A gift to creators on Tapastic!

mellybanzai 2015-10-25 04:52:40 UTC #1

Okay, so, what's your absolute favourite comic?
now pause. A few names just popped into your head, maybe-

archie comicss

treehouse

gamercat

all yaoi/bl ever (hint hint: insomnia, wrong answer, crash 'n burn)

i'm hungry wonder whats for lunch and will brad ever ask me out omgg

-and probably a few of those comics you thought of are on Tapastic.
(you ARE on the Tapastic forum, after all.)

Have you ever considered/done/tried to make fanart for creators on Tapastic?
Say you went through with the idea, like I did. (I did a fancomic of Maripaz Villar's Miss Abbott and the Doctor. and ended up with 12 pages.) Mari then pushed me to make it into a little series of its own, which sparked another idea.

Tributary,

A series for fan-stuffs, not restricted to any specific comic.
What? Is this really neccessary?
Well, sometimes. Maybe you've posted it on the creator's wall, or sent it as a private message to them, but it would just get lost in all the other wallposts, and it'd be hard to scroll, scroll scrollscrollscroll downnnnnn just to find that one arts you made to copy the link for it or something. same goes for the creator.

It's also if you're a shy lil' sweetheart and would like to remain anonymous, but you'd like others to see the art you made.

Some creators already have galleries/features for their own fanarts...
ja, so post it there instead. no problem!
I'm just making it easier for creators who are too busy to update a fanart gallery/feature.

That's a stupid idea. You're stupid.
i'll come up with a comeback for that when i care lol

Is that it?
you can also find great comics through Tributary. cause you know, people don't make fan-creations of things that suck. you might just find you new favourite comic on this.

Yeah, but there's Tapastic Picks and Spotlight and the Trending, Popular, etc. to help find good comics.
True, I found a lot of great comics, but they change fairly often, and some really good stuff may have gotten left behind in all the filtering, yknow? comics that are underrated.

I've done a bit of "research" and I didn't see anybody else doing this, (please tell me if you know anyone who's already done this!) so I thought what the heck.

How it would work:

you make the art. be it theme music for a comic character, cosplay outfits, life-size sculptures of the characters in a comic, or something simpler, a fan-art, or a fan-comic.
send it to me via private message.
dun. fin. it'll be up & I'll send you the link to it. :^D

Fans will (unless they don't want to) be credited and proud creators can easily show off their fans' works with the link to the specific episode, ez pz!

What do you think? Would you submit your arts to this? Sounds lame? Sounds awesome?

Is this a terrible, diastrous, messy idea?
Maybe.

carloswebcomic 2015-10-25 09:27:02 UTC #2

I don't mean to be rude but I have no idea what you're going on about here. Sorry, perhaps it's my ADD, but your post is all over the place. Care to condense a little?

AngieVX 2015-10-25 09:47:34 UTC #3

So it's basically like a magazine? Where people could send you fanarts to other comic series on Tapastic? Then maybe you should position and spread it like a magazine, with covers for issues and all and update it monthly or twice a month. Add interviews with artists or fans, quizzes. I like your idea but it should attract readers because basically you're using other people's art to generate content, and people who send you content and authors should get some profit from taking part in your project. I really like your idea but it needs more work.

mellybanzai 2015-10-25 11:31:37 UTC #4

You're not being rude, I'm new to forums and I do tend to go all over the place, my ADD friends have pointed that out to me ; o ; thank you for the criticism- I'll definitely try to correct these problems.

What this post is about is basically a series on Tapastic called Tributary whose sole purpose is to, in a way, compile fan-art, fan-comics and those sorts of things, for fans to "glorify" their favourite creators and comics on tapastic.
It's not confined to any specific genre of comic, but it has to be a fan-work of a comic that is on Tapastic (i.e. no fan arts for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spider-Man etc., only fan arts for comics that are on Tapastic.) It still needs work, so criticism (constructive ones) are welcome.

mellybanzai 2015-10-25 11:47:21 UTC #5

Hmm, that's actually a really good idea, even though that wasn't really the original plan, since it was so informal, that would be a great way to layout the pages and such. though on that last part, I do agree that if I were to get authors to contribute, I would have to have them profit through this, but I don't have a credit card for that purpose.
For now it'll just be a medium for fans to post their art up on, so creators can find them easily. Until then I'll try to figure out more ways to improve it without having to be 18 and rich ahah. Maybe some lesser known authors will agree to do it for free and such?
I'm up for brainstorming some ideas for this.

