Art Update 07-07 / Ramen, Women & WTF is Threads? (Patreon)

Hey friends,

I'd like to share three new commissioned artworks with you today. One isn't published yet, I finished it just this morning, so it's fresh from my hands to the screen 😉 I'd also close today's Art Update with some open thoughts about Threads, the new Meta app and Twitter competitor.

Boomslank

For one of their ad campaigns, Boomslank hired me to make an isometric illustration & animation, based on a drawing they gave me. Here's the result:

I wanted to continue my "isometric rooms series" (working title) for a longer time and I was glad they kind of asked for exactly such an artwork. The briefing was more precise than I'm used to, with them giving me a clearly outlined direction and drawing that I then just re-made in my style. I'll probably post a closer look into the process later on!

World of Women x Yuga Labs

WoW let me illustrate another collab announcement for them, this time they're working together with Yuga Labs' gaming project Legends of the Mara.

They always have one World of Women-PFP as a main character for these pieces, and the best thing was giving her those 3D glasses 😄 I wasn't sure if I could fit these into the magical environment, but I think it blends in quite good. I'm also glad I could pull some gold & purple contrasts on the color palette!

Threads, or: social media keeps us on the edge

Most of you guys will have heard about Threads, Zuckerberg's freshly released Twitter competitor. Social media and using it for my business is running around my head so much these days, and I know many other artists/creators feel similar. I thought I'd write a small bit about this today, maybe followed by a little more intense guide and a Youtube video soon.

Did I sign up, and should you?

Even though I officially don't have access to Threads as a EU citizen (it's a real data grabber and it doesn't comply with EU privacy laws), I signed up and claimed my username yesterday. I don't want to run after every trend and just be another of Meta's puppets, but I see it as a strategic move to be on there early.

Yes, it does feel wrong to a certain point. But I also want to give up on fighting these platforms, their makers and their algorithms, unless we have any better option. I'd also say that if you're a professional creator, you should consider playing the game. I love my job incredibly much, and social media currently is one aspect of it that just sucks. As digital creators, we depend on the tools the industry gives up, may it be the software we use to make the art, or the platforms that we need to get it out there. And it's still also great to connect with other artists, especially on Twitter.

If you're a hobby creator and you're doing it only for yourself: definitely don't waste too much time into this and focus on seeking fun and fulfillment!

So what's the future of social media?

Let's get it over with and mention it one more time: I think social media sucks hard right now. It's a tough game for attention to play. It's a market that transforms at high speed though, and I think it will transform very much more on top of that in the next 2-3 years. Reasons for that: AI, big names battling each others, evolving user habits and a rapidly changing ads/marketing sector.

For us users, the most relevant result from this is uncertainty! We don't know if the time we invest in building a profile on a platform is worth it. I've been growing my Instagram account so many hours and it went well for two years, until my reach and growth were suddenly cut down hard, and they still are. I don't know the reasons, I don't know how to fix it. It's massive uncertainty.

So in my opinion it's important to understand and keep in mind that the social media game will stay highly dynamic.

Takeaways: what to do?

There's two things I'd like to point out and suggest to everyone:

1. Become independent.Start building ways to interact with your followers and connections, that are less influenced by erratic founders or algorithms. Such as: Mailing lists/newsletters, Discord servers, Patreon, Telegram groups, direct DM, etc. It will take much more time to build these, so it's a long term game. But I believe that it will be worth it, and it will survive every social media storm!

2. Stay agile.This is more of a mindset thing, and I guess it's not suitable for everyone. But here we come back to what I wrote above: try to stay on top of developments, and be ready to jump into new things, even if you don't like them at first. Reserve some time to come up with strategies to keep yourself in the loop. For example, I've been analyzing my best running long-form Tweets and will turn them into Threads posts over the next couple weeks. See this as a long term experiment.

That's two strategies I've been following along in the last years, and I want to especially get better at point 1 in the future. If you like, we can get into possible strategies about this in detail later on.

Conclusion

I know this all is extremely time consuming. What helps me is treating my social media work as part of my working time, and not something I'm doing on top. It's like accounting for me: It takes a few hours each week or month, it has to be done, and I reserve some space for it.

I'm sure not everyone agrees to all of my arguments, or you have things to add - please do so in the comments, I love discussing this stuff a lot 😉. Also let me know if you'd like more of these written posts!

Have a great weekend!Stefan