Is drawing fanart the only way to become a popular artist?

[jarklor7]

Hi, so I am on tapas, instagram, and youtube and I want to be known for my art one day. I don't need to be uber famous or anything, but I want to have at least something. I was thinking about starting a cute yaoi series with short stories. However, I worry a lot though. Here's the thing. I HAAAAAATE HATE HATE drawing fanart. I would much rather make my own characters rather than be confined to a specific universe. However, I am not saying that people who make fanart don't deserve credit, and I do like looking at it. It gives me anxiety though when it comes to making it. Does not drawing fanart on instagram and other social media put me at a significant disadvantage? Or as long as I have good enough art, oc's, and story it will be enough?

Thank you.

[frixelkind]

Yes and no. If you do want to strictly draw your own stuff it'll definitely get less attention, especially if you happen to have inconsistent posting (Like me XD). A lot of talented artists tend to get overlooked just because of timing, algorithms or because it's difficulty to draw in new audiences into something they're unfamiliar with. It's really hard to get noticed unless you have some sort of prior following or incentive for them to follow you (I.e. fanart) ...hard...but not impossible. So long as you maintain a good consistent upload schedule you'll always have at least some people coming to see what you're working on. Luckily, romance stories tend to pretty popular on this website so I think as long as you stick to it and remain consistent you'll be able to find an audience on here. As for your other accounts, it's a similar strategy, have consistent uploads, being active in the community, tag your stuff, you'll get somewhere so long as you keep at it!

Good luck!

[Rhonder]

Fan art's definitely not strictly necessary, and in fact not always guaranteed to draw a lot of attention anyways (my instagram's about a year old now, for example, and when I was starting out I was like "ah I should draw some fan art to attract more followers! So I drew some of popular series, like My Hero Academia and Splatoon. They didn't get any more attention than my regular stuff xD)

That said! It certainly doesn't hurt, and definitely has the potential to get more eyes on your stuff for all the reason @frixelkind mentioned (people being more comfortable with stuff they're familiar with & etc.)

But like yeah, if you don't have fun drawing it, I probably wouldn't force yourself to. Make the content you like to make, tag it well, and do a little networking, and you can build an audience with your own content~

[Pandastrophic]

If it's Instagram then fanart isn't the trendy thing to draw though, on IG what's currently popular is joining events like Inktober, Draw this in your style, etc and doing referenced studies of pretty girls (the photo vs reference thing), some people do become popular by drawing fanart but I don't think it's the prevalent thing on IG. If you want to be popular on IG then you just have to pay attention to what the current trend is, you might find a trend that you're actually interested in, draw stuffs that's trendy while also drawing your personal art and oc's.

The problem with IG is that the algorithm is hard to predict and you actually never know which drawing will end up becoming popular but what you can do is try to use tags better, the reason I say join events is because people look through current event tags, if a popular artist does a Draw this in your style event people will check the art on the tag and join and you have to try to get your art in front of people, that doesn't necessarily mean drawing fanart especially on IG.

[unknown_user]

Well, first of all - of course, drawing fanart in not the only way. I don't know even why you have thought so. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Second: reaching something will definitely be easier, if you'll determine what exactly this "something" should be.

I don't need to be uber famous or anything, but I want to have at least something.

Do you want to gain certain amount of subs - either here and there or just in particular resource? Or it should be some amount of likes? Do you want to receive fanart and comments? Attention of what auditory is the most important for you, i.e. for whom are you doing your art (besides yourself)?

Not that I'm popular artist L(° O °L). To be honest, my advices are based mostly on my experience in other life domains. I've just used to ask myself clarifying questions about my goals at different fields, and have noticed that it helps. Thats why I suggest the same to you.

[gh0stcr33p]

I'm not sure, but all I can say is that it would be better for you to do what you're passionate about and not gain a large following rather than doing what's popular just to gain one while doing something that's not in your interest. it'll come over time, even if it's a long time

[Klaustasya]

I'm currently running an instagram tips heading for beginner artists on instagram, because i've followed some online course and many artists talking about this thing on their youtube videos.
To answer your question: instagram popularity is not always based on following trends and drawing fanarts.
Example, i'm a fan of the Miraculous Ladybug cartoon and sometimes i like doing fanarts of it, but i don't ger many attention, why?
Because you have to post fanarts consistently, and to br honest i only post once a week on instagram and i'm not super obsessed about the series.
So i noticed that only people who ALWAYS draw fanarts get noticed. If you don't want to draw them because you're not attached to any fandom or simply because you prefer drawing your own Oc's, there's no point in making them.
Of course if you draw them because you like the series it's perfectly okay! But drawing fanarts to get popular won't make you go much far if you're not really into it and therefore always makes drawing about that. That's because being consistent in instagram is everything if you wanna get noticed.

