Question for Artists and maybe writers?

[Tanako]

Question, how many of these collaborations posts actually gets taken?. Example “looking for artist (unpaid), looking for writers (unpaid).
Most of the time. I’m getting a lot of self entitlement going on especially on the side of the writer. It’s almost as if they do not understand how much work goes into drawing in the first place.

I once came across a post that was made by a writer looking for an artist that read, “ I need the artist to know how to create a storyboard, then the panels”. And I'm over here thinking to myself, wow thats crazy. And this is because I know that for my own comic, I don't have the time to create a storyboard talk less of a script. I write out an idea, a quick short story then i draw which saves me lots of time because I completely skip storyboard. It’s way too much work as an artist to be doing all that and not getting a cent. That's why most of us cut some serious corners. At least I do.

Another post that shocked me was, the writer saying, “post your work so i know if you have the art style i’m looking for’, however this writer fails to provide proper script or a sample script to see if the artist is even interested. And then again, if it’s free, what does it really matter? Isn't this just for experience on both parties?

This self entitlement is what really disgusts me. There are countless of ways to ask for something politely and properly especially if you are asking for something to be done free. ( for both writers and artists)

I am not writing this to make any feel uncomfortable. I just would like individuals who are collaborating to be more considerate of the other person before making demanding posts and expecting not to be attacked or bashed. Not to say they deserve it but it’s understandable because its been a repetitive behavior. Despite all the good samples out there on how to properly ask for collaboration, individuals fail to read these rules.

I’m not going to focus on artist because I haven't seen much condescending post by them lately just mostly writers. But if you have, feel free to comment below and again, i just wanted to voice my thoughts.
Besides all these, the real question is, how many of these collaboration jobs get taken up by artists? or even writers?

[AceRagz]

This type of discussion usually winds up closed. It usually goes from peaceful to heated or heated right off the bat.

[Tanako]

i thought so and that's why i tried to keep it as friendly as possible. I just want an answer to the question really. that's all lol.

[SleepingPoppy]

Pretty sure the only collaborations I've seen actually go forward were between members of the community. IE Writers/Artists who are not just on the forum, but have existing projects.

I don't think anything else has panned out, or if it has it's super rare.

We do discuss this problem a lot on the forums, though. Have you seen Jenny-Toons thread on Visionary Thinkers?

Hi everyone – most of you have seen me around the forums. Now, the topic of collaborations has come up again (when have they never not), and I’m mostly in reference to these particular threads: I have already talked about these very topics in earlier threads last year, and my feelings about this topic still stands. This “artist vs writer” debate? It’s an important debate. We all need to understand each other’s professions better in the long run and appreciate them. But, when it com…

This self entitlement is what really disgusts me. There are countless of ways to ask for something politely and properly especially if you are asking for something to be done free. ( for both writers and artists)

We're of the opinion a lot of these people are young, if not kids, and don't really know the scope of what they're asking. In the most recent thread we were discussing best practice is to link to some of the existing "how to collaborate" threads, encourage them to get a few projects under their own belt before they ask for a collab, etc. And to not dog pile, which has been happening anyway, because people are riled. X3

Last Thread:

Hi Y’all in the time that I’ve been a part of the Tapas community I’ve seen a lot of unpaid collaboration posts. Y’know the type. There have been a lot of great recent threads about how to handle these posts, and how to make better collaboration offers. Though I have another suggestion on how we could further improve our tactics for responding to these threads. First though - let’s talk about fair freelance rates. This twitter thread that I was reading earlier was filled with great advi…

[Tanako]

Awesome. this helped alot because it makes a lot of sense that they may be young. that didn't cross my mind.

[silverraven0]

From what I see for a long time now, I got the comparison of it like this :

Artists looking for writer : 8/10 will got their writer.

The last two is mostly from an seemingly entitled artist or an more amateur artists.

Writers looking for artist : 2/10 will got their artist.

This is mostly because the writer is already well known in the forum or have a very good portfolio on their side to show.

This is just my calculations though, the numbers might be higher or lower, I don't know. But seriously, how good they present their offer for a partnership usually the biggest reasons people's want to at least try collaborating with them.

[AceRagz]

Yeah lol and I agree with what you're saying it just seems like this is such a hard subject to approach without the drama XD

[NanettesClouds]

Part of the problem is that - this just really isn't the place to look for artists for a long term colaborative project - cuz like, most of us here already have a webcomic that's already taking up the majority of our creative time and energy, in addition to other side projects in addition to life and work and school. And on top of that we probably have a long list of other ideas that we would like to get to making in the future.

Sometimes I think, even if a good paid offer did come by would anyone even want to work on it???

Like, if I was a writer or a visionary thinker and I was looking for an artist to make a comic - I wouldn't come here, not because the people here aren't good but just because everyone is already committed to another project. I would go to DA or Reddit or - GOD FORBID - approach a specific artist directly.

[Tanako]

emm i see. very informative so thanks for that.
I honestly tried to keep the question as polite as possible because the goal isn't to offend anyone.

I myself someday want to collab and i just feel like with these endless arrogant posts isn't making it any easier and i'm afraid that even though i really like Tapas for the responsive community, it almost seems like a joke to ask for collaboration due to the fact that there are so many of them and they arent professional so at this point, no one will take posts like that serious anymore.
lets just hope that it only gets better.

but just like @SleepingPoppy said, they may be young and thats y.

[Tanako]

well thank you all so far for keeping this post clean and friendly. greatly appreciated.

[punkarsenic]

how many of these collaborations posts actually gets taken?

lmao none

buuuut...

And this is because I know that for my own comic, I don't have the time to create a storyboard talk less of a script. I write out an idea, a quick short story then i draw which saves me lots of time because I completely skip storyboard.

you might wanna start storyboarding. going straight from script to final drawing leaves you with your first idea, and you may think youre saving yourself time but youre aaaaaaactually not, bc you have to take longer figuring out the drawing from scratch. the more drafting you do, the stronger your work will be.

