dabble in coding now and then. Just a heads up, this IS technically an 18+ blog, even though I also have an AD profile where I post/share most of that kind of stuff. But do expect nsfw material to occasionally show up here as well. You can find links to my profiles elsewhere at the carrd link above, including my personal website if you want to know more about me. Or just feel free to ask me stuff!

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Lloxie
@Lloxie

Hey furry artists! Indulge my curiosity, will ya?

I had a random idea I wanted to throw out there as a thought experiment. It's based on a sort of pipe dream/fantasy I had.

If someone were to suddenly land in a fuckton of money (like say winning a huge lottery jackpot) and offer to basically hire you/commission you to turn a story of theirs into a comic, would you do it? Even if it was a ridiculously long story that might well end up requiring you to be at it for months or even a year or two before it's finished?

Don't get excited, I haven't won the lottery or anything. This is purely hypothetical, for fun. But I've often fantasized about doing exactly that. Ever since I started writing MHO, I've mused over the idea of reaching out to various particularly talented and industrious artists whose style I think would fit, and basically offering to hire them to turn it into a comic series. But of course that's obviously a big commitment and burnout is obviously a thing, even when people are focused on their own ideas, let alone commission work. I figured, even if it's not likely to happen, it might make for an interesting conversation topic.

So would you do it? What would be the caveats? How much money would it take to make you consider it? Share your thoughts!

And for fun, here's an actual poll, too.

Assuming it's a lengthy project based on a written work equivalent to a couple of full-length fantasy novels, would you take on the job, or no?:

Yes, if they hired me on like a regular illustrator job.
Yes, but I'd insist on treating it as a long series of separate commissions.
No, I don't want to be tied down to one project for so long.
No, if I commit to something that big, it should be my own story.
Other (please do tell!)
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in reply to @Lloxie's post:

EarthShaker
@EarthShaker

Would have to negotiate a fair wage for it but I mean, if they're set on me and have money to burn, that shouldn't be an issue. Would need an ironclad contract though, and payout if they back out before it's done so I can land on my feet after leaving my day job for this lmao.

My main concerns would be like realistic deadline expectations and changes in vision. One because comic illustration moves slow when you're a one person operation and people might have unreasonable ideas of how long it 'should' take, and two because I wouldn't want to work for six months only for the client to say "wait you know what would be great? This whole different thing" and pull the rug out from under me.

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Lloxie
@Lloxie

Oh yeah, you'd definitely want to flesh things out thoroughly at the start, and never go into something like that without a very solid contract. I imagine it'd be a learning experience for the commissioner/hiring individual as well, heh. Or at least it certainly would be for me, if I were in that position.

Of course, all artists are different, too. Some can crank out comics faster than others- for example if they're already used to doing bigger comic projects on their own. Also depends on their style, I suppose.

Thanks for the thoughtful response! ^^

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deimosphoibus
@deimosphoibus

I think that for me, it would have to work like a regular job with determined hours and stuff. Because bigger commissions tend to cause burnout for me specifically because I feel the need to finish it before working on any personal projects.

So if it were a thing where I can clock out for the day, (and maybe even get weekend breaks) I think I'd be able to do it. I know that there's commissioners out there who don't care about deadlines, but even in that situation I still feel the pressure of having to focus on the commission above all else...

It would also help if it was a multiple person project, like some comics will have one person doing the first pass of the drawings, another doing the inks and another for the colors (and sometimes even more people for things like layouts and lettering.)

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Lloxie
@Lloxie

Yeah, that'd definitely make sense to me, heh. Burnout's definitely not something to take lightly. If it were me, I'd definitely make it a regular job type set-up. I didn't even think about the multi-person angle though. Mostly because I worry that'd potentially lead to clashing styles, you know? But I suppose having it broken down by phase like that would work.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply! ^^

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JavaDragon
@JavaDragon

I've started a ton of overly ambitious game projects (for fun, not intending to devote my life to them) with a ton of people that were just along for the ride, and from what I've seen 'for the ride' can be quite wholesome.
Things tend to usually fall apart when we realize we have responsibilities outside or inside the project, but those first few weeks of it consuming every bit of our free time are bliss.

I think for larger stuff like this, there's 2 main ways to handle group projects without it being scummy:

  1. go all professional like you describe and people talk about in the other comments
  2. shared passion project where you combine your creative vision

I've had 2 fall apart when we mix up our domains, and also you never know where even your own life might lead, so it's going to end just as soon as it gets good, but it's always been a fun journey that people seem to recall fondly years later.

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Lloxie
@Lloxie

Oh I can definitely imagine big collab projects with friends like that being both awesome and fun, but can also easily fall apart at some point. Kind of like some TTRPG campaigns I've been in, heh. But hey, at least it's fun in the meantime. ^^

But yeah for a project like this, I'd pretty much have to either do it all myself or go the professional hiring route, which of course is a pipe dream unless I fall into money somewhere, heh. xD

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JavaDragon
@JavaDragon

I think the biggest barrier to just doing it with friends would be artstyle and onboarding- I have a few projects where people play and then throw in some cool art about it- and some of it meshes and I can add, others just don't work.

I unfortunately also have highly technical specification to get palette swapping and paper dolling working- and also it was tough finding people to comm for the artstyle after the person I was commissioning started taking 1 year per sprite. The backgrounds were being done by someone else, so that proceeded, but eventually I just fell out of the project and gave up trying to get art from the person I was paying.

Someone recently has offered to do a lot as a passion thing, but now I'm inbetween engines (not using unity thankfully but trying to switch to libgdx anyway).

Comics are probably a different thing entirely because the art is so central to the storytelling and thus you need to be on the exact same page. My game was designed to be playable without visuals, so it didn't matter as much, as long as they went together.

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