About trends like drawing challanges, in my opinion if you don't already have a solid fanbase it can be fun to draw but again it won't get you to become popular and this is because many people do it.
Personally i just do what i like and try to specific hashtags and also being active on the plarform without being spammy but genuine towards the art community. It's a good thing.

So to sum it up: i hear many people saying that drawing fanart is the magical key to get noticed but it's much more complicated than that.
Surely trying to get noticed by just drawing your own stuff, unless your material is very interesting or have something unique can be quite hard, but through patience and constant activity you will reach a certain number too one day!

If you care about growing a positive and active fanbase, spend some time, even just hour a day on your social and be active: like what you see what catch your interest, write quality comments to your favorite artists in a genuine way and post often

And more importantly: improve your art! Study and pratice!

[joannekwan]

Not necessarily, BUT you have a higher chance of getting popular if your art is a nice brand of easily digestible/generic whimsy that can appeal to a wide audience. Like I think people enjoy soft girls in interesting environments or pastel colors, as found in Heikala and Loish's art.

But you do you! If you sell out too much you might find yourself unhappy.

[Azifri]

So, lately I've been more active on Instagram, and I've noticed that time of posting is a main determinant when it comes to number of likes. Anything I post between 10 and 12 ECT seems to get more views. I only post personal creations and a few collaborations, so fan art effect is out. That being said, this doesn't equal to comments, which is what I appreciate the most. Comments come 90% of the time from people I interact regularly.

[ble]

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

[droidmonkey1]

Fan art is a gateway. it's a way to get afoot hold. if you'll do 80% your art and 20% fanart it could a nice balance. you could also from the 20% if 10% you'll do your spin on a character it also could work.

[droidmonkey1]

It's not only time it's also the right hashtags.

[MK_Wizard]

Not exactly. Drawing fanart every now and then helps because it shows you are willing to give love as well as receive it, but people do give original work a chance. You just need to be patient with it.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

No. But it'll help you achieve that in years vs. decades. =)
However, the kind of popularity you end up with may not satisfy you, even then.

This is coming from someone who's gained a lot of popularity within the last year by simply joining a certain fandom that didn't have a lot of dedicated/creative artists, despite its size. In general, I get a lot more attention, sure. But when I do things that are my own 100% original work, that attention doesn't really bleed over, which can get frustrating, to say the least. =/

I do enjoy doing fan art, but in a way I see it as advertising: hopefully, if I can draw enough of a crowd from the fan art, a few of them might stick around for my passion projects.

[Kelheor]

Well, you can become famous more quickly by drawing fanart, but that's not the only way. Of course it is easier to find you when you pour the familiar and popular hashtags.
But you can do it without fanart, especially if you want to draw yaoi and romance, come on, there are loooots of people who love yaoi more than anything!
Just draw and develop your art style. The problem with fanart is that if you're not really into it, people will know. And when you stop drawing it, they will go away. So just keep doing your thing!

[Eveeka]

No. The fact that drawing fanarts helps in this but it isn't the only way.
I've seen on such sites as deviantart artists who became popular thanks to being themselves, thanks to drawing their characters and ideas, for example Zeurel, Unknown-person, Unknown-spy, Viviziepop and many others. And such people are my inspiration.

[ben]

I’ve never drawn fanart and I have a lot of followers.

I think a huge problem people who mostly do fanart have is that they have a lot of trouble converting their followers to their own original works and it makes it really hard for them to monetize their own stuff. Which seems like a bad move to me in the long run. But since I’ve never done that stuff I can’t actually really attest to that.

But I can attest to fanart definitely not being the only way.

[Carossmo]

As someone whose fanart has actually made it far... like this one:

I definitely would say fanart isn't the only way. Despite many people are into your fanart, once you start putting out your original characters in the mix, well, the fanart still gets more attention.

Though that depends XD Others become popular because of their original characters ^^

People have said it already here, but just continue to keep drawing~ there you'll see who the real fans are too

As an extra I'd like to mention, one of my fav deviantArt artist is Elixirmy

[GesuGesu]

No, just have good art.

[Ceru]

The short answer, no, you do not need to draw fanart to be popular. I'm not sure if you're aware of them but please look at Yuumei, QinnyArt, RossDraws, Laovaan, and/or Loish.

Yuumei, Qinny, and Loish strictly do original art (I mean, I've never seen fanart from them. They may have done fanart in the past but probably not in the last ten years). I know that Ross and Laovaan have done at least once recently.

Again, the point is, no, you don't have to but keep in mind, these artists have good foundations in their art skills. Yuumei and Qinny's (recently, though I don't think that is what she would normally do given a choice) art tend to be very emotionally charged, too.

No one is going to deny fanart can help get you started but in my experience, it doesn't seem to keep a good loyal fanbase so my advice is to keep doing what you love, never stop improving, and hopefully, maybe one day you'll have something you're happy with.