How to stand out when you don’t make what’s “popular”

I feel the same. Much of the fanart I make is for older or long running properties. Every time I see genshin impact fanart or demon slayer fanart, I just feel super out of the loop.

Though what I've noticed is that fan comics are super popular in the instagram art space. Take a property, make an AU comic, and you're practically golden. The downside is that you can easily get burnt out working on a property that isn't yours and comics are hard enough. And who knows how much of that audience is going to stick around for your original stuff.

I don't like most of the currently popular stuff either. Those things which I do like are either quite old, or if new are only mildly popular, rather than wildly so.

If you want to make stuff which stands out without leaning into what's popular, you need to make it really well, with an appealing and easily recognisable style. Polish those art skills as far as you can push them, and then post consistently within your niche.

One of my favourite artists is a digital landscape painter. He's done very well. (AngryMikko.) Another paints vibrant landscapes featuring women of colour, and she's even more well known. (GDBeeArt.) Neither of them rely on fanart, but they have appealing styles and top-tier art skills.

Personally, I've found starting my comic to be a way better audience-building medium than social media. Most people won't care about someones random OC's, well-drawn or not. But they're far more likely to start caring if they're following those OC's through a story. I've gained more social media followers through my comic than I have comic readers through my social media!

Is beefy guys and busty ladies what's in right now?

So, as someone who makes some pretty niche stuff, the best thing that's worked for me is patience and experimentation on where I post and when/what tags I use. I do make money off my art full time so I'm not trying to blow smoke here, I promise.

Not every platform is your platform. Every platform has different things it's into, and every platform has an advantage or disadvantage.

For example: my stuff does well on sites like Tapas, Itchio, Steam and Google Play. This is because I'm good at finishing smaller stories, and these sites are where folks go for smaller stories. BUT, my stuff does poorly on Webtoons (I use printed page format) Twitter and Instagram, because it's just not suited or formatted for those sites, and that's fine.

From what I can tell, it looks like your biggest issue is that uh, I don't think you're actually updating a comic? That's def an issue for Tapas. I looked around your profile and there's a lot of "Coming soon" and updates about things to come, but I'm having a hard time actually finding those things. I think that might actually be your issue here!

Also, you draw a lot of furry art (hell yeah) but I don't see you using places like Furaffinity or Deviantart, which both still have a strong furry and commission community. You may also want to try art or furry Discords if you're not already.

And, hot tip about Twitter, putting hashtags on your posts can actually suppress them in the algorithm. Try putting keywords in your description instead.
Example: "I like this drawing" #sonicfanart try "Here's my sonic fanart!" (This also makes the post more appealing for folks to Retweet, since people are picky about how the tweet looks)

My advice, and I give this advice to a lot of folks, is if you like comics and wanna see yours flourish, try to finish a comic and then release it. Doesn't need to be long, doesn't need to be perfect, just needs to be finished and released. You can release a finished comic on Tapas, Webtoons, Comicfury, Itchio, Gumroad, Google Play Books all for free and get some eyes on your work there and potentially make some money.
EDIT: After looking through some of your comics here on Tapas, a lot of them just seem to be a collection of illustrations and the usual comic format? That could also be why you're having trouble here. Might be time to revise a bit there!

The best way to get people into niche stuff is to simply make a world for them to fall into. Without a comic, without a hook or entry point, it's very difficult to get folks to stay. I'm speaking from experience. And again, this stuff is just gonna take time. I've been posting my comics since 2008, and it's taken me this long to be where I'm at-- it happens. Just try to enjoy it on the way, it'll make things a lot easier, again, I'm speaking from experience. Things improved a lot for me when I let go a little and just had fun with my work, people can feel that, and they will respond.

And, as a last thing, if you don't like my advice and think it stinks, you can instead try this very helpful Google Doc about social media posting9. Good luck!

I sometimes wish some popular, brutally honest no-bullshit foul-mouthed reviewer somehow write an absolutely scatching review of my series so it would get into "My Immortal" or "Twilight" infamy of bad and people are rushing to check it out just to see how bad it is (or anyone if you are interested).

I don't know, I feel really desperate and worthless that if I could be the best for being the worst. I will take it.

My novel is the worst supernatural-fantasy-mystery series on Tapas! Please check it out.

Just think of it as working your way up in a job...with no pay...sadly it takes some longer than others, unless you luck out or you have the money/following already. But I see it as more time to grow before getting a bunch of judging eyes on your work, if that ever happens...for now, less pressure lol.