AngieVX 2015-10-25 12:03:05 UTC #6

I don't mean money as profit, I mean potential readers and a lot of fun. But to provide this you should have a lot of readers and followers and also have a nice amount of followers on social media like FB, Twitter.

mellybanzai 2015-10-25 14:00:26 UTC #7

Ah, I misunderstood you.
I don't exactly have a huge following on this, since I'm really really new. You mean start a facebook page & twitter for it? I didn't think that far ahead, but I'll consider it, since there's no point in making it and letting it flop.

Do you have any other tips or stuff you could pass on to a nub like me? x)
(Like a lot of others here, I'm balancing school/internet life here so it does limit me sometimes..)

Jrej 2015-10-25 14:17:32 UTC #8

It's good idea. Hope you get enough contributions to keep the series going.
Fan art for under rates series really help spread the word.
It's vote of approval, a sign that the series is worth the extra mile.

mellybanzai 2015-10-25 14:33:47 UTC #9

I wasn't actually expecting that many contributions (it's not exactly overwhelming or anything) but so far I've got a lot of support and a lot of help, criticism and etc. from a lot of the creators who I've made fan arts of, which is extremely helpful, as I'm also "using" this series as a way to learn my way around the webcomics industry, so I don't jump blindly into making a too-ambitious series without prior ecperience/knowledge.

the response has been postive and the contributions are really coming regularly, and quite a few of them are from pretty underrated series.

So much so I'm rushing to get them out, so I update it once or twice a day! It's great. x)

AngieVX 2015-10-25 14:39:26 UTC #10

Yep! The more people you can reach with this project the more valuable it'll be. But I'm not really good at social networking or promoting myself XD Also you can search for other series and artists on other platforms and include fanarts from other platforms too.

mellybanzai 2015-10-25 14:54:57 UTC #11

Hmm, you really think big!
Well, I can totally understand you on that second part. I've had a few Facebook pages between I co-admined but they were only popular because it was a page about league of legends, and I wasn't that active, I dunno. Sometimes it's either you got it or you don't, haha.

Thought I could ask a friend of mine if he'd like to handle the page for me if I were to make one. He's also helping me work on an actual story series of our own! Thank you for the suggestion!

Also , I was thinking expanding it to include smackjeeves as well, but I don't know how that would work... Hmm.

AngieVX 2015-10-25 15:18:21 UTC #12

I don't know, I don't use FB for promotion... I'm still thinking if I should create a page for my project... I actually enjoy my privacy on FB and being connected with my actual friends. I'm afraid to get overwhelmed with messages on my main account and skip messages of my friends. I have no idea if I can create a page without showing me as a a page owner to everybody.

You just put a link in a description (on a page) to a comic series and to an artist's page. E.g.:
Art by ArtistName, Artist'sPage (if exists),
"StoryTitle" by AuthorName, StorySite (something like this).
Of course you can put all links in description too, but it's important to write all the credits on pages (because sometimes we don't read descriptions).

mellybanzai 2015-10-25 15:31:37 UTC #13

I thought the page manager thingy is pretty good. I don't know if they changed it or anything, but it's pretty easy to promote stuff on Facebook that are already famous. Unless you already have a pretty good fan following that will like your Facebook page, might not be the greatest idea, cause a ghost Facebook page is really embarrassing.

Though if you want to remain anonymous that is a bit of a pickle.. try googling to see if that's an option. If it were I'm sure someone would figure it out.

Also, I really ought to start doing that. Should I do it on the previous pages or like, start doing it henceforth? What do you think? Take into consideration my laziness as well ahaha xD well, I don't mind, but only if its really worth doing it...

AngieVX 2015-10-25 15:54:23 UTC #14

Yep, ghost pages are pretty embarrassing!

