HOLY MOTHER OF WTF Sakimi Chan's Patreon is at $23K

[8289542f]

It's always nice to see someone making a lot of money from sitting on their behind. Screw the relatively-low-paying jobs that benefit society, this is what we should all be aspiring to.

[minzinger]

Screw the relatively-low-paying jobs that benefit society

LOL... this is really funny.

[AlkseeyaKC]

One thing is people may refuse to pay that week so she might not be making ALL of that every two weeks. but still That is like a dream to me! XD
Its amazing.

Though I'm sad their art keeps getting more and more sexual. = . =;

[gateofselidor]

Wow, that's really amazing! She's doing very well for herself, and her work is lovely.

Given the amount of fanart she seems to make, I'm actually surprised she hasn't gotten into any legal trouble yet. A popular artist in Dragon Age fandom did a pin-up calendar featuring the male characters of the franchise a couple of years ago. She did a preorder on a crowdfunding site and raised something like $10k, and got into trouble with EA for it.

[scythe]

Yes, this is extraordinary and amazing for the artist, but I too wonder about legalities.

[Kura]

Yeah, her art getting more sexual was a big turn off for me too to be honest and made me lose a lot of interest in her work (not completely lose interest, just more of a 'oh, another piece from her... ok.' thing instead of a 'oh! Another piece from her!!!), but meh, it's working for her so who am I to complain.

Also that is a little too excessive for an artist to be making that much money of properties she doesn't own, not that I don't think she doesn't deserve to be paid for her work, cause fanart or not it's still WORK. Just disappointing reminder that fanart is most artist's bread a butter.

I would also not be surprised if this triggers certain corporations to start getting way more strict and annoying about fanart though.

[SpavVy]

Her art is nice but I'm rather shocked that she hasn't got into legal trouble with this, copyright is a thing you really don't want to mess with...I earn nothing from my fan art and I prefer to keep it that way.

[Raven_C]

I was going to say the same thing. Making that much money from fanart for some reason doesn't sit well with me.

[eethy]

Given the amount of fanart she seems to make, I'm actually surprised she hasn't gotten into any legal trouble yet.

I'm rather shocked that she hasn't got into legal trouble with this

It's fine legally if you make an agreement with the company. Sakimi Chan is almost certainly paying for licenses. I doubt she's going to get in any trouble.

Megan Lara has stated outright that all her I.P. stuff is licensed.

And you can publish certain kinds of fan art without trouble, even with no license. Josh Wattles, a lawyer at dA, gave a presentation at Comic-Con 2012 about it. It's pretty interesting.

[Spinester]

That's just insane. Her art is great for sure but a half million a year for fan art? WTF indeed. She does do a lot of tutorials and process stuff, which is really cool.

[UzukiCheverie]

Yeah, I often check back with Sakimi-Chan just to see where she's at. I'm actually relieved to hear I'm not the only one who's noticed this xD

Concerning the legal issues, she's technically not making money from her fan art - she's making money from donations -because- of her fan art. Making money off it would be the only legal issue I'd see, but she's not. She's making money by donation and therefore she isn't offering a service using other people's/companies' copyright, and anything she does offer in return is not fan art related (ex. livestreams to watch her draw, drawing tutorials, etc. not necessarily related to the fan art itself). I'm pretty sure that's the only loophole that's keeping her out of court lol Besides, she's worked for game companies before (I'm pretty sure she worked for Bioware?) so I'm certain she wouldn't have started a Patreon for her fan art without having something like that up her sleeve, with past experiences in copyright art in the first place.

I mean, look at it this way - she's drawn so many Disney characters, if she was violating any law (which I've discussed already) Disney would have seized all of her assets immediately (especially knowing how aggressive that company can be and how many lives they've destroyed already).

[kitsuneonwheelz]

I'm sad how badly she treated some old fans after getting popular...

[UzukiCheverie]

Oh? Could you elaborate? I'm actually interested in hearing about this (and wouldn't be surprised, honestly. Stuff like that happening is the big reason why I'm not a fan of most "internet trending" artists these days, y'know the ones I'm talking about).

[kitsuneonwheelz]

When I joined DA, she was one of he first I followed randomly. When she got popular , she lost interest in non PAYING fans and treated many like nothing. That's why I went from loving to hating.

[SpavVy]

Popularity tends to do that to people unfortunately, when I see snobby artists or artists that don't treat their fans right it just makes me mad because without their fans and supporters it only hurts them in the end.

[kitsuneonwheelz]

I'm not trying to bash her, just her approach. I'm happy she's successful,

[zelkats]

Wow, that's pretty amazing! She's super talented, indeed XD

I used to follow her Facebook page until... She drew her usual sexy gender bent version of Aladdin's genie (whose features looked pretty similar to her other drawn chicks) in memory of Robin Williams. That just sent me the wrong message ^^;;

[UzukiCheverie]

When I joined DA, she was one of he first I followed randomly. When she got popular , she lost interest in non PAYING fans and treated many like nothing. That's why I went from loving to hating.