Yeah, I understand those feels, especially when the most common answer to "what I'm doing isn't working" is to "work harder" when it's like...this is my limit, I am at my limit. The landscape of having to rely on followers and notes completely for work is just a nightmare. I personally don't use my social media accounts for commissions because...what's the point? I have better luck reaching out to clients and companies individually.

Like I got really frustrated several years back, and to vent, I started this blog on tumblr where all I do is rant about the old ass anime I watch, and it got more subs than my art twitter and I just felt...really betrayed. But it did teach something. My art twitter was all over the place. Like my work is kind of like that, I'm a chameleon illustrator, I have a lot of styles. This is good for work, but, for a new person they'd pop over there and be like "what's the story here? What is happening?" and probably walk right out. Especially for people that aren't artists, they'd be like "I don't understand these art memes, I don't understand the culture, I don't understand what these artists are complaining about even" and they'd be outie.

But, for my blog about one single thing, where every post is the same format, it was very easy for people to walk in and say "I know exactly what this is, it will always be the same, it's exactly my niche jam, howdy, how are you?" and while it's still small and niche, and will always be, I'm really glad that I have at least one single place on the internet where I have had a long term captivated audience. That's wild. And honestly, that's the only way I've found a niche to hang with.

I have a little bit of experience in this area. I started my writing career writing historical fiction, which isn't a very popular genre. I struggled a lot with finding an audience on the platform I was using at the time (Wattpad), and it was really disheartening. I started to wonder if I just wasn't good enough. It's easy to say to not care about popularity, but let's be honest: we all want people to see our work. The thing that helped me the most was reaching out to fellow writers who were writing what I was writing. Building those connections. Eventually, you find your niche, and you start seeing more views. By the time I was done on Wattpad, I wasn't a popular writer on the website at large, but I was up there for my niche: alternate history.

I won't lie: it's hard. But with a lot of work, you'll get there.

Unfortunately I don't think I can help much, admittedly I don't feel like my comic gets lost, it kinda stands out given my choice of medium and story... or the amount of CWs it has. Lol but there is a bit that I do, maybe you'll find it useful-ish?

So my comic is super niche, not a normal drama, not a thriller, not a horror, it's in a weird spot and advertising is kinda hard. Normally I just do the standard advertising on social media with related hashtags, but an extra thing I do hang out in the horror crowd and occasionally advertise with them. Even though it's not a horror story, it's still closer to horror/thriller, they're very open and accepting of varying works from my experience. I also openly promote it as a dark cathartic story, and there is a small group for that.

I don't know what type of story you have, but maybe figure out what genre it relates to most, and promote it to that crowd? You may also be able to use what makes your story different as an advertising point, there will always be someone looking for that specific thing, or want to get away from the usual types of stories. Hanging out in fiction and webcomic related servers also helps, there are a few out there that do 'Story of the Week' and stuff like that where you can apply to have people read and discuss your work, or you could submit your work to popular review sites, there are some that do it for free. Also there's Webcomic Chat on Twitter and Reddit, they hold a Q&A every Sunday so you can advertise.

Honestly there's no real surefire way to get eyes on your work, it's pretty much about luck. The best you can do is keep on keeping on.

I've been going through similar issues for years, especially since I don't even like drawing fanart very much. It's hard to say what the best course of action to take, because unfortunately a lot of success is derived from already having a following or pure luck. However, this is some of the stuff I've done that's helped me get a bit more focus on my art:

• Art shares, art shares, art shares! If you aren't already participating in some, they can be a great place to get your work out there, as other artists will be looking through the replies to art shares on Twitter. They can be tricky to find at first, but if you follow a few artists who participate in them regularly, you're bound to see a bunch you can add your art to. I recommend replying to art shares within the first day of them being up, especially within the first couple hours. That way, people will see your art as more come in to reply to the share.

• Reach out to a community. This one can be hard, coming from an introvert, but communities can really help you gain a footing in the art world. Sometimes I feel like I'm cheating by having people in my comic discord follow and read my comics, but it just means I've found people who also enjoy my work. Connecting with others also means you can benefit each other in terms of the algorithm by commenting and liking each other's work. It helps in encouragement and with getting your art out there.

• Cut off what's not working for you. I recently stopped posting my art on instagram due to barely getting any traction, and it saves me more time and the stress of algorithm flops. I recommend cutting out art, media, or any part of the art world that causes you more stress or a lack of enjoyment.

These are just the main pieces of advice I can give, as each has helped me feel better and raised my art following a bit. A lot of advice I've gotten on similar issues is to just draw what's popular or to keep doing the same thing, but that really doesn't help much. Hopefully some of my experience in trying to stand out helps a bit!