I think it's up to you to decide if you should continue the previous page or start a new one. I don't know who was the followers of your previous page and would they like to stay on the page with the new concept. But for new followers it doesn't make any difference. Especially if you're going to clean up the page and remove the content that has nothing to do with the new concept. It will only affect the existing followers.

I'm also pretty lazy XD but if you don't start you'll never know if it's worth doing it.

mellybanzai 2015-10-26 00:58:00 UTC #15

I'll probably do it, somedayy... for now, none of my existing followers seem to be confused or anything.

Oh, I was also wondering about Twitter and such- I found this forum post about how to use Twitter to build a fanbase there. and I thought maybe you'd like to take a gander at that bout of info.

Now I'm thinking about whether I should start up my Twitter instead... it seems like it could be much easier to handle.

Luie 2015-10-26 03:30:14 UTC #16

K so, some things.

1.) Is it possible for this to be used for promotion by the comic's creator.
2.) How many pieces of fanart are allowed per comic? (such as if it were extremely popular and you happened to get a ton of fanart of the course of time for the same comic)
3.) What if the creator doesn't want the fanart used as a promotional piece or wants it removed? (Nothing can stop fans from posting art, but some creators may not want certain fanart to be used as direct promotion for their comic, like a "romantic" drawing of two characters in a children's comic, or one where it depicts a character suggesting a different sexuality than what the creator intended, or just something that's unintentionally seen as disrespectful by the creator.)

mellybanzai 2015-10-26 04:16:11 UTC #17

Yes!
If they wish to do so.

In that case, I'd have to pick the cream of the crop, or if they're all too amazing, put the multitude of fanarts for that particular comic into one episode so it can be done with quickly., and skipped easily if needed.

If it really reaches the boiling point, I'll have to turn away fans from the said popular series, ask them to post it elsewhere, but I hope it won't reach that point.

For myself, I always make sure to ask for permission both to make the fanart, and then showing the respective creators the piece before posting if it's sensitive. They're usually happy to have it promoted.

If they don't want it promoted I'll just send my fanart to them as a private message.

When others submit their fanart to me, I make sure to ask the (submitter? submittee?) person who submitted it if he/she has permission to draw & post it from the respective creator. If not, I'll have to ask before posting it.

All the fan-art/fan-comics are automatically deemed non-canon unless permission from the original owner of the characters/comics is given explicitly.

I'll take your example of a romantic drawing of two characters being depicted incorrectly:
Say the respective owner of the character (the creator, not the fan) does not want that to be shown, I'll take down the offending art and speak to the creator and the fan about it, whether she/he wants it up but for it to be deemed NON-CANON, separate from the original work, or if he/she wants it not to be shown at all.

If somehow I miss something and an artwork that the respective creator that artwork was intended for doesn't want posted, I'll apologize and immediately take it down, though I'll try my best to make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen

thank you for the questions! this is definitely still a work in progress and your questions really help me develop it further! Do you have any further questions about it? Any concerns or problems you can see? I'm happy to learn and correct these mistakes.

Luie 2015-10-26 04:29:31 UTC #18

kewl
No, I can't really think of anything else. I can see potentially bigger problems if you end up generating a lot of fanart/readers but I'm sure that can be fixed. I think this is a good way to send some love to underrated comics and help fans connect with creators, so, good luck <3

mellybanzai 2015-10-26 04:40:52 UTC #19

To be honest I didn't really plan on having fans or anything of my own, it would just be kind of a platform for fanarts to be posted easily! <3

But there's a lot of ways it could continue to evolve, and I'm not sure where to go ahead from there but I'll definitely try my best and see how goes it in the future. I hope you'll support this idea! Maybe if you're an artist of some sort, you could submit something too! That would be fantastic. <3

Marvin 2015-10-26 09:18:00 UTC #20

I think the project is a good idea if it's well organized (clear title, description, links etc).

At first I thought it would bother me to get notifications for fanarts about comics I might not know but it's a great alternative way to discover comics (and get a bit of exposure, either by submitting a fan work or getting some fan work for your comic)

So yeah, I'm all for it and already participated ^^ (Melly even took the time to find a music to go with my fan comic !)

It could even lead to some collabs, contests or other fun stuffs like that, who knows ?