Popularity tends to do that to people unfortunately, when I see snobby artists or artists that don't treat their fans right it just makes me mad because without their fans and supporters it only hurts them in the end.

Yeah, I've noticed that on Patreon and DA how it's sorta like "PAY OR GET NOTHING".

Not to bash the artist of course because yeah, she's great at what she does. But tbh, these are a lot of the main reasons why higher up artists end up becoming jokes to me. They start placing themselves too high, and next thing you know you aren't a reader/follower anymore - just another number or dollar thrown into the pot. I get that it can be harder to keep in touch with so many followers when you get bigger as a creator, especially because as you progress, you often get much busier. But that's not an excuse to completely ignore the people that helped get you there in the first place IMO but that's just me.

She's still a great artist, but that's all I like about her and people like her - the stuff she creates. As a person, I don't know her personally enough to hold any value in knowing her, so unfortunately to me, she's just another one of the many artists who have forgotten their roots and have decided that people are numbers and paychecks. I would support her to see more great art, but not because I like her necessarily, and that stands for quite a few trending artists I've seen throughout the years. Thing is, often times they're only as memorable as they make themselves out to be - if Sakimi Chan disappeared off the planet, only a few people would actually notice in the long run, and others would just notice that their PayPal/credit card has stopped being charged.

man this pretty much just turned into a "let's bash sakimi chan" thread oops lol

[AnnaLandin]

Oh man. That's astounding! D: From my own vantage-point of a measly (but seriously and deeply appreciated!) $50 a month on Patreon, that looks mind-boggling! Well done her!

As some people have said, it's a bit of a legal grey zone doing fanart for money, but if she's got licenses for it, I suppose it's alright. Her stuff is not personally my taste (I don't like that kind of photo-realism - I find more abstracted/cartoony styles more appealing) but I'm glad to see someone making it big like that!

@UzukiCheverie Here's the thing, though. While it might seem a bit silly to say that of someone making half a million a year off her art - she, and people like her (those who are "internet famous", or whatever) have bills to pay. Would you criticise a plumber for treating his customers as sources of income? Or someone delivering pizzas? Yes, being nice to people on the internet is a big part of her business, but it's not strange that she would have more interest in her paying fans than in her non-paying ones - the paying fans are the ones putting food on her table and a roof over her head.

As long as she's not actively trash-talking her non-paying fans, I don't really think we have any room to criticise her. Like you said, she's bound to have thousands of fans, and there's just no earthly way to keep in touch with them all - so it's only natural she prioitises the ones who are paying her bills.

All this frantic activity on social media makes us feel - wrongly - that we have some sort of proprietary right to be personally acquainted with everyone, even super-busy famous people, and that just isn't true. You only have a right to know the things about Sakimi-chan that Sakimi-chan chooses to share with you. And if she's holding some things back, then she's got all the right in the world to do so. "Ignoring" non-paying fans is not necessarily a reflection on her having "forgotten her roots" - it's probably just her being extremely busy and not having the time.

[Kura]

The semi-realistic style, especially in concerns to fan art, is actually somewhat common in Canada I've noticed. So even though her art is great (and a higher degree of semi-realistic), is nothing that I haven't seen before in mass at conventions around here. Again I don't think she shouldn't make money off of her work because it's still work (and honestly I'm happy to see artists pulling in money for their products) it's just somewhat disappointing in general (not with her) that fanart is the selling point (though if you check out her patreon she IS doing a heck of a lot for some of those that pledge to her)

On a side note I too am also more of a fan of cartoonish styles than semi or hyper realistic ones, cartoons and comics are always gonna be my weakness when it comes to being envious or a huge fan of art.

As for how she acts online, she's not really obligated to baby everyone that tries follows her art. Using myself as experience, even though I'm not a huge artist like her and many others I still have a significant sized enough fan base that even though I love to death and appreciate, will often tire or stress me out. As much as I would like to interact with everyone I can't, especially when I get weird requests or comments I don't know how to respond to (example: today someone told me to tell their boyfriend that his art sucked, because when she told him he wouldn't listen, but she thought he would listen if an artist he liked told him.) I can't pay attention to all of them, and unfortunately in my case the ones that pay DO get priority, and not because I feel they are more important, but because often (but not all the time) the people paying me feel they are more important than those that don't pay me, and get very antsy and even harass the me if they feel that their money is not going to good use. And because money is involved yes, it's important that I do what I can to make paying customers happy, cause at that point a negative review from a paying customer is severely going to hurt my business, sometimes they take so much time to deal with that there is no time left do deal with the rest of the fans AND do everything necessary to make and promote my work. I can't even imagine the amount of fans both paying and not that she has to deal with everyday.

The Robin Williams sexy gender bent genie thing that was mentioned somewhere in this thread though... I actually missed that one and have not seen it, and I'm actually kind of glad that I did miss that one because even just hearing about it I would have to agree that yeah, that was in very bad taste.