[Tanako]

LMAO but i like it that way. it gives me something to look forward to. I Understand the need to want to invest time in that and i understand it, but i just don't have that time lol.
i change my mind way too much and i don't want to have to go through hours and hours of storyboard only to end up going a different and better route that i spontaneously came up with and it works better.
and again, i've succeeded so far with it. and, i have a pretty good following ubs with my comics despite the lack of storyboard.
this method has not failed me and it works best for me so i'll stick with it.
thanks for the advice tho.

[ar-ninetysix]

So, do these collab posts actually work in terms of getting a partner? A someone who made one back then, yeah. I've also applied for some and had a few work out. From what I've seen, I'd say it might be a rough 40% of all posts that actually manage to get a collab up and running. Does anything actually come out of these though??? Out of all the ones I've been in.. I have only two that are considered doable since the rest of the projects didn't work out. It's hard to tell what percentage actually makes a comic, but I'd guess it's below 20% out of those partnerships.

As for these posts getting shut down lately.. (I don't remember it happening quite so often a few months ago..)

It's summer right now, dude, kids are out from school and they find out about this place somehow and sure enough, if they have ideas, why not get a comic started? Far as they know (which isn't much), we have a bunch of artists and writers here! Someone's gotta be free and kind enough to work on something!

Except that's not the case! They make their posts not knowing that we see this all the time now. It's a world that's existed way before them with rules and trends, both official and unofficial, and if they come in here unprepared, they're in for a lot of comments telling 'em what they're doing wrong. A lot of them just don't know that creating comics takes an insane amount of time and effort. A majority of new guys don't even try to get involved with the community. So, we say our piece and God knows if they'll even consider coming back after we crush their expectations. And then we sometimes get a new user who just found the forums, and hey, we have ourselves a neat cycle.

Newbie writers asking for free art are just so.. ugh. (I was one of them a year ago.) We've seen enough, so if they present themselves nicely and show their scripts or samples, they're cool. If they don't know the inner workings (which is usually the case), we dogpile on 'em if they don't respond and fix something soon enough. Artists on the other hand, these tend to actually show their work off instead just presenting the fact that they have an idea that can go on forever. So, plenty of writers here just hop at the chance to get anything going. No issues there, the artist just gets to pick from all of them and see what happens.

We're so biased against writers, and real talk.. that's my least favorite part of this community. It's not that it isn't understandable, because it's very clear that the work that goes into art is very underappreciated and underestimated by new guys who just don't know any better. I just wish that wasn't the case.

[Tanako]

yea, so true. you nailed it.

[IndigoShirtProd]

This kind of discussion can go pretty cordially. It just takes one person to take something out of context or to feel like picking sides, artists vs writers (talk about some PTSD), to turn the discussion into a dog fight.

I agree with a lot that has been said by the level headed people in this forum on this topic. Asking for help or collaboration is perfectly fine as long as both parties are bringing something to the table. Plenty of these writers, and I say writers because let's be honest we see more of those post from writers, have this fear of getting their stuff stolen. That's understandable, in one post a writer expressed that they don't want to put out their story summary because their work had previously been stolen. Look, I get it, but coming to a public space puts your work at risk of being plagiarized. That's something we all worry about. If you really are afraid that someone will steal your work then, unfortunately, the internet isn't a place to share it. I know saying that is unfair and tends to shut down the conversation. But it's true, public work is more likely to be stolen than private work.

I also feel like these writer lack patience and planning skills. They hop on here and ask for a collab with little to no obvious thought put into it. When I say obvious, I mean they don't put out in the post how the back and forth will work, how scripts and artwork and notes will be exchanged. Deadlines, possible meet ups, just ways to communicate. None of that is really on display.

I really wonder what they think is gonna happen when they quickly make an account and their first post is: "Looking for artist (unpaid)"

[Vada]

I don't know about any other countries but in Canada, it's free to get an ISBN for your work. If you have an ISBN, your work is legally registered. Legally registered means protected. Therefore, the simple solution to the issue of not providing at least the synopsis of the story is to complete the manuscript and get an ISBN. Problem solved. But these young and/or emerging writers do not have enough experience in the field to be aware of this. I agree with you about concurring with the level headed individuals here. I particularly enjoy seeing when someone links to a thread rather than the toxic dog piling we see a lot of.

Props to those that take the time to educate rather than blow a gasket on these unsuspecting folks.

[Tanako]

You are so right. and i totally agree with everything you have said.
Honestly, i just wish this post and most of the well thought out comment and concerns will be of assistance to future writers and artist. don't want to single anyone out. it's only fair the rules are being taken into consideration when asking for assistance because at this point in time, the colab forum is looking more like a joke to me each time i see those request and I really don't want to view it that way because i myself will someday want to ask for a collaboration and hope i'd find some talented writers and artist someday.

[Tanako]

exactly lol. i was kinda scared when writing the post and hoped it will go smoothly and so far so good. so yea. its awesome.

[Vada]

Open discussions are great but the toxicity involved with this topic needs to go. The bottom line is, either help solve the problem by educating them or just ignore it. Getting irritated does nothing but throw fuel on a fire that shouldn't even be lit. I'm glad to see a civil conversation on this matter.

[Tanako]

solving the issue is what all these aweosme commentors just did. and that's good enough. I dont have to have a solution. most times, solutions are ideas brought by different people which was just displayed today.
letting the topic go? i highly doubt that. i can bet money on this. the moment this one expires and goes away, someone else is going to bring it back up. or make create another topic on it. the best thing to do is keep it civilized and not toxic that's all.

but ye, great argument